Tier List Speculation

[Foo]

Jesus Christ, yes I said that and yes her uthrow is fast enough that you aren't gonna DI it on reaction even to the grab itself. Iirc it throws like frame 9 dont remember if it's weight dependant. But holy **** can you not read, I said REGARDLESS of whether or not that's true, she still has good throws. Low angle offstage throw? Check. Guaranteed tech chase or regrab throw? Check. Guaranteed platform tech chase or aerial string starter throw? Check.

Also first hit of side-b usually sends into the strong tip hit with proper spacing, how is that irrelevant? And the low endlag means it's tough to punish unless you can travel through the air over the hitbox a long distance like falcon.

Too bad

1. That's not what you said.
2. Nothing you said was true anyway.

Her dthrow isn't a guaranteed tech chase against 90% of the cast, and her upthrow is NEVER a guaranteed regrab. Her upthrow also rarely gets platform techs, and even if it does, the lag is so high that you can just tech in place and shield before she can do anything (unless you are fast fallers). If also should never ever start a combo. If you di right, it doesn't lead into anything every against any character.

Also, fthrow and bthrow aren't low angle. In training mode, I fthrew and bthrew a 160% marth from the very edge of the stage and he made it back with only double jump... At 200% for both throws he had to use side-b twice and still no up-b or air dodge. Her fthrow and bthrow are garbage too.

Also, side-b first hit only connects to other one if you don't have a function down direction on your analog stick. Even if they don't, it still misses quite often. Just like her upsmash and fair, people just kinda fall out of it. You have to go for sweetspot anyway, since shielding the inner hit means you can shield drop fsmash or anything you want to her. Not to mention, since when is about 20 frames of end lag low? If you are watching her, you have 20 frames to react to what she's doing and just jump and aerial her. Every character has aerials lawl.

 

[PlateProp]

If only for a second, imagine autolosing neutral. Then realize your opponent is faster as well and you have no safe approaches.

Fox just needs to stay away and laser oli to death percent to win, so unless you're at Yoshi's story, it's you trying in vain to catch him. Also, shine spikes.

It's unwinnable unless the fox screws up neutral badly, which is the kind of mu I'd think we're trying to avoid.

I'm pretty sure everyone here has an agenda. Or is that, like a properly functioning up b, a right oli mains don't have?

Fox can do this to everyone, Olimar aint ****ing special

 

[Narpas_sword]

So about that actual tier list speculation...

Fox obviously is top tier. What characters can actually deal with camping, laser-spamming foxes?

Samus.

 

[DrinkingFood]

LOLOLOLOLOL Too bad

1. That's not what you said.
2. Nothing you said was true anyway.

Her dthrow isn't a guaranteed tech chase against 90% of the cast, and her upthrow is NEVER a guaranteed regrab. Her upthrow also rarely gets platform techs, and even if it does, the lag is so high that you can just tech in place and shield before she can do anything (unless you are fast fallers). If also should never ever start a combo. If you di right, it doesn't lead into anything every against any character.

Also, fthrow and bthrow aren't low angle. In training mode, I fthrew and bthrew a 160% marth from the very edge of the stage and he made it back with only double jump... At 200% for both throws he had to use side-b twice and still no up-b or air dodge. Her fthrow and bthrow are garbage too.

Also, side-b first hit only connects to other one if you don't have a function down direction on your analog stick. Even if they don't, it still misses quite often. Just like her upsmash and fair, people just kinda fall out of it. You have to go for sweetspot anyway, since shielding the inner hit means you can shield drop fsmash or anything you want to her. Not to mention, since when is about 20 frames of end lag low? If you are watching her, you have 20 frames to react to what she's doing and just jump and aerial her. Every character has aerials lawl.

I'm going to test your claims when I get home. I'm pretty sure the only way to not get tech chased off dthrow is to DI in a way that gets you regrabbed, unless you're super floaty.

17 frames of endlag (34-50) is low, try comparing it to other moves of similar endlag that are difficult to punish with much worse reach.

Also try throwing somebody with higher gravity than marth, he's not really a good example for that

 

[Soft Serve]

So about that actual tier list speculation...

Fox obviously is top tier. What characters can actually deal with camping, laser-spamming foxes?

