Tier List Speculation

[JOE!]

Peach is janky as hell

 

[Beorn]

Peach is janky as hell

Seconded. I don't care how good or bad she is. She's jank town. Imagine if her mechanics started in pm instead of melee. That **** would not happen.

 

[JOE!]

My buddy in our scene had a match where peach pulled a bob-omb and comboed it into a stitch-face all from two pulls.

That shouldn't be a thing and that was in Melee.


On the flipside, there should be a visual cue when she gets a stitch to make everyone's lives easier, including the peach.

I think the best thing Pika could ever get would be a slight amount of disjoint on Nair, but we can save possible tweaks for a more relevant thread (I think I'll make one later today).

Also, I had wondered why they went to Melee Nair instead of Brawl Nair, which was essentially the same except his tail stuck out for a disjointed sourspot.

 

[Scuba Steve]

stitchface should be kinda red or something

 

[JOE!]

stitchface should be kinda red or something

Either the stitch itself is red or Peach flashes a color / goes like "ha-ha!" (like her side B) when she gets it or something.

Overall I just find it so weird that while on the whole she is fine, a character with a move that does like 60% in one go (Even if there is counterplay that thing is just an anomaly), and the ability to pull up amazing projectiles randomly that can swing an encounter in her favor without needing to commit to the option (Unlike the 9 hammer or say, Misfire, Peach can relatively safely pull turnips to zone with and occasionally get a nuke in her hand lol), atop float shenanigans just seems like things that wouldn't have carried over as a whole package if she were made via PM instead of Melee.

That is not to say she is OP or anything, its just weird.

 

[Juushichi]

Peach is pretty hanky, I'd say.

 

[SunJester]

Peach's pulls have always really bothered me, especially the bom-omb and the beam sword. While RNG can be fun, I think losing a match because your opponent got absurdly lucky (pulling out a beam sword, or bom-omb) is quite unfair. I'm semi-okay with keeping the stitch face, but I feel like it should be very clearly marked when she pulls one out.

 

[EclipseKirby]

I dunno guys. I nearly always know when my opponent just pulled a stitch. Knowing when they have one has never made me any more ok that it exists.

 

[DrinkingFood]

Peach's FC nair is really almost as ridiculous as shine tbh. The whole sequence from the ground can hit frame 8 with only 4 (5?) frames of grounded endlag. And it can be done anytime while grounded (including directly OoS because I factored in the jump there) that you aren't busy attacking or evading. It also has the option of extending the hitbox by not exiting float, or choosing another aerial last second. It even reaches kill percents at a decent point. Only thing not crazy about it is it can be CC'd at low percents unlike shine, which really just puts you at ~0 frame advantage to her. Granted 0 frame advantage means spacies win there with a 1 frame option, so in Melee it wasn't that absurd and compared to them, it still isn't.
Thank goodness that character is slow

 

[Boiko]

To an extent I can see that, but imo when it comes to peach, people have consistently put her in lower mid or low tier, and it makes zero sense. Take a look at Boiko's tier list for an example.



First of all, what's ike doing in marth's place? Switch them real quick and take a look at the tail end of upper mid. Zelda doesn't belong a tier above peach at the very least. I've heard that people are starting to put the work in with zelda, but that doesn't beat a character like peach, who was a high tier in melee and has only gotten buffs. I have some other problems with this list, but those two strike me as the most obvious.

Also Boiko is entitled to his opinion, but I don't think he's right lol, which is the point of this thread.

I play with three strong Peach players in Malachi, VaNz, and occasionally, Ben Grimm. Peach isn't bad by any stretch of the imagination, and she can keep up with a few of the top tiers, but considering the new stage variety, and the slew of characters that out-camp her, I don't think there is a strong case for her being above mid tier. For example, as a Ness main, I lose all my trades with Peach in the air, but I can run circles around her and camp with projectiles and that's exactly what I did to Malachi for the most boring, miserable match of both of our lives, lolol. Also, some characters that she had won against in melee, such as Samus, now have greater buffs that make her now lose these match ups. I think Peach's problem is that she has too many losing match ups to be high tier. Any fast character with projectiles/disjoint plus Jiggs, Samus, Fox, Falco, Falcon, Lucas, Zelda, Meta Knight all are going to give Peach a hard time.

