Tier List Speculation

[Player -0]

I was thinking of the flash kick.

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

It's weak breh

 

[Jaedrik]

I just got back from playing and am salty af
nerf Mario omg wtf Nintendo pls hes 2 gud dthrow fairs 4 free

The ideal characters at this moment are Roy, Sheik, Wario, Wolf (?), and Marth range. I don't know in an intimate and non-intuitive why, they just seem so delicious without being patently overpowered. I would like Sheik to have her Melee d-throw back. Above those people lie the likes of Pit, perhaps, Lucas and Mewtwo, definitely, Mario, maybe. I just like Mario so nyeh!

 

[Circle_Breaker]

What is wrong with fox though really. I'm not asking a dumb rhetorical question, I really want to see videos of P:M fox bopping everyone else indiscriminately. Because my impression was just about every character has some special designed **** to make fox's life hard. Like Marf in melee.

Anyways I think Nintendo should release a melee HD remaster and they could advertise it as newly rebalanced by removing every character that isn't fox or falco. And it would still be a great game.

 

[Circle_Breaker]

I just got back from playing and am salty af
nerf Mario omg wtf Nintendo pls hes 2 gud dthrow fairs 4 free

The ideal characters at this moment are Roy, Sheik, Wario, Wolf (?), and Marth range. I don't know in an intimate and non-intuitive why, they just seem so delicious without being patently overpowered. I would like Sheik to have her Melee d-throw back. Above those people lie the likes of Pit, perhaps, Lucas and Mewtwo, definitely, Mario, maybe. I just like Mario so nyeh!

IMO sheik is good enough to not need a free 50%+ on a significant portion of the cast. Instead of giving everyone chain throws maybe they should just remove the egregious ones... Looking at u, pit

 

[steelguttey]

What is wrong with fox though really. I'm not asking a dumb rhetorical question, I really want to see videos of P:M fox bopping everyone else indiscriminately. Because my impression was just about every character has some special designed **** to make fox's life hard. Like Marf in melee.

Anyways I think Nintendo should release a melee HD remaster and they could advertise it as newly rebalanced by removing every character that isn't fox or falco. And it would still be a great game.

zero vs wizzrobe

 

[Circle_Breaker]

zero vs wizzrobe

I'm pretty sure I know the match but I seriously can't find the video, all my searches are coming up with ****ing doubles matches.

Edit: seriously this is becoming infuriating has the video been struck from the internet? I've found so much coverage of CEO but not the grand finals match. wtf

 

[Zx2963]

I'm pretty sure I know the match but I seriously can't find the video, all my searches are coming up with ****ing doubles matches.

Edit: seriously this is becoming infuriating has the video been struck from the internet? I've found so much coverage of CEO but not the grand finals match. wtf

You're welcome

zero vs wizzrobe

It wasn't because of Fox, it was Zero's playstyle

 

[InfinityCollision]

I would like Sheik to have her Melee d-throw back.

No.

Because my impression was just about every character has some special designed **** to make fox's life hard.

In a sense this is a problem in itself. How do we balance Fox? The option taken is to make very small changes to the character and give everyone else tools that counter spacies. But other matchups are also affected by these changes, so now you have to deal with the ramifications of those changes and potentially make further alterations. All in the name of managing a tiny portion of the cast. Fox's very existence thus has a significant impact on the metagame as a whole.

 

[Jaedrik]

IMO sheik is good enough to not need a free 50%+ on a significant portion of the cast. Instead of giving everyone chain throws maybe they should just remove the egregious ones... Looking at u, pit

My opposition to the removal of Sheik's d-throw follow ups from Melee is on principle, therefore is not subject to a percentage cutoff.
If it must be so, then lower the amount free damage to an acceptable percentage. Oh, and, chain throws? I was under the impression that eliminating her free follow ups (such as f-air from d-throw) was the main intention.
As for her position now, I concur that she is good enough, like the other characters I listed as being in a sweet zone. I like characters with that flavor and spice, it gets me hype.

No.

Such bland denial.
I admit there isn't much more to say. I view damage that comes from a sequence of moves with little effort beyond muscle memory as acceptable, whereas you do not. So it seems.

 

[InfinityCollision]

There's enough to be said, but it's already been said a thousand times. The repetition is tedious for those of us who are viewing the discussion in a less than fresh light. Sheik had chaingrabs and followups for days off the old dthrow. It's not a healthy design in a game that promotes mechanics involving player interaction during combos/strings. The new dthrow is still very effective in tandem with bthrow and it's more suited to PM's design goals. That alone is reason enough not to bring back the old dthrow regardless of any of our opinions on the matter. If the goal was to resurrect Smash 64 0-deaths in a new game or promote combos more akin to traditional fighters then it would be a different story.

