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The other day I was playing against my buddy, and I beat him with Link. Right after I switched to Tink and lost.
I was like,"god Toon Link sucks"
and my friend said,"he doesnt suck, you just played him the exact same way you played normal link."
What im getting at here is that if you play Toon link the same way you play normal Link of course normal Link is gonna seem better, and that's why I think a lot of people just dismiss Tink
I generally agree with Jolt on a few things. My opinion of him keeps rising as I play around with him more and see what Aero, Jolteon, Lunchables, Smith and others do with him.
I have him listed as B+ (characters in my list range from A+ to B-).
Toon Link is more mobile than literally everyone on that list except for Wolf and Fox. >_> He's one of the fastest overall characters in the game and Link is one of the slowest, calling him "a little faster" is like saying that Captain Falcon is "a little faster" than Ganondorf. Not sure what Peach/Mewtwo are doing in particular on that list either.
Link wasn't on my list of mobile characters. I agree, Link is not very mobile, however, I disagree that this is a "weakness" of Link. His toolset is built in such a way that he doesn't need to be mobile. Link can still get in on even the campiest characters thanks to the strength of his hitboxes and projectiles.
As for Peach and Mewtwo, good mobility isn't solely limited to speed. Peach has great mobility thanks to Float. Mewtwo has his own float and Teleport, which make him very mobile. Squirtle has Withdraw and is pretty speedy to boot.
I'm not underestimating Link's tools, I've played many high level Link players and have a very strong grasp of what the character is capable of and what his flaws are.
I've yet to see you give any weight to the fact that Link's hitboxes are much longer and more advantageous than Tink's.
You are entirely overlooking several very severe flaws Link has (awful mobility, really poor CQC options, terrible OOS options, terrible at dealing with ledge stalling, very bad at dealing with pressure), all of which are entirely non-existent for TL.
I already touched upon why I don't think the mobility is a real flaw. I also disagree about bad OOS, his Nair is a decent get off me move, and he has a decent shield grab (much better than Toon Link's).
I'm honestly curious to what you think is actually bad about TL aside from the fact that he doesn't have a standard grab. He has one of the best move sets in the game, is one of the most mobile characters in the game, has one of the best recoveries in the game, is small+has disjoints, has very little landing lag on any of his aerials used in neutral, very little start-up on most moves, has a very strong punish game, has outstanding oos options, is really versatile and has insane damage output/knockback on almost all of his moves. Despite all of these traits which blatantly scream high tier at least, I see him commonly listed as low/mid, I pin most of it as inexperience but I'm honestly curious what people think TL "needs" to be good when all you can really give him at this point to make him even better is like a shine or a float or Ike's sword. >_>
I would like to turn this question on its head and ask what you think Toon Link does better than Squirtle. Squirtle is also really mobile, has good pressure options, great recovery, some nice disjoints or moves that act like them, and some great approaching moves. Oh, and he also has a proper grab. Despite this, most people believe Squirtle is mid or low tier. It seems to be a pretty common consensus that simply being fast and annoying isn't quite enough for top tier in this game, particularly if you're also pretty light.
READ THIS: This is not a official tier list, merely some data I have collected!
However I do believe it accurately reflects PM's 'tier list' at this time, bare in mind this is for the current time and will definitely change month to month depending on game updates and developing meta.
I used similar methods from last months tier list that I made, just a few changes to weight assigned. This tier list is comprised of the community tier ranking that was filled out here on smashboards (~45%), the CT tier list (~10%), around 80 tournament results (~40%), and other peoples community tier lists made on facebook and here and everywhere (~5%).
The tournament results are weighted on number of entrants and date of tournament, so the more recent tournaments and larger tournaments assign a greater value for placing.
The tier lettering system is often misinterpreted and I have tried to change the titles of tiers and seen others do the same. This time I have reverted back to the lettering system, do not misinterpret letters like D to mean bad and not viable. Plenty of people on here have labeled there own meanings for the different tiers based on viability or need for changes or being slept on. This tier list is as I said, based on the data of community and tournament. If I were to describe the tiers though it would be: A = Perfectly designed characters, dependable in high level play , could possibly need some nerfs bu probably not. B = Characters nearly perfectly designed, solid in high level play and could rise up or drop depending on developing metagame. C = Solid characters that are very capable in the right hands, either need time to develop more/pros to play them, or possibly need a little change in the next update. D = fairly obvious they will be changed/buffed in the next update, only viable in large tournament with a strong player on good day or with secondary.
