Tier List Speculation

[TSM Khodalyr]

People don't underestimate Lucario, people actually talk about Lucario a lot these days. The character is really strong. Once he's on your face he probably has the best combo game in the entire cast. He has trouble getting in, which holds him from being S tier imo. A tier isn't bad tho

 

[Boiko]

Can we talk about how stupid Sheik's design is?

Sheik gets a grab at low percentage, chooses either down throw or back throw, now two scenarios start

1.) You DI incorrectly (14 frames?) on the throw, Sheik gets a regrab, the situation resets itself with you take 10% with pummels.

2.) You DI correctly, Sheik, who is one of the best tech chasing characters in the game, tech chases you and regrabs, resetting the situation.

2.5) You DI correctly, Sheik dash attacks you and follows up anyway.

Say Sheik gets a grab at mid-high percentage (70%-80%)

1.) You DI the back throw incorrectly, you're dead to a (hardly committal) tipper up smash at 70% from a DI mix up.

2.) You DI the down throw incorrectly, you're off stage from a fair, Sheik edge guards you with some of the best edge guarding tools in the game.

3.) You DI either throw correctly, Sheik tech chases you/dash attacks and follows up anyway.

And yes, dash attack is guaranteed on a large majority of the cast despite the correct DI from her throws.

Now, here is why this is silly to me. Let's look at other characters with DI mix ups on their throws. Two come to mind for me.

Zelda:
In case you don't know, Zelda's down throw and her forward throw are a DI mix up. DIing in on either throw gives her a free kick that can kill at very early percentage. So why is Zelda's DI mix up okay but not Sheik's? Whenever I play against a Zelda, I ALWAYS DI for the forward throw, because her down throw is much easier to react to. I'm not sure the exact frame data, but her forward throw is comparable to Sheik's, and her down throw is comparable to Ness'. The latter having a long animation, giving you plenty of time to react. If you get caught on the DI mix up, you probably deserve to die.

Toon Link:
Tink's down throw and forward throw are a DI mix up that lead into a slew of follow-ups. The most notable being his aerial up+b at kill percentage. What makes his DI mix up okay in my opinion, is three things. First, his grab. He can't grab an opponent out of the air unless he connects with that tiny 3 frame grab box on his hand, and he has considerable end lag if he whiffs, since he has a tether grab. Second, his up+b is a pretty hard commitment, and if you whiff it, a lot of characters can punish if you fail to edge cancel it. And lastly, his up+b isn't ridiculously strong like Sheik's tipper up smash or the potency of her edge guarding. It may put Tink is an edge guarding position, but and his edge guarding is solid at best.

Maybe it's just my opinion, but I think Sheik's grabs need a complete rework (and half the cast, but ehhh). I think the PMDT should stray off of kill conversions off of grabs. Ness, a character who was hardly doing anything in 3.02, had his free follow ups taken off of his down throw by increasing the KBG. At kill percentage, most characters can jump out, and his alternative "kill throw" is laughably weak compared to other real kill throw (seriously, his back throw failed to kill Peach at 140% on Green Hill Zone, that is NOT a kill throw). I understand starting a combo off a grab, I mean, that's what they're for but then you have issues like the following:

Ganon's down throw leading into free fair, bair or even up smash
Sheik's throws being an unreactable DI mix up with kill/edge guard follow-ups
ROB's entire throw game, with forward throw/back throw being extremely fast and putting you in a generally bad position and down throw>DACUS or just standing up smash being a true combo, or uair at higher percentage
Fox's up throw leading into uair (IMO, not as bad as the others, because it's relatively easy to SDI, but my point still stands)
Falcon's down throw and up throw leading into a knee, killing very early
Lucas' down throw into a DACUS follow up if they DI correctly, or just a standing up smash if they don't (also not as bad, because you can get out at reasonable percentage.)
Roy's down throw and forward throw, improper DI can lead to an Fsmash and both are reasonably fast
Ike lol

Those are some examples, here are some characters with honest grab follow ups

Samus' down throw. Her best follow up with proper DI is a dash attack and even that's not guaranteed. With improper DI, she can hit an fmash, nair, or even charge shot. Easy to DI though, because she's really not going to throw you any other way unless you're a spacie, and even so the DI is the same.
Peach's down throw. Improper DI leads to an up smash/down smash. Proper DI nets her a dash attack and in rare cases a DACUS. Even still, she has to commit to the up smash almost immediately after the throw, making her follow up a bit tricky.
DDD. Almost his entire kit is based off of his grab game, he has a great grab range and solid follow ups out of grabs, but nothing that is going to kill you at absurdly low percentage unless he capitalizes on his edge guards. Ripple can correct me if I'm wrong here, but I believe grab is tied for his fastest move. I've never felt like I've lost to a DDD because of something that was just a guessing game.

These are just a few examples. There are a lot more toxic grabs, and a lot more honest grabs. The biggest problem I see is looking at the characters I listed with free follow ups, they don't RELY on their grab game to win. They have other tools that they can use to secure a kill.

Sheik's fair>jab is safe on shield, and needles are probably top three projectiles in the game
ROB's strengths have been listed time and time again, three frame burst reflector that punishes the start up of projectiles, aerial dash dance, bust movement
Falcon's dash dance and overall combo game
Fox, Ike, Roy, Lucas all kind of go without saying.

Then there are characters that need to land that grab, or at least, it's a big part of their game and even then, they don't get DI mix ups or guaranteed kill follow ups.

This point kind of got away from Sheik and into something I feel is much more important, but I still think Sheik is the biggest offender or grab usage.

Anyone agree, disagree, have a correction to make? I know this was a long post.

 

[Juushichi]

A few things about Sheik:

- Fair-Jab is never safe on shield. Ever. This is because Jab is not safe on shield.
- Correct DI away usually does not connect into dash attack and even if it does, for most characters it doesn't beat CC until at least 30% percent (vs Falco it causes hard KD), which allows you to CC-Grab or do whatever CC punish you generally want to do. Vs a lot of floaties, generally they just get away for free anyway.
- DIing up/away in a lot of situations will net you a slap/upair/nair and basically resets from there. You can pay attention to stage positioning to make a better guess at what she might want to do.

In addition, in terms of the throws in regards to weight, fallspeed (this before the knockdown to begin the tech chase) as a Sheik player you have to manually adjust for the differences between many different characters. Do they fall over on DI out? Can they land and CC the dash attack? Do I have to boost grab, JC grab? Can I GET a regrab? Are they too high for a regrab and I have to take the slap/ftilt/ect? Where do I go after the slap/ftilt/etc? And then on top of that you have to see what the best choice is after that

Then when they hit the ground, you have to adjust for their techs... if they're actually going to go into hard knockdown... how good their tech rolls are, if their tech in place is good or not what do they have if you mistime the correct read. And this is what happens if you can actually correctly cover the tech.

And this is before potential interactions with recovering opponents if you choose to take the slap or whatever. Do you have to chase them off? Can they out maneuver you in the air? Are they going high? Low? Can they sweetspot? How well can they protect themselves with an attack from offstage?

I know a lot of people feel some sort of way about how easy Sheik is or whatever, but there are a lot of adjustments that a person has to make just by nature of the mixup throw. You're not guaranteed to get the followup.

If you really want to talk about a stupid DI mixup, maybe you should take a look at Wario's Bite command throw mixup? : )

 

[Boiko]

A few things about Sheik:

- Fair-Jab is never safe on shield. Ever. This is because Jab is not safe on shield.

I was told by another reliable Sheik player that it's safe. Is her fair safe then? Maybe that's what he meant.

- Correct DI away usually does not connect into dash attack and even if it does, for most characters it doesn't beat CC until at least 30% percent (vs Falco it causes hard KD), which allows you to CC-Grab or do whatever CC punish you generally want to do. Vs a lot of floaties, generally they just get away for free anyway.

I correctly DI'd away every time, still got dash attacked. The problem is it's out of the air still, even with DI down and away, so I can't CC it, and even if I attempt to, she can just pivot grab mix up.

- DIing up/away in a lot of situations will net you a slap/upair/nair and basically resets from there. You can pay attention to stage positioning to make a better guess at what she might want to do.

In addition, in terms of the throws in regards to weight, fallspeed (this before the knockdown to begin the tech chase) as a Sheik player you have to manually adjust for the differences between many different characters. Do they fall over on DI out? Can they land and CC the dash attack? Do I have to boost grab, JC grab? Can I GET a regrab? Are they too high for a regrab and I have to take the slap/ftilt/ect? Where do I go after the slap/ftilt/etc? And then on top of that you have to see what the best choice is after that

You look at this as what can I do that is most effective against this character, and I look at it as look at all these different follow up options I have to avoid. There is literally no way to avoid them all as some characters can be affected by every single follow up she has. My character has one follow up off a grab in fair, and guess what, it can be SDI'd behind him so it's not even good. Sheik has an option for every situation, it seems.

Then when they hit the ground, you have to adjust for their techs... if they're actually going to go into hard knockdown... how good their tech rolls are, if their tech in place is good or not what do they have if you mistime the correct read. And this is what happens if you can actually correctly cover the tech.

She still has one of best tech chases in the game though. So being in that situation really isn't bad. Whereas some characters need to make a hard commitment on their tech reads.

And this is before potential interactions with recovering opponents if you choose to take the slap or whatever. Do you have to chase them off? Can they out maneuver you in the air? Are they going high? Low? Can they sweetspot? How well can they protect themselves with an attack from offstage?

This is literally what every character has to do, so it doesn't really matter. Sheik is better at it than 90% of the cast anyway. Fair sends at a low angle and forces a low recovery, needles force a low recovery, and there aren't too many characters that like to recover low.

I know a lot of people feel some sort of way about how easy Sheik is or whatever, but there are a lot of adjustments that a person has to make just by nature of the mixup throw. You're not guaranteed to get the followup.

Sure, you're not guaranteed. Really, nothing is GUARANTEED, but there a significant degree of simplicity, extremely low risk, and an unbalanced reward.

If you really want to talk about a stupid DI mixup, maybe you should take a look at Wario's Bite command throw mixup? : )

Lol, ef that move.

 

[Juushichi]

I mean, Sheik really poops on Ness, sure.

And some of the other characters too. But not all of them. I'm speaking holistically here.

 

[TSM Khodalyr]

I'm curious, which characters does Sheik lose hard to ? like 65/35 or more

 

[steelguttey]

trust me boiko

if olimar gets buffed youre gonna add him to that bull**** throw list

up throw is stupid and is a di mixup with dthrow

 

[Ripple]

I'm curious, which characters does Sheik lose hard to ? like 65/35 or more

no one beats her that hard. no one even really goes 60-40 with her except maybe the space animals

 

[Boiko]

I'm curious, which characters does Sheik lose hard to ? like 65/35 or more

No one.
If anything, her worst MU is probably Fox at 60-40 or so.

 

[steelguttey]

what do you guys thinking of making spacies have a really ****ty tech roll as a way of nerfing them?

 

[Juushichi]

Would agree. She doesn't have anything as bad as 35-65.

Characters I think she loses to outright: Fox, Ice Climbers
Characters I think she probably loses to: Samus, Peach, Jigglypuff
Characters I think where the MU is even enough: Ike, Marth, Roy, Diddy Kong, Wolf, Falco, Mewtwo, Kirby, Meta Knight, Lucario | (?) Wario, Ivysaur, Mr Game and Watch (?)

 

[steelguttey]

Would agree. She doesn't have anything as bad as 35-65.

Characters I think she loses to outright: melee
Characters I think she probably loses to: still melee
Characters I think where the MU is even enough: melee and brawl jank

 

[Juushichi]

You could substitute basically any character considered 5-15 and come with the same thing, though?

I think you could argue Lucas being close enough to even also.

 

[steelguttey]

i think samus and lucario are exceptions but yea i can agree

 

[TSM Khodalyr]

what do you guys thinking of making spacies have a really ****ty tech roll as a way of nerfing them?

Spacies have good spotdodges rolls and techrolls so it would be a way of nerfing them

 

[Foo]

Would agree. She doesn't have anything as bad as 35-65.

Characters I think she loses to outright: Fox, Ice Climbers
Characters I think she probably loses to: Samus, Peach, Jigglypuff
Characters I think where the MU is even enough: Ike, Marth, Roy, Diddy Kong, Wolf, Falco, Mewtwo, Kirby, Meta Knight, Lucario | (?) Wario, Ivysaur, Mr Game and Watch (?)

So, she loses to 5 characters, goes even to slight advantage against 13, and outright beats the other 23 members of the cast? (I don't even agree that she goes even with some of those)

Sheik is pretty absurd. She is really really good at basically everything. She has a fantastic neutral, fantastic projectile, good speed, insanely good throws, a super good grab, great ground game, great aerials, really good defense, stupidly good combo game, good CC game, good defense, absurd gimp game and a fairly bad recovery.

If fox was nerfed, I bet sheik would be the character everyone complains about. I was so mad when I saw her not get changed at all in 3.5.

 

[Boiko]

So, she loses to 5 characters, goes even to slight advantage against 13, and outright beats the other 23 members of the cast? (I don't even agree that she goes even with some of those)

Sheik is pretty absurd. She is really really good at basically everything. She has a fantastic neutral, fantastic projectile, good speed, insanely good throws, a super good grab, great ground game, great aerials, really good defense, stupidly good combo game, good CC game, good defense, absurd gimp game and a fairly bad recovery.

If fox was nerfed, I bet sheik would be the character everyone complains about. I was so mad when I saw her not get changed at all in 3.5.

Not only does she beat the other 23, there are a good portion that she absolutely destroys.

 

[egumption]

Plus, when you look at those that Sheik loses to, IC/Jiggs are just bad right now (ok, IC is mostly just borked, but Jiggs is just bad). While Samus wins the matchup, barely anyone plays Samus (I've heard ESAM is done with Smash? If so, basically no prominent Samus players left), which means that she basically loses to only two prominent/semi-prominent characters in the current meta-scape, since Fox is Fox and Peaches have been emerging from the woodwork recently. That's a recipe for success.

 

[Cpt.]

About samus, @ Cpt. she isn't strictly buffed from melee, though she may be. Her recovery is considerably worse in pm, and imo, there's a lot more character's that give her trouble. However, I could certainly see her being bumped up, but I could see her at where she is on strong bad's list. I haven't really played against good samus players, but I never really struggled against her once I figured out how to beat CC spam.

Trust me, she is buffed hard from melee. I tried maining Samus, but whenever I played a friendly game with her in PM she was noticeably 5x better (exaggeration of course).

I would argue that her recovery (tether) is even though it has been shortened a little, it's a lot easier to use since you don't have to sweetspot it to sweetspot it and her up B is a little better when hitting the opponent too.

Missile canceling is easiler to do and she got the whole ice mode buff + she has a roll and a roll attack, so definitely only buffs.

She probably is in a good spot at Strong Bad's list, but she was good against Fox and Falco in melee so she's probably good against Wolf. Plus she doesn't have many puff players to worry about. That alone may be good enough to bring her up.

 

[GabPR]

Can someone sheik cons? Its easy for a character to seem more op if people dont talk about her actual weaknesses.

 

[Juushichi]

- Somewhat weak to CC
- Approach is actually one of her weakest areas. (Don't confuse STUFFING approaches with actually approaching)
- One of the worst, easiest to cover recoveries in the game.
- One of the most favorable combo weights in the game.
- Has trouble landing/getting down from juggles.
- Turns into a worse character with Down-B
- Side B is basically useless.
- Not as OP as NTSC Melee Sheik
- Doesn't do your taxes for you.

 

[Foo]

Trust me, she is buffed hard from melee. I tried maining Samus, but whenever I played a friendly game with her in PM she was noticeably 5x better (exaggeration of course).

I would argue that her recovery (tether) is even though it has been shortened a little, it's a lot easier to use since you don't have to sweetspot it to sweetspot it and her up B is a little better when hitting the opponent too.

Missile canceling is easiler to do and she got the whole ice mode buff + she has a roll and a roll attack, so definitely only buffs.

She probably is in a good spot at Strong Bad's list, but she was good against Fox and Falco in melee so she's probably good against Wolf. Plus she doesn't have many puff players to worry about. That alone may be good enough to bring her up.

Never said she wasn't buffed overall, but her tether is MUCH MUCH MUCH worse. Not because of length, but because if they grab ledge while you tether it, that's a stock basically every time if your opponent is good. That means tether is purely for a recovery mixup, which is fine, but worse overall from melee.

Also, being better from melee doesn't necessarily mean anything because there is a lot more competition for the higher spots. For instance, bowser is MUCH MUCH better from melee, but he's still really low. Now that there's a lot more threatening characters for her to deal with, she may not be as high as you think. Not saying I think you're wrong, I'm just saying I wouldn't be comfortable saying she's higher than that until I see a lot of her new matchups play out. I am pretty sure she loses to zss, so who knows what other characters she loses to.

 

[GabPR]

- Somewhat weak to CC
- Approach is actually one of her weakest areas. (Don't confuse STUFFING approaches with actually approaching)
- One of the worst, easiest to cover recoveries in the game.
- One of the most favorable combo weights in the game.
- Has trouble landing/getting down from juggles.
- Turns into a worse character with Down-B
- Side B is basically useless.
- Not as OP as NTSC Melee Sheik
- Doesn't do your taxes for you.

Interesting... Tnks for info. On a side note, is Zelda really that bad in your opinion? Zhime in shots fired put out some interesting play that shows Zelda may have untapped potential.

 

[Cpt.]

Never said she wasn't buffed overall, but her tether is MUCH MUCH MUCH worse. Not because of length, but because if they grab ledge while you tether it, that's a stock basically every time if your opponent is good. That means tether is purely for a recovery mixup, which is fine, but worse overall from melee.

Also, being better from melee doesn't necessarily mean anything because there is a lot more competition for the higher spots. For instance, bowser is MUCH MUCH better from melee, but he's still really low. Now that there's a lot more threatening characters for her to deal with, she may not be as high as you think. Not saying I think you're wrong, I'm just saying I wouldn't be comfortable saying she's higher than that until I see a lot of her new matchups play out. I am pretty sure she loses to zss, so who knows what other characters she loses to.

What you are saying makes sense. I think the whole tether thing is tricky. You are right saying that to edge guard her you can just go to ledge and try to use invincibility frames, but the Samus could just wait a second for them to run out or air dodge the attack or just up B instead, so mixup is probably the best way to describe it, but you have some mixups from the tether itself too.

The thing with Bowser is that he was trash in Melee, and Samus was very good, and they both got buffs. Though Bowser was buffed more.

I just think that if the top tiers were the ones that Strong Bad mentioned, that would make Samus even higher because she is good against them. Puff was good against the top tiers in Melee and she was top tier herself partially due to those good matchups.

For now, Samus is good at that spot, but I only think that is because we haven't seen great Samus in PM 3.5

 

[TreK]

- Side B is basically useless.

That guy would like to have a word with you

/s

Speaking of DI mixups
Is there a situation where you would want to DI in (or basically not up+away or down+away) against Sheik ? And I don't mean "in" as in if she bthrows you the "away" becomes the "in", I mean "in" as in Ivy's dtilt or Marth's utilt in example.

 

[Boiko]

- Not as OP as NTSC Melee Sheik

Okay, so here are a few notes on that, and a few things on the Fox match up and why it's probably not 60-40, but actually somewhat closer to even.

Sheik is better in PM than she is in melee, period. Her throw game, which the entire character is focused on, got a huge buff, while retaining a great combo/edge guard game, plus a better recovery solely due to the fact that Zelda is a real character now.

Now regarding Fox, two big things in the melee MU are up smash, and shine being invincible on frame one, both of which were nerfed in PM. Add to that, anything that Sheik could do against Fox in melee, she can do better in PM. She used to have trouble comboing Fox due to not being to tech chase on reaction, but with grab mix ups, that problem is minimized.

And lastly, fair>jab technically isn't safe on shield, but people respect it because after the jab, you have to anticipate either a grab or a down smash, so it's kind of pseudo safe. If she spaces jab, it's basically safe, since one of the only things that can really stuff it is shine OoS, but that doesn't have great range. Every other OoS option gets stuffed by down smash or jab, and if you choose to stay in shield, she'll probably grab. So it becomes YET ANOTHER GUESSING GAME with Sheik. You can play it safe and roll, but if she reads that, she'll follow up, or you can try to predict the grab/down smash and Wavedash OoS for down smash and punish or spot dodge grab and punish.

Edit: Overall, Sheik got buffed from melee and Fox got nerfed, so why would the MU spread stay the same?
Double Edit: Especially since the buffs/nerfs directly affect the match up.

 

[Magus420]

Aerial>Jab loses to mashing shield grab after the aerial while holding downtowards unless the jab knocks down like Ganon's. 10 year old Sheik ditto strats.

 

[Boiko]

Aerial>Jab loses to mashing shield grab after the aerial while holding downtowards unless the jab knocks down like Ganon's. 10 year old Sheik ditto strats.

Tether? Bait the shield grab by not jabbing and punish?

 

[Ripple]

why is a tether character trying to shield grab sheik's fair or jab

 

[Boiko]

why is a tether character trying to shield grab sheik's fair or jab

It's an example of a character group that loses to Sheik's pseudo shield pressure. -_-

 

[Soft Serve]

holy **** were complaining about shiek now?

 

[Juushichi]

I think Sheik and Mr. Game and Watch's shield pressure is about the same.

Actually, GnW's nair is positive on block... hers is worse lol.

 

[Boiko]

Sheik's strengths and weaknesses and what works/doesn't work across the roster is so far out of wack it's ridiculous.

 

[Boiko]

I think Sheik and Mr. Game and Watch's shield pressure is about the same.

Actually, GnW's nair is positive on block... hers is worse lol.

And Ness' magnet is positive on shield but that doesn't mean he has good shield pressure.

 

[Soft Serve]

But how is shiek getting you to shield jump ins. She is slow in the air, has a really high short hop, its all telegraphed unless she is doing platform things. You can just dash/roll away from her and avoid all the setups, unless you already made mistakes before hand and she has center stage so you have no room to run. The only really good shield pressure thing she has is air needles>grab on shield.

Yeah she has good frame traps and can punish people sitting in shield well, but so does Ganon, and Bowser, and snake, why are they getting people to shield unless they are playing against another slow character?

 

[Scuba Steve]

Something I've been wondering about is Falcon's uthrow. Is it actually buffed or did the PMDT just decide to make as many characters as they could get away with the perfect combo weight for him? Cuz other than that he seems fine but his throw conversions are kinda nutty for a character that is pretty good at DD grabbing lol

The reason Falcon's upthrow seems to work so well across the board is because of a semi unique attribute it has. With most throws, the weight of the character will effect the duration of the throwing animation. The heavier they are, the longer it takes to throw them. When they're heavier and make the throw take longer, it's also more difficult to follow up. I'm not sure on the exact details on this (though I'm sure one of you nerds does) but basically the heavier they are, the less frame advantage you have coming out of the throw. Less frame advantage = less follow ups.

Now Falcon's upthrow basically says **** that mechanic and the throw animation takes the same amount of time regardless of weight. This means that it doesn't matter if it's Bowser or Puff being thrown, the animation will take the same amount of time and you will be able to act on the same frame with Bowser as you would with Puff. This makes getting followups from character to character easier as you don't have to adjust your timings to the character's weight. Also, some characters just get combo'd well by vertical throws (basically all the fastfallers)

Lemme know what other throws act like this too so I can be knowledgeable and stuff

 

[Boiko]

You all need to watch five minutes of a Fox vs. Sheik set in melee on the real.

 

[Soft Serve]

Like I think sheik is crazy good, but it has nothing to do with her shield frametraps.

Shes great but shes not toxic or broken, probably the most honest character out of the top 10

 

[Boiko]

Like I think sheik is crazy good, but it has nothing to do with her shield frametraps.

Shes great but shes not toxic or broken, probably the most honest character out of the top 10

How can you call her ridiculous grab mix ups and conversions honest? If you had the ability to react to her throws, maybe, and I even think that's a stretch.

 

[Blitzus]

Ayyy, KhanYe!

I agreed with every point on there besides perhaps Link (catchable projectile, heavily comboable) and Ike (QuickDraw can be dealt with via stage control by aura sphere, good combo weight imo). I dunno, it could just be that I haven't fought many good Lank/Ike mains in my region, but I generally don't have too much trouble with them unless the player I'm up against is much more experienced than I.

I also believe Sheik wins at around a 63-37 (+/- 3) ratio...though that could just be me. (Currently on a losing streak against them >.>' - so probably around 57-43 in reality)

Still, for a tier list that is said to be based on MU spread, and considering the popularity of many of those characters (least in my area x_x'), I feel like Lucario is placed way too high (2nd? ~_~'). IMO, he should be placed near the bottom of the tier he's in, or just below Falcon...

Can confirm Link has the Lucario matchup.

Lucario's fall speed is really comfortable to