 

[Jaedrik]

Sheik had chaingrabs and followups for days off the old dthrow. It's not a healthy design in a game that promotes mechanics involving player interaction during combos/strings. The new dthrow is still very effective in tandem with bthrow and it's more suited to PM's design goals. That alone is reason enough not to bring back the old dthrow regardless of any of our opinions on the matter. If the goal was to resurrect Smash 64 0-deaths in a new game or promote combos more akin to traditional fighters then it would be a different story.

Yet combos in and of themselves are radical narrowings of the opponents options. Often times, no practical amount of DI and foresight allows one to escape two or three hit strings, both in Melee and in PM.

I change my mind now, and agree with you. However, I submit, indeed, Sheik's old d-throw is radical in the fact that it allows a continuous and uninterrupted chain to a high percent, but I do not allude to the false pretense of a principle with an arbitrary cutoff point of percentage. What percentage is acceptable, then? What situations or moves? Should the opponent have at least one relatively viable way to escape all situations on command at all times? Therefore, it is inconsistent to suppose that 'interaction' is the criterion, and then arbitrate between differently executed dire restriction of meaningful enemy influence on the outcomes. To argue that one relatively inescapable chain is allowable and that another is folly.

Edit: I should make some clarifications. The only reason consistency matters is because the claim that we ought promote player interaction during combos is a normative one. It implies an absolute conclusion from a set of axiomatic truths. I am merely supposing that it is not one that can be made as of yet, since it necessarily depends on the degree of interaction, moreover our discussions rely on the degree of interaction, and since the distinction of degrees must be made on a qualitative basis rather than a quantitative one to be non-arbitrary, we must elucidate these qualities of being too much interaction and not being too much interaction. If it turns out this cannot be done, then no distinction can be made, and thus it is rejected.

 

[steelguttey]

just notice that (no disrespect to zero) zero was losing pretty bad and then he just switched to fox and starting winning

 

[Zimflare]

just notice that (no disrespect to zero) zero was losing pretty bad and then he just switched to fox and starting winning

Hence counterpick?

 

[trash?]

"I thought the point was that everyone will be as good as fox"

except past balance decisions prove that anyone on fox's level in top 5 will always get nerfs, because when disconnected from the biases of being a melee top tier, it's nearly universally agreed upon that those character are poorly designed

I mean everything when I say the only reason fox hasn't been nerfed as hard as ivysaur or sonic or ike has been in versions past is because the PMDT knows how much melee purists who barely enjoy PM to begin with whine and moan

 

[Player -0]

Fox has sex kick nair that has somewhat of a hitbox. Pit does not.

 

[steelguttey]

the fighting game concept of "buff everyone to be good as the top tier" is the definition of bull**** and is near impossible

 

[menotyou135]

Fox is hard to use and requires very fast hands. Because of this, he is more accepted than other characters when he is as powerful as he is (not saying this is right but it is how it is). A character with the finger speed requirement of jigglypuff that is as powerful as fox is not accepted because it is just as good as fox without the difficulty of fox. This is the problem with the top PM tiers (outside of fox himself).

To be honest, fox needs one thing: Recovery nerf. Not quite Falco level because falco is better on stage than fox (arguably) but somewhere between Falco and current Fox. This will make him more of a glass cannon, which won't upset melee players because the on stage presence is the same (minus the nerfs that have already been made), but would make him less dominate in the metagame.

 

[CyberZixx]

Give him his 64 recovery and I'd be ok with him staying the same otherwise. At least then when offstage he'd truly never get back.

 

[Bleck]

Fox is hard to use and requires very fast hands.

'Cause every other good character in PM is easymode, am I right?

 

[Blank Mauser]

just notice that (no disrespect to zero) zero was losing pretty bad and then he just switched to fox and starting winning

Blaming the character when there are a variety of other aspects that go into a counterpick in tournament is really short-sighted. Zero picked a character that was better at punishing Wizzrobes main approach and could rack up damage with lasers to force said approach. It just so happens everyone hates seeing Fox now. I thought Zero played very intelligently and punished spindashes really well. The matchup itself is by no means completely figured out regardless of how good the players may be.

Fox will always be good for two reasons in my opinion, and this is coming from my experience in not only smash but so many other fighting games.

1) His gameplan almost never has to change. It doesn't matter what character hes fighting. Get in that ass and mix them up. Don't want to get in? Blaster all day + whiff punish.

