Tier List Speculation

[Frost | Odds]

So basically be tricky?

edit: i'm not trying to troll. It just looks like the whole mix up is slide and try to bait your opponent and then punish him.

be slippery

edit: You still don't really want to approach much as bowser. The threat that you could, however, is invaluable in baiting your opponent and setting him up for a punish.

... Theoretically. Nobody's really made good use of this stuff yet, though I've been grinding it in the lab a *lot*, and watching a bunch of Luigi + Ganon play. We'll see.

 

[_Chrome]

be slippery

edit: You still don't really want to approach much as bowser. The threat that you could, however, is invaluable in baiting your opponent and setting him up for a punish.

... Theoretically. Nobody's really made good use of this stuff yet, though I've been grinding it in the lab a *lot*, and watching a bunch of Luigi + Ganon play. We'll see.

Music to accompany your work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCV0pHjtxes

 

[Boiko]

What do people think of my tier list?
Top Tier


High Tier


Mid Tier


Low Tier


Bottom Tier

Why do you think Yoshi is so good?

 

[Strong Badam]

Usually when I read someone taking multiple perfect wavelands as some sort of significant strategy, it means that their character is pretty limited. If it takes you multiple perfect inputs to still be worse at moving than your opponent who is pressing left and right on his control stick, you're gonna have a bad time.

 

[Magus420]

You don't necessarily need perfect inputs to perfect waveland though. I feel like you should know this.

 

[Strong Badam]

Obviously, but certainly more difficult than DDing for less reward and more commitment. The semantics aren't relevant to my point.

 

[Magus420]

They were relevant in your original comment since you specifically reused the word perfect to exaggerate said point which ended up unclear as a result =P Sounded like you were suggesting it isn't feasible to do reliably rather than more difficult.

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

You can not win

 

[cisyphus]

S
A
B
C
D
F

 

[DrinkingFood]

Okay so I don't think ROB is top ten but he's for damn sure not bottom ten lmao
Wolf is easily top ten tho and you've got him just as low?

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

Okay so I don't think ROB is top ten but he's for damn sure not bottom ten lmao
Wolf is easily top ten tho and you've got him just as low?

B8'ed

 

[Boiko]

Obviously Good Tier:
Pretty Dang Good Tier:
Not So Hot Tier:
Crud:

In an extremely vague order within their tiers.

 

[mimgrim]

Why is Sonic getting so underrated?

You should all know his cycle by now. Sonic gets changed > People underrate the new Sonic > Sonic does good > People realize Sonic is still good with disgusting design > Sonic gets changed again. Just skip the underrating step.

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

Obviously Good Tier:
Pretty Dang Good Tier:
Not So Hot Tier:
Crud:

In an extremely vague order within their tiers.

I think if you moved sanic up one
Mario down one
Ic down one
Falco up one
not sure if marth should go up.or switch with roy
And I think jigs needs to up some cause is viable now. Maybe to not so hot.
Would be good

 

[Boiko]

I think if you moved sanic up one
Mario down one
Ic down one
Falco up one
not sure if marth should go up.or switch with roy
And I think jigs needs to up some cause is viable now. Maybe to not so hot.
Would be good

All make sense. I personally think Icies are wildly underrated (as in people think they're trash but they're actually JUST mediocre).

As far as Sonic goes, I think he's got decent enough stage control, and solid KO options, but a weak recovery. He goes into freefall if he misses with the homing attack, right? So if you don't chase him off stage, it forces him to recover with sping jump, which is relatively linear.

Edit: Made some edits.

 

[mimgrim]

Sonic still probably has one of the better recoveries in 3.5 since he can still jump out of Down Special. And he can still attack out of Up special. It's not as absurd as it was in 3.02 but it still good. Besides if it is the weak recovery that you put him lower for... Then why isn't Falco or Roy lower? Or Falcon? Or Snake? Ect...