Again, I understand people hate the numbering list because then characters in 30s or 40s seem bad, but this is NOT the case, all characters are viable proven by Dakpo, Hbox, Vist, etc.
Some characters that had differings were lucario, yoshi, wolf and peach not doing as well in tournaments as people voted. And then characters like CF, ganon, charizard, and roy doing much better in tournaments then they were voted.
If this tier list has any confusing placements of any character for you then its either because the community disagrees with you or the character has had unexpected tournament results. There are still tournaments I did not include so it has flaws in it for sure, but take it for what it is worth, I spent a lot of time on it. If you care about tier lists and think I need to change the weighting system I have or something, feel free to give any advice.
well I'm definitely not trying to cover it up, that would be ridiculous ha... it would be better if I spent the rest of the day trying to argue that Squirtle, Sheik, Snake, and Sonic are the best characters in the game
I used similar methods from last months tier list that I made, just a few changes to weight assigned. This tier list is comprised of the community tier ranking that was filled out here on smashboards (~45%), the CT tier list (~10%), around 80 tournament results (~40%), and other peoples community tier lists made on facebook and here and everywhere (~5%).
The tournament results are weighted on number of entrants and date of tournament, so the more recent tournaments and larger tournaments assign a greater value for placing.
I did do that last month and have thought about and considered that. However I believe people are highly influenced by tournaments anyway, for instance people jumped pit in their personal tier lists after APEX. So I gave community opinion around the same as tournament to more heavily show how pepole are influenced and play the characters currently. Also, weighting tournament results too high causes problems as that can end up showing too much on how often characters are played, for instance CF is played pretty often in tournaments and therefor places more often just because he has more chances, not necessarily because he is better. I'll consider bumping it up 5 - 10 percent for next months though if enough people agree.
I wish you could shield grab with Yoshi, just like you can do it with Lucas. Unfortunately Yoshi's grab takes so long to come out that you will be punished if you ever attempt to shield grab. I understand that some grabs need to be slow, like Samus, but Yoshi's playstyle requires you to go aggro on people, while Samus just needs to hang back and doesn't really rely on grabs.
On the bright side, Yoshi's pivot grab is amazing (still not better than Lucas' shield grab), but if you learn how to use it you should be alright.
Disclaimer: The list gets really hazy around the center of it, after like A- a lot of characters' positions are interchangeable and I stopped caring much about placements within tiers. Also the list is obviously subject to change as the meta develops since it's still really young right now.
Spacie Tier
SS
Fox
Falco
Top Tier
S
Meta Knight
Sheik
Wolf
Upper High Tier
A
Pit
Mario
Diddy Kong
Ivysaur
Samus
Lucas
Lower High Tier
A-
Peach
Sonic
Zero Suit Samus
Marth
Snake
Wario
Link
Upper Mid-Tier
B
Yoshi
Lucario
Mewtwo
Captain Falcon
Charizard
Toon Link
ROB
Kirby
Ike
Lower Mid-Tier
B-
Roy
Donkey Kong
Ness
Zelda
Jigglypuff
Pikachu
Squirtle
Luigi
King Dedede
Low-Tier
C
Mr. Game & Watch
Bowser
Ganondorf
Don't know enough yet:
Olimar
Ice Climbers
So pretty much with every tier list I usually have a few characters in a bit of a question mark state, because unlike most players I'm not afraid to admit that I simply do not know enough about a character to place them anywhere comfortably. I don't want to mislead anyone on these characters and influence the metagame artificially so I put them there. Just about every other character I feel pretty knowledgable about where they should be based on what they're capable of in PM and what tools characters in PM need to deal with the meta.