Most characters actually, Laser spam isn't as threatening and characters are generally better at taking and holding stage position for fox giving up space to run and gun. Most characters just lose in the Dash dance game and to his rush down

 

[PsionicSabreur]

http://smashboards.com/threads/zero-suit-samus-frame-data-3-02.353343/

First (inner hitbox. The one you don't want to hit with) comes out on frame 24. Second, (sweetspot, the hitbox that does things) lasts from frame 30 to frame 33.)

Also, how were you not talking about DIng them wrong? You said "Also her throws are not awful, several are quick and hard to DI (particularly uthrow which can lead to a chain grab or free follow-up with bad or no DI)" Her up throw is quick, sure, but it's not fast enough for someone to not have enough time to DI. Especially since it's weight dependent. It's like marth forward and back throw, minus the DI mixup.

Got any general numbers on dthrow/uthrow frame advantage?
iirc if it puts them in tumble it has at the absolute least 30 frames of hitstun, so don't be so quick to write off side-b just because of startup frames. It can also save you frames in travel time with it's range and if you use it in a SH you can stay mobile during startup as well (doesn't hurt that ZSS has above-average jump momentum, either).

 

[eideeiit]

Most characters actually, Laser spam isn't as threatening and characters are generally better at taking and holding stage position for fox giving up space to run and gun. Most characters just lose in the Dash dance game and to his rush down

I guess I should rephrase my question into something like this:

What characters lose to campy, laser-spammy foxes so bad the fox can't lose without messing up big time? What characters have it nearly as bad?

 

[Deleted member]

I just think Tink has more to him in terms of option selects - you're the only person who's even come remotely close to optimizing him, and iirc you don't really make optimal use of arrows for example.

Are you ****ing serious?​

I'm the only person who actually uses toon links arrows the only situations they're useful in. The only time they're useful is when the opponent misses a tech and you're really far away, so you charge an arrow and cover all getup options.
Outside of that, the only other time is if both you and your opponent are coming back to the stage after trading near kill moves and you already have a bomb, so you just charge an arrow on your way down.

THATS IT. Theres no other situations where arrows are useful, if you see someone use it outside of that scenario then they don't know the character. There isn't much to optimize with the move.

 

[mimgrim]

Are you ****ing serious?​

I'm the only person who actually uses toon links arrows the only situations they're useful in. The only time they're useful is when the opponent misses a tech and you're really far away, so you charge an arrow and cover all getup options.
Outside of that, the only other time is if both you and your opponent are coming back to the stage after trading near kill moves and you already have a bomb, so you just charge an arrow on your way down.

THATS IT. Theres no other situations where arrows are useful, if you see someone use it outside of that scenario then they don't know the character. There isn't much to optimize with the move.

I once used a B-Reversed arrow as a panic button to avoid an opponents attack. There any potential there? :L

 

[DrinkingFood]

Rang would probably be better there I think

 

[Player -0]

It can be used as a more hitstun Falco laser during a combo to lead to another aerial (esp. Dair) if they're at a decentish percent. I've seen it used by like, DtJ what'shisface that plays TLink that lives in NC.

 

[Deleted member]

The very fact that it's impossible to distinguish whether his actual skill won the day, or whether it was just Fox doing Fox things, is kinda disturbing. I'd rather be able to just cheer for him and know that he deserved the win.

The very fact that it's impossible to distinguish whether his actual skill won the day, or whether it was just Fox doing Fox things, is kinda disturbing. I'd rather be able to just cheer for him and know that he deserved the win.

I can't believe we have to have another full year of fox being the most winning character again

 

[PlateProp]

The very fact that it's impossible to distinguish whether his actual skill won the day, or whether it was just Fox doing Fox things, is kinda disturbing. I'd rather be able to just cheer for him and know that he deserved the win.

I can't believe we have to have another full year of fox being the most winning character again

Yay for Melee 3.5

 

[supascoot]

Considering how many players dislike at least Fox, I'm surprised more wasn't done to spacies in the patch. I don't know why PMDT tries not to tread on toes when it comes to them, as if we need support from melee players to survive when we have a tournament scene with our own players

 

[Leafeon]

The very fact that it's impossible to distinguish whether his actual skill won the day, or whether it was just Fox doing Fox things, is kinda disturbing. I'd rather be able to just cheer for him and know that he deserved the win.

