Tier List Speculation

[Mean Green]

I'll probably lose interest in PM if they're hit hard enough. But I can't argue with any of that. You guys are right.

 

[JOE!]

Melee players CANNOT change the inherent problems Fox has. There are no updates in Melee. PM, on the other hand, can fix their problems.
And as I said, I don't want Fox completely reworked, but if the PMDT is really trying to make a balanced game, then leaving spacies the same just for the sake of keeping Melee players happy and having non-spacy mains have to "rise to the challenge" is counter-productive.

Essentially, if X characters are designed to more or less have the tools to be the "best" in a game of Y characters... it will eventually devolve into just playing those X characters... and maybe eventually the random Z character(s) that are only good because they do well against X. (Sorta like melee )


Edit @ PlateProp :

A handful go even with Marth or have an edge IMO (Ex, I think Zard has an overall slight advantage in that MU). And I think DDD is at worst even vs Fox.... but idk they do have amazing spreads.

 

[ConeZ]

Essentially, if X characters are designed to more or less have the tools to be the "best" in a game of Y characters... it will eventually devolve into just playing those X characters... and maybe eventually the random Z character(s) that are only good because they do well against X. (Sorta like melee )


Edit @ PlateProp :

A handful go even with Marth or have an edge IMO (Ex, I think Zard has an overall slight advantage in that MU). And I think DDD is at worst even vs Fox.... but idk they do have amazing spreads.

#Prevent20XX #ProjectMNewMeta #SaveAWarioNerfShine

 

[Warhawk]

Honestly I think melee spacie players cringe when people in this thread talk about changing them, because the constant stream of complaints make it sound like people in this thread want them to operate completely differently from what they do in melee. I think frame 2 and 3 shines are an interesting idea that could be played with to try and make their options less dominating, but I still think (and I know I've said it before but I really think the idea should be considered) that adding endlag onto their recoveries (and maybe even shortening fox's up-b like in PAL) is the easiest change to experiment with without changing substially the core playstyle that their playerbase plays them for. The characters aren't even played for their recoveries, but there seem a lot of situations where they barely even have to consider the risk of recovering onstage. Making them have to evaluate the risk of this like every pretty much other character has to do when recovering seems like a fair change to experiment on to me.

 

[Foo]

A lot of characters legitimately lose the matchup to spacies, it's not just an issue of "rising to the challenge" when your opponent has an advantage over you by virtue of character selection. Some characters like Roy handle them really well, but many of the newfound PM characters lose to at least one of them and some of them lose to both.

Or you could be a ZSS main and just pick a different character when matched against spacies. The matchups are ********. ZSS's greatest strength is her combo game and spacie's greatest weakness is their combo weight. However, ZSS cannot combo spacies AT ALL. Their biggest "weakness" invalidates ZSS's greatest strength.

Pretty much everyone has bad matchups with Marth and Fox in 3.5 at this point

What are you talking about? Marth is a low tier character kappa.



Anywho, I think spacies should get some damage nerfs and landing lag on recovery. Wolf shine should be made to not combo into EVERYTHIIIIIIIIIIIIIING. That may not work, but I'd rather try that first before changing them drastically so that every spacie main as to learn a new character (even if they don't change mains)

 

[MudkipUniverse]

melee top tiers need a nerf. ayone who says otherwise uses "we're used to them" as an excuse

 

[Foo]

melee top tiers need a nerf. ayone who says otherwise uses "we're used to them" as an excuse

That's quite the strawman you have there friend. Maybe you could actually have an intelligent discussion rather than just declaring that you are correct.

 

[MudkipUniverse]

That's quite the strawman you have there friend. Maybe you could actually have an intelligent discussion rather than just declaring that you are correct.

what are intelligent

 

[didds]

Spacies being the best combo weight is a myth, it's usually chaingrabbers that can really do work on them. Their fast falling usually helps escape combos. Not to say they aren't easily set up for kills, at death percent it's pretty hard to miss a followup on them, but getting to that point requires more tech reads than most other characters. And they have good tech options at that, with a frame 1 get up option. falling fast gives you more tech opportunities in general.