Olimar's a really detail-oriented character that requires a lot of micro-management. Those types of characters usually start off low on tier-lists and go higher as the metagame advances. He's got solid normals and I expect him to go up on people's Tier Lists as more high level players pick him up. Hungrybox has already been turning some heads with him.
Ice Climbers is weird because I'm sure they're good, but two things prevent me from putting them anywhere: The meta of PM is pretty projectile heavy and there are a lot of things in the game that Ice Climbers didn't have to deal with in Melee that I woudln't be surprised they would do poorly against (long-range floaties like Ivysaur/Pit, projectile-heavy characters like Snake/Link/TL, trap characters like Diddy and Snake, etc.). Like Jigglypuff, I feel like ICs were kinda anti-meta outside of Peach/Falcon in Melee so they're gonna do worse in this game. Lastly, other than Chu (who uses Kirby more often anyway) most of the big-name ICs players from Melee either don't play anymore (Wobbles, who used G&W before he retired anyway, although ICs hadn't been released yet) or prefer to use a different character for a new experience (Fly Amanita). So it's difficult to determine how they do against the PM meta without a lot of mostly baseless theorycraft that I don't really feel qualified to do.
Going through the tiers:
SS
Fox/Falco are godlike and I've heard of like 3 people outside of Fox/Falco players who don't think they're top tier in this game lmao. Fox is better mostly because vertical KOs bypass edgegaurding which is overall weaker than Melee. There are also a lot more viable floaty characters than Melee, who die off the top more easily. Even Falco players like DEHF prefer using Fox in most MUs. Fox may even be in SS tier all by himself with Falco in S Tier. I don't know yet.
S
MK/Sheik/Wolf are amazing and have strong options against a lot of what they need. Deal with neutral, CCing, have great OoS options, can pressure shields, etc.. They're just a notch or two below Fox/Falco. No amazing MK player has come out yet but I'm sure that's more about the character being out shorter than most than anything else. I could see Sheik being 5th and Wolf being 4th, but that's as low as I'd see Sheik going atm. And Sheilda would DEFINITELY be 3rd.
A
Seems pretty standard, only Samus' placing is that different from most lists I've seen. Samus is an extremely tenacious character that's hard to approach, I'm fairly sure the only reason she isn't higher on most lists is because ESAM/Plup don't travel much and people hate having to think so they just look at tournament results (eugh). Something most people don't realize is that on top of the obvious buffs she's received from Melee, her Missiles no longer stale in KB because of how stale moves function in PM so they are much better for KOing and setting up for edgeguards. The only meta-related thing that she has to deal with is characters with long-range, good normals/pokes that she otherwise wouldn't have to worry about because hers would be better. Regions are starting to understand the Diddy hype, SoCal & MD/VA already know and others are starting to. It's only a matter of time.
A-
Most people put Snake & Wario higher, but a lot of people don't realize their very abusable weaknesses. Snake's recovery is really easy to edgeguard when you aren't awful at the game (see: M2K vs Rolex) and his neutral is pretty poor against characters that deal with projectiles well. When I stop seeing players who are normally considered good complain about his SideB (which is extremely easy to beat in neutral), I'll care more about what others have to say about Wario. I've actually seen people call it his Forward-Smash before. Like what? Please learn the character's moveset before putting them places on tier lists.
ZSS is actually incredible but is hard to play (and unintuitive because tether) so you don't see her very often, but Leffen/Oro?!/VaNz/Vidjo have used her to great effect. She applies pressure well, has like the 5th fastest ground speed, and her nair combos for days. Pretty sure she loses to like all of Fox/Falco/Wolf which sucks as a solo-tournament character or she'd be higher. She has pretty good MUs against the rest of the cast though. Tri-state thinks she sucks but that's because all the ZSSes are elsewhere and EC is very ignorant of other regions in PM for whatever reason. They also think TL sucks despite players like Aero/Jolteon/Lunchables taking names in their respective regions lol.