 

[jtm94]

Why people putting Sonic low? His game was so slightly changed. I play against this dingus character s often his spins make my ears bleed and his on stage game is still stupid, they just happened to almost balance his on stage game by hindering recovery somewhat. What I'm getting at is he good tho. In a world where having jumps that go higher than some UpBs and an UpB that you can act out of is weak recovery. His recovery is akin to GnW's, but instead of bucket braking he has a better double jump and much faster aerials to cover the rise of UpB. Oh wall jumps or something, but why use those out of SideB that brings you closer to edge.

Falco is not toppest tier. He actually has MUs that can be difficult. He's just noninteractive and annoying.

Roy>Marth so why switch? Marth has solid MUs, but not so many that he should be top tier. Roy can just hold down and KO you with better options. He's mainly annoying because CC dtilt coupled with his DD and wavedash game is crazy. Roy's recovery isn't better than Marth's tic for tac, but you should always assume good DI because tier lists reflect higher level play. If Roy DIs correctly then I see him living much longer than Marth, and it leaves him close enough to the stage to only necessitate a single SideB if needed. His UpB is noninteractive, I can punish Marth for going high, but Roy hits you in the middle of the stage.

Zelda isn't crud. She honestly got buffed for the most part in very small areas on all of her moves. She doesn't KO you at 60 now, but 90 isn't that far off. I think the new dins actually has potential to fix holes in her playstyle that old dins didn't cover. Better dash, faster grab, fthrow is better, still circumvents CCing with most moves. She isn't amazing, but she isn't Puff.

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

All make sense. I personally think Icies are wildly underrated (as in people think they're trash but they're actually JUST mediocre).

As far as Sonic goes, I think he's got decent enough stage control, and solid KO options, but a weak recovery. He goes into freefall if he misses with the homing attack, right? So if you don't chase him off stage, it forces him to recover with sping jump, which is relatively linear.

The free fall triggers when sonic uses the HA but nothing is in range, iirc. So he can still chase, whiff and come back. If you hit a wall, you're fine. While his recovery is linear, he still has a plethora of mix up options, between the side b (holding back can slow it down), down b, spin jumps, wall jumps, nB, blast atk etc, he still can keep ya guessin.

 

[Boiko]

Sonic still probably has one of the better recoveries in 3.5 since he can still jump out of Down Special. And he can still attack out of Up special. It's not as absurd as it was in 3.02 but it still good. Besides if it is the weak recovery that you put him lower for... Then why isn't Falco or Roy lower? Or Falcon? Or Snake? Ect...

Is it obvious I don't have much 3.5 Sonic experience? I personally never thought he was that busted in 3.02, even after playing Wizzy at Zenith, but maybe that's just me. I put the other chracters higher because they're neutral/punish/overall stage games/and general MU spread are, in my opinion, better.

Why people putting Sonic low? His game was so slightly changed. I play against this dingus character s often his spins make my ears bleed and his on stage game is still stupid, they just happened to almost balance his on stage game by hindering recovery somewhat. What I'm getting at is he good tho. In a world where having jumps that go higher than some UpBs and an UpB that you can act out of is weak recovery. His recovery is akin to GnW's, but instead of bucket braking he has a better double jump and much faster aerials to cover the rise of UpB. Oh wall jumps or something, but why use those out of SideB that brings you closer to edge.

See above.

Falco is not toppest tier. He actually has MUs that can be difficult. He's just noninteractive and annoying.

Not disagreeing, but please share. I think Falco only has bad MUs at the top tier level and a bit below and probably not much worse than 55-45.

Roy>Marth so why switch? Marth has solid MUs, but not so many that he should be top tier. Roy can just hold down and KO you with better options. He's mainly annoying because CC dtilt coupled with his DD and wavedash game is crazy. Roy's recovery isn't better than Marth's tic for tac, but you should always assume good DI because tier lists reflect higher level play. If Roy DIs correctly then I see him living much longer than Marth, and it leaves him close enough to the stage to only necessitate a single SideB if needed. His UpB is noninteractive, I can punish Marth for going high, but Roy hits you in the middle of the stage.