Now diddy kong and sheik, those are some characters I enjoy combo'ing.

edit: this was in reply to Foo btw, but I realize now that he didn't necessarily imply that spacies are "the best" combo weight, just that this is their biggest weakness.

 

[Warhawk]

melee top tiers need a nerf. ayone who says otherwise uses "we're used to them" as an excuse

Why does Marth need a Nerf? I'd like a discussion as to why top characters outside of Spacies need nerfs.

 

[PlateProp]

Why does Marth need a Nerf? I'd like a discussion as to why top characters outside of Spacies need nerfs.

Marth's sword is pretty obnoxious in 3.5, and he has like one or two actual bad matchups.

Bring back 3.02 Pit the marf slayer

 

[ThegreatVaporeon1]

Marth's sword has always been obnoxious, in melee, and in every prior update.

 

[PandaPanda Senketsu]

Marth's sword is pretty obnoxious in 3.5, and he has like one or two actual bad matchups.

Bring back 3.02 Pit the marf slayer

If Marth only had 1 or 2 bad match ups he would be the best in the game. No character has a match up spread that good.

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

Brunchables, QD attack does not beat CC.

That said, removing QD attack is the way to go. Ike needs nair, but even as a fast all-around hitting aerial it starts above him and presents ample opportunity to being stuffed by grounded opponents, its main utility of course being to juggle. Removing QD attack also removes some "auto-combos", such as Fthrow/Dthrow -> QD Attack -> juggle, which also nerfs Ike in a broader sense of giving him one less combo starter and making his QD follow-ups involve more guessing/reading DI/interplay (do I grab, aerial, reset to neutral, prepare to tech chase, prepare to edgeguard?) I'm thinking of a list of characters that can slap Ike for attempting to QD in neutral but if you really want to nerf side-B, make it Quick Dash instead of Quick Draw, because hitting its jump-cancellable versatility really limits Ike.

 

[Soft Serve]

Marth's sword is pretty obnoxious in 3.5, and he has like one or two actual bad matchups.

Bring back 3.02 Pit the marf slayer

Fox/wolf/falcon/diddy/puff/lucas at the very least beat marth. Then there are a ton of mus that are hard for marth but probably even, then the stubby armed slow characters that have to stay grounded that marth beats, like ness/gnw, ivy, maybe mario/link/pit now? He definetly has a good spread and has options vs the whole cast, but he's not very dominating mu wise

 

[Warhawk]

Marth's sword is pretty obnoxious in 3.5, and he has like one or two actual bad matchups.

Bring back 3.02 Pit the marf slayer

Obnoxious is a subjective term that has no bearing on whether something is deserving of nerfs or not. His sword is hardly an issue with design when compared to some of the features other characters have. I agree that he has very few "bad" matchups but he doesn't have an obscene amount of easy matchups either except against garbage characters like Bowser whose issues are more with their own designs than Marth's. I actually view Marth as one of the most "honest" characters.

 

[PlateProp]

If Marth only had 1 or 2 bad match ups he would be the best in the game. No character has a match up spread that good.

I dont see any evidence to contradict Marth being the best in the game at this point bar Fox

 

[Warhawk]

I dont see any evidence to contradict Marth being the best in the game at this point bar Fox

He's not even 2nd in melee and loses to a bunch of characters now from melee that he doesn't lose to in melee (Fox, Falco, Falcon, Puff). This isn't even taking into account the new characters in Project M he loses to now as well.

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

Pretty much everyone has bad matchups with Marth

Sounds like a personal problem.

