Tier List Speculation

[Bryonato]

Ness is better than people give him credit for I think. Dat magnet tho

I looove magnet but it only does so much. It gives him interesting mobility options, more combo paths, help with his recovery etc. etc. but it's not enough to cover up his flaws. It's kinda slow ( comes out on frame 8 not jc'able until frame 11) and only does 3-4% damage whereas Lucas' comes out on frame 5, jc'able at 8 and does 8+%

 

[Soft Serve]

Ness isn't underrated at all. I think people give an adequate evaluation of him. Ness is one of the most fleshed out characters right now, Of all the re-worked melee vets I think he has one of the most advanced metagames. It just doesn't get much different than space > bait and punish. He can't really approach, and he approaches stop leading into the important things once people start combo DI and sdi-ing out of fair, and stop getting hit by PK-fire. He is still a good character and can do very very well by doing what he is good at, punishing and spacing fairs. But it doesn't go much further than that.

Link's boomerang is cray-cray, but I don't really mind it. Diddy has projectiles as well so Its not like I have to approach him to begin with. I think the boomerang makes certain matchups incredibly liner on links part and difficult for the other characters, namely falcon/DDD/bowser/ganon/sanic and maybe rob. It might be a bit over-centralizing of a move for certain matchups and might warrant a slight change in recovery time or a similar tweak. I'm weird and I enjoy fighting link/zelda so I feel my opinions will be less commonly shared here.

 

[Bryonato]

Ness isn't underrated at all. I think people give an adequate evaluation of him. Ness is one of the most fleshed out characters right now, Of all the re-worked melee vets I think he has one of the most advanced metagames. It just doesn't get much different than space > bait and punish. He can't really approach, and he approaches stop leading into the important things once people start combo DI and sdi-ing out of fair, and stop getting hit by PK-fire. He is still a good character and can do very very well by doing what he is good at, punishing and spacing fairs. But it doesn't go much further than that.

While I don't agree with all of that, the base of what you said is essentially very true. Ness has a very similar mantra to the likes of Ganon where he has trouble getting in in most cases but it's all about what he can get out of a hit when he gets in.

 

[Metazoa]

My little brother cycles between a couple of different characters, one of them being Link.
I just CANNOT get over how linear Link's playstyle seems to be. 9/10 times, it's always "toss bomb -> run up -> boomerang -> x". Like, I get that projectile-user's mainstay moves are obviously their projectiles, but that's just... not fun to play around.

Also just a thought about Zelda, I think she'd be a bit more interesting to fight and play with if she could only set a single flame, as that would allow for more movement (for opponents) and cause the Zelda player to think more about moving around in an attempt to cover options.

 

[DMG]

There are reasons to change something other than it being too good. Links boomerang is close to frame safe, cant be rolled away from, cant always be jumped over because of the angles, and combos into basically whatever (including itself). Its so much better than almost all of his moves that 90% of the time, boomerang is just what you should be using. Getting that much mileage off of a single move that outclasses most of his other options is clearly not very good game design

SHH

Boomerang is forbidden word, that which must not be named

 

[JOE!]

Getting that much mileage off of a single move that outclasses most of his other options is clearly not very good game design

 

[Kokomaniac]

If you mention boomerang you'll be dubbed a hater who only wants one style of character in the game

SHHHH

 

[DMG]

Dat's not true. Falco got Nair and Shine too

 

[PMS | LEVEL 100 MAGIKARP]

Getting that much mileage off of a single move that outclasses most of his other options is clearly not very good game design

 

[Nguz95]

The thing about dedede is that most of his moves are outclassed by a majority of the cast, so having one that's up to par/high up there isn't so bad.

 

[The_Altrox]

He needs to be crowned King again...

 

[PMS | LEVEL 100 MAGIKARP]

The thing about dedede is that most of his moves are outclassed by a majority of the cast, so having one that's up to par/high up there isn't so bad.

and he has fair so I guess he's not all that one-dimensional

 

[Nguz95]

He's a pretty cool character. Fair is definitely a really good move too.

 

[Kink-Link5]

The thing about dedede is that most of his moves are outclassed by a majority of the cast, so having one that's up to par/high up there isn't so bad.

I just hate that his F-smash is simultaneously slow, weak, and requires a sweetspot.

At least Ike can combo into his from D-tilt from like 20-32%.

 

[PMS | LEVEL 100 MAGIKARP]

DDD fsmash weak? okay alright sure

 

[Toronto Joe]

Do you main ZSS, or kinda just switch around characters a lot in PM? Saw you bodying some people on stream at that big Canada tournament.

lol thnx i watch ur ZSS sometimes too, i switch around a lot atm,i wont play her in tourney on a day i feel like im not playing ok though which is probably what holds me back from maining her, have to be really consistent to play her well

Fixed that for ya

u right

 

[woundedust]

Thats hilarious, i must say.