I can't believe we have to have another full year of fox being the most winning character again

He... played captain falcon a bit too.
Hardly even relevant I guess.

 

[_A1]

Considering how many players dislike at least Fox, I'm surprised more wasn't done to spacies in the patch. I don't know why PMDT tries not to tread on toes when it comes to them, as if we need support from melee players to survive when we have a tournament scene with our own players

I don't necessarily think that they were too concerned for Melee spacie players (they prefer Melee anyway). I think it's more like they might not have thought that spacies' design was broken to begin with. I'm interested to know the mindset and thought process in keeping them this way, since we know too well why many people want spacies to change. My guess is that Fox won't be the best next patch; they outta do something by then with everyone hating on him.

 

[Deleted member]

He... played captain falcon a bit too.
Hardly even relevant I guess.

i have no issue with CF. i mean CF is also kinda dumb but its just not even close to fox

 

[Foo]

When it comes to lucky, I don't really think it's so much that fox "carried him" it's just that all of his melee skill transfers over to fox, so he doesn't have to learn how to play PM like almost every other character. Fox always just kinda does fox things in every matchup and everything from melee still works. All he had to do was make some very slight adjustments to his melee play and BOOM PM.

Doesn't mean that fox is so OP that it can totally carry a player, it means that he's so OP that you don't really need to learn PM in order to succeed with him.

Got any general numbers on dthrow/uthrow frame advantage?
iirc if it puts them in tumble it has at the absolute least 30 frames of hitstun, so don't be so quick to write off side-b just because of startup frames. It can also save you frames in travel time with it's range and if you use it in a SH you can stay mobile during startup as well (doesn't hurt that ZSS has above-average jump momentum, either).

If any character had 30+ to connect a move off of a throw against characters that aren't spacies, they'd be super busted.

I'm going to test your claims when I get home. I'm pretty sure the only way to not get tech chased off dthrow is to DI in a way that gets you regrabbed, unless you're super floaty.

17 frames of endlag (34-50) is low, try comparing it to other moves of similar endlag that are difficult to punish with much worse reach.

Also try throwing somebody with higher gravity than marth, he's not really a good example for that

Just tested it on roy and got basically the same results. At 160, he could recover with just double jump and side-b and at 200 he could recover with double jump up, or double side-b and double jump if you took a step back. It doesn't send at as low of an angle as you say. If you DI up and towards stage, it will send at slightly higher than a 45 degree angle, (same for backthrow) and they both have very poor kbg.

As for here dthrow, that'd be true if they didn't make it weight dependent and add 5 frames of additional lag. If you go for the regrab and they DI up and away, they just swat you out of the attempt. Same goes for attempting to follow up on upair.

 

[Frost | Odds]

I can't believe we have to have another full year of fox being the most winning character again

I can.

THATS IT. Theres no other situations where arrows are useful, if you see someone use it outside of that scenario then they don't know the character. There isn't much to optimize with the move.

For real? Arrows seem to pop up at a nice angle for followups, they have a little more reach (particularly when b-reversed) than tink's sword, and they come out much faster than the boomerang. I'm not saying it's a good move (hell, I'm not even saying I'm a good enough player to be able to tell when it's even useful), merely that there may be unexplored situations where it helps to continue a combo or something.

Marth's upsmash is a terrible move, and there's almost no situation where it's better than an Fsmash, and yet,

You could very well be right, I just think it might be a bit premature to say you've explored every possible use for arrows. Uh, sorry for offending you.

 

[DrinkingFood]

@ Foo What are you talking about swat you away out of the dthrow? This is what I meant about testing your claims, I was talking about dthrow.