2) Once he actually gets in with his safe and godly approach, his mix-ups are for the most part uncounterable. Watch Mango play Melee and you'll see he really abuses Nair > Grab, as people respect nair > shine and spaced nair > dash dance so much because its the safest option, the tick throw is super effective. Metagames tend to evolve around tactics you can't counter, so characters with great mix-ups tend to be good. However this is still a simplification of the game. Mid-screen spacing in a way can be its own mix-up, as there are just certain buttons/moves that you can't humanly react to. This is how Fox tends to live or die. By his ability to limit options and force bad reactions, or die by whiffing a bad nair or getting anti-aired then combo'd to death.

He doesn't need a nerfed recovery. I'm pretty sure a lot of people simply wouldn't be satisfied with Fox until he is pretty much completely ruined. Personally I don't think Fox is dominant or broken but rather "effective." If there were characters that pretty much made lower tiers almost unviable it probably would have been someone like Melee Sheik...or even Falco.

the fighting game concept of "buff everyone to be good as the top tier" is the definition of bull**** and is near impossible

This just simply isn't true in the slightest. Look at Vampire Savior, the best player in America plays Anakaris...He can't even pushblock, a basic ability of every other character. Also Guilty Gear is a widely cited example, where probably the only "unviable" characters were like AC Johnny and Chipp...probably Bridget too but Ruu made the character look damn good anyways.

 

[Spiffykins]

I don't know why everyone thinks characters are given "anti-spacie tools." They're not, it's just almost everyone has a solid juggle game of some sort. Just by giving any character a good up smash and tilt, down+up throws, and one good aerial that hits up, that's all the anti-spacie tools you need to combo them. I don't think these are traits are given to many characters just because they put in extra work on FFers, I think they're there primarily because that's the easiest way to make a character good.

One glance at the Melee top tiers will tell you that these are traits all of them share, while none of the characters outside of the top tier have a combination of up-stuff as good as theirs.

 

[shairn]

Sheik does not juggle spacies, and neither does puff. In comparison, even Pichu has a good juggle setup against spacies. Young Link's uairs are devastating against them. It's other things that make the lower tiers not as viable. In practice, most characters can effectively juggle the spacies.

 

[Deleted member]

who thought this was okay?

 

[Foo]

@Umbreon Let's not forget that its landing lag is only one frame longer than fox drill.

 

[Deleted member]

at that height just autocancel it lmao

pretty sure mario is like a strictly better falco

 

[CyberZixx]

What do you think of Falco in PM, Umbreon? Last I seen you still though he was exceptional and top 3.

 

[shairn]

Any character that gets pooped on by bowser is automatically terrible
Thus Falco is terrible

 

[PlateProp]

who thought this was okay?

Who the **** thought giving Falco an Instant Spike was okay?

Like seriously, he's the ONLY character with an instant spike

Give that **** some startup time or somethin

Realtalktho, I'd kind of like to see what P:M would be like if it had the 1 second before you can grab again thing that smash 4 has

 

[Deleted member]

What do you think of Falco in PM, Umbreon? Last I seen you still though he was exceptional and top 3.

falco is like.... still obviously broken and really good, but why play falco when you can just play mario? thats my stance on him pretty much. being auto top 10 is still bad when he's strictly inferior to another char anyway.

 

[Foo]

falco is like.... still obviously broken and really good, but why play falco when you can just play mario? thats my stance on him pretty much. being auto top 10 is still bad when he's strictly inferior to another char anyway.

I wouldn't say mario is objectively better than falco. There are a lot of strengths falco has that mario doesn't. I.E. Insta spike, shine, higher speed, shine, higher jump, shine, shine and shine. Is mario better than falco overall? perhaps. Is he falco 2.0? nowhere close.

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

I wouldn't say mario is objectively better than falco. There are a lot of strengths falco has that mario doesn't. I.E. Insta spike, shine, higher speed, shine, higher jump, shine, shine and shine. Is mario better than falco overall? perhaps. Is he falco 2.0? nowhere close.

Is mario the bane of umberon's existence? Yes.

 

[Kati]

seriously though...who designed Mario...? :/

 

[Chesstiger2612]

falco is like.... still obviously broken and really good, but why play falco when you can just play mario? thats my stance on him pretty much. being auto top 10 is still bad when he's strictly inferior to another char anyway.

