Tier List Speculation

[TheGravyTrain]

Speaking of cancels, Olimar has waveland out of pikmin toss, does that make him broken? /s. In all honesty, I don't know how unfair wolfs is, but Diddy's, Olimar's, and Luigi's all seem fine.

As for Samus comboes, this so frustrating when you go to a character board and a not top player makes a guide, no matter who it, they claim their character has a great combo game when all they have 2 hit comboes and a great neutral cuz their a floaty...

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Samus can do stuff like D-Throw into Up Smash reps since 64.
Samus can D-Air into U-Air off a ground bounce.
Don't quote me on this one but I think Samus can U-Tilt and get a ground bounce under certain conditions.
Basically, every time Samus gets a ground bounce she can nail at least 2 aerials to make a combo.

I was half joking about Samus being easily comboable since her air speed doesn't really help her get away from combos.
Of course, after the hitstun wears off, Samus has tools to defend herself, but mid-hitstun? You just need to be fast to jump and whack her silly.

I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that Samus can pull off a lot of combos. I'm not a top player, but I'm not a total fraud either.

 

[_A1]

Mid hitstun? Samus barely takes any hitstun because of her stupid floatiness. You can't just be fast and jump to hit her when she just gets sent super high and falls down like tissue. Although I'm sure a character like Lucas can reliably combo all sorts of weights/fall speeds.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Mid hitstun? Samus barely takes any hitstun because of her stupid floatiness. You can't just be fast and jump to hit her when she just gets sent super high and falls down like tissue. Although I'm sure a character like Lucas can reliably combo all sorts of weights/fall speeds.

All right, fair enough. I messed up. Samus isn't easy to combo. I've been proved wrong. Sorry.

Still think she can combo though.

 

[TheGravyTrain]

Every character can combo. Though not every character is "all about comboes", that title goes to characters like Falcon, Spacies, and so on. It doesn't matter if they can do 2 or 3 hit comboes, when a character is all about comboes, they have 40, 60, 80, or even death comboes depending on the character.

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

Speaking of cancels, Olimar has waveland out of pikmin toss, does that make him broken?

It's only good for retreating.

 

[TheGravyTrain]

That was a sarcastic comment meant to show not all "jank cancels" are bad and unfair. If it is strapped to a bad projectile (re: not godlike) I think they are fine.

 

[_Chrome]

What do you mean? Samus and Bowser are the easiest characters to combo in the whole game. Everyone can combo Samus if they can get a good hit. Heck, Samus is all about the combos, she combos the whole cast and gets comboed by the whole cast with the same ease.

Regarding punishes, I don't really know much about Sonic, so I can't say that he gets a lot of easy things. But Samus does have her fair share of combo starters, most of them outranging Sonic's normals, and it's not like Samus can't find ways to land a killer move against Sonic.

Whoever gets the first good hit can easily make it count, so Samus edge in neutral gives her a huge advantage. However, Sonic can pressure her easier, so I'm calling it a 5.5 in Samus favor.

Samus is definitely not an easy character to combo... Ness has zero followups off of his down throw on her at 0%... she is one of the hardest characters to combo in the game.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Samus is definitely not an easy character to combo... Ness has zero followups off of his down throw on her at 0%... she is one of the hardest characters to combo in the game.

All right, fair enough. I messed up. Samus isn't easy to combo. I've been proved wrong. Sorry.

Still think she can combo though.

Yeah, I know. I kinda noticed.

Good to know that Ness can't followup his down throw on her though. To get back on topic, how's that matchup?

 

[Akhenderson]

Samus is definitely not an easy character to combo... Ness has zero followups off of his down throw on her at 0%... she is one of the hardest characters to combo in the game.

if samus DI's towards, Ness can't do much. If samus DIs away, Ness gets a free fair.
Combos are still possible with Ness on her though with usage of magnet and dair.
stuff that works are like,
fair -> magnet -> any aerial
fair -> bat
Match up still sucks for Ness but it's not as bad as people make it out to be. 60/40.. ish? for Samus, though people lean towards the 65/35 or 70/30. Edgeguarding her is not even worth it, just PK Thunder for extra damage so bair or bthrow can kill reliably.

 

[Foo]

As for Samus comboes, this so frustrating when you go to a character board and a not top player makes a guide, no matter who it, they claim their character has a great combo game when all they have 2 hit comboes and a great neutral cuz their a floaty...