 

[ConeZ]

Honestly I think melee spacie players cringe when people in this thread talk about changing them, because the constant stream of complaints make it sound like people in this thread want them to operate completely differently from what they do in melee. I think frame 2 and 3 shines are an interesting idea that could be played with to try and make their options less dominating, but I still think (and I know I've said it before but I really think the idea should be considered) that adding endlag onto their recoveries (and maybe even shortening fox's up-b like in PAL) is the easiest change to experiment with without changing substially the core playstyle that their playerbase plays them for. The characters aren't even played for their recoveries, but there seem a lot of situations where they barely even have to consider the risk of recovering onstage. Making them have to evaluate the risk of this like every pretty much other character has to do when recovering seems like a fair change to experiment on to me.

I actually really like that idea.

As I said before, I don't want them to kill the character like some people do.... I just think people are really touchy on balancing Fox because he is Fox. He just needs to be toned down.

Obnoxious is a subjective term that has no bearing on whether something is deserving of nerfs or not. His sword is hardly an issue with design when compared to some of the features other characters have. I agree that he has very few "bad" matchups but he doesn't have an obscene amount of easy matchups either except against garbage characters like Bowser whose issues are more with their own designs than Marth's. I actually view Marth as one of the most "honest" characters.

Play the Wario v Marth matchup and tell me he is honest. Please xD
It is literally the most helpless, suffocating matchup that I have ever played, and I have 3 friends here that play Marth, so unfortunately... I have to deal with it a lot. Like if I am gonna have no options in neutral, and his up-B and stuff beats my off stage punish (as far as I am aware), then could he at least not beat my grab range and basically auto-combo me to death and get free edge guards? xD

All that said, I think the matchup is mostly a problem in that Wario has no way of getting in on Marth, and if I am ever off stage, there is no way to get back on unless Marth messes up or if I have Waft, in which case I get one try to not get walled off stage every minute, and if I fail, I die.
Unfortunately, I don't think there is much of a way to fix this MU w/o overbuffing Wario or neutering Marth, neither of which should happen xD

I may be biased in this, but I think Wario may be one of the most honest characters in the game xD
The most honest being Olimar because if you can win with Olimar, you basically have to be a god.

 

[Binary Clone]

Adding endlag is something that I think should definitely happen to Fox (as much as I hate playing against Falco personally, I think he's mostly fine), but I think I'd be opposed to something like a frame 3 shine. A delay like that would both anger anyone who ever played spacies in Melee or in PM and change their play a ton - a lot of shine pressure would no longer be functional, etc.

If you want to nerf shine, I think making it cancellable only on-hit (or make it cancellable later on miss) is an interesting idea, though. Or make shines CCable like Wolf's.

 

[didds]

Adding endlag is something that I think should definitely happen to Fox (as much as I hate playing against Falco personally, I think he's mostly fine), but I think I'd be opposed to something like a frame 3 shine. A delay like that would both anger anyone who ever played spacies in Melee or in PM and change their play a ton - a lot of shine pressure would no longer be functional, etc.

If you want to nerf shine, I think making it cancellable only on-hit (or make it cancellable later on miss) is an interesting idea, though. Or make shines CCable like Wolf's.

BUT WHAT ABOUT PRACTICING MULTISHINES?!?!?!?!

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

To be real, wolf can stop people who try to cc his shine. So having the ability to do so, isn't a big deal. You'll just eat more DMG before the combo starts.

 

[jtm94]

I LOVE the idea of removing Ike's QD attack. +1

I feel GnW gets scrubbed out by Marth, yet I feel GnW can still win. Marth is not nearly that overbearing, the best thing he has is dashdance imo and without a punish like Fox upsmash he won't be top tier. He was good in Melee as a spacie slayer, but now he has an entire cast he can't chaingrab to death.