I'm definitely on the Link hype train, that boomerang is real. I don't think he's like top 8 or anything so I put him here. He's definitely got weaknesses and if you know the MU you can abuse them. I feel I have a lower opinion of Link because I know how to beat him from playing Hylian a ton back in August. :x
Ok like I said the rest of the tier list is pretty hazy. Realistically this is when Mid-Tier starts which is filled with like half the cast because of how balanced the game is. A lot of chars start getting interchangeable after like Mewtwo so don't take it too seriously. A lot of characters are just kind of thrown places after that and the order within B/B- tiers isn't very relevant and I don't really feel the need to describe why they're there.
Yoshi's secretly incredible and just needs a good player to show everyone what's up, because he's basically Melee Yoshi with some buffs for the most part. Lucario got sizable buffs in 3.0, while still not as good as his 2.1 incarnation he's definitely solid. Mewtwo has good MUs against some important characters (I still don't think he beats Fox, I think that's more Mew2King having a good personal MU with Fox than anything), arguably beating Wolf and Falco is a pretty huge thing. Wouldn't be surprised if he had poor MUs against random characters though.
-rest of mid-tier here-
I'm not entirely sure at the moment how big "Low Tier" is so I just threw G&W/Bowser/Ganon there. Ganondorf is definitely there, the others I'm not sure about yet. They're just okay or kinda underwhelming. Not necessarily bad; I think the characters can get top 8 at majors but probably not at nationals. Ganondorf is awful but he's a lot of fun to mess with. I'd probably put a small gap between Bowser/G&W and Ganon, I think they're definitely better than he is.
Yes I think DK is pretty low on the Tier List, I used to think he was a lot better but I started thinking differently in the past few months based on what stuff other characters have & how he can deal with it rather than what he has. What he has isn't particularly unique, though it's good, it just doesn't really make up for his weaknesses and he ends up being a bigger easier to hit Sheik-like character with a poor ledge game and no projectile. He beats Ganon/Bowser/Pikachu/Ike/Roy/Marth/Wario and a few other characters, goes even with some important characters (Wolf/Sheik/MK), but a lot of his other MUs are very tough for him especially ones with projectiles. He needs a lot of bracket luck and to outplay Fox/Falco heavily in order to do anything important in tournament which is what Eli and I did for a long time before a couple of the newer characters came out that DK struggles against after which we both started picking up other characters to deal with them. I also like using Wario a lot more and only use DK for certain MUs so you'll probably not see my DK very often anymore. I know people will probably laugh and think I'm blaming my character or whatever, but I challenge anyone who does to use him against good players that don't main any of the characters I mentioned earlier. He's pretty much the Zangief of PM and there are Sagats everywhere lol. Because of how simple his gameplan is, he doesn't really have much room for metagame advancement unlike some of the other characters. I don't really mind as a player because he works for some MUs and Wario is awesomeee and a ton of fun, so its whatever. *shrug*
Anyway a lot of Mid-tier chars have dedicated players that perform very well with them (Sethlon/Zhime/Chu Dat/Ally/Eli/Vwins/Metroid/Axe/Me/hungrybox/Oracle/Awestin/bunch of others) so that's just how balanced the game is really. A few characters are on my radar for going up, and a few for going down, but a lot of chars probably won't move much.
That's my opinion on the Tier LIst for now. In a few months I think I'll be able to put ICs and Olimar somewhere and maybe move a couple chars around with new information. I don't expect huge changes though until the next version comes out (whenever that is). Discuss/call me out/follow me on Twitter @Strong_Badam.
admittedly I feel more and more discomforted by my theorycrafting of MK's top-tierness because I just don't see many players use him effectively enough
like in theory he has options for pretty much anything, but I've yet to see players use them and the timespan is creeping up enough to make me doubt. someone prove my doubts wrong pls : ((((((
Thanks for all the work! Would you mind showing us each list separately? (like a list only based on tournaments and a list based only on the smashboards poll).
I like SB tier list. I'm proud to be the second or third person to like it. Edit: second!
Edit 2: Strongbad, you forgot to mention something crucial for Samus. The new morph ball crawling can be a massive improvement for her and drastically limits aerial approach viability against her. Falcon/others will be in for a huge surprise when he flies in only to miss or get countered
I've created my own tier list, which can be counted as an opinion. This is my tier list, and is in no way an actual tier list for anything.
