Tier List Speculation

[Player -0]

Kirby has CG's on characters which leads to a kill move. Also aerial hammer is 2gud when not L-Cancelling.

 

[FreeGamer]

Kirby has some pretty good combos, not to mention his kill moves and his recovery and his offstage game...

 

[Frost | Odds]

Kirby has CG's on characters which leads to a kill move. Also aerial hammer is 2gud when not L-Cancelling.

Got a link to a set where this is performed consistently?

Kirby has some pretty good combos, not to mention his kill moves and his recovery and his offstage game...

Kirby's recovery isn't nearly as good as it looks. He gets gimped extraordinarily easily by pretty much anyone who can go offstage at all due to how slowly he moves in the air, and how unsafe his up-B is. The Forward Cutter certainly helps, but once opponents get used to it, it's really not that great.

Some of his combos are really good, but so are everyone else's in this game. And no, his kill moves suck in comparison to pretty much the entire rest of the cast.

 

[FreeGamer]

Not true. D-Throw typically chains into U-Smash against floaties near kill %, aerial Hammer and U-Air are excellent kill moves, and Kirbycide is always an option when you have a stock lead or you're losing by a bunch of damage. If that isn't good enough, there's always the usefulness of B-Air and N-Air offstage complemented by his many jumps.

 

[Frost | Odds]

Not true. D-Throw typically chains into U-Smash against floaties near kill %

I'd have to test this, or see it in some tournament games. Certainly haven't seen it much.

aerial Hammer and U-Air are excellent kill moves

They would be, on someone with much better air speed and setups. As it is, Hammer can only really hit opponents who are completely unfamiliar with the MU, and uair is incredibly impractical against opponents that can outspace you (see: everyone). It is probably his best kill move, regardless.

there's always the usefulness of B-Air and N-Air offstage complemented by his many jumps.

Obviously. This doesn't mitigate how garbage his onstage game is.

 

[FreeGamer]

Fireball, Stone, all of his tilts, Inhale mixups, short hop/OoS aerials, and throws are trash then? I will agree that F-Throw and U-Throw are worthless though lol.

 

[Alfonzo Bagpipez]

Fireball, Stone, all of his tilts, Inhale mixups, short hop/OoS aerials, and throws are trash then? I will agree that F-Throw and U-Throw are worthless though lol.

Up-Throw is swag, bruh.
That's the throw you use to say "I already know I'm gonna win".

 

[Frost | Odds]

Fireball, Stone, all of his tilts, Inhale mixups, short hop/OoS aerials, and throws are trash then? I will agree that F-Throw and U-Throw are worthless though lol.

He's got some good tools, but I remain unconvinced that they add up to anything other than a terrible character that only really wins off matchup inexperience.

Compare to Metaknight, who has most of the same, but is faster, has a better Dthrow, way more disjoint, more kill power, a better recovery, and doesn't get stuck in the air.

Everyone in PM has good tools. I just think Kirby's lightness, awful airspeed, and lack of kill setups are crippling in a powercreep'd cast.

 

[Mera Mera]

Up B OoS hits on frame 5 (accounting for jumpsquat), and is invincible

Nair OoS hits on frame 6, and has massive disjoint

Nair OoS hits frame 9 afaik. Zard's jump squat is 4 frames and nair comes out on frame 5. That said, up B is right and it's absurdly good.

Edit: didn't catch up on the thread. My bad... already corrected.

 

[DrinkingFood]

God damn Zard has a fast jumpstart for a character his size. I think all the other heavyweights are 5, 6, or 8, except Samus who is heavy but not really large. And also Yoshi who might have 4, not sure, but he's still not a large character really.
And an up-b faster than Bowser's? At least it's got the trade-off of being less safe.

 

[Vashimus]

Zard's fast in general for a character of his size.

 

[Frost | Odds]

If Bowser had Zard's jumpstart, I would be so happy

 

[FreeGamer]

If Bowser had that and his 2.5 Fire Breath, I know I'd be using him a lot more.

 

[CORY]

i just feel that jumpstarts above 5 frames in general are dumb and kind of unnecessarily hinder those characters...

edit: i'm dumb and realized this is the tier list thread immediately after posting this ;x

 

[Circle_Breaker]

I think a character like Kirby with such a variety of options (no matter how average they are on the whole) can win off of safe play, patience, and decent reads, a la Puff in the melee metagame. And like Puff I think you're right in that the closer you get to truly optimal play, the more Kirby's faults will probably show. But they'll always have decent tournament presence and placement because they're low tech-skill, big on mind games, and that takes a character surprisingly far beyond just matchup inexperience in a human environment.