 

[Frost | Odds]

Fox/wolf/falcon/diddy/puff/lucas at the very least beat marth. Then there are a ton of mus that are hard for marth but probably even, then the stubby armed slow characters that have to stay grounded that marth beats, like ness/gnw, ivy, maybe mario/link/pit now? He definetly has a good spread and has options vs the whole cast, but he's not very dominating mu wise

Fox and Wolf are about even vs Marth - Fox/Marth is probably the most balanced matchup in competitive Melee, and Fox got nerfed in PM while Marth got buffed. The maps in PM are slightly better for Fox, which somewhat offsets the Marth buffs and Fox nerfs. Puff loses to him (according to PPMD, a pretty damn reliable source - watch PPU vs Hungrybox if you want to see someone who finally plays this matchup properly), and it's probably too early to call the Lucas MU one way or the other, though it's incredibly easy for Marth to powershield Lucas's projectile and the latter is a great combo weight for Marth as well as having stubby limbs and not being terribly fast horizontally - hallmarks of characters that lose horribly to Marth.

I'm obviously not the ultimate authority, but i'm pretty confident about most of this:


Nearly invalidated by Marth:

Lose badly to Marth:

Lose Moderately to Marth:

Lose slightly to Marth:

Roughly even:

Beat Marth slightly:
?
Beat Marth moderately:

Crushes Marth:
N/A
Invalidates Marth:
hahahahahahahahahah

Putting this character anywhere below the top of 'high' or the bottom of 'top' is still a joke. Falco has more bad matchups, for Christ's sake.

 

[GP&B]

No Ike because blue-haired swordsmen do not fight each other.

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

Ike goes even with Marf.

 

[Boiko]

I completely disagree that Samus loses to Marth even a little bit. At worst it's even.

 

[jtm94]

Fox loses to Marth on FD sometimes.
What even is a Samus? I've heard fables.

 

[didds]

I don't disagree with any of it, it all just makes me seem better for beating marths with certain characters

 

[Frost | Odds]

I completely disagree that Samus loses to Marth even a little bit. At worst it's even.

alright, I'll take your word for it.

 

[PsionicSabreur]

The least intrusive nerf to shine I can think of is, on airborn opponents only, -BKB, +KBG (not exactly, because it currently uses WDSK, but still). Fox is good and all, but the only things that really strike me as overtly cheesy are his offstage KO's and recovery moves confirming into uair (which is itself still a little over-the-top but SDI, blah blah)
Even then, you start messing with the easiness and % range of Thunder's, shine bair, and the like, which could piss off a few purists.

When all's said and done up-b landing lag and/or distance nerf is probably our best bet for keeping everyone happy.

 

[Warhawk]

Play the Wario v Marth matchup and tell me he is honest. Please xD
It is literally the most helpless, suffocating matchup that I have ever played, and I have 3 friends here that play Marth, so unfortunately... I have to deal with it a lot. Like if I am gonna have no options in neutral, and his up-B and stuff beats my off stage punish (as far as I am aware), then could he at least not beat my grab range and basically auto-combo me to death and get free edge guards? xD

All that said, I think the matchup is mostly a problem in that Wario has no way of getting in on Marth, and if I am ever off stage, there is no way to get back on unless Marth messes up or if I have Waft, in which case I get one try to not get walled off stage every minute, and if I fail, I die.
Unfortunately, I don't think there is much of a way to fix this MU w/o overbuffing Wario or neutering Marth, neither of which should happen xD

Gah, I didn't even consider Wario... I guess I'd like to rephrase: Of the high tiers, I believe he is one of the most honest. Wario has it pretty rough with him and like you said I don't even know how to go about fixing it... The way both characters operate just leads to this lopsided matchup, which is not surprising that there are several cases of this in a game of 41 or so characters. That said I'm still not convinced that he absolutely spanks a significant number of characters outside of like Bowser and Olimar who as I've previously stated is more due to their design than Marth's design.