I just tested on sheik, she is always either forced into a tech chase directly out of hitstun or is regrabbable during hitstun, depending on DI, all the way up to 80%. After about 80 she can DI in to double jump before she falls back down to grab reach, but at that position it's a free aerial/utilt/etc. The same principal (DI out, get tech chased, DI in or not at all, get regrabbed) seems to apply to a large pool of characters with non-extreme gravity/fall speed stats at varying percents.
Then I tested on peach: No DI, regrab until 25 (and after this with no DI, aerials connect for a long time). DI away, REGRAB until ~70. She can escape being regrabbed at 0 by DIing in, however this basically means a free aerial, any aerial, even dair lmao. If the ZSS is on point Peach never even gets to tech, it's regrab or aerial follow-up until high percents to put her above you, right where ZSS shines and where peach doesn't. At none of these listed percents can she escape with aerials/DJ/etc, they are true follow-ups.
Now I tested on Diddy: He should always just DI out and take the tech chase, otherwise he can get regrabbed to absurd percents.
Marth: Probably the slowest falling character you can't CG on DI away; frame perfect regrab attempt always miss by a frame or two, so he can always choose the tech chase, until he can jump out with DI away around 80. Any other DI gets him regrabbed to high percents, the earliest he can jump out with DI in being 70.
Yoshi can jump out (DJL actually lol, out of which he could parry a grab or roll or spot dodge etc) with DI away at 50. Before that he must either take the tech chase with DI away or get regrabbed for any other DI. There might be some weird 2/3rds DI away here where he can DJL a few percent earlier and not worry about getting grabbed.
Puff can be regrabbed only with DI away. I didn't test to what percent though, it hardly matters because she's so light and floaty you can follow up with an aerial even on DI away.
Obviously spacies and co all get set-up for tech chase automatically.
For a lot of these I also test DI up and away... it didn't help in any way that DI in or DI away didn't to better.

It seems the only characters on whom this throw is "awful" (as you claim her throw game is) are heavy floaties. Samus, ROB, Luigi, Mewtwo can all DI away and DJ/act otherwise before a grab can reach; anyone else is either lighter or falls fast enough for tech chases. And ZSS tech chase game is good, she's fast so it can just lead into more grabs to repeat the process until they are offstage or have taken significant damage, into a dtilt once they are at the right percent to combo out of it (about 30 depending on weight I think), or the option to read for harder punishes, especially near the ledge where one good read can cover 3 options (side-b can cover missed tech, tech in place, and tech away near the edge for example).

Anyway I'm sick of this now, if you still think her throw game is bad with essentially Sheik's pal dthrow then idk what to tell you lol. Not everyone can have Fox's throw game (read: Fox's uthrow). Or ROB's (read: ROB's dthrow).

 

[Giygacoal]

Considering how many players dislike at least Fox, I'm surprised more wasn't done to spacies in the patch. I don't know why PMDT tries not to tread on toes when it comes to them, as if we need support from melee players to survive when we have a tournament scene with our own players

It's not just the Melee purists. There are plenty of dedicated PM players who think Fox shouldn't be nerfed. Regardless of whether Fox is factually overpowered, I've read some (in my opinion) pretty wonky arguments for why Melee Fox is okay.

So about that actual tier list speculation...

Fox obviously is top tier. What characters can actually deal with camping, laser-spamming foxes?

Ness, thanks to Down-B.

 

[JOE!]

So about that actual tier list speculation...

Fox obviously is top tier. What characters can actually deal with camping, laser-spamming foxes?

Fox

 

[jtm94]

GnW can bucket lasers, chaingrab into a OHKO on Fox at 16%, and the MU is still bad... but that's mostly cause GnW is pretty slow in comparison and has poor oos options. UpB is good against characters where it can be meaningful, but Fox can just tech and uair before you hit ground.

Now let's talk about how Link's arrows are unexplored. I honestly think they're a solid projectile because you don't have to charge them to get them to go a useful distance.

 

[Chesstiger2612]

Joke --->


Your head

You know, it is really hard to cover both options when you don't quite know if somebody makes a joke (which is way harder to post in text than in conversation. If you don't take the person serious and the person is serious, that might be disrespectful. If the opinion is not that well thought of and you take the person serious while it was a joke that also might be disrespectful. I therefore try to just answer the post itself and risk not spotting potential jokes from time to time to be in a safe spot not to interpretate anything in the post wrong. Marking jokes somehow would be helpful, but that also would probably take away from the joke.

Dumb fox question: does offstage footstool -> shinespike work?

Works but is unnecessary.

