Tier List Speculation

[Juushichi]

I was actually going to make a long post on GnW, but wow has Soft Serve covered it well. Good job!

Usually I get really frustrated and upset at people when talking about that character here, but your time in the Watch boards, reading and discussing things has refreshed me. A+ posts.

I would like to add that I believe that GnW really does have explosive damage output. He's a character that won't exactly kill you off of one touch, but he's got good starters and what I believe is one of the best linkers in the game (not up-B, but up air) where a linker/launcher into something turns into 30+% and offstage positioning. The character is a hassle to deal with on platforms and even in PM is difficult to come back from offstage against.

His shield pressure is okay, I would guess, as if you have space to nair someone's shield, you basically get a free mixup (it's only -1 on block), though his mixup tools are pretty limited, lol. There's a lot of good stuff to his game, but his (relatively) weak neutral, lack of support vs 45 degree angle jumpins/attacks and mediocre defense once you're in does hold him back.

GnW is a decent and fair character with obvious strengths and equally obvious weakness. Currently, unfortunately, that doesn't mean much though. : (

 

[TreK]

The outside two (of five) grab-boxes of Ivysaur's grab are ground-only, so it's significantly harder to chaingrab people as Ivysaur and have to commit with movement.

Omfg ground only grabboxes. I didn't know this was even possible. I'm guessing this is an attempt to stop Ivysaur from being able to grab people out of their recoveries since her grabboxes are so low ?
Yay for losing the only advantage of having a low grab !

Ivy's UpB bothers me because it's kind of like what I talked about, where as long as you follow your opponent in the air you will land UpB, but they do have to be at the right percent to go high enough, and I guess it is possible to air dodge it.

Floaties can double jump out of it very early, and fast fallers typically don't get hit by it until percentages where it's not necessary anymore to kill. The high startup stops this move from being as good as you make it sound.

 

[Terotrous]

Of course almost any character can escape the pressure when they see you starting to use bacon, but if you find they respect the bacon then use it to your advantage

This was also the basis behind my argument with the fast fall Dair. IMO, G&W is all about making the opponent respect you, then you have time to poke, bacon, throw, etc, and he can become dangerous. He's not the kind of character you have to automatically respect, like, say, Link, he has to earn that respect by playing a solid defensive game and punishing you if you go in too hard.

Fair has only like 2 frames(it seems like it) where the hitbox is MUCH larger than the cake, and will hit farther and harder than usual. If you know when that timing is using it to approach is pretty safe unless facing other disjoints, in that case you are playing an inferior character prepare to lose because life just got way harder.

Yeah that's what I was poking with. It was doing well even against Marth's sword, though I'm sure if Marth spaced his attacks 100% perfectly they would win.

It's a solid disjointed poke in any case.

Something that has also begun to bother me more and more is how Sheik lost her "solid at almost any point" Down Throw, but it seems like A LOTTTT of characters who are not Sheik almost have as good of a Down Throw or better, with other stuff on top of it.

This is why I dropped Shiek to upper mid. She's still good, but a lot of characters have similar stuff now. Mario's down throw is a good example. It's at least as good if not better than Sheik's. Mewtwo and Ivy's down throws are amazing as well. So are the Links but they have to work harder to land it.

Ivy's UpB bothers me because it's kind of like what I talked about, where as long as you follow your opponent in the air you will land UpB, but they do have to be at the right percent to go high enough, and I guess it is possible to air dodge it.

Double jump is actually an extremely solid escape from most UpB combos, since the sweetspot is right at the very top. Of course, you do have to worry about getting back down to the stage afterwards, but at least you're not already dead.

I think you can also attempt to DI towards Ivy in any situation where she sends you upwards. DI away is what she wants to land UpB.

The outside two (of five) grab-boxes of Ivysaur's grab are ground-only, so it's significantly harder to chaingrab people as Ivysaur and have to commit with movement.

That's interesting, it explains why some of my grab followups seem to miss in situations where it looks like they should hit. I didn't know it was possible for grabs to be "ground-only" in this game.

