Tier List Speculation

[Wrestlemania]

Here's a thought: People should learn matchups instead of these knee-jerk reactions calling things broken unjustifiably just because you lose a match or two to something you've never encountered before

OMG WHAT A CONCEPT

That would make too much sense, the logic is just too strong. It would never work.

 

[Bleck]

"Get better" isn't a "logical argument".

 

[Ripple]

there are implied premises.

 

[DMG]

Yeah that boomerang is so much worse than a fast-firing land cancel-able projectile that can't even be clanked and effectively shuts down whole characters. *eyeroll*

Projectile camping has been a thing since Merleh and if you think Link's zoning and pressure game is in any way comparable to Big Bird's sheer douchebaggery you need a quick sanity check. With every character that can fire something, you'll always have players that'll press the shoot button as fast as they possibly can, fortunately with most characters it's not their absolute best option. It's definitely not in Link's best interest to keep tossing out rangs like an Australian beach shop owner who mixed up his salt shaker and cocaine bowl.

Rang is fine.

Din's Fire, for camping, is entirely hit or miss. You can have it effectively be worthless in certain MU's, or amazing in some. Link's Boomerang is always useful and always out lol. Boomerang returns, GG


I'm fine with projectile camping, but the reason I am wary of how buffed PM is taking projectiles (of all kinds), is two fold. The first reason, is if the projectile is good enough (or the character is lacking elsewhere), neutral options can centralize over the projectile. Ness and Mario are two different examples of this: Ness isn't that great at regular approaching, and can heavily rely on PK fire (instead of being a better character overall with a toned projectile). Mario got buffed a little too far for how quick he can move out of Fireball, and that opens up a decent projectile with more amazing options for a great character, that he didn't need that much.


The second reason I am not too fond, is that the more buffed and "universal" a projectile gets, the less that you truly see player skill show through. The more and more useful a projectile gets, regardless of character or situation, the less that you feel "Hey he was really smart to use it there". What you think instead, is "Oh yeah ofc, obviously it was going to be there duh".


Like at a certain point, what is the distinction of skillful usage for some of these things? The only thing that's interesting imo, is projectiles you can grab/AGT, or having accurate PSing. That's a side of the game I like, and am fully down to see developed for both sides. But for the most part, with many of these buffed projectiles, I don't consider them developed very well to show off skill more clearly. I consider most of them buffed so that you can mess up without getting boned... which leads to using them more (while still being effective), without much thought besides immediate spacing/rushdown concerns.

You're kidding, right? Jab. Really?

And who says Smash Can't have defensive and unique characters? (Or so your post leads me to believe that's what you mean.)

I'm just upset that the pissing of the P:M community is gonna get an "fine" character changed AFTER 3.0. (And don't say you don't know that because a PMBR member let it slip in a chat.) So much for final version

"Oh we're just gonna do little balancing of found to be broken things after the full release." - PMBR members

Just letting the PMBR know they're making a BIG mistake for shutting out Zhime and Ryoko and nerfing Zelda, even though she's already "low-mid" at best in most people's minds.

First of all, no I'm not kidding. Zelda mains go crazy over any theoretical buffs, nerfs, tweaks, smacks, see-saw's, and overall fun increasing ideas.


Second of all, I don't go around watching all the PMBR developer/playtesting streams. I love most of those guys, but I'm not that interested unless it comes to new characters about to be released. More power to that PMBR member


Third of all, who in the world said 3.0 was the full release? If you assumed this release was "final", I got bad news for ya. You would assume that any release they consider "Final" would have big bold ass words in it to say HEY WE'RE BASICALLY DONE, AND ONLY PATCHING SMALL STUFF, DON'T ASK FOR BUFFS! Or it might say "Final patch". Ya know, stuff that would make sense. 3.0 came out, and almost immediately they had goodies for us with 3.01 and 3.02! It was great!


And last, that part may be true about shutting them out. But who's had the power over Zelda so far? From 1.0 up to this point, who got their way on development? Like after basically having years of input and control over the character in large, I'm fine with a different direction if THIS is what we got. I'm not upset at a developer getting overruled, if the community at large has been saying stuff for months now and if one path only has been taken for the past IDK how many patches. Ryoko isn't fresh on the job, wanting to do grand things, and we hurtfully say "No you nerd, this is wrong!". It's been years dude. Years. Can't we have something different?