Marth has significantly more air mobility than Roy. The characters are played differently enough that it's somewhat hard to compare them IMO. I think Marth has great MUs, and a top tier DD and grab range which insane follow ups off of his throws. He's a very good character and it's hard to justify putting him much lower.

Zelda isn't crud. She honestly got buffed for the most part in very small areas on all of her moves. She doesn't KO you at 60 now, but 90 isn't that far off. I think the new dins actually has potential to fix holes in her playstyle that old dins didn't cover. Better dash, faster grab, fthrow is better, still circumvents CCing with most moves. She isn't amazing, but she isn't Puff.

Inclined to disagree. I think Zelda has tons of miserable MUs. She has tools, sure, but top tiers kind of run through her.

 

[Frost | Odds]

Usually when I read someone taking multiple perfect wavelands as some sort of significant strategy, it means that their character is pretty limited. If it takes you multiple perfect inputs to still be worse at moving than your opponent who is pressing left and right on his control stick, you're gonna have a bad time.

You're not wrong, but it's still better than having zero approach or movement options whatsoever. The closest thing Bowser had to an approach previously was a fake 'mixup' between dash attack and dash grab - but the ranges of both were very different, so the grab was super easy to spotdodge and the DA super easy to shield, and both could be stuffed easily by a grab or a number of other options, or simply evaded via DD.

While Bowser PWLing into you and sitting in his shield isn't terribly threatening, the answer isn't nearly as clear-cut as in one of the former situations.

Why do you think Yoshi is so good?

Basically, he's incredibly good in Melee. The only thing that really prevented him from being placed significantly higher (see: Peach-level) is the extra difficulty that comes from the DJC style jump, plus his inability to act OoS.

In PM, he can jump OoS, and is also better in pretty much every other way. His command grab is way better, his side B is useful, his recovery has been improved, etc. In addition, the ability to WD OoS is probably more significant to him than to most characters due to his deceptively long range moves that tend to be fantastic for whiff punishment.

 

[mimgrim]

The only characters that have a better onstage game then Sonic, imo, are the Spacies. Sonic's speed also gives him a a really good punish game since he can run in from a far distance and still be able to punish you and can get quite the reawd for it because of his good combo game.

Personally think Sonic is a top 3 character.

 

[Deleted member]

Obviously, but certainly more difficult than DDing for less reward and more commitment. The semantics aren't relevant to my point.

frankly doing good dashdancing is much, much harder than wavelanding in terms of negotiating the neutral game for position and/or a conversion

 

[Frost | Odds]

frankly doing good dashdancing is much, much harder than wavelanding in terms of negotiating the neutral game for position and/or a conversion

I strongly disagree, unless you mean with regards to Bowser specifically because his DD is pretty bad. (Perfect) wavelanding is much more difficult to perform consistently than the tech itself of Dash Dancing, and it's also much more difficult to waveland to a precise spacing than to do so via DDing. DDing provides a kinda braindead neutral game footsies option for a lot of characters (Marth/Roy, Fox, Wolf, MK, others) that makes it super simple to bait out moves and punish them with the same type of motions.

 

[jtm94]

@Boiko
I honestly still think that Sonic is amazing and was problematic. I've seen a few players really do well with the character, but to be honest I still find him to be underdeveloped. I would pin the cause on his movement options with a hitbox being so much easier and more rewarding at first than just running around at the speed of sound. People get so caught up in his B moves(which are definitely good) that they forget he has the fastest run speed in a game based on movement, a good DD, solid wavelands, a fast jump squat, and the ability to retain movement in a way that Falcon is jealous. His moves don't have disjoint bar bair, but once he hits you he can maintain a hitbox inside of you until you are KOd. His SideB can jump cancel into grab, wavedash, or just attack you. Even his simple moves like jab, dtilt, utilt, and ftilt are amazing. I'd honestly say the only moves that don't serve much use are his smashes, but even fsmash has weird disjoint and isn't too weak.

Acknowledging that Falco even has bad MUs is enough to make him not top tier.
Also I didn't mean to imply Roy is actually top tier, but I don't think Marth is either. I still stand by Roy being better because CC is problematic. I just think Roy is good, and that Marth is worse in general. Not even by direct comparison.