I would like to add that I believe that GnW really does have explosive damage output.: (

Just to clarify, when I was talking about explosive offensive tools, I was talking about something that just basically generates offense for free. Like Link's boomerang, Ivy's leaf, Mario's fireball, Fox's Nair, Diddy's bananas, etc. G&W is a much more deliberate character, you can't just toss any of his options out willy-nilly or you can get punished for it.

 

[Jarbinks9/11]

This was also the basis behind my argument with the fast fall Dair. IMO, G&W is all about making the opponent respect you, then you have time to poke, bacon, throw, etc, and he can become dangerous. He's not the kind of character you have to automatically respect, like, say, Link, he has to earn that respect by playing a solid defensive game and punishing you if you go in too hard.



Yeah that's what I was poking with. It was doing well even against Marth's sword, though I'm sure if Marth spaced his attacks 100% perfectly they would win.

It's a solid disjointed poke in any case.



This is why I dropped Shiek to upper mid. She's still good, but a lot of characters have similar stuff now. Mario's down throw is a good example. It's at least as good if not better than Sheik's. Mewtwo and Ivy's down throws are amazing as well. So are the Links but they have to work harder to land it.



Double jump is actually an extremely solid escape from most UpB combos, since the sweetspot is right at the very top. Of course, you do have to worry about getting back down to the stage afterwards, but at least you're not already dead.

I think you can also attempt to DI towards Ivy in any situation where she sends you upwards. DI away is what she wants to land UpB.



That's interesting, it explains why some of my grab followups seem to miss in situations where it looks like they should hit. I didn't know it was possible for grabs to be "ground-only" in this game.



Just to clarify, when I was talking about explosive offensive tools, I was talking about something that just basically generates offense for free. Like Link's boomerang, Ivy's leaf, Mario's fireball, Fox's Nair, Diddy's bananas, etc. G&W is a much more deliberate character, you can't just toss any of his options out willy-nilly or you can get punished for it.

Da f***? Gdubs can play more braindead than any of those characters. You cant toss nairplane against good players without getting punished, fireballs can be outspaced and clanked or naired through depending on the character, and idk about boomerang but im pretty sure it has a weakness somewhere. Gdubs is the most basic character in the game after mario ivy and wolf and an experienced player can pick him up right away and play him just how they normally do, theres nothing tricky to learn with him. If anything its much harder to use any of the stuff you mentioned as being able to be thrown out anywhere because it takes that much longer to learn to not autopilot and when you might be over extending. None of this applies to ivysaur however, the easiest character in the game and the only character that i believe you can succeed with without practice AND having no knowledge or time spent on other characters. You can basically play him by being "good" at ivysaur and not by being good at the game. His nair (same with olimar as well) is the freeest multi hit attack in the game, it takes you where ever the ivysaur decides to move with it. Everything else is dumb too but i feel people here are reasonable enough to have a likeminded view on the character.

 

[Jarbinks9/11]

This was also the basis behind my argument with the fast fall Dair. IMO, G&W is all about making the opponent respect you, then you have time to poke, bacon, throw, etc, and he can become dangerous. He's not the kind of character you have to automatically respect, like, say, Link, he has to earn that respect by playing a solid defensive game and punishing you if you go in too hard.



Yeah that's what I was poking with. It was doing well even against Marth's sword, though I'm sure if Marth spaced his attacks 100% perfectly they would win.

It's a solid disjointed poke in any case.



This is why I dropped Shiek to upper mid. She's still good, but a lot of characters have similar stuff now. Mario's down throw is a good example. It's at least as good if not better than Sheik's. Mewtwo and Ivy's down throws are amazing as well. So are the Links but they have to work harder to land it.



Double jump is actually an extremely solid escape from most UpB combos, since the sweetspot is right at the very top. Of course, you do have to worry about getting back down to the stage afterwards, but at least you're not already dead.

I think you can also attempt to DI towards Ivy in any situation where she sends you upwards. DI away is what she wants to land UpB.



That's interesting, it explains why some of my grab followups seem to miss in situations where it looks like they should hit. I didn't know it was possible for grabs to be "ground-only" in this game.



Just to clarify, when I was talking about explosive offensive tools, I was talking about something that just basically generates offense for free. Like Link's boomerang, Ivy's leaf, Mario's fireball, Fox's Nair, Diddy's bananas, etc. G&W is a much more deliberate character, you can't just toss any of his options out willy-nilly or you can get punished for it.