As for your other point, if you're suggesting switching Ike and Marth, that's definitely not right. You simply cannot deny Ike having a high spot on the tier list if you base it on results alone. Ally, Dj Nintendo, and metroid are all showing off just how strong of a character Ike is. Marth on the other hand has a similar syndrome to the one I mentioned above about Peach. He was able to keep up with melee top tiers, but now he doesn't do quite as well. He's got the speed that Peach lacks to prevent himself from getting camped, and he has good combos strings and range, plus he goes even with a good amount of the cast, and has a fair amount of favorable/unfavorable match ups. Nothing about that, however, is top 7 on the tier list level.

 

[Strong Badam]

^actually there are 3 good marth players and none of them play him in PM so we don't see the character do well.

 

[Boiko]

^actually there are 3 good marth players and none of them play him in PM so we don't see the character do well.

Other solid players do decently well with him such as The Moon and JReed.

 

[mimgrim]

Time for a new tier list.

Random.org says this is the tier list. Therefore it is true.

All hail our new overlord Bowser. To hell with Fox, he was just a fraud. Long live Random for being mid tier.

 

[Vidiot825]

Top Tier:
High Tier:
Upper Mid:
Lower Mid:
Low:
Doesn't Work:

I agree with most of this tier list. Regarding top tier, seems pretty accurate. Definitely for, wolf, falco in that order for spacies plus shiek. I would consider Samus there as well, so well placed. Regarding high tier, we consider the top to be fire emblem, with marth at the top of the three. I have no idea why so many people are sleeping on marth; he does so well against so much of the cast!
Regarding my main link, I would put him low mid to low, as you did. He's still totally viable and great in the right hands, as people have seen with aklo in the flex zone. But when comparing him to other characters he really doesn't have much up on many characters at all. Many of the people who think some his shenanigans are ridiculous I believe just suffer from matchup inexperience really.

Tldr, decent tier list overall.

 

[DrinkingFood]

Time for a new tier list.

Random.org says this is the tier list. Therefore it is true.

All hail our new overlord Bowser. To hell with Fox, he was just a fraud. Long live Random for being mid tier.

I knew ROB was bad

 

[KhanYe]

Can I get thoughts from someone on why Wario isn't at least high tier? Seems like the shoulder/bite DI mixup, along with the aerial mobility and grab setups into waft make him a formidable character, and it feels like most of the characters he loses to are in the top tier area.

(Full disclosure, it may just be cuz I blow against Wario)

 

[SpiderMad]

stitchface should be kinda red or something

This brings up the point that I'm able to see stuff better on my larger nice CRT with component cables than small CRTs with composite: how bad of a Tv do we want it decently noticeable on? Also whether you want the person pulling the item, or Lucario's 2nd aura being earned giving a small indicator with the trail or something that it does? See, I don't even know lol, to have the element of surprise given they're keen/paying attention on noticing it.
Similarly GnW's Hammer dots, and Luigi's misfire indicator are once in a while unnoticed by the opponent (and in GnW's case people don't care).

I once thought about if they wanted to tell one player information without the other (to add secretly known elements to the game), they could use Rumble, but people turn that off. Otherwise I don't know what non-complicated way they could do it: but that's the cool thing that Smash doesn't have any much of anything you can't know if you're paying attention. Being good entails you spot their little DJ halo better than they did (in the occurrence you took their DJ quick, and now your follow-up can be certain they don't have it)

 

[Deleted member]

^actually there are 3 good marth players and none of them play him in PM so we don't see the character do well.

ive played jasons and kevins marths among many others, and all that did was further confirm for me that the character simply isnt that great.

 

[KhanYe]

ive played jasons and kevins marths among many others, and all that did was further confirm for me that the character simply isnt that great.

I think if you want an accurate representation of a PM Marth, you have to pick someone who actually dedicates their time to establishing Marth in the PM metagame, as opposed to just bringing over their Melee Marth and seeing how that goes. You should check out Sora, who's been a dedicated Marth main in Project M for years now, and is arguably the best PM player in Massachusetts. I don't think you can say Marth isn't that great when he has plus matchups with more than half the cast.