You posted a lot of stuff that's pretty undeniable, but this is just incorrect. Ganon, in fact, has two: uair (which, in a vacuum, probably competes with Bowser's fair for the best aerial in the game), and nair, which is ridiculously, insanely underused at the moment for how fast and strong it is, and its unbelievable AC window. Ganon's fair is also safe on shield at most spacings, and his side-b is a decent landing mixup with his wavelands due to its reach. Ganon's ability to apply pressure via stage presence is actually basically unrivaled due to his insane number of mixups (which aren't currently applied properly), long range, and huge kb+damage.

Sorry, bad wording from me. The thought behind it basically was that fair is a big commitment and up-air has pretty low range in this situation because you can't boost it that much with your nB horizontal velocity. The way I said it it is just false...

Rather than continuing to harp on specific current meta tier lists (let's face it, Lunchables's is probably about as close to accurate as we're likely to get for now), I'd like to make roughly concrete my thoughts re: how closely each character is being played to its max potential. Just for funsies, though maybe some worthwhile stuff will pop up.

For purposes of this list, I'm mostly ignoring cases where there's only one player (ie. Lunchables, Prof, Strong Bad, etc) really starting to unlock the character's neutral and/or punish game. It's difficult for one player and his opponents to advance the meta significantly everywhere, except maybe at occasional, highly publicized events or with widely-circulated guides.

I think one player can sometimes be enough to push a character very far.

For Melee top tiers, I'm taking into account how widely stuff like new moves or buffs like Peach's access to RAR FC bair, usable side B, DACUS, and so forth; are used.

I'm probably just as wrong about this stuff as usual, but eh.

Although I find myself to be disagreeing quite often, I am always happy to see such a post because it starts lots of discussion.

Pretty much every character has an untapped next level of tech, I think. Just thinking about who's winning tournaments right now is kinda shortsighted, imo -- because truth be told, we all still kinda suck at this game.

Cannot agree more.

Do not entice Spidermad with anything of the sort. Otherwise he'll let you know about the terrifying glory of c-stick nairs and Bowser being 4th best depending on TV cables

He is too 20XX for us ;(

Link, Ivy, and Kirby are all pretty flowchart-y imo, there's really not much to them. Decisions with them are pretty clear-cut into 'correct' and 'incorrect' rather than varying shades of optimal.

While their decisionmaking could be easier than other characters', I think you are underestimating it a bit. Link often has to find very subtle good choices not to get pressured and to play out his projectiles in a way to always guarantee he can fire the next while staying safe. In one game you can see a Link losing badly and in another game winning, and it is very hard to spot what they did differently. I'm not too sure about Ivy and Kirby, but to me it seems that they also have these hidden difficulties in decisionmaking.

@Lunchables regarding the Melee vets: some of them got a lot of new stuff that's not really capitalized upon, such as the Peach stuff mentioned earlier, Falco RAR bair, b-reversed (and wavebounced) lasers, L-canceled Marth dair stuff (and fair into non-fair aerials); and so forth. @Umbreon has some words, I'm sure.

While I agree that they still have potential with the addition of new tools and with new matchups to explore, relative to characters that are rather new they might still be more explored.

Least Developed (Most unrealized potential - not necessarily most potential overall):
(f)
Highly Undeveloped:

Would drop Pikachu one layer down. I think he has some potential but the character also only lost since 3.02. Now that he is more like his Melee iteration, I'd count Axe's Melee (and 3.02 PM) and Anther's PM matches as enough to justify a "somewhat developed". Similar arguments for Peach.

Somewhat Developed:

No one does play MK even remotely correct, I cannot agree here.

Highly Developed:


Most Developed Tier (Least unrealized potential - not necessarily least potential overall):

optimal use of arrows is not using them lmao

I don't think Wario is highly developed yet. Just DK out of all of the chars I use. I think the rest (Wario/Ike/G&W) are somewhat developed at least.

Convo was earlier in the page, but I think of the entire cast atm the best chars against Fox are Roy, DDD, and Samus. I think you can argue that every other character loses at least marginally to him in a bo3/bo5 set, and a significant majority lose to him by a large margin.
Maybes: Mewtwo, Lucario, Yoshi
Jury's still out on Ike vs Fox for me. I do well anecdotally, but on paper the matchup should be slightly in Fox's favor. It may be another even MU like Samus.

I think Fox has a decent matchup against Fox, he should definitely be mentioned here.