Da f***? Gdubs can play more braindead than any of those characters. You cant toss nairplane against good players without getting punished, fireballs can be outspaced and clanked or naired through depending on the character, and idk about boomerang but im pretty sure it has a weakness somewhere. Gdubs is the most basic character in the game after mario ivy and wolf and an experienced player can pick him up right away and play him just how they normally do, theres nothing tricky to learn with him. If anything its much harder to use any of the stuff you mentioned as being able to be thrown out anywhere because it takes that much longer to learn to not autopilot and when you might be over extending. None of this applies to ivysaur however, the easiest character in the game and the only character that i believe you can succeed with without practice AND having no knowledge or time spent on other characters. You can basically play him by being "good" at ivysaur and not by being good at the game. His nair (same with olimar as well) is the freeest multi hit attack in the game, it takes you where ever the ivysaur decides to move with it. Everything else is dumb too but i feel people here are reasonable enough to have a likeminded view on the character.

 

[mimgrim]

Wolf is basic?

 

[MysteryRevengerson]

Did I just get trolled reading this?

Wolf is basic? You think you can play any character in this game without practice and see success? Yeah maybe in your living room against your friends.

Well, good luck with that buddy.

 

[foxygrandpa]

Mario is god tier, not just because he's solid but because he's too simple to play with. He's beatable of course, but you should a actually have to have knowledge of the character to do well.

Fireball spam is stupid.

 

[Paradoxium]

If you are just mindlessly shffling with gnw you will probably get wrecked, he has to commit to a lot of things

 

[MysteryRevengerson]

Mario is god tier, not just because he's solid but because he's too simple to play with. He's beatable of course, but you should a actually have to have knowledge of the character to do well.

Fireball spam is stupid.

Yeah, there sure are a lot of scrubs winning tournaments with Mario... If you use fireballs mindlessly (Things like falling into patterns, always throwing them at the same height) you WILL get bopped for it.

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

IIRC Boss' Mario won S@X like once. He isn't even dominating a weekly with good players, let alone something like a national.

If Pikachad (or Chad, I suppose) stomps TBH4 flat this time round again I suppose we can try to argue that Mario's slower and clankable but angled Fireballs are somehow stupider than transcendent blue lines that never fade, cause hitstun, have little landlag and come attached to a character with some of the best shield pressure in the game. I see that argument holding a lot of water, I really do.

Y'all guys need to accept the reality that even a single good character in this game? He or she or it comes with something stupid attached. Once we realize that they're kind of balanced around their stupid things with other attributes to weigh their stupid stuff down the game starts to make a lot more sense.

What's stupid is some characters have more stupid stuff than other characters, or stupid stuff that's slightly more stupid than what other characters have, or perhaps one too many stupid things when only some of their stupid things would be enough for them. That's what we should recognize and address, not just remove stupid stuff entirely. That would just be stupid.

 

[mimgrim]

What's stupid is some characters have more stupid stuff than other characters, or stupid stuff that's slightly more stupid than what other characters have, or perhaps one too many stupid things when only some of their stupid things would be enough for them. That's what we should recognize and address, not just remove stupid stuff entirely. That would just be stupid.

That's an awful lot of stupid. lol

 

[didds]

lol, it would be interesting to make a stupid list. It would rank characters based on the amount of stupid contained within the characters move set. I nominate Wolf for bottom tier for example since he seems to be a very well designed character.

Granted, some might be upset with fox being double top tier

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

lol, it would be interesting to make a stupid list. It would rank characters based on the amount of stupid contained within the characters move set. I nominate Wolf for bottom tier for example since he seems to be a very well designed character.

Granted, some might be upset with fox being double top tier

Ike, for the millionth time ever, whether it's a balanced game or not, is still mid tier.

 

[didds]

Ike, for the millionth time ever, whether it's a balanced game or not, is still mid tier.

That's not all bad, I prefer my characters to stay below high, less unwanted attention that might lead to changes.

I DONT LIKE CHANGE

it skers me

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

Frankly that's a point in his favor.