 

[Wrestlemania]

"Get better" isn't a "logical argument".

Learning a Match up is though, and that is what he actually said.

 

[ELI-mination]

Its not about making 3.0 a final release, but as the patches progress, the changes should become smaller (especially in terms of balance)
Not like releasing a character, and then giving them a huge overhaul because somebody complained or that you wanna keep things fresh after getting bored after a few months

Apex had over 400 entries for Project M, this game is played competitively in tournaments now
Huge changes are not really a smart way to keep people interested in the game
That number could be a lot bigger..
Its not the time to just change things because you feel like it

That's why a huge part of getting people interested becomes all the "bonus" stuff like "OMG Roy is in the game" or "We have implemented a cool stage striking system" or "New costumes!", because then you get a new wave of people interested, but you can only keep up that bonus stuff for so long. I remember liking brawl because of all the music and stuff too lol.

Nothing makes people quit more than huge changes to the game. In my experience, that is by far the number 1 reason that makes people uninterested in continuing to play P:M or picking it up in the first place. Nobody wants to put tons of work into developing a metagame for something that might change drastically in the next couple of months.

Its also this mentality of "let's change things just because we can" that really just radiates unintelligent game design. Most of the changes that happen at this point should be minor things or things that affect general gameplay mechanics. Not like giving a whole new moveset to a character just because they performed well in a tournament or something.

I guarantee you that there is not nearly enough playtesting going on. When I was a playtester I playtested all the time and uploaded videos all the time and played my role. That **** doesn't actually go down that much back there, trust me

There is just a huge over-eagerness to nerf **** or to just change things for no reason. Like... stop. Don't you want people to keep playing and stay interested? Then why cut away a huge amount of people every time you feel like messing with things? I could understand if this **** actually had some justification behind it like years of developing metagame and tournament results, but that seriously doesn't happen. Its like one or two tournaments where people who SURPRISE don't know how to fight a character lose to it and think some mechanics are "dumb" and need to be "normalized"

 

[Rizner]

When my friend doesn't L-Cancel, Wavedash, land hits, and only spams Nayru's love and wins (or gets close) to people inexperienced with the matchup, there's a problem.
The problem is that Zelda is technically shallow and has little depth in that field and relies almost entirely on predictions and reads. She slows the entire game down and is painfully dull to fight and the only character in the game that can be used without technical prowess of any kind.

She's just horrible and I'm sorry for Zelda mains, but she's not fun.

I don't mean to sound rude, so I'll apologize if it comes off that way. Having said that, it seems you can't beat a Zelda because they can make reads or you make mistakes, so then that Zelda has no reason to learn the advanced techniques which really help the character. To win at a high level, you need tons of technical prowess. It's like saying falco is shallow because he just wins using only lasers against people who don't know how to get around them and needs to be changed.

You know Zelda has a significant flaw in her design when the strategy to beating her is to wait her out because her terrible mobility can't do anything about it.

Thats the strategy for many matchups, not just against Zelda and not for all Zelda's matchups is that the right response

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

It's like saying falco sucks because he just wins with lasers and needs to be changed.

...

... y - yeah. It kind of is.

 

[Rizner]

...

... y - yeah. It kind of is.

Lol, fair enough.. But now can you make the argument that falco can win without technical prowess?

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

Lol, fair enough.. But now can you make the argument that falco can win without technical prowess?

Not while in lecture. I will however assure you that Falco and Zelda are in fairly distinct situations that aren't directly comparable, imho.

 

[MLGF]

I don't mean to sound rude, so I'll apologize if it comes off that way. Having said that, it seems you can't beat a Zelda because they can make reads or you make mistakes, so then that Zelda has no reason to learn the advanced techniques which really help the character. To win at a high level, you need tons of technical prowess. It's like saying falco sucks because he just wins with lasers and needs to be changed.


Thats the strategy for many matchups, not just against Zelda and not for all Zelda's matchups is that the right response

OH I stomp the guy, I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear. He's shallow, predictable, and an overall poor player. I literally stomp him with my piss-poor Falcon. It's not fun to play him at all however. And I can have fun getting hit/being pushing/etc, getting my butt wupped at Apex while watching new tech was amazing to watch. But Zelda? Bleh... she's slow, shallow, and Nayru's love can pretty much make approaching a bait game, it's literally some of the most boring stuff.