I think it's totally fine for a not top player to make a guide, they just have to know what they are talking about. For instance, I am not a top player (though I hope to be eventually) but I still know my !@#$. I've seen bad players make really good guides and I've seen really good players make incredibly ****ty guides.

Of course, after the hitstun wears off, Samus has tools to defend herself, but mid-hitstun?

She can't defend herself while in hitstun? How unlike other smash characters...

Not to mention, she suffers less hitstun than pretty much anyone else because she is very heavy. Being floaty also means she has less hitstun per distance traveled (usually).

Samus can do stuff like D-Throw into Up Smash reps since 64.
Samus can D-Air into U-Air off a ground bounce.
Don't quote me on this one but I think Samus can U-Tilt and get a ground bounce under certain conditions.
Basically, every time Samus gets a ground bounce she can nail at least 2 aerials to make a combo.

I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that Samus can pull off a lot of combos. I'm not a top player, but I'm not a total fraud either.

2 hits isn't really a combo characters. You may as well call boozer a combo character because he can link jab one to jab two. Every character in the game can land at least a few two hit combos, and generally more. For a character to be good at comboing, that means they have many good combo starter moves that are reliably, can rack up damage off the combos reliably, and can generally kill out of the combos. Two hit combos don't really count. Something isn't really considered a combo until at least 3 or 4 hits in a row.

 

[TTTTTsd]

I don't think top-level players should be the only ones who can make guides.

mid-level players can know things that are true or have knowledge of it, top-level players have the execution AND the knowledge, but the knowledge itself is the most useful part. Blahblah if you know what you talkin bout just write a guide etc.

 

[_Chrome]

if samus DI's towards, Ness can't do much. If samus DIs away, Ness gets a free fair.
Combos are still possible with Ness on her though with usage of magnet and dair.
stuff that works are like,
fair -> magnet -> any aerial
fair -> bat
Match up still sucks for Ness but it's not as bad as people make it out to be. 60/40.. ish? for Samus, though people lean towards the 65/35 or 70/30. Edgeguarding her is not even worth it, just PK Thunder for extra damage so bair or bthrow can kill reliably.

Yeah I pretty much just use PK Thunder to chase for extra damage sometimes. I KO'd a Samus off the top with it once XD. But it really isn't horrible, just radically different from the other MUs he has.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

She can't defend herself while in hitstun? How unlike other smash characters...

Not to mention, she suffers less hitstun than pretty much anyone else because she is very heavy. Being floaty also means she has less hitstun per distance traveled (usually).

Didn't I admit I messed up about that? Can't someone mess up once in a while? Why you bringing up old stuff?

2 hits isn't really a combo characters. You may as well call boozer a combo character because he can link jab one to jab two. Every character in the game can land at least a few two hit combos, and generally more. For a character to be good at comboing, that means they have many good combo starter moves that are reliably, can rack up damage off the combos reliably, and can generally kill out of the combos. Two hit combos don't really count. Something isn't really considered a combo until at least 3 or 4 hits in a row.

I can't confirm it right now, but I'm pretty sure that D-Air Ground Bounce -> U-Air -> U-Air -> Screw Attack works.
You can do D-Throw -> Fire Up Smash -> Fire Up Smash (xN) on fast fallers and heavies.
Samus can Chain Grab (At least she used to in 3.0)
There's also D-Throw -> Fire Up Smash -> B-Air.
And don't quote me on that, but I think D-Throw -> Fire F-Air -> D-Air is actually a kill combo near ledge, still have to test it though.
And let's not get into combo setups for point-blank Full Charge Beams.

This is getting off-topic. We better let this go.

 

[Narpas_sword]

Didn't I admit I messed up about that? Can't someone mess up once in a while? Why you bringing up old stuff?



I can't confirm it right now, but I'm pretty sure that D-Air Ground Bounce -> U-Air -> U-Air -> Screw Attack works.
You can do D-Throw -> Fire Up Smash -> Fire Up Smash (xN) on fast fallers and heavies.
Samus can Chain Grab (At least she used to in 3.0)
There's also D-Throw -> Fire Up Smash -> B-Air.
And don't quote me on that, but I think D-Throw -> Fire F-Air -> D-Air is actually a kill combo near ledge, still have to test it though.
And let's not get into combo setups for point-blank Full Charge Beams.

This is getting off-topic. We better let this go.

D-Air Ground Bounce -> U-Air -> U-Air -> Screw Attack:
What do you mean by 'ground bounce' dair? it hits up...?
You can Dair to Uair, if they dont DI right. the rest cant be done unless they DI it for you on most characters.