 

[Strong Badam]

well played

 

[trash?]

since /r/ssbpm has decided to regurgitate the same arguments over fox for the hundredth time, I'd like to throw out something that should be talked about more often

so, there's a good sense of consistency behind the PMDT balancing for the purposes of enjoyment, and not just long-term balance, correct? stuff like ledge stalling and kirbycides weren't unbalanced in any inherent way, and never would be, but they were explicitly causing problems now, and that meant enough for a change.

so, this in mind: why are some characters allowed fully developed metagames, when others are forced to start clean? yes, in theory, all metagames will be developed eventually, but up until then, you've ensured that a group of characters will have an objectively better tournament chance, because up against characters nobody knows how to play, the character you know how to play is always the better option.

fox will have people on his level eventually. statistically, taking past versions into account, he might not even touch top 5 by then, that much I don't doubt in the slightest. but those characters have, what, a handful of years on them? and not even any consistent amount of time past it, neither, because characters like ike were once shoe-ins for consistent placings and dropped almost immediately, and sonic gets major changes at least once per year.

they all have to compete with a character who has had fourteen years of metagame development on him. melee players can look at all the undeveloped characters in the game, and know that they don't need to actually understand PM in the slightest to win matches. they have to compete with people like zero and M2K, who both admit that, if they were to money match each other on a cross-game basis, they'd have to pick 3.02, because if they picked 3.5 they'd both go fox due to them already knowing him from melee.

imagine if some dude who used to play ST could pick up SF4, pick a 1:1 port of ST ryu, and win majors knowing nothing about the game. how the hell has the community jumped through so many mental hoops to think this is a good thing?

 

[| Kailex |]

Wario the autocombo machine
Lucas the braindead
Squirtle the janksaltb8
Olimar a ****

But I do have to say, ganon is a bit underdeveloped.

 

[Deleted member]

yeah we can drop the 14 years of metagame development crap, no one says anything about sheik and its ****ing sheik. lots of characters have been the same since melee or even ssb64 and it always comes back to fox being ridiculous. we all recognize the problem, i really don't see what the issue is here. why are we pandering to a subset of players that are overtly asking for poor balance again? the good melee fox players don't even like PM. if you want a game where fox is god, it already exists and D1/GIMR will still play it with you.

 

[Foo]

since /r/ssbpm has decided to regurgitate the same arguments over fox for the hundredth time, I'd like to throw out something that should be talked about more often

so, there's a good sense of consistency behind the PMDT balancing for the purposes of enjoyment, and not just long-term balance, correct? stuff like ledge stalling and kirbycides weren't unbalanced in any inherent way, and never would be, but they were explicitly causing problems now, and that meant enough for a change.

so, this in mind: why are some characters allowed fully developed metagames, when others are forced to start clean? yes, in theory, all metagames will be developed eventually, but up until then, you've ensured that a group of characters will have an objectively better tournament chance, because up against characters nobody knows how to play, the character you know how to play is always the better option.

fox will have people on his level eventually. statistically, taking past versions into account, he might not even touch top 5 by then, that much I don't doubt in the slightest. but those characters have, what, a handful of years on them? and not even any consistent amount of time past it, neither, because characters like ike were once shoe-ins for consistent placings and dropped almost immediately, and sonic gets major changes at least once per year.

they all have to compete with a character who has had fourteen years of metagame development on him. melee players can look at all the undeveloped characters in the game, and know that they don't need to actually understand PM in the slightest to win matches. they have to compete with people like zero and M2K, who both admit that, if they were to money match each other on a cross-game basis, they'd have to pick 3.02, because if they picked 3.5 they'd both go fox due to them already knowing him from melee.

imagine if some dude who used to play ST could pick up SF4, pick a 1:1 port of ST ryu, and win majors knowing nothing about the game. how the hell has the community jumped through so many mental hoops to think this is a good thing?

But at the same time, the counter-meta for fox is fully delevoped as well. Everyone who's played melee competitively has to know how to effectively play against fox, or they will almost never win. Everyone knows you are supposed to SDI upair, what to expect from his recovery etc. etc.

While there are still some ZSS techs I still haven't taken full advantage off, (wavebounce blaster, instant wall jump out of down-b off ledge, etc.) I feel like I have most of it down, and the rest is just making good decisions. On the other hand, most of the people I play against in tournament don't know to just hold ledge when edgeguarding her, don't DI her combos correctly etc. etc. While we haven't figured out how to play a lot of PM characters to their fullest, we also haven't figured out how to play against them fully. I personally think that it evens out.