Against characters that really get in on him and go fast though - he's wrecked, yeah.

 

[Jacob29]

I like how if anyone places Shiek near the top people instantly state how "no no she was changed for the worse!".

Well that depends on perspective. If you look at PAL she was changed for the better. From PAL she gained the killing UAir and all of the bonus' from PM which seem to be overlooked.

Crawling, Wall Clinging, better rapid jab, u-tilt more dmg, f+bthrow buffs, vanish dmg buff (weird one but not ignorable).

Yes she lost guaranteed d-throw followups, but they didn't even really exist in PAL and yet she was still a top tier.

She might be mid tier for other reasons, but simply the changes from Melee to PM, to me, are not enough of a reason to count someone out from high tier placement. Back it up with matchup specifics and issues she has.

edit: and I forgot about all of the Brawl changes such as RAR and Dacus

 

[Scuba Steve]

I'd have to test this, or see it in some tournament games. Certainly haven't seen it much.

It's probably because there's not a lot of prominent Kirby's out there. Kirby's down-throw chaingrab is very real and is the bane of many floaties that get paired up against Kirby. It's pretty dumb because it just lasts for soooooo long in some matchups and leads to an upsmash at the end. Care to give any specifics @G-Rabbit ?

 

[Phan7om]

The very floaty characters can be Cg'ed by Kirby from 0 until death (Puff, Luigi, Zelda, Peach, Kirby, Popo, Samus), its inescapable as long as the Kirby doesnt mess up. The mid-fallers can be cg'ed at certain %s but can get out of it with perfect DI unitl pretty high %s. Otherwise Kirby's dthrow is just a tech chase.

I think a character like Kirby with such a variety of options (no matter how average they are on the whole) can win off of safe play, patience, and decent reads, a la Puff in the melee metagame. And like Puff I think you're right in that the closer you get to truly optimal play, the more Kirby's faults will probably show. But they'll always have decent tournament presence and placement because they're low tech-skill, big on mind games, and that takes a character surprisingly far beyond just matchup inexperience in a human environment.

Against characters that really get in on him and go fast though - he's wrecked, yeah.

I agree with you on most of this. Kirby if played correctly can be a big threat in high level play, but hes definitely not as good at stuff as a lot of other characters are. Once people know the matchup truly, its hard for Kirby to get in no matter how great the Kirby's movement is. Kirby is and most likely be a bait-punish kind of character meaning going in on someone all the time will probably get you wrecked.

Playing him correctly means you have to always seem like a threat to them, react to a mistake, and capitalize with maximum punish. The better your bait and punish game is, the better you will do with him at high level, very similar to Peach and Armada. I also feel like Kirby when played correctly, is more technically demanding than some people realize. True hes no Lucario, but hes definitely no Puff either... ts also very similar to Peach but even more demanding but with equal reward. True he has a lot of technical but useless ****, but I feel consistant wavedashing oos is almost required to play Kirby similar to sheild dropping is almost required to play Yoshi in Melee; just more so required to do so than most other characters. Just confusing movement mindgames in general is very important when playing him.

True it isnt hard, but to do it dozens of times a match without messing up takes practice. His movement with wavelands, ledge dashes, edgecancels, RAR and such i feel are also key to his playstyle. His playstyle is a good reason why even I cant even pinpoint where Kirby is on the tier list, dont even get me started how the copy abilities also screw with that. Hes a lot like Fox in a way, when played perfectly hes real good, just instead of shine tech skill, its more so perfect movement and punishes. If that means hes bad, then hes bad... cuz thats how hes supposed to work lol. If you're just going in there off of straight fundamentals you wont do so good... hoping your opponent doesnt know the matchup is your only hope there. Hes much worse than Fox tho.

 

[Scuba Steve]

Just remembered that I had a video that has the chaingrab in it.

http://youtu.be/B6sAGLsi9-0?t=9m45s

 

[Cassio]

Just gonna clear this up right quick. Pikachu is bad, and overall worse in PM than he is in melee. In a game where recovering is easier and his grab game is nerfed pikachu doesnt fit (and gets CGd by characters that already beat him like mario and diddy). He sometimes looks better than he is because literally some of the best smash players in the world use him. I actually can't think of many characters (only Fox really) who have better reps at top level play.