Regular:
S Tier:
A Tier:
B Tier:
C Tier:
D Tier:
E Tier:
F Tier:
Condensed:
S Tier: Fox, Falco, Link, Wolf, Pit A Tier: Ivysaur, Marth, Meta Knight, Mario, Mewtwo, Ike, Sheik, Pikachu B Tier: Lucas, Snake, Sonic, Captain Falcon, Wario, Samus (Fire/Ice) C Tier: Lucario, Zelda, King Dedede, Roy, Ganondorf, Jigglypuff, Ness, Donkey Kong, Charizard D Tier: Diddy Kong, Squirtle, Kirby, Luigi, Toon Link E Tier: Yoshi, Peach, Ice Climbers, Bowser, Zero Suit Samus, Mr. Game and Watch, ROB F Tier: Olimar
Please note that this may not be truly accurate, and this is just my opinion-based tier list. No one has to truly like it nor hate it, and I wanted to give my two cents on the tier list by making my own. Thank you for your time in seeing this tier list.
I think given the current meta-game, SB's tier list is just about spot on. I raised my eyebrow at Samus' placing, but you gave good reasons for putting her in A tier.
Though I do like the idea of Fox being in a tier of his own. Its not that Falco isn't amazing, its more that Fox seems to have little to no unfavourable matchups.
I dunno if Falco is good enough to deserve being a whole tier higher than the 3 below him. Fox may not even deserve that distinction.
Samus is pretty good and her buffs aren't fully utilized yet. Go into morph ball, and realize you can do literally anything out of it. It's pretty powerful in some MU's
I've seen that, as well, but you gotta think that there are characters with attacks that can sweep floors (Link and Peach Down Smash), cover above, below and completely on the side (Link's tilts), and characters with better air game than Samus (Marth, Purin and Wario). This would make it moderately hard to use Samus in morph ball for some MU's, unless she uses the Ice switch, which could actually break some of these.
With Falco and Fox, they are truly no different via MU, but it comes down to attacks; Falco has his D-Air meteor and "upwards spike" Down Special, while Fox has his extreme speed and Shine.
To make Link's short and simple: most buffs to least nerfs ratio for a character to date.
Not to say Tink is slow by any means, but just how accurate is it to say that he is one of the most mobile when there are so many hyper-mobile characters on the roster? Overall he's about in the middle of the cast in terms of run speed, and his aerial mobility doesn't offer anything more. Additionally his jump height and acceleration aren't anything special, and his wavedash and initial dash are both fairly short.
I get that he's a 3 frame jumper, can glide toss, has a nice fallspeed and an excellent fastfall to go with it (a trait which Link shares with him), and I fully acknowledge I might be missing out on something, but am I?
His run speed is 1.6 which is like... 14th best in the game I think (it's behind Oli/Roy who have 1.61 which is basically a negligible difference), and I wouldn't call his wavedash bad. Overall pretty high, but your post brings up a valid point, there are several other characters in the game that are faster in individual areas. Overall though he's above average in most movement attributes and it gives him basically everything you need: a solid DD/wave dash for his movement, plenty of aerial mobility to cross up on shields safely with aerials, a really good fast fall and a 3 frame jumpsquat which makes things like dealing with shino stalling way easier, allows you to act oos really fast and provides more flexibility with combos/hitconfirming into kill moves. tl;dr version is that I think his attributes overall are some of the most solid in the game in terms of movement and using mobility in combos/to space well.
Link wasn't on my list of mobile characters. I agree, Link is not very mobile, however, I disagree that this is a "weakness" of Link. His toolset is built in such a way that he doesn't need to be mobile. Link can still get in on even the campiest characters thanks to the strength of his hitboxes and projectiles.
Definitely disagree with the assertion that Link's lack of mobility is not a weakness. He may have tools to deal with his slow speed but they are by no means a panacea, his poor mobility hurts him a lot in dealing with pressure and in dealing with camping. Not being able to move fast means you have to rely more on sub-optimal strategies like throwing out more moves in poor situations (exploitable to whiff punishes) or being stuck in shield more (greatly reduces your options). Again, I'd like to stress that this comes from my experience of playing against very competent Link players and successfully exploiting his poor speed.