I think ness biggest problem is his slight lack of kill power. Bair and fsmash are solid yes, a grab that kills, but at pretty high percentages varying from weight. This along with limited spacing options, gives ness alot of tough MUs

 

[Kink-Link5]

DDD fsmash weak? okay alright sure

It's weaker and slower than both Ike's and Bowser's. It also has both a slow start up and a slow release from charge, compared to other slow smashes like MK's.

 

[~Frozen~]

a grab that kills, but at pretty high percentages varying from weight.

Throw KB is independent of weight, so Ness's Bthrow will kill at the same %'s for all characters. Fall speed can affect how you'll have to DI it though.

 

[Player -0]

Thats hilarious, i must say.

I think ness biggest problem is his slight lack of kill power. Bair and fsmash are solid yes, a grab that kills, but at pretty high percentages varying from weight. This along with limited spacing options, gives ness alot of tough MUs

Ness also has a quick spike and and PK Pulse (does Up Air kill?).

 

[Nguz95]

uair does indeed kill

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

Getting that much mileage off of a single move that outclasses most of his other options is clearly not very good game design.

Have Spacies been adequately dealt with to the point that we need to talk about Link's ****ing Boomerang right now?

No seriously, this is getting ridiculous. I can understanding wanting to be somewhat faithful to the Melee portion of the fanbase, but why are the people that only care about Project M, who are most faithful to this game and would still play it whether or not it had Melee Fox's and Falcon's exact moveset, expected to put up with this crap in a game that purports character balance as a primary goal? As long as the spacies remain this toxic, stay as this metagame-defining force, character balance will be nothing but a joke without a punchline.

Letting the spacies have their mindless, flowchart nairshines and their pillars and their dominating neutrals is a serious slap in the face to every player that has to work every inch for every percent and stock that they get. Every Lucario that has to work his fingers as fast as he thinks, every Jiggs that has to fish for the tiniest of mistakes so she can try play perfectly and get a stock off it, every Ganon that has to input frame perfect powershields when his opponent can run away and keep hitting Y + B like his other buttons are broken. Tell me what makes the melee fanbase so special and so dear to this game that their characters are more important than everyone else's and the only change their precious spacies recieved was one they didn't notice until the changelog.

Maybe asking the Melee community to assist this one in its growth made sense at one point, but it's been repeatedly ignored, belittled, put down or outright derided by prominent members of that very community. Project M has not flourished because of Melee players, it has flourished in spite of them. You're not going to get the Scars of the world to take the game seriously, please stop trying. And stop expecting the Project M players to bow to the whims of a community that doesn't even respect them.

So you know, maybe once the actual, most toxic elements of this game are finally addressed, after we've all resounded "What took so long?!" then we can complain about Link's goddamned boomerang.

Which. Is. Fine.

 

[Kink-Link5]

Ness also has a quick spike and and PK Pulse (does Up Air kill?).

Ness does not have any Spikes or a move called PK Pulse. These kinds of things have enough widespread misconception I feel they have to be corrected.

 

[Player -0]

Ness does not have any Spikes or a move called PK Pulse. These kinds of things have enough widespread misconception I feel they have to be corrected.

Sorry, haven't played a Mother game. PK Flash*

A meteor is still good too, Ness' dair doesn't have a lot of end lag without a hitbox and a lot of end lag in general (Falco-esque?)

 

[MysteryRevengerson]

They need to revert PK Flash to how it was before so it can be as useless as PK Flash was in game.

@ Thane of Blue Flames Some things just need to be addressed and answers are easy to pick out. Like Wario's Crouch of Shoulder Bash. It was something that was stupid good and very safe, removing it being the best way to handle it was pretty easy to decide on. When people chime in and say things like "Nerf spacies" They usually have like, one or two ideas first off, and it won't change the fact they're still REALLY good.

 

[Metazoa]

Letting the spacies have their mindless, flowchart nairshines and their pillars and their dominating neutrals is a serious slap in the face to every player that has to work every inch for every percent and stock that they get. Every Lucario that has to work his fingers as fast as he thinks, every Jiggs that has to fish for the tiniest of mistakes so she can try play perfectly and get a stock off it, every Ganon that has to input frame perfect powershields when his opponent can run away and keep hitting Y + B like his other buttons are broken. Tell me what makes the melee fanbase so special and so dear to this game that their characters are more important than everyone else's and the only change their precious spacies recieved was one they didn't notice until the changelog.