So you thought Zelda was terrible in the previous version as well? She was never labeled bottom of of the barrel in the previous version even with top tiers such as Diddy, M2, Fox, Mario, Pit, etc, but now even though she got better she's worse? Hmm. I agree she has hard MUs, and she still has holes in her play via slow speed in general and need to interact, but she's still in there.

 

[Deleted member]

its a bit character specific but against good players dashdancing is absolutely harder. if you think its easy your opponents just suck.

 

[Scuba Steve]

its a bit character specific but against good players dashdancing is absolutely harder. if you think its easy your opponents just suck.

Why would wavelanding work any better than dashdancing against these same opponents? Wavelanding is objectively worse in terms of commitment

 

[Boiko]

@Boiko
So you thought Zelda was terrible in the previous version as well? She was never labeled bottom of of the barrel in the previous version even with top tiers such as Diddy, M2, Fox, Mario, Pit, etc, but now even though she got better she's worse? Hmm. I agree she has hard MUs, and she still has holes in her play via slow speed in general and need to interact, but she's still in there.

This is the only point I'm going to address right now. I don't know enough about Sonic to make an accurate statement on his placement. And even if Falco doesn't have as positive as a MU spread as Fox, it's still good.

How can you really justify Zelda getting better? You can now SDI out of her Fsmash, she no longer has the super sweet spot on her kick, her projectile is arguably worse, she can't upb cancel into wavedash, she doesn't have as many free throw combos. You can try to make a claim that in the overall picture, she's better, but she didn't gain much from other character's nerfs. She doesn't have potent edgeguards, so the recovery nerf doesn't mean much to her and the changes to burst movement don't really mean much because she still has a huge blindspot at mid range.

 

[Frost | Odds]

Why would wavelanding work any better than dashdancing against these same opponents? Wavelanding is objectively worse in terms of commitment

I almost always agree with Umbreon - kind of at a loss as to how or why he's insisting that Ganon/Bowser have an easier/better neutral game than Fox/Sonic/MK/FEs

 

[jtm94]

Fsmash is still fast and large.
Her kick still KOs at 90, the super sweet spot was entirely problematic.
The new projectile is better. Old dins was incredibly flawed. It was slow, punishable, and did not reward interaction which she needs to do well. At best it was free damage.
You can still UpB cancel it just isn't a wavedash. And you can platform cancel and grab edge from half the stage away.
Recovery nerfs mean that her kick doesn't KO, they just can't recover from that far.
As for throws they slightly hit up throw, but it still goes into a lot and fthrow bthrow is a mix-up now. And her grab is one frame faster.
I played her for 7 months and I honestly think she is better this way. Oh and new din's is pretty good at the edge.

 

[Boiko]

I almost always agree with Umbreon - kind of at a loss as to how or why he's insisting that Ganon/Bowser have an easier/better neutral game than Fox/Sonic/MK/FEs

I think that what he's saying is if you DD like an idiot, you get punished. Thus, the skill ultimately has a higher cap. I could be wrong though.

 

[CORY]

but if you go for wl's like an idiot, you're even more likely to get punished, due to having to commit to a jump, then the 10frames of lag after an airdodge. the commitment to a waveland is much higher than the commitment to a dash dance, so i'm curious as to how he meant his statement, as well.

 

[Scuba Steve]

I think new Din's is actually better. The old one was stupid bad against any decently fast character and mediocre at best against an opponent with decent Zelda matchup knowledge

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

I don't like the fact that new dins fawks the camera. Idc if you wanna see your dins.

Specail landing is 9 frames

 

[jtm94]

I don't like the fact that new dins fawks the camera. Idc if you wanna see your dins.

Specail landing is 9 frames

It's more for the other player. I know where I'm placing it, but it was heavily changed to increase awareness. Which is why Zelda ticks like a bomb as does the din's with pulsating flashes. It's like a mini rave and I can jank the camera with my fiery disco ball c:

 

[MagnesD3]

I don't like the fact that new dins fawks the camera. Idc if you wanna see your dins.