 

[GabPR]

Im not entirely convinced a low tier should even exist in this patch (dont know about IC and olimar) sure some characters have more negative matchups than positives, but there are few, if any, truly unwinable matchups. I think that low tier should be removed and the have the lowest tier be mid tier.

 

[The_NZA]

I think if you want an accurate representation of a PM Marth, you have to pick someone who actually dedicates their time to establishing Marth in the PM metagame, as opposed to just bringing over their Melee Marth and seeing how that goes. You should check out Sora, who's been a dedicated Marth main in Project M for years now, and is arguably the best PM player in Massachusetts. I don't think you can say Marth isn't that great when he has plus matchups with more than half the cast.

Zero thinks Sora is the best Marth in PM, as does Emukiller for what that's worth. He's also leveled up a lot in the last two months (which is terrifying).

 

[TreK]

Zero thinks Sora is the best Marth in PM, as does Emukiller for what that's worth. He's also leveled up a lot in the last two months (which is terrifying).

For what it's worth, the top 3 players in my region comain/sub/main marth respectively.
so yeah we kinda learned to respect that character over here lmaooo

I'm ranked 4th and Marth is one of my character's two worst matchups #FML

 

[Deleted member]

i dont buy that marth has an advantageous matchup against half the cast, and even if he did it would have to be against the more relevant half and i can tell you right now that he certainly doesnt beat fox. marth also should basically lose every game 2 since you opponent can counterpick you to dreamland or skyworld or distant planet and you can only ban two of the three.

i have no doubt that sora is talented based on his results, but m2k and pp arent exactly short on results either and have had little problem performing well even if they're not "dedicated". even in the hands of these monster players marth just has too many easy holes to exploit.

 

[GabPR]

i dont buy that marth has an advantageous matchup against half the cast, and even if he did it would have to be against the more relevant half and i can tell you right now that he certainly doesnt beat fox. marth also should basically lose every game 2 since you opponent can counterpick you to dreamland or skyworld or distant planet and you can only ban two of the three.

i have no doubt that sora is talented based on his results, but m2k and pp arent exactly short on results either and have had little problem performing well even if they're not "dedicated". even in the hands of these monster players marth just has too many easy holes to exploit.

Like?

 

[Boiko]

Like?

Mediocre recovery, a good chunk of his attacks are punishable due to having high ending lag, has a hard time killing short of a gimp or tipper.

 

[The_NZA]

i dont buy that marth has an advantageous matchup against half the cast, and even if he did it would have to be against the more relevant half and i can tell you right now that he certainly doesnt beat fox. marth also should basically lose every game 2 since you opponent can counterpick you to dreamland or skyworld or distant planet and you can only ban two of the three.

i have no doubt that sora is talented based on his results, but m2k and pp arent exactly short on results either and have had little problem performing well even if they're not "dedicated". even in the hands of these monster players marth just has too many easy holes to exploit.

According to Sora, PM Marth is pretty different from Melee Marth, and to be honest, Zimmerman only plays the matchups he feels confident in. He'll use Marth against Prof Pro because its a good matchup, but you can pretty much judge Jasons' PM Marth based on how often and where it plays. For example, how does M2K or Dr. PP do against high level players of various characters you haven't seen? I think using them to judge either the power of PM Marth or where PM Marth is in a tier level is valueless unless they actually play a bunch of observable matchups in the game.

 

[Frost | Odds]

ive played jasons and kevins marths among many others, and all that did was further confirm for me that the character simply isnt that great.

You've expounded at length about how Sheik is a completely different character from her Melee iteration, and needs to be played very differently. It shouldn't be that much of a stretch to believe that PM marth is very different from Melee marth. You can play both characters as if you were playing Melee, but that doesn't mean you should.

 

[InfinityCollision]

Im not entirely convinced a low tier should even exist in this patch (dont know about IC and olimar) sure some characters have more negative matchups than positives, but there are few, if any, truly unwinable matchups. I think that low tier should be removed and the have the lowest tier be mid tier.

That's kind of a flawed view of tier lists and doesn't make any sense from a logical standpoint (how can "middle" tier be the lowest?). Discrepancies in viability can exist without the existence of overwhelmingly dominant or horribly underpowered characters. Low tier (or whatever arbitrary letter you choose) just represents the characters with the worst matchup spreads.