I'd like to say that really puts down every Spacie player in existence. It's not like they didn't/don't work hard to bring themselves up to a high level, even if that level is as dominating as it is.

But would you really say that Link working his Destroyer of Worlds (TM) takes anywhere near as much brainpower, technique, or finesse as the decisions of Spacies, Luacrio, Jiggs, and Ganon working their neutral and attempting to get things started?

 

[Kink-Link5]

They need to revert PK Flash to how it was before so it can be as useless as PK Flash was in game.

It's like you WANT to be killed by physical attackers and Ness's Nightmare.


On Spacies: People know that the reason a lot of Space Animal players nair plane is because the better aspects of those characters are technically demanding and most players don't want to put that much effort into it, right? Nairplane alone doesn't work when you get to opponents that have more competence, just like any other autopilot tactic, from Falcon stompfairing to DK grab autocombos. Shine and dash dance are far more disruptive aspects of Fox than nair.

 

[Oracle]

Existence of space animals doesn't mean that boomerang is balanced. Thats like saying I shoud get rob 2.5 dthrow to upsmash kill the whole cast at 85 because hey, its still not as good as falco.

**** it lets just bring back 2.5 sonic because its still not as good as fox!

 

[Nguz95]

I've said this before, and I'll say it again: PM is a fringe game, and its survival has been dependent on the success of Melee. At the moment, PM has yet to eclipse Melee as the most popular Smash experience. Alienating an established fanbase for the sake of game design is certainly noble, but I think it would be wise to wait until PM accumulates most of the Melee fans before it begins to separate itself. When PM is completely in control of its popularity, i.e. not dependent on Melee in any way, shape, or form, then it can, and should make decisions in favor of design instead of popularity. However, with the most competitive players still playing Melee (M2K, PPMD, Hbox, etc.) I don't think it is wise to try and drastically alter the most successful, popular characters just yet.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

"Most competitive." Pfft.

 

[Oro?!]

http://www.twitch.tv/windycitysmash/c/3696510

Link vs Spacies.

 

[ss118]

As a melee player I would like to state that I agree with the general idea of Lordling's post. However, I wish instead we would bring everyone up to their toxic level.

Then again I used to play brawl- so....

 

[Nguz95]

"Most competitive." Pfft.

I thought you were playing gourmet race...
Also, I think it's fair to say that the general skill level of Melee players is above that of PM players. I'd also vouch for the top Melee players being better than the top PM players, but I'd imagine some, such as yourself, would disagree.

 

[Kink-Link5]

http://www.twitch.tv/windycitysmash/c/3696510

Link vs Spacies.

Not sure what this is supposed to show about the two other than the matchup itself, which it really shows more the players against each other than the characters anyway. I'm neither for nor against boomerang, but it is definitely disruptive against floaties compared to lasers.

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

I'd like to amend my previous rant by saying that I stand by my comments on spacies, but I do agree that other obviously toxic elements from P:M need to go. Sorry, @ Oracle .

If a Melee player leave P:M because of changes that balance Fox and Falco, his support of the game is shaky at best.

 

[Kink-Link5]

I'd like to amend my previous rant by saying that I stand by my comments on spacies, but I do agree that other obviously toxic elements from P:M need to go. Sorry, @ Oracle .

If a Melee player leave P:M because of changes that balance Fox and Falco, his support of the game is shaky at best.

Not having community support is partly what led to the death of Brawl+. If the majority of competitive smash remains for Melee, PM won't grow as much as it otherwise could.

 

[Player -0]

http://www.twitch.tv/windycitysmash/c/3696510

Link vs Spacies.

Imo the Link's play was very lacking. He opted for down smash instead of a safer jab after a dash attack. He also spammed dash attack quite a bit.

The spacie player always seemed to try to go straight for the ledge if he was horizontal to it but ended up being punished by the boomerang every time, I was disappointed he didn't do any shine stall -> DJ phantasm or DJ Up-B. His pressure after game one seemed to fall apart too, allowing the Link to get some key gimps.

Idk, maybe it's just me.

 

[Ogopogo]

Unplug the MK player's controller, usually does the trick

Twist: MK player uses Wiimote.

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

Twist: MK player uses Wiimote.

Everyone knows CCP is where it's at.

 

[NitroSquirril]

no matter how close P:M's melee vets get to being 1:1 with melee, plenty of people will say "fox feels off" or whatever. I don't think any melee players stick with P:M unless they come in willing to accept that it isn't melee. Besides, if they have trouble with that stuff, getting knocked out of tournament by an ivysaur or zelda player is going to seal the deal.

I don't think this community is gaining any support from melee diehards regardless of how faithful it tries to be. Imo they should just tweak veterans in the name of improvement whenever the need arises.