Specail landing is 9 frames

I also hate how dins clip through the stage. It's IMO ugly and seems modish. It really bothers me :S. (I hope it gets fixed..

 

[Deleted member]

Why would wavelanding work any better than dashdancing against these same opponents? Wavelanding is objectively worse in terms of commitment

but if you go for wl's like an idiot, you're even more likely to get punished, due to having to commit to a jump, then the 10frames of lag after an airdodge. the commitment to a waveland is much higher than the commitment to a dash dance, so i'm curious as to how he meant his statement, as well.

waveland is more of a commitment but you're aware of that when you choose that option. i never said that waveland was the more effective tactic between the two, that is much too circumstantial to the game state than is relevant for a simple comparison.

good use of DD means that you're using non-committal movement to cut off options from the opponent by forcing the opponent into guessing situations. this is not the same thing as baiting because as you cut off options from your opponent they will be forced to deal with you since the default alternative is to just allow a free conversion. if DD was just about baiting and nothing else then sure DD is easier but that's a very mediocre use of the tactic and better players will run you over for it all day long.

I almost always agree with Umbreon - kind of at a loss as to how or why he's insisting that Ganon/Bowser have an easier/better neutral game than Fox/Sonic/MK/FEs

i would never agree to such a statement and you know it. bowser and ganon in particular have surprisingly good counterplay to DD in this game (more than i expected after testing them anyway), and while i agree that bowser folds to DD abuse it's probably not the same way you're thinking of.

 

[Juushichi]

RE Early conversations:

Sheik v Bowser is 7:3, but Bowser can make Sheik look extremely bad like a lot of characters.

As a Sheik player (not a very good one), MUs I don't like:
Fox Ike Sonic Wolf (kinda) Kirby Puff Peach (oh god this might be 4:6 or WORSE) Yoshi, Ice Climbers

Not saying she loses all of those, but I don't really enjoy playing them. The ones I think she loses are:
Fox, Kirby, Puff, Peach, Ice Climbers

Even enough (somewhere between 45:55 and 55:45) are:
Ike, Sonic, Wolf (maybe), Yoshi, Diddy Kong, Charizard, Lucas, Roy, Marth, Falco, Wario, Samus, Zero Suit, Lucario, Mewtwo, Toon Link, Pit, Pikachu

Beats the rest hard enough.

 

[PsionicSabreur]

The closest thing Bowser had to an approach previously was a fake 'mixup' between dash attack and dash grab - but the ranges of both were very different, so the grab was super easy to spotdodge and the DA super easy to shield, and both could be stuffed easily by a grab or a number of other options, or simply evaded via DD.

Saying that Bowser has to resort to mixups on approach isn't really saying much, as it's a woe shared by a lot of characters (saying it was a relatively poor mixup is valid enough, I guess). It just means he's a little more limited in that he has to safely "approach" his opponent's fringe range so that they either back off or get outspaced.
What often goes under-appreciated, I think, is that Bowser is actually quite good at taking small bits of stage control at a time when grounded, namely through run-crouch in 3.02 (it's still pretty godly, too).
There's also the whole deal that if you give Bowser too much space, you let him jump, where he gets a much better set of mixups (fair, klaw, flame cancel, nair in conjunction). Now he has a -lot- of leverage against pretty much any character (especially if they're cornered).
So what was the fundamental weakness? In general I'd argue it was that you couldn't safely pressure with much more than jabs/tilts without sacrificing your ability to move into that empty space you just created (because no run-crouch in the air, unfortunately). For the most part that will work, especially with jab and dtilt, it's just not very exceptional. That's why I think jumpsquat buff was awesome, and wavelanding changes everything; you don't really have to choose between approaching and good pressure/mixups against campy characters. Bowser can use his threatening presence from a short hop to pressure in itself, and if his opponent doesn't try to get him to commit to something out of it he still gets to transition back to his ground game seamlessly.