D-Throw -> Fire Up Smash -> Fire Up Smash (xN) on fast fallers and heavies:
You can do Down THrow to Fireupsmash to getting punished because they SDI

Chain Grab (At least she used to in 3.0):
Still works on some cast, but not for long and doesnt have mych of a followup. perhaps if you have ice on, you can upsmash out of it.
D-Throw -> Fire Up Smash -> B-Air.:
Fire upsmash has virtually no followups if they are a competent opponent and SDI.
If you do get the last hit, then yea, you may be able to hit a bair.

D-Throw -> Fire F-Air -> D-Air
Pretty much not a thing unless they DI it for you again.



by 'combo' do you mean 3 hit -escapable if they're compentent-strings?

 

[SpiderMad]

Mid hitstun? Samus barely takes any hitstun because of her stupid floatiness. You can't just be fast and jump to hit her when she just gets sent super high and falls down like tissue. Although I'm sure a character like Lucas can reliably combo all sorts of weights/fall speeds.

*her weight

 

[TheGravyTrain]

@ Foo
What I meant (and I think you realized this) was not that only top players can make guides, but when non-top players make guides the content is fine, they just make statements that don't make sense (like "this character is a combo powerhouse"). I am all for the making of teaching material. I guess my problem is when people claim authority on things that are way above them. Typically, it seems everyone wants to make whole "how to play" guides on characters when it is simply too much with their experience. But hey, I don't really have much to counter since I am in the same boat...

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

D-Air Ground Bounce -> U-Air -> U-Air -> Screw Attack:
What do you mean by 'ground bounce' dair? it hits up...?
You can Dair to Uair, if they dont DI right. the rest cant be done unless they DI it for you on most characters.

D-Throw -> Fire Up Smash -> Fire Up Smash (xN) on fast fallers and heavies:
You can do Down THrow to Fireupsmash to getting punished because they SDI

Chain Grab (At least she used to in 3.0):
Still works on some cast, but not for long and doesnt have mych of a followup. perhaps if you have ice on, you can upsmash out of it.
D-Throw -> Fire Up Smash -> B-Air.:
Fire upsmash has virtually no followups if they are a competent opponent and SDI.
If you do get the last hit, then yea, you may be able to hit a bair.

D-Throw -> Fire F-Air -> D-Air
Pretty much not a thing unless they DI it for you again.



by 'combo' do you mean 3 hit -escapable if they're compentent-strings?

I put in ground bounce D-Air because technically the opponent does bounce off the ground, we just don't notice it. And to differentiate it from Spike D-Air, which doesn't combo.

Sometimes SDI isn't enough to escape since you can move a bit before landing the next U-Smash. but you should get at least 2 smashes under normal circumstances without much trouble.

Samus Chain Grab can be used as a set-up for point-blank full charge beam if they DI out of it, so it's more of a mix-up, I'll give you that. Still more than 2 hits though.

I actually messed up again in Fire Up Smash -> B-Air.
There should be a statement above that combo saying that I didn't test the following combos and that they could be wrong.
I accidentally deleted it to fix a typo and forgot to write it back.

What I meant by Samus can do a lot of combos is that she can get a lot of follow-ups off a lot of moves. I'm sorry I wasn't clear. And hey, 3 hit combos still are good for racking up damage. Not every combo needs to be a 0->Death combo.

I still overestimated Samus ability to do combos though. My bad. Can we get back on topic?

 

[_Chrome]

Didn't I admit I messed up about that? Can't someone mess up once in a while? Why you bringing up old stuff?



I can't confirm it right now, but I'm pretty sure that D-Air Ground Bounce -> U-Air -> U-Air -> Screw Attack works.
You can do D-Throw -> Fire Up Smash -> Fire Up Smash (xN) on fast fallers and heavies.
Samus can Chain Grab (At least she used to in 3.0)
There's also D-Throw -> Fire Up Smash -> B-Air.
And don't quote me on that, but I think D-Throw -> Fire F-Air -> D-Air is actually a kill combo near ledge, still have to test it though.
And let's not get into combo setups for point-blank Full Charge Beams.

This is getting off-topic. We better let this go.

You're right. Samus can combo. It's not as potent as other characters, but she can definitely punish. I don't think most of these combos work, but she certainly has chain throws, especially against the spacies.