As for Peach and Mewtwo, good mobility isn't solely limited to speed. Peach has great mobility thanks to Float. Mewtwo has his own float and Teleport, which make him very mobile. Squirtle has Withdraw and is pretty speedy to boot.
Peach's float isn't really what I would call a good mobility option at all, it's really slow and travels in a limited horizontal plane. <_< Aside from that her mobility has been seen as a huge weakness for like... over 10 years simply because her run speed/double jump/basically everything are awful slow, PM has not changed anything in this regard.
The moves you have mentioned for mobility are burst movement options. These have much higher costs attributed to their usage than simply moving around with good physics. There's a reason you don't see people spamming withdraw/float/teleport to move around and that's because they are very punishable when used for movement and carry much more commitment to them than conventional movement options do.
I've yet to see you give any weight to the fact that Link's hitboxes are much longer and more advantageous than Tink's.
I've never suggested that Link's larger sword is not an advantage, what I am suggesting is that it (and range in general) is a trait that you are grossly overestimating. It's great that Link's fair has tons of range for example but it would be a *much* better move if it had like half of its current range but didn't take 6 frames for Link to jump and then another 14 frames to actually hit.
I already touched upon why I don't think the mobility is a real flaw. I also disagree about bad OOS, his Nair is a decent get off me move, and he has a decent shield grab (much better than Toon Link's).
Link's shield grab is awful, tethers in general make for awful shield grabs and in basically any situation where they work (e.g. laggy move thrown out on a shield) the range of the tether is entirely irrelevant. Like it works great at a low level when players throw out unsafe stuff on block all the time, but the combination of high start-up+high endlag makes it an absolutely awful option vs smart players (terrible risk/reward and it doesn't even work vs good pressure). Most of Link's other OOS options suffer because he has a 6 frame jumpsquat, like his nair is an absolutely amazing keepaway move but it takes him forever to actually leave his shield, his wavedash is also total garbage so he basically has to rely on smart nair/up+b oos usage and rolling in certain situations. It's by no means impossible to play around but he is comparatively very slow/limited while in shield.
I would like to turn this question on its head and ask what you think Toon Link does better than Squirtle. Squirtle is also really mobile, has good pressure options, great recovery, some nice disjoints or moves that act like them, and some great approaching moves. Oh, and he also has a proper grab. Despite this, most people believe Squirtle is mid or low tier. It seems to be a pretty common consensus that simply being fast and annoying isn't quite enough for top tier in this game, particularly if you're also pretty light.
I actually think Squirtle is a very decent and underrated character, I just don't bring it up and keep my opinion to myself in that regard because I accept that my relative inexperience of playing as Squirtle may mean that I am incorrect in my belief and I am very open to having my opinion changed in that regard.
Anyway, to answer your question I think that Toon Link's moveset is much better than Squirtle's is. I don't remember ever suggesting that TL is good simply because he is "fast and annoying" because TL is not Young Link. TL has literally no bad moves and many, many moves that are ridiculously good in knockback, damage ouput, disjoints, option coverage, start-up speed and end lag.
I only have a couple issues with this, generally the sames ones I have with most tierlists. Squirtle and Luigi are being heavily underrated. Squirtle below Jiggs is completely indefensible IMO, I feel he's basically just a Jiggs that does everything better. Luigi is also a lot more solid than people think, Vist needs to travel a lot more it seems.
Also I'm really not convinced that Samus is that good.
Jolt post needs its own post to respond because it will be super long.
I haven't really seen anyone doing any new Brawl techs with Fox and Falco yet. Like wavebouncing, RARing, and all that jazz. Could get really scary once they incorporate some of that stuff.
His run speed is 1.6 which is like... 14th best in the game I think (it's behind Oli/Roy who have 1.61 which is basically a negligible difference), and I wouldn't call his wavedash bad. Overall pretty high, but your post brings up a valid point, there are several other characters in the game that are faster in individual areas.