Right now I think you can reasonably define PM's tiers as follows, excluding characters like ICs (and maybe Olimar?) pending bugfixes:

-Top tier: Even or favorable matchups against >=70% of the cast, ~0-4 matchups that are 4-6 or worse.
-High tier: Even or favorable matchups against 60-70% of the cast, ~4-7 matchups 4-6 or worse
-Upper mid: Even or favorable matchups against 50-60% of the cast, ~7-10 matchups 4-6 or worse
-Lower mid: Even or favorable matchups against 40-50% of the cast, ~10-15 matchups 4-6 or worse
-Low tier: Even or favorable matchups against 30-40% of the cast, ~15-20 matchups 4-6 or worse
-Bottom tier: Even or favorable matchups against <=30% of the cast, 20+ matchups 4-6 or worse

Throw a letter on it instead if it makes you feel better, but the result is the same. There might be a few characters that buck pieces of that criteria via relatively polarized matchup spreads and the numbers are obviously speculative, but I think it's pretty close to the mark.

I'll post some detailed Marth thoughts later if the topic hasn't worn itself out by the time I get back from work.

 

[The_NZA]

I'll post some detailed Marth thoughts later if the topic hasn't worn itself out by the time I get back from work.

We haven't gotten that lucky yet...

 

[DrinkingFood]

Hey at least we aren't talking about fox

 

[steelguttey]

Hey at least we aren't talking about fox

guys did you hear that?

i heard an argument

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

So what precisely makes Link unable to [grab Uthrow Utilt Uair Uair shenanigans extend combo with zair or boomerang]/[choke out neutral with flingables until grab is got]/[switch to grab dthrow at higher percents]?

Seems like a reasonable flowcharty swordie plan with projectiles substituted for mobility

 

[Deleted member]

You've expounded at length about how Sheik is a completely different character from her Melee iteration, and needs to be played very differently. It shouldn't be that much of a stretch to believe that PM marth is very different from Melee marth. You can play both characters as if you were playing Melee, but that doesn't mean you should.

the problem there is that marth ends up the same. sheik is still like 70% the same between the two games in how she plays but the other 30% is the difference that makes the difference. this margin is not nearly the same for marth because aside from dair and side b the character is basically hard ported, except side b and dair dont really change how the character goes about interacting with his opponent either. tl;dr marth actually does end up playing the same .

 

[The_NZA]

except side b and dair dont really change how the character goes about interacting with his opponent either. tl;dr marth actually does end up playing the same .

This proves to me you have very little experience with PM Marth. Sora's PM combos with Marth do not resemble what is possible with Melee. Every high level Marth I've talked to in NE (KDJ, Zoso, Sora) all agree with that point.

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

Axe's marth gives me that pm feel. The dairs, the double/early aerials, some of the side b stuffs hmmm

 

[SpiderMad]

This proves to me you have very little experience with PM Marth. Sora's PM combos with Marth do not resemble what is possible with Melee. Every high level Marth I've talked to in NE (KDJ, Zoso, Sora) all agree with that point.

You can have potentially 3 or so frames longer air time than Melee, and can use specials and AD through IASA now.

Any of his SH Bair to (Fair/Uair/Dair/WL/Side-b, all weren't possible in Melee) has not been used by any Marth I've seen yet.

 

[The_NZA]

Yes, if you look purely on changelogs, PM Marth is not that different from Melee Marth compared to the changes Sheik has undergone. However, when you take into account universal recovery changes that have affected Marth, the map pool, wavebounce tech, DACUS, and the matchups against the entire cast, there is a compelling argument for why Marth is either top or high tier.

Let's take into account first the map pool and how it changes the Fox matchup. When you think about Marth v. Fox, you generally see FD in Marth's favor, stages with short platforms like YS and Stadium as relatively evenish, or in either character's favor depending on who you ask. FoD I'm not completely sure on, and DL64 is definitely not a stage Marth prefers. What we see is stages with short to moderate sized (side) blastzones and short platforms all appeal to Marth, and stages without platforms or minimal platforms really help Marth. Marth does not like stages with big blastzones and platforms that are harder to cover.

It just so happens, PM shifts stage balance far more towards short side blastzones, short platforms (without high top platforms like BF), and stages with few/no platforms. This is especially how most starter lists lean towards, when you consider Smashville, GHZ are platform light, PS2 are low platforms, BF probably leans towards Fox's preferences and DL64 heavily leans towards Fox's preferences.

When you consider that the only counterpick stages Marth tends not to like are YI Brawl, Skyworld and debatably Norfair, you realize that Marth can do incredibly well on almost every stage and has advantages or evenish matchups against the spacies on many of them.

Let's now talk about Marth's recovery. What was once considered completely linear and bad is now more flexible thanks to reverse upb ledge grabbing, and wavebounce/breverse side b when knocked close to the stage. These may seem not that influential, but the reverse grabbox on dolphin slash means when you walltech or are shined under the stage, you have ways to get back to the edge. I won't comment on the breverse side b too much but it is a mixup he now possesses that he didn't possess in Melee.

My third reason why Marth is high tier at least has to do with his versatility of matchups. I think people here are crucially overrating the importance of how well your characters deal with the top tier v. how well your character does against the entire cast. If tier lists are supposed to reflect the powerlevels of the characters based on the current metagame, then it is worth stating that the metagame of PM is, on the ground, going to involve many characters--not just the top tier. The reason why Melee became a game about "how well do you deal with Fox" is because everyone below a certain powerlevel had no chance of viability at a national. And yet, 15 years in its life cycle, we've seen plenty of Luigis, Ganons, ICs, and Samuses at Apex. I don't mean to imply you need a good matchup against Luigi to determine your place on the tier list in Melee, but I AM suggesting that the migration to the tippiest top tier isn't a given in the metagame when your characters are roughly Melee ICs level. Barring a vast power differential like what happened in 3.02, your flexibility against the ENTIRE viable cast is going to matter a lot more than people are giving consideration to. Having a lot of 6-4s and 5-5s offset by a 4-6 against a top tier can still put you into the high tier category, in my opinion.

And it just so happens, Marth is ****ing good against a lot of characters and a massive problem for a lot of other mid high characters out there. He can 0-death most semi fastfallers well (which happens to be a LOT of characters) and his dair on the edge has the versatility to punish almost every recovery variation that exists in the game, on top of being an unparalleled comeback mechanic that works on SO many characters.

When you stack all that together with DACUS and subtle changes to the way dair operates on a grounded opponent, you realize that Marth's punish game is much more robust in PM than it was in Melee. I couldn't tell you the specifics of how it changes his punish game, but i've heard the fact that it DOES change it from top Marths to know it to be true.

 

[The_NZA]

You can have potentially 3 or so frames longer air time than Melee, and can use specials and AD through IASA now.

Any of his SH Bair to (Fair/Uair/Dair/WL/Side-b, all weren't possible in Melee) has not been used by any Marth I've seen yet.

That only takes into account whats in changelogs. PM's moves operate differently (dair especially) in the PM physics system for whatever reason. Certain ways characters bounce from a dair or react when grounded at low percents does not resemble melee, in a way that benefits Marth.

 

[JayTheUnseen]

Just fought my first competent Kirby and I have to say some of that stuff is questionable design wise

 

[The Baron]

I've commented on marth but since we're discussing it again I just want to add my 2 cents. (Note that I don't consider myself super great). Marth feels like a character who has the capacity to win every match up provided he plays right or at least put up a helluva fight. However, I feel like he has to work way too hard for his wins compared to other super high tier characters. Ike and roy, the 2 easiest comparisons, easily out do him right now if only because of the fact that it's so much easier to 0-death for them, and they have constant kill pressure at any percent. Also roy's d-tilt is so stupid it hurts but I've no qualms about it. Either way, I feel like the problem with marth is that while he can win, why put in so much effort to win with marth when other characters can just do what he does, but faster, easier, and at a lower risk. Why have fish for a tipper and get that perfect spacing tipper f-smash when I can play someone like tink and not have to tip to get a kill. Why reach for a ken combo to successfully dair when I can play wolf and dair then easily recover. The character is definitely still good, but he's just surrounded by characters that are just better which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Just means Marth's gotta work hard for those wins (Unless it's Bowser. Sorry Odds)