Note: Her fire moves are SDIable, so they're vulnerable to be escaped from and therefore do not combo very well.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

You're right. Samus can combo. It's not as potent as other characters, but she can definitely punish. I don't think most of these combos work, but she certainly has chain throws, especially against the spacies.

Note: Her fire moves are SDIable, so they're vulnerable to be escaped from and therefore do not combo very well.

Kinda makes the advertising about "Fire moves rack up the damage and Ice moves are finishers" pretty inaccurate, but yeah.
It's not like Samus can suddenly make you stop playing Smash and start playing DI, but she can rack up some nice damage off simple punishes with short combos. Emphasis on short, I've learned my lesson.

 

[_Chrome]

Kinda makes the advertising about "Fire moves rack up the damage and Ice moves are finishers" pretty inaccurate, but yeah.
It's not like Samus can suddenly make you stop playing Smash and start playing DI, but she can rack up some nice damage off simple punishes with short combos. Emphasis on short, I've learned my lesson.

I remember in 3.0 her fire moves could give ~50% combos out of two moves! The days when Samus was in my top tier... now she's in my "balanced" tier (which encompasses almost every character).

 

[Myst007_teh_newb]

Dude's listing combo strings like smash is some sort of traditional fighting game. Samus is pretty immobile, so her combo game simply can't be as robust as a character like Falcon or ZSS. In smash, the ability for characters to hold combos longer is hugely dependent on how freely they can position their hitboxes across the stage and cover all DI options which usually means they either have fast movement or huge hitboxes. And these options typically have to be very safe and non-committal in addition to those things.

 

[Reivax]

Falco and pit are the best one, I think

 

[robosteven]

Dude's listing combo strings like smash is some sort of traditional fighting game. Samus is pretty immobile, so her combo game simply can't be as robust as a character like Falcon or ZSS. In smash, the ability for characters to hold combos longer is hugely dependent on how freely they can position their hitboxes across the stage and cover all DI options which usually means they either have fast movement or huge hitboxes. And these options typically have to be very safe and non-committal in addition to those things.

They were probably just referring to guaranteed follow-ups at lower percents or something. Olimar has a lot of those out of up/down-tilt and dash attack on most characters at most percents, regardless of DI, but you do have to actually watch for the DI before going in for the hit.

but what do I know I didn't even read it nor am I going to

 

[Fight for Piece]

Anyone got information on any upcoming tier lists for PM 3.5 and where to look for them? The only tier list i've ever seen is the CLASH Tournaments ones. I really want to see how the meta has changed from other sources too.

 

[GabPR]

Do you guys think the neutal game is overrated and the punish game is underrated?

I understand that at lower levels of play there is no punish game, and the neutral game can be easier to develop. But when it comes down to deciding matchups, all I mostly ever see is something along the lines of "this character has better neutral so he wins"

 

[Fight for Piece]

I think some characters really focus on the punish game though. There can be lots of vortexing in this game. But I have very limited knowledge on 50% of the PM roster.

 

[Player -0]

Where are all these frauds (lolI'mafraudtoo) coming from?

Hitstun is determined by WEIGHT. Floatiness determines how far you're sent by combos (vertically). Samus is both FLOATY and HEAVY AS A MOFO. Combined with her lolgtfo Nair she's harder to combo then most characters.

I just mentally compared Oli's pikmin toss to Link's bomb throw range. They're both extremely depressing. This might make bomb punting "more viable" though.

 

[Foo]

Hitstun is determined by WEIGHT. Floatiness determines how far you're sent by combos (vertically). Samus is both FLOATY and HEAVY AS A MOFO. Combined with her lolgtfo Nair she's harder to combo then most characters.

Eh, people who said floatiness effected hitstun were either just not wording it correctly or were only very slightly misinformed, because it may as well effect hitstun. When you get hit by an attack in smash, unless it's a meteor smash or spike, you will always get hit at least slightly up, generally considerably up. Because of characters falling faster, some characters will lose more of that vertical angle more than others, making them get sent less distance before coming out of histun when compared to other characters, but still come out of hit at the same time (assuming same weight).

For instance, diddy and zss have the same weight, but diddy falls considerably faster. If a different marth upthrew both of them at the same %, they would be hitstunned for the same amount of time, but zss would be much higher in the air by the time she came out of hitstun. This is effect is less noticable when it comes to moves that don't send straight up, but it's still very significant. Basically, if a floaty character and a fast falling character were both hit in a way that sent them at roughly the same angle, the fast faller would have much more hitstun because the fast falling character would need to be at a higher %. This is why spacies are considered very easy to combo to death, being generaly light, but incredibly fast falling.