This is basically the gist of my argument. Tink is fast and mobile and has some decent tools, but there's a ton of characters you can say that about in this game. To be top tier in PM requires more than just being good in some areas and maybe having a couple weaknesses, there's a lot of characters in this game that are dominating in multiple areas and have few or no weaknesses. The mere fact that Tink has upsides and downsides without anything that's flat out stupid basically dooms him to mid tier or less.
Definitely disagree with the assertion that Link's lack of mobility is not a weakness. He may have tools to deal with his slow speed but they are by no means a panacea, his poor mobility hurts him a lot in dealing with pressure and in dealing with camping. Not being able to move fast means you have to rely more on sub-optimal strategies like throwing out more moves in poor situations (exploitable to whiff punishes) or being stuck in shield more (greatly reduces your options). Again, I'd like to stress that this comes from my experience of playing against very competent Link players and successfully exploiting his poor speed.
I just really don't see it. Maybe if you had a link to a video where Link got camped real bad or something. The only one I can think of is the one where Chu ledge camped Laz, and even then people were saying that Link had tools to get around it, he just didn't use them.
There are maybe a few people who can run over Link with pressure, like Wolf, Lucas, or Metaknight, but they can run over practically everyone. I actually like Link better than some others to deal with them because at least his disjoints force them to respect him to some degree, and he's heavy enough that he can afford to trade damage with them for a while. I'd be much more scared of them as Tink.
Peach's float isn't really what I would call a good mobility option at all, it's really slow and travels in a limited horizontal plane
Sure, it comes at you slow, but she's got so many options out of it so you pretty much have to respect it. And it's gotten better since Melee, since there's far more people chucking projectiles out there now that Peach can just float over.
The moves you have mentioned for mobility are burst movement options. These have much higher costs attributed to their usage than simply moving around with good physics. There's a reason you don't see people spamming withdraw/float/teleport to move around and that's because they are very punishable when used for movement and carry much more commitment to them than conventional movement options do.
Yes, I already noted previously that you have to commit when you use Withdraw and that's a bit of an issue for Squirtle, but it's still better to have that option than to have nothing at all (like Jiggs for example). All of those moves let you get in on projectiles, too, which is pretty important in this game.
I've never suggested that Link's larger sword is not an advantage, what I am suggesting is that it (and range in general) is a trait that you are grossly overestimating. It's great that Link's fair has tons of range for example but it would be a *much* better move if it had like half of its current range but didn't take 6 frames for Link to jump and then another 14 frames to actually hit.
By the same token Tink's moves would be much better if they were longer. There's some tradeoffs here, but it's still a good move.
Link's shield grab is awful, tethers in general make for awful shield grabs and in basically any situation where they work (e.g. laggy move thrown out on a shield) the range of the tether is entirely irrelevant.
Uh, no, the range of the tether does matter, shield grabbing with a tether is specifically useful to punish moves that have long range or push back when shielded. A good example is Olimar FSmash. Link can shield grab this from practically anywhere except absolute max range. There are many spots where Tink will just miss if he tries it.
Also, obviously if Tink's tether was longer, he could use it as a footsie tool of sorts, and it would just be a bigger threat in general. Having a good throw is very important for a pressure character, otherwise you can just shield most of their offense.
I actually think Squirtle is a very decent and underrated character, I just don't bring it up and keep my opinion to myself in that regard because I accept that my relative inexperience of playing as Squirtle may mean that I am incorrect in my belief and I am very open to having my opinion changed in that regard.
Anyway, to answer your question I think that Toon Link's moveset is much better than Squirtle's is. I don't remember ever suggesting that TL is good simply because he is "fast and annoying" because TL is not Young Link. TL has literally no bad moves and many, many moves that are ridiculously good in knockback, damage ouput, disjoints, option coverage, start-up speed and end lag.
That's all pretty true of Squirtle to be honest. Clearly we just place different value on the quality of a throw. If Tink's throw was buffed, I would put him at about the same as Squirtle. As it stands I feel his offense just isn't nearly as threatening as it could be.
Finally a list that isnt stupidly result based. And puts pika in a realistic spot compared to the cast. Diddy is really good though, pretty sure in the end he'll be a top tier.