 

[Boiko]

Another point to make is that in melee, everything was fresh, there weren't any videos to learn from either. Developing a character's metagame now is much easier than it was 14 years ago.

 

[eideeiit]

But at the same time, the counter-meta for fox is fully delevoped as well. Everyone who's played melee competitively has to know how to effectively play against fox, or they will almost never win. Everyone knows you are supposed to SDI upair, what to expect from his recovery etc. etc.

This also proves how broken Fox is. People have been practicing to beat mainly Foxes for a good while now, yet his winning rates are only improving. Things went the correct way with Jiggs back in the day:

"Wow! This character is actually good!" ---> 3rd on the tier list. ---> People (or at least Foxes) learn the MU. ---> 5-6th on the tier list

Nothing like this has happened with Fox.

Now my suggestion on how to fix it: the Icefrog-style. I don't play Dota, but it appears to be working very well. Don't nerf Fox's good (broken?) stuff. Nerf his bad and mediocre stuff. Pretty much the only flaws Fox has in my eyes are pretty easy combos and gimps on him. The combo part can't really be fixed without destroying shine and according to this philosophy that should be avoided. The gimps part is kinda easy though. Just give his side-b something like 60f of landing lag. You cut down on his currently ridiculous recovery options and if the Melee players start whining you can just tell them to "start ledge-cancelling *******, you should already be doing that in Melee." If the problem still persists nerf firefox's hitboxes or something.

 

[Foo]

I agree with that philosophy, but only to a certain extent. There is no reason his moves need to deal as much damage as they do. I mean, 18 damage upair... pls.

Also, this isn't a MOBA where a character relies on all of their moves and attributes. If you nerfed fox fair, ftilt, fsmash etc. he would just continue using the OP moves. At some point a character jut has options that are too friggin good to exist.

 

[trash?]

no, metagames have developed past fox in project m. SEVERAL TIMES PER VERSION, too... except they all then immediately get nerfed to hell and back, and fox is back on top again, because he's untouchable in a design philosophy where nothing is sacred, I guess

 

[Chesstiger2612]

This also proves how broken Fox is. People have been practicing to beat mainly Foxes for a good while now, yet his winning rates are only improving. Things went the correct way with Jiggs back in the day:

"Wow! This character is actually good!" ---> 3rd on the tier list. ---> People (or at least Foxes) learn the MU. ---> 5-6th on the tier list

Nothing like this has happened with Fox.

Now my suggestion on how to fix it: the Icefrog-style. I don't play Dota, but it appears to be working very well. Don't nerf Fox's good (broken?) stuff. Nerf his bad and mediocre stuff. Pretty much the only flaws Fox has in my eyes are pretty easy combos and gimps on him. The combo part can't really be fixed without destroying shine and according to this philosophy that should be avoided. The gimps part is kinda easy though. Just give his side-b something like 60f of landing lag. You cut down on his currently ridiculous recovery options and if the Melee players start whining you can just tell them to "start ledge-cancelling *****es, you should already be doing that in Melee." If the problem still persists nerf firefox's hitboxes or something.

I disagree. In most cases, something like that would leaad to very polarized matchup charts and that is something to be avoided.

About the topic of Fox, I'd maybe tone him down a bit generally but I'd mainly nerf him in a way the functional overlaps would get changed a bit for his neutral options.
So basically, make the application field for his neutral game tools less broad. If he does have a multitude of good options in every neutral game situation, you would need to get a hard read where a "soft read" would have been enough against other characters. It also makes it easier to do the right decisions for Fox, if he doesn't mess up technically. This is one of the toughest parts about Fox and in my opinion the point you can change most easily without polarization and learning curve issues.

In the concrete case, I can only do only an elaborate guess (it needs lots of testing or good theorycrafting for decent concrete change suggestions) and no full solution but here is what could be done.
- adjust nair/bair so there is less function overlap, for example by shortening bairs active frames, slight nerf to nair's hitbox
- adjust up-tilt/up-smash in a similar way: more endlag for up-smash
- up-B: flame size nerf to PAL, less knockback and damage
Adjusting throws to make it a DI trap guessing game for most of the cast would be interesting too, but I think it would require too much change for a Melee top tier.