TL;DR Fall speed doesn't just effect how far you are sent by combos, it effects how much hitstun you have per unit of distance traveled

 

[_A1]

That's what I meant. Thanks for clarifying.

 

[AuraMaudeGone]

What am I reading?

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

What am I reading?

A sequence of poor choices of words and slight misinformation about Samus, and a few desperate tries to stay on matchup topics afterwards. Please ignore everything off-topic.

Speaking of topics... How about some tier lists so that we actually have something to discuss and bury the last 4 pages?

 

[Strong Badam]

Do you guys think the neutal game is overrated and the punish game is underrated?

I understand that at lower levels of play there is no punish game, and the neutral game can be easier to develop. But when it comes down to deciding matchups, all I mostly ever see is something along the lines of "this character has better neutral so he wins"

It's because at top level play, the punish game is extremely fleshed out to the point where it's likely for a character to die if they lose neutral. Even not being true combo'd but being put in a bad position or offstage repeatedly can spell death for most of the cast. Of course we weigh both neutral and punish game, but it's really rare for situations like "Yeah this guy punishes harder than this other character exactly as well as this other character wins neutral so it's an even matchup." It's far more common that characters have similar punish games but one wins neutral.

 

[Fight for Piece]

Can anyone explain why Roy is suddenly expected to be bumped up to top tier this patch? Is it because of the spike change? I would be incredibly surprised if walking speed was the reason. If it's not those two then what is it because he was nerfed in every other aspect.

 

[Foo]

Can anyone explain why Roy is suddenly expected to be bumped up to top tier this patch? Is it because of the spike change? I would be incredibly surprised if walking speed was the reason. If it's not those two then what is it because he was nerfed in every other aspect.

It's because he was an already decent character that wasn't really nerfed. Mostly, all of the nerfs to other characters put him in a really favorable spot in the meta game. Overall nerfs to recoveries, projectiles, burst movement, combos, etc. help him out more than most. It's not what was changed about him, it's about what was changed about everyone else.

 

[mimgrim]

I also think that Roy was pretty underrated in 3.02 in all honesty.

 

[Deleted member]

He wasn't underrated. He actually had REALLY ****ing awful matchups like DK and Mario which limited his tournament performance. He was an upper mid tier character at best.

 

[Fight for Piece]

It's because he was an already decent character that wasn't really nerfed. Mostly, all of the nerfs to other characters put him in a really favorable spot in the meta game. Overall nerfs to recoveries, projectiles, burst movement, combos, etc. help him out more than most. It's not what was changed about him, it's about what was changed about everyone else.

But then why does marth get bumped lower in speculated future tier lists? He was only nerfed in grab range I believe.

 

[Foo]

But then why does marth get bumped lower in speculated future tier lists? He was only nerfed in grab range I believe.

Marth generally isn't bumped lower than he was last patch. He's lower than roy because roy has better kill power, better combo ability, better CC, and a better matchup against spacies (probably). However, I honestly think the main reason is because roy players have figured out how to play roy much more than people figured out how to play against roy. For instance, in melee, marth is probably 99% figured out on both sides, where as roy in PM is probably figured out 85(or something)%ish to play and only 65(ish)% to play against (don't quote me on that, just throwing out numbers for the sake of example).

As for why some people have been putting marth lower than high tier on the lists... I couldn't tell you. Some people have said that marth is easy to beat, you just have to bait out his moves (that apparently with his insane range, speed, grab, and dash dance, he just HAS to throw out) and punish them on the seven frames of friggin landing lag. idk. What I do know is that marth has a lot of cool b-reverse/wavebounce and double aerial tech that wasn't in melee, and no one is really using it.

 

[Sethlon]

Sethlon with those secret Roy buffs

Like 90% of my work with Roy has been "X is absurd, we need to tone this down, significantly" lol. Seriously, this character was pretty nutty back in development.

I agree that Roy is good, just not sure if I'm buying him being on effectively spacie-level. Particular matchups/stages in general just seem to get so much uglier for him.
Considering that, right off the bat he has to worry about getting camped makes me question the notion that he could be truly dominant on the same level.

This is pretty much my thought on the matter. Roy is really solid and has some great traits, but never being able to kill fatties and huge stages amplifying that can make him rather miserable, and dying to a light wind offstage to top that off, will make it so he's never truly a dominating top tier. Somewhere around 6-12th place, IMO.