 

[TTTTTsd]

This kind of stuff about Zelda just makes me think of the problems I'm having trying to think of ways to make Ganon better without removing the polarizing power that makes him Ganon. He's got some fun new goofy things like the Down+B B reverse and etc., but I feel like that doesn't really give him the kind of coverage I think he needs. The problem is, a projectile would be totally not Ganon-like and trying to integrate that into how I play would be a chore because it would feel so...tacked on and weird. Gugh. He's still fun as hell though and I will never not use him.

 

[MagnesD3]

This kind of stuff about Zelda just makes me think of the problems I'm having trying to think of ways to make Ganon better without removing the polarizing power that makes him Ganon. He's got some fun new goofy things like the Down+B B reverse and etc., but I feel like that doesn't really give him the kind of coverage I think he needs. The problem is, a projectile would be totally not Ganon-like and trying to integrate that into how I play would be a chore because it would feel so...tacked on and weird. Gugh. He's still fun as hell though and I will never not use him.

Ganon uses a reflect able projectile in Oot I think a slow reflect able projectile would be great

 

[Rizner]

OH I stomp the guy, I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear. He's shallow, predictable, and an overall poor player. I literally stomp him with my piss-poor Falcon. It's not fun to play him at all however. And I can have fun getting hit/being pushing/etc, getting my butt wupped at Apex while watching new tech was amazing to watch. But Zelda? Bleh... she's slow, shallow, and Nayru's love can pretty much make approaching a bait game, it's literally some of the most boring stuff.

What I'm trying to get across is that she is not shallow. She, like any other character, can be played at a lower level, but also like other characters has advanced techniques and depth. I mean, if you saw zhime at apex you probably would have seen a lot, although might not have noticed.

 

[Mr_Sweet]

Anyone who says zelda needs buffs is crazy. Zhime beat m2k at a tourney in grands using zelda. She's fine.

However, those who say ganon is bad, I say, you obviously haven't played a good ganon. If ganon gets one read or tech chase it should convert to death almost every time. So people saying he's bottom tier are definitely wrong.

 

[Rizner]

Anyone who says zelda needs buffs is crazy. Zhime beat m2k at a tourney in grands using zelda. She's fine.

However, those who say ganon is bad, I say, you obviously haven't played a good ganon. If ganon gets one read or tech chase it should convert to death almost every time. So people saying he's bottom tier are definitely wrong.

I think zhime lost to m2k in grands, though (if you are talking about pound). And doesn't it take more than one good read/chase to convert it to a kill? Plus some characters have the same against ganon because they can gimp him easily, but because ganon has less options can get those reads easier.

Edit: plus while bottom tier is the lowest, it isn't like melee or brawl where it would mean not competitive or decent

 

[Infil]

The more and more useful a projectile gets, regardless of character or situation, the less that you feel "Hey he was really smart to use it there". What you think instead, is "Oh yeah ofc, obviously it was going to be there duh".

This does sound a lot like Falco, but I don't see people complaining about it. He probably has the best projectile in the game, too. Is it because he's a space animal and short hop laser requires some technical skill? Does the need for technical skill and practice just suddenly make all these complaints moot? (please don't say yes)

Also... wait, Zelda is tearing up tournaments and being unstoppable? She didn't place top 8 at Apex, she's mid-tier at best (and low-tier at worst) on all the tier lists I've seen posted in this thread... where's this thought that she's too good or needs changing?

Also, I hate to break it to you, but things you might find boring, others might find exciting and interesting. So while the Zelda matchup ends up being a stupid game of bait and punish for you, and you want that changed, others will say it's worth keeping in the game because they have fun with it. You don't have to play Zelda, and it's only one matchup out of 40. Some characters are supposed to be frustrating to play against, that's just how fighting games work.

 

[DMG]

Plenty of people still complain about Falco lasers, although much less than before as people have gotten better with PSing. My post wasn't directed at just Din's Fire (the part about "it's either pretty good or pretty worthless for the specific MU" is towards that move but that's it), but rather that I am not totally sold on the idea of buffing a lot of projectiles.

The point being, if you make a character better fundamentally, instead of putting power in the projectile, you probably will have a more satisfying end result for everyone. Applies for a lot of characters. I understand that there are limitations; you don't want Link running around with Fox speed do you? That would be terrifying. Zelda deserves to be a better character fundamentally. More stable and solid, less cheesy and silly. This is completely regardless of Din's. Whether it was the same, taken out, or completely changed.