 

[Leafeon]

I can.


For real? Arrows seem to pop up at a nice angle for followups, they have a little more reach (particularly when b-reversed) than tink's sword, and they come out much faster than the boomerang. I'm not saying it's a good move (hell, I'm not even saying I'm a good enough player to be able to tell when it's even useful), merely that there may be unexplored situations where it helps to continue a combo or something.

At an angle where bomb or rang could do pretty much the same afaik

 

[Jacob29]

I agree that that is the exact way he should be changed.

Leave shine alone, or at least don't nerf its combo ability. Yes it creates some silly stuff, but it's very core to his playstyle.

recovering with side-b is not core to his playstyle so nerf that.

As Lunchables said, a spacies recovery options above stage are actually pretty damn good due to the mix-up potential. Make this weaker and his on-stage game doesn't seem so scary.

 

[| Kailex |]

Are you guys really talking about nerfing spacies? Disgusting.

 

[Soft Serve]

Pal up b/landing lag on up b
Bit more landing lag on side b
nair does like 2% less
change d throw somehow (right now with how techs work in pm, it's basically snake dthrow which is silly and he doesn't need it)
nerf jab in some way that jab upsmash is gone but you can still jab reset and thunders combo
then always make shine knock down.

Thats all I'd want to take out of fox's kit. Hed still be high tier, there'd just be a lot more counterplay

 

[CORY]

I disagree. In most cases, something like that would leaad to very polarized matchup charts and that is something to be avoided.

About the topic of Fox, I'd maybe tone him down a bit generally but I'd mainly nerf him in a way the functional overlaps would get changed a bit for his neutral options.
So basically, make the application field for his neutral game tools less broad. If he does have a multitude of good options in every neutral game situation, you would need to get a hard read where a "soft read" would have been enough against other characters. It also makes it easier to do the right decisions for Fox, if he doesn't mess up technically. This is one of the toughest parts about Fox and in my opinion the point you can change most easily without polarization and learning curve issues.

In the concrete case, I can only do only an elaborate guess (it needs lots of testing or good theorycrafting for decent concrete change suggestions) and no full solution but here is what could be done.
- adjust nair/bair so there is less function overlap, for example by shortening bairs active frames, slight nerf to nair's hitbox
- adjust up-tilt/up-smash in a similar way: more endlag for up-smash
- up-B: flame size nerf to PAL, less knockback and damage
Adjusting throws to make it a DI trap guessing game for most of the cast would be interesting too, but I think it would require too much change for a Melee top tier.

i've asked sbad about his thoughts on stuff. like, "what would you think about nerfing fox's defensive options? like, squirtle level tech rolls, bowser style spot dodge, stuff like that? so people can keep the dumb rush down options, but also don't have the decent to good defensive options?" and his reply was basically what you said. it'd make just really dumb not fun polarizing matchups and moments where you're either just destroying the fox, guaranteed, on one stray hit or correct read, or he's just constantly still doing fox stuff.

 

[Chesstiger2612]

Are you guys really talking about nerfing spacies? Disgusting.

Not spacies, just Fox.
By the way, it sometimess feels like it is a fair game from the viewer's perspective, but as one of the players it doesn't feel the way.
The combination of technical difficulty makes the Fox player having more influence on the result than the other player.
Basically, if a Fox is playing on point, you can't really do anything. If a Fox isn't on point, you don't need to do anything.

i've asked sbad about his thoughts on stuff. like, "what would you think about nerfing fox's defensive options? like, squirtle level tech rolls, bowser style spot dodge, stuff like that? so people can keep the dumb rush down options, but also don't have the decent to good defensive options?" and his reply was basically what you said. it'd make just really dumb not fun polarizing matchups and moments where you're either just destroying the fox, guaranteed, on one stray hit or correct read, or he's just constantly still doing fox stuff.

I know, me for top tier theorycrafter Kappa.

Pal up b/landing lag on up b
then always make shine knock down.

Shine knocks down dependent on knockback. If you want that Shine knocks down everybody, you'd need to make its knockback increase dramatically, and that would cause everyone to slide away (and knocked down) like Luigi.