 

[Frost | Odds]

i would never agree to such a statement and you know it.

I didn't think so, but that appeared to be precisely what you were getting at - hence my total, mindblown confusion. I'm glad I was wrong, heh

bowser and ganon in particular have surprisingly good counterplay to DD in this game (more than i expected after testing them anyway), and while i agree that bowser folds to DD abuse it's probably not the same way you're thinking of.

Uh, we're probably closer to the same track than you think. The only Bowser I've seen with consistent, disciplined (if imperfect) responses to DD was Kirk before he quit -- and I've developed some counterplay myself that I've simply never seen used by anyone else, partly because some of it is reliant on the new patch features.

DD+grab abuse is still probably Bowser's single greatest weakness in terms of playstyle, but yeah, he can do stuff about it. That stuff tends to be highly unintuitive for melee/nonbowser players in any case.

Saying that Bowser has to resort to mixups on approach isn't really saying much, as it's a woe shared by a lot of characters (saying it was a relatively poor mixup is valid enough, I guess).

I didn't say it was a poor mixup, I said it was a fake mixup - as in, not a mixup at all. There were many valid responses that covered both options, meaning that Bowser literally had no means of approaching at all.

What often goes under-appreciated, I think, is that Bowser is actually quite good at taking small bits of stage control at a time when grounded, namely through run-crouch in 3.02 (it's still pretty godly, too).

That's true, and IMO literally every bowser that currently plays is terrible at it. It helps that jab1 seems to combo into itself much like Sheik's Sm4sh ftilt in some situations.

There's also the whole deal that if you give Bowser too much space, you let him jump, where he gets a much better set of mixups (fair, klaw, flame cancel, nair in conjunction). Now he has a -lot- of leverage against pretty much any character (especially if they're cornered).

You forgot wavelands -- but that aside, while he's in the air, Bowser (like anyone) is still highly vulnerable to getting juggled / otherwise pushed back into the air or offstage. If you maintain proper spacing against Bowser as he's coming down, there is literally nothing he can do to you. Of course, some of his stuff out of wavelands (particularly off platforms) is pretty tough to react to, so that makes it more difficult than it used to be.

So what was the fundamental weakness? In general I'd argue it was that you couldn't safely pressure with much more than jabs/tilts without sacrificing your ability to move into that empty space you just created (because no run-crouch in the air, unfortunately). For the most part that will work, especially with jab and dtilt, it's just not very exceptional. That's why I think jumpsquat buff was awesome, and wavelanding changes everything; you don't really have to choose between approaching and good pressure/mixups against campy characters. Bowser can use his threatening presence from a short hop to pressure in itself, and if his opponent doesn't try to get him to commit to something out of it he still gets to transition back to his ground game seamlessly.

This is pretty insightful, and entirely correct IMO.

The [matchups] I think [Sheik] loses are:
Fox, Kirby, Puff, Peach, Ice Climbers

You're aware that she crushes Peach pretty hard in Melee and goes roughly even with Puff, yeah? Puff gets outspaced really hard, and effectively only has a winnable matchup because of her aerial mobility and the rest punish on a bunch of Sheik's grounded options.

Kirby has neither of those. His dash attack loses to Sheik's ftilt/dsmash in much the same way that half of CF's option's do. Sheik kills Kirby off the top at like 80%, and Kirby has a helluva time even landing hits on Sheik, much less landing a killing move (which he struggles with against anyone).

It's also super easy for Sheik to edgeguard Kirby due to her vertical aerial mobility and ridiculous bair.

Kirby does have some solid spacing tools (read: tilts), and probably doesn't lose the matchup that badly partially due to his edgeguards and nairplane, but I really don't see how he could possibly be favored in the matchup.

 

[_Chrome]

Why do you think Yoshi is so good?

Just a personal belief of mine that he is really good. Honestly, I believe he's the answer to 20XX, even in Melee, and the fact that he's been buffed in Project M makes a huge difference. His combos and kill potential are insane, unfortunately, I'm just not technical enough with him yet to the point where I can parry with him.