 

[Strong Badam]

It's like saying falco sucks because he just wins with lasers and needs to be changed.

you were making a decent argument until this sentence LMAO

 

[Rizner]

you were making a decent argument until this sentence LMAO

Lol, ok after the third response about that sentence it was changed to better reflect the point I was trying to make.

 

[jtm94]

My friend keeps beating me with Ness and I think we know why.
See, Ness has what we call, the fire. It is a momentum stopping, damage racking up, god move that is safe on shield and guarantees punishes.

I have found that if I approach him exactly the same each time he can hit me with fire, catch me on fire, down throw me, and repeat this until his god tier backthrow can KO me. I think that Ness needs to be nerfed.

 

[DMG]

Ness

http://hydra-media.cursecdn.com/dota2.gamepedia.com/7/7a/Dlc_pflax_killing_spree_nerf.mp3

Edit: Daw it doesn't work for me. Let's see if I can find a better link, hopefully it works for you guys

 

[guedes the brawler]

Maybe just a set of slight buffs to zelda's physics to make her faster and more durable would help?

from what i'm seeing, her lack of mobility and weight are problems... giving her a bit of speed (air and ground) as well as weight could be interesting.



And IIRC her Bair is exactly like fAIR but better, no? Maybe one of them could be changed.

 

[jtm94]

I was just saying that you can take any of a character's good moves and blow them out of proportion.

Falco's lasers do indeed FORCE you to play the MU entirely different if they do indeed plan on being a jagmaster general and only running away and shooting lasers.

Link can do the same thing with all of his projectiles, he just has more, but they can be clanked.

Jigglypuff has a very specific MU that needs to be learned

Ice Climbers also have a very specific MU that is different from the cast.

Wait... Ivysaur also needs to be played against differently too....

If someone nets wins by only using Nayru's Love they are playing people who are absolutely terrible at the game, end story. I too have beat someone that I know by not only using Nayru's Love as my only move, but by not moving at all, because ALL HE DID was jump into me blindly. I cannot explain how stupid he is, but it is my character's fault that it can take advantage of this? I will get rid of Nayru's entirely, or make it slower, or whatever to make people happy, because the move is only good for resetting the neutral game or shooting her into the air where she is severely disadvantaged. I really don't like the move myself because from my end using Zelda it doesn't do anything for me but delay the inevitable, and I could see how people call it mindless, but then I use this move against a select few really good players in my area and I wonder why people even call it broken when I get hit out of it or punished every single time for my slow move.

 

[The_Altrox]

Give him the light ball attack he sends out.

It bounce back if hit by a sword.

Genius.

I always wanted to have a sword mode. Like, he uses the sword taunt, draws the sword, and plays very differently (kind of like , but with a lot more overlap). So I could switch between power Ganon and speed Ganon whenever I see fit to do so.

EDIT: This does not imply that I think Zelda and Sheik play similarly.

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

She didn't place top 8 at Apex, she's mid-tier at best (and low-tier at worst) on all the tier lists I've seen posted in this thread... where's this thought that she's too good or needs changing?.

People have said Zelda needs changing

No one has said Zelda is too good

Guess what this means

Spoiler

It doesn't mean nerfs

 

[MLGF]

My friend keeps beating me with Ness and I think we know why.
See, Ness has what we call, the fire. It is a momentum stopping, damage racking up, god move that is safe on shield and guarantees punishes.

I have found that if I approach him exactly the same each time he can hit me with fire, catch me on fire, down throw me, and repeat this until his god tier backthrow can KO me. I think that Ness needs to be nerfed.

I get it, I get it. But playing around Ness' fire is a lot less linear then how to play the entire Zelda matchup.
I may sound whiny, but Zelda just seems to break the pace of the game and I was ecstatic when I heard she was going to be changed eventually.

 

[Infil]

People have said Zelda needs changing

No one has said Zelda is too good

Guess what this means

Spoiler

It doesn't mean nerfs

I guess I'm trying to determine exactly *what* it means. If Zelda isn't too good (or too bad), and she doesn't need nerfs or buffs to compete, then... it means some people want to change the character because she's not fun to play against? Or because she's too one-dimensional? Or because she relies too heavily on one move? These definitions will take on different things for different players, so I'm not sure how easy these are to argue.