He can still be fun though if you like him.

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

Is it pika, or the players??

Spoiler

players

 

[Bazkip]

edit: and I forgot about all of the Brawl changes such as RAR and Dacus

Shiek can't dacus in PM though

 

[JOE!]

Zard's fast in general for a character of his size.

Zard is fast in -general-

Only Sonic, Falcon, Fox are faster, and he ties with MK or us like 0.001 slower

 

[MLGF]

Running is so much different then actual speed.
But yeah, Zard is fast.

 

[JOE!]

Zard kindof has the marf problem, where his moves actually do come out fast but then have a bit of commitment on whiff. Luckily, a whole bunch also have huge durations (Nair, Utilt, Usmash, Fair, etc). He makes up for this though with sheer movement capability. Not even Mewtwo can threaten so much of the SCREEN at any given time with the ability to then jump a few times + Glide

I feel like Zard can definitely good given the time to develop, like he has all the raw material but only a select few (@*Zen , @John12346, @metroid1117 ) have really begun to shape him

 

[Broasty]

Odds's Less Stupid Tier List (tm) (all rights reserved) (now a major motion picture)

idk how to make these face-emote-things, so i'mma just c/p them from Soft's post - which had some major problems but seemed largely on the right track. Within a tier, it's mostly in order, but some things will probably slip my mind. Didn't put in a hell of a lot of effort here, but I think it's close-ish.


Totally Not Mid Tier:

Unholy Messiah Tier:

Fox Lucas Tier:

Some Extremely Stupid Matchups But Not Completely Broken Tier:

Goldilocks Tier:

Needs Fresh Paint Tier:

Situationally Viable Tier:

Jesus Why Are You So Bad Tier:

RIP Tier:

@Lunchables Tier (aka real bottom 5):

edit: pardon the ninja edits. I think it's better now.

inb4 the massive amount of trolling re: Ivy.

I think Falco is still insanely good, but the overwhelming majority of Falco players don't know PM's matchups yet. Fox made the transition better b/c his upsmash and shine spike remain extremely strong kill moves vs most of the cast.

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha yeah I beg to differ.

Honestly, now that I think about it...why are we even discussing Tier lists on a game that's meta is so undeveloped that we honestly really don't know who's good and who isn't...

 

[Chesstiger2612]

Pikachu lacks a bit of neutral game strength as well as onstage punish game.
And it is more about his moveset than about his attributes, because he has the speed and so on (although a bit more maximal horizontal velocity in the air would help him).
Making his grab a frame faster in return for the little range would be a nice addition (helps Pikachu in two ways because now he cas dash one frame more if he wants a certain grab timing, leading to an effective grab range buff in reach-up-situations, as well as the upsped tomahawk would fit in Pikachu's playstyle that involves many shorthop mixups and fakeouts.

For the punish game, Pikachu's down smash could have less cooldown (maybe also slightly less knockback on last and reduced SDI modifiers or altered knockback angles on the first hits) so fair->d-smash->aerial of choice is a solid 3-piece that starts from really low air height.
Pikachu's problem with onstage punish game is mainly that his moves send opponents in the higher air room and without range that is difficult to cover with little range and without a falcoesque double jump. MK has a similar problem but he has a good grab range (and is just a better character in many aspects) so he has no problems playing it out closer to the ground. Pikachu can't do that as easily. So lowering a few knockback angles in general would help Pikachu too, not being able to juggle opponents needs to be equalized with more horizontal combos.

 

[FreeGamer]

On the bright side, if Kirby does end up being that terribad, I'm gonna have a truckload of buffs to look forward to. 64 U-Tilt and D-Air, perhaps? :3

 

[Frost | Odds]

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha yeah I beg to differ.

Honestly, now that I think about it...why are we even discussing Tier lists on a game that's meta is so undeveloped that we honestly really don't know who's good and who isn't...

****s and giggles.

I'm also sorta having second thoughts about that Luigi placement. He seems to do a lot better in some MUs than I would've expected.

Zard is an extremely cool character. John Numbers is hella fun to watch when he's not playing against a Fox.

Just remembered that I had a video that has the chaingrab in it.

http://youtu.be/B6sAGLsi9-0?t=9m45s

Thanks!