Erryone in here is all like "My character is bad" "This character is borked"

And I'm just sitting here with QD and a sword being like "lol I just side-B every match or something idk I'm fine"

My character is good and I like him thank you based PMBR

 

[Giygacoal]

I didn't realize that characters had to be godtier in order to receive balance changes.

I've had a couple of hard times trying to explain this to people in my scene.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Omfg ground only grabboxes. I didn't know this was even possible. I'm guessing this is an attempt to stop Ivysaur from being able to grab people out of their recoveries since her grabboxes are so low ?
Yay for losing the only advantage of having a low grab!

It is largely to prevent overly-easy chaingrabbing against some characters. In 2.6, it was very possible to chaingrab fastfallers in such a way that even with DI you didn't hav to move to chaingrab until high percents.

As an aside, any hitbox, attack, grab, etc., can be made ground-only or air-only. You can have a mix of them on the same attack, too.

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

Please tell me ZSS has aerial hitboxes on the entirety of her grab to sort of make up for how bad it is?

 

[Terotrous]

Y'all guys need to accept the reality that even a single good character in this game? He or she or it comes with something stupid attached. Once we realize that they're kind of balanced around their stupid things with other attributes to weigh their stupid stuff down the game starts to make a lot more sense.

What's stupid is some characters have more stupid stuff than other characters, or stupid stuff that's slightly more stupid than what other characters have, or perhaps one too many stupid things when only some of their stupid things would be enough for them. That's what we should recognize and address, not just remove stupid stuff entirely. That would just be stupid

This is exactly what I posted like 50 pages ago. Every good character has something about them that's kind of ridiculous. If you don't have anything ridiculous, you're going to be a bit outclassed.

 

[Scuba Steve]

@FlamingForce I figured I would merge with this one so I'm not rapid posting and taking up unnecessary space. q:

Ganon is a different story imo. He has some glaring weaknesses, but also largely defining strengths. I saw this discussed about how some Melee characters, instead of having their strengths buffed, they had weaknesses removed, which makes some characters perhaps better than they should be. Ganon feels very Melee-esque to me in how he is super easy to gimp, but can KO anyone at any % off of some slight cheese and raw power. He's really good at punishing, and to be honest, if Ganon grabs you(his grab isn't the best thing ever and can be ducked under) he deserves the free attack. Now if he had Marth's grab and his current power and a better dash dance/wavedash, THEN the grab would be an issue, but he is indeed balanced.

Totally agree on some throw games being kind of crazy at the moment. Ganon definitely deserves a good throw, though. You really shouldn't be getting grabbed by Ganon too much anyways. He's got really poor mobility and itty bitty T-rex arms.

 

[Terotrous]

I actually kind of like the current level of throw craziness. It forces you to respect grabs a lot more. A couple characters might be a bit too nuts, but Ganon certainly isn't one of them, sure, he gets good stuff off a grab, but he has to work really hard for that grab. I definitely wouldn't consider nerfing his grab game (or anything about him really). If anything he probably needs a few buffs, like a slightly better grab hitbox.

 

[didds]

I just don't think a character like lucas, who already has amazing tools to begin with and an amazing grab, should get a free set up throw and a kill throw.

Just seems like overkill to me.

And I forgot who mentioned Diddy, but I'm glad his throw game isn't better than what it is currently. Could you imagine how vicious he would be with more potent throws?

He already has an amazing DD and grab game and it's not hard to land a grab with his mobility and an opponent who is already conditioned to shield due to the pressure he can put on.

 

[Terotrous]

I just don't think a character like lucas, who already has amazing tools to begin with and an amazing grab, should get a free set up throw and a kill throw.

Just seems like overkill to me.

And I forgot who mentioned Diddy, but I'm glad his throw game isn't better than what it is currently. Could you imagine how vicious he would be with more potent throws?

Sure, Lucas is really strong, so perhaps his down throw shouldn't be as great as it is. If he proves to be too strong I could see the argument for changing it to a tech chase instead. I'm also fine with Diddy's throw followups not being totally amazing. But I think for most other characters it's okay. Olimar, for example, gets a lot off an Up throw, but I think he needs it.