 

[BJN39]

And IIRC her Bair is exactly like fAIR but better, no? Maybe one of them could be changed.

No. Her FAir's electric hit-boxes all do 1% more damage than BAir's and the two more powerful electric ones have lower angles than BAir's. Also, BAir has (Or I think so) slightly more BKB.

So besides the speeds of the moves, those set them apart as well. FAir is a bit slower, but is a bit better at killing.

 

[Rizner]

I get it, I get it. But playing around Ness' fire is a lot less linear then how to play the entire Zelda matchup.
I may sound whiny, but Zelda just seems to break the pace of the game and I was ecstatic when I heard she was going to be changed eventually.

Doesn't every character/player have a different pace of the game and do what they can to make you play at their pace? I mean, I could argue that playing against a fox or lucas makes me play a faster pace game and that sucks for me, or that playing against a ganon makes me play slower to not get hit with a random strong move that'd kill me early, playing against a ness who shoots out lots of fire makes me approach less/slower/more carefully and because of that the pace of my approaches changes.
If you argue that she controls the pace of the game better than other characters, at what point is it too much and not based enough on how you know how to deal with her pacing mechanics? I'd argue that other characters control the pace more, but since they control it at a faster pace people don't complain about it, and it shouldn't be a reason to change anybody.

 

[Bryonato]

My friend keeps beating me with Ness and I think we know why.
See, Ness has what we call, the fire. It is a momentum stopping, damage racking up, god move that is safe on shield and guarantees punishes.

I have found that if I approach him exactly the same each time he can hit me with fire, catch me on fire, down throw me, and repeat this until his god tier backthrow can KO me. I think that Ness needs to be nerfed.

Smash di pls

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzGFooXC-1U

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

Let me put it this way.

Fighting Zelda in P:M is a unique game.

The only winning move is not to play.

Spoiler

Yeah I wanted that to be somewhat standalone because quote. The issue in the matchup is that whoever approaches is at a disadvantage. Zelda because she lacks one, the opponent because stuffing approaches is Zelda's entire playstyle. The fight becomes a staring contest. Or a match of who is the most patient. Sound familiar?

Lack of versatility is also an issue. Characters more geared towards defense than offense aren't frowned upon in this game. See: Ivy, Snake, (well Snake is kind of odd, but he can play a defensive style better than most.) So the biggest issue is that Zelda MUs take one direction, and not a particularly interesting one at that, and one that is not very viable for the Zelda at higher levels of play.

Though she does make Falco's life a living hell, so props.

 

[Ultimate Sneeze]

What if the more you get punished by Ganondorf, the stronger he gets... And maybe his model could change into a more beastly thing (no hurtbox/hitbox changes, mind you) to give a shoutout to his beast form without using a final smash...

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

That sounds like Lucario's Aura Meter, but without fixing Ganon's approach issues.

 

[Ali Baba 177]

I think lucario has a unique situation where he has good MUs against higher tier characters but then bad ones against mid and lower tier so he struggles to make it too later rounds. What do you guys think of his match-ups?

 

[Ali Baba 177]

I think lucario has a unique situation where he has good MUs against higher tier characters but then bad ones against mid and lower tier so he struggles to make it too later rounds. What do you guys think of his match-ups?

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

Can't say much. Your claim strikes as a bit odd, though. Lucario has trouble with swords if he has no meter, that's all I know.

 

[Ali Baba 177]

I was thinking along the lines of being a master of combos on more fast fall type characters because of his OHC, and most higher tier characters are fast fall/heavy, basically just easier to be combod by lucario, while floaty characters tend to be lower tier and lucario doesnt do as well there. There are some floaty characters higher tier, just not as often.

 

[Bleck]

Learning a Match up is though, and that is what he actually said.

"Learning a match up" is a somewhat nicer way of saying "get better". Perhaps if one gave out some tips as to how to actually get better at fighting Zelda - or perhaps more pertinently, at how to enjoy fighting Zelda - then maybe one would be close to making a statement that wasn't pedantic buffoonery.

 

[Zerudahime]

There is plenty of information in the Zelda boards that people just so happen to conveniently ignore.
emphasizes her strengths and weaknesses and is pretty much a guide to fighting her.

Im surprised its even there considering how much everyone apparently knows so much about this character.
Should probably delete it.