It's nice to know that's real, though I cannot to save my life get it to work on Ivysaur. Is there an exhaustive list somewhere of chars it does work on?

 

[FreeGamer]

It's nice to know that's real, though I cannot to save my life get it to work on Ivysaur. Is there an exhaustive list somewhere of chars it does work on?

http://smashboards.com/threads/chaingrabs.357134/

 

[Player -0]

Kirby with N64 Up Tilt and Dair I would like to say would be pretty broken. He still would have trouble getting in but once he does it would be insane. Up Tilt Fox out of SHFFL's.

 

[jtm94]

I'm glad others agree with me that Pika is underwhelming. And I had QaC in mind. I have tried playing Pika for a little while and thought about maining him in Melee, but it was pretty difficult there too to find success. The harsh truth, that doesn't need to be changed, Pika has bad grab range, a terrible dash grab, throws that are extremely mediocre when the entire cast has chain grabs on almost everyone at some %, and a modest edgeguarding game that works well against extremely linear recoveries.. See: Spacies. It is kind of like Sheik being hindered by some of the great recoveries in this game, but Sheik has MUCH better edgeguarding tools than Pika and can body even the greatest of recoveries, bar Mewtwo. Pikachu has really good movement I agree, and I DID see that video of Axe, but I can cite a video of Shroomed kicking butt with Mario in Melee and question why he was even changed. Pika also has a really bad projectile when compared to the rest of the cast, it is slow in pretty much all aspects, and barely leads to consistent followups. His good BnB moves are uair, bair now, nair, and QAC. Every other move is extremely situational and has limited uses, but Upsmash is most strong.

TL;DR If we take a step back and look at the game we play, Pikachu will not begin to really shine unless you are absolutely amazing with him(single person crushing does not mean char is good), he receives changes and more Melee throws, or the rest of the cast is toned down from being top tier.

Kirby is also disgusting because downthrow does not feel right, just like the rest of the free follow-up throws. I really like him as a char though. He can downthrow Peach into fsmash at like 90% and she is done, maybe even earlier. I don't know if it's too good though.

 

[Broasty]

****s and giggles.

I'm also sorta having second thoughts about that Luigi placement. He seems to do a lot better in some MUs than I would've expected.

Zard is an extremely cool character. John Numbers is hella fun to watch when he's not playing against a Fox.



Thanks!

It's nice to know that's real, though I cannot to save my life get it to work on Ivysaur. Is there an exhaustive list somewhere of chars it does work on?

I can tell you in terms of matchups, the only ones I've personally seen to be a truly hard matchup for Luigi is ZSS, Mario, and MetaKnight.

 

[Frost | Odds]

I can tell you in terms of matchups, the only ones I've personally seen to be a truly hard matchup for Luigi is ZSS, Mario, and MetaKnight.

How's he do against Marth? I know the mu is awful in melee, but Luigi got some serious buff action.

I also assume Mario is tough mostly because of him caping your recovery...?

 

[BluntedMask]

Zard has one of the most stupid punish games in PM, he can effectively 0-death most of the cast off of a dair.

He also doesn't have the problems that ganon has in this regard with getting in.

 

[Scuba Steve]

Thanks!

It's nice to know that's real, though I cannot to save my life get it to work on Ivysaur. Is there an exhaustive list somewhere of chars it does work on?

I'm pretty sure that for Ivysaur, you have to tack on a little bit of damage before you can go for the chaingrab. Same goes for a lot of medium fall speed characters as well IIRC

 

[victinivcreate1]

I'm still confused as to why everyone thinks Pikachu is this low tier character. A lot of the complaints about his weaknesses are apparent with 50% of the cast, and most of these members don't even have his strengths.

 

[Frost | Odds]

50% of the cast has less range than a gnome quadruple amputee?

 

[victinivcreate1]

50% of the cast has less range than a gnome quadruple amputee?

50% of the cast suffers fro Pikachu's "problems", and they don't have his strengths to back it up, I.e speed, recovery, power, gimp potential, a decent projectile, etc.

Also about the talk of Thunder Jolt not being good, if people are calling SHADOW BALL a fantastic projectile, then Thunder Jolt is good. Shadow Ball isn't some godly projectile lol.

 

[Zx2963]

50% of the cast has less range than a gnome quadruple amputee?

Are you making fun of Pikachu?