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

Lucas might be a good case of 'too much stupid'. Mind, he isn't the stupidest character by a longshot but I don't know how much his stupidity is weighed down by his anti-stupid attributes. Could someone with a good grasp of Lucas tell me what his major drawbacks are, and what he struggles with?

 

[Ripple]

he seems to have slight issues with platform camping

 

[didds]

I second the lucas drawback insight notion, I'm also not super knowledgeable about him.

 

[didds]

he seems to have slight issues with platform camping

enough slight issues to justify a killing uthrow and set up dthrow? and does anyone know where to find the exact frame data on how long lucas's grab stays out? It seems to be forever and I have been grabbed after spot dodging the initial grab box so I'm a bit curious.

my b on double post

 

[Terotrous]

Honestly I don't think Lucas has many significant weaknesses. A lot of the really good characters kind of don't. The only areas where he could be considered "weak" are just areas where some of the other good characters are better than him. For example, he doesn't have Marth's range, but neither do a lot of other people. His range is not inordinately bad as characters go.

 

[TreK]

None of this applies to ivysaur however, the easiest character in the game and the only character that i believe you can succeed with without practice AND having no knowledge or time spent on other characters. You can basically play him by being "good" at ivysaur and not by being good at the game. His nair (same with olimar as well) is the freeest multi hit attack in the game, it takes you where ever the ivysaur decides to move with it. Everything else is dumb too but i feel people here are reasonable enough to have a likeminded view on the character.

If it fits, I'm sigging the hell out of this.

Edit : 7 lines out of 5, and I can't afford to remove a single sentence of this golden post, it would lose all of its charm. This is a sad day for signatures all over the world.

 

[Strong Badam]

Please tell me ZSS has aerial hitboxes on the entirety of her grab to sort of make up for how bad it is?

Actually, the aerial hitboxes are because stunned opponents are considered airborne. If ground-only grabboxes would grab paralyzed opponents her grab would probably function similar to others.

 

[Scuba Steve]

Lucas's grab game seems a little overly silly at the moment. With how strong his options are with his throws, and his great mobility, he doesn't really need stuff like this to happen.

http://youtu.be/nrHFlI4vpMk?t=10m53s

 

[Bryonato]

so are we ******** about Lucas now? is that the new trend? FFS.

 

[didds]

Lucas's grab game seems a little overly silly at the moment. With how strong his options are with his throws, and his great mobility, he doesn't really need stuff like this to happen.

http://youtu.be/nrHFlI4vpMk?t=10m53s

That Dair -> side B -> utilt a little after the jank lookin grab looked real cool

 

[didds]

so are we *****ing about Lucas now? is that the new trend? FFS.

I prefer salt slinging. And I'm merely gathering info for my stupid tier list.

Anyway, it was more of bringing up Lucas because we were on the topic of grab games, and he has an especially potent grab game, not because I think he's broken and should be nerfed.

I lose to lucas, not cause he's unmanageable, but because I'm bad and have no idea how to play the MU.

I definitely do think it's silly that his grab punishes spot dodges though, since one of spot dodging's best applications is against grabs, but someone tell me if I'm wrong on that because, like I said, I'm still learning about the character.

edit: again sorry for dub post

 

[Scuba Steve]

That Dair -> side B -> utilt a little after the jank lookin grab looked real cool

That's one of my favorite Ganon combos!

 

[Soft Serve]

Except that lucas is actually total bull**** you dont even know lol.

 

[didds]

Except that lucas is actually total bull**** you dont even know lol.

YESS SOFT SERVE, this is why I come here.

I look forward to the backlash on your comment.

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

so are we *****ing about Lucas now? is that the new trend? FFS.

Actually, we were trying to have an actual discussion on him and ask well-informed people to contribute but you can totally generalize and attempt to shut down any kind of actual discourse with a blanket statement, sure.

See, there are both characters with few weaknesses and overall near-universal toolkits mixed in with characters with extremely polarized kits that don't work in a good chunk of MUs. A big part of tier listing is going to be figuring out if that's okay. Since most of the considered tops tend to be the former kind ... I'm not sure.

 

[Spralwers]

If this was smash 64, I'd be okay with Lucas's up throw killing so easily. But it's not so... yea