I don't see why Mario should be strictly superior to Falco.
Obviously at lower levels of play he can make so much more with the same player strength and at these levels I would agree with your statement. However, I doubt this holds true for top players' levels of play:
Yes, Mario has better recovery and his fireballs' advantages over lasers weigh up their disadvantages. Well, I could argue in some matchups lasers are great and fireballs bad because of the lasers' transcendent property. His combo potential is at least near enough at Falco's level to not be seen as heavy advantage in favour of Falco.
Mario misses good shield pressure though, as well as get-off-me move that is not as punishable (shine for Falco, Mario has up-b which is punishable and nair which isn't as fast).
Another point to make is that the one thing underrated about Falco is his newly JC-able reflector. Mario's cape can't help to win the projectile war as well. I would argue Falco wins every projectile war with correctly used reflector while Mario can have problems with Mewtwo's, Falco's and Diddy Kong's projectile game. Note that the tool is underused so far (dued to most Falcos coming from Melee) so empirical data that it didn't help him much so far is meaningless here.

I wouldn't say mario is objectively better than falco. There are a lot of strengths falco has that mario doesn't. I.E. Insta spike, shine, higher speed, shine, higher jump, shine, shine and shine. Is mario better than falco overall? perhaps. Is he falco 2.0? nowhere close.

Their real initial dash velocity is even, and Mario has greater WDs, so I disagree with the "higher speed".

 

[Frost | Odds]

I'm with Umbreon on this one.

Fireballs >>>>>>>>> Lasers
Mario's combo game > Flaco's
Mario's harder to combo
Mario's recovery > flaco's

Mario can poke with his dair, falco has to commit. Every character was designed to beat Falco (and kinda sucks at it b/c he's still busted), but Mario was designed to beat every character. Except mewtwo lololol

 

[shairn]

Who the **** thought giving Falco an Instant Spike was okay?

Like seriously, he's the ONLY character with an instant spike

Give that **** some startup time or somethin

Realtalktho, I'd kind of like to see what P:M would be like if it had the 1 second before you can grab again thing that smash 4 has

Smash 4 falco has startup on his dair
It feels horrible QQ

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

So murrio recovery nerf, Furball nurf, but keept the combos so that he can still compete?

Ike is still balanced. Might drop a bit now that his Walljumps are bing taken away though

Sigh, spacies

~ Typical Lordling contribution for the month

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

Mario was designed to beat every character. Except mewtwo lololol

You forgot Marth, stupid head.

I get the feeling that falcon, does rather well against mario as well. I've seen gallo get booped by Hax and he don't even touch this game.

 

[1FD]

I'm pretty sure it's cause gallo is a very committing and over-active mario. As soon as you do anything like a pill or nair or even go airborn without simply empty jump WLs for baits or something, falcon gets free 0 to deaths.
both hax and mango have been bopped by 2 locals by melee mario/doc in not-too-long-ago and mario is bad in that game and those are probs the best 2/most experienced 2 Falcons both in that matchup and all-time.
One thing that I remember was another guy who was watching commented how after the first match it's like it was a totally different matchup and looked like Falcon just couldn't do anything to mario if mario didn't leave any oppenings.

When you don't commit to anything (as mario) then it's really hard for falcon to do anything but camp on the outskirts of the stage because if he does anything to try and get a hit mario is just like a stable little ball of short burst movements and hitboxes kind of like a faster peach who can handle getting falcon off stage after connecting almost anything if Falcon misses. And he can't get anything if mario doesn't commit because of that. hence the camping begins
I hate the matchup as falcon but it's fun against marios who try throwing pills or approach fully instead of just dding into space ftilt, sh bair, and maybe jabs or quick uairs if close. From what I've seen gallo is a pill > approach type of mario who doesn't really follow the dat mario type of gameplan so lacks the solidity that would be needed to beat someone like hax/mango/REALLY good + experienced falcons in the matchup. Really if marios adapted more of a dd/wd game with shields and feinted/fading aerials at most then falcon would be force to platform camp or try tangoing with a cluster-**** battle where mario thrives and falcon doesn't.

But yeah it's not terrible for falcon you just have to camp hard (which is like what Falcon does in most matchups anyway but hardfasthitbox characters who are really grounded are even more needed to hard-camp)

Also it's really hard to safely grab mario because of this too and that's like all you got in terms of things that are likely to hit if the mario isn't throwing projectiles that can get uair/naird through (and hit mario too for bonus sometimes) or approaching with any kind of nair/dair/dd grab that you can just avoiding and punish. Mario does any of those, he's screwed. Hence mario camps like a little ball and falcon camps like a outskirts hawk.

 

[PlateProp]

Smash 4 falco has startup on his dair
It feels horrible QQ

Now you know what it feels like to have a dair that takes skill to use instead of mashing down a