Fox and Wolf are about even vs Marth - Fox/Marth is probably the most balanced matchup in competitive Melee, and Fox got nerfed in PM while Marth got buffed. The maps in PM are slightly better for Fox, which somewhat offsets the Marth buffs and Fox nerfs. Puff loses to him (according to PPMD, a pretty damn reliable source - watch PPU vs Hungrybox if you want to see someone who finally plays this matchup properly)

Fox gets a mild upsmash nerf, an almost insignificant shine nerf (although this is one of the few matchups where it probably comes up in), and a mild laser nerf in exchange for the ability to avoid being taken to final destination and getting bopped there as well as larger stages in general to play upon his greatest strength as a character and to make it more difficult for Marth to pin Fox down like he needs to. If I'm Fox I think I'm more than ok with that.

I agree with PP that Marth beats Puff in Melee. In Project M I'm a lot less sure and tend to lean the other way with larger stages to allow Puff to give up more space if she needs to without cornering herself and also allowing her to survive somewhat longer. Against Puff Marth is still probably dying at around the same percents because she edgeguards him much better than vice-versa.

I also don't agree with that many Project M characters getting bopped by Marth as opposed to just losing to him, but then again I'm not incredibly familiar with a lot of those characters and am not going to pretend as such. If ICs among those get fixed additionally they should only slightly lose I would imagine.

 

[ConeZ]

The least intrusive nerf to shine I can think of is, on airborn opponents only, -BKB, +KBG (not exactly, because it currently uses WDSK, but still). Fox is good and all, but the only things that really strike me as overtly cheesy are his offstage KO's and recovery moves confirming into uair (which is itself still a little over-the-top but SDI, blah blah)
Even then, you start messing with the easiness and % range of Thunder's, shine bair, and the like, which could piss off a few purists.

When all's said and done up-b landing lag and/or distance nerf is probably our best bet for keeping everyone happy.

I mean, who cares about purists? (I am mostly kidding because they're a part of the community), but sentiment shouldn't stop things that are broken from being fixed.

Like Fox would still be good if shine was punishable and he had a more punishable recovery, he would just be a lot more manageable because his options wouldn't come entirely without consequence, but I mean if you want us to let Fox players keep their broken options for the sake of satisfying "purists" that is up to you, but that isn't fair to players of every other character that have to suffer nerfs

 

[Bazkip]

I think the most logical place to start with Fox nerfs is the rest of the PAL changes to him. Then maybe add on the extra landing lag on upB and tone down uair and we'd at the very least be off to good start to making him less overbearing.

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

Just f*** Fox's tech-rolls already.

 

[TreK]

^ I agree with both of the above

The maps in PM are slightly better for Fox

And here I am in a region with 3 top Marths, 2 bans, and only Dreamland and Skyworld as big stages

FML

 

[Boiko]

I think the most logical place to start with Fox nerfs is the rest of the PAL changes to him. Then maybe add on the extra landing lag on upB and tone down uair and we'd at the very least be off to good start to making him less overbearing.

I honestly think that's all he needs. Maybe a bit less damage on some attacks, but outside that, just what you have listed. I don't mind Fox being top tier, and I generally don't mind shines. I just really hate his recovery and uair.

 

[Frost | Odds]

There's kinda definitely probably maybe no reason for the Sakurai Combo to persist in PM.

 

[Player -0]

What be Sakurai Combo?

Nerfing landing lag on Up-B seems more than fair for Fox, nerfing Up-Air damage (it really does 18%? Will have to check later), and nerfing tech rolls a tad would be the best way to start.

Fox's shine nerf is actually pretty big, it definitely disallows for some pretty dumb stuff (Mango vs. Leffen anyone? Shine through that Up-Smash was hype though). Definitely warranted though.


Wario being the most fair character I doubt, he has an aerial command grab that allows you to drift AND it does damage AND leads into a 50/50 mixup which leads into huge combos. Personally I think that the beginning of his shoulder bash's BKB/KBG should be nerfed, it sends at a pretty amazing angle and trades with a lot of moves. The initial hit of his Up-B being so strong is also dumb (pretty sure that's being changed in the next patch).


I'm not sure about TLink losing to Marth, Kirby losing THAT hard, Mario losing that hard, Sonic losing that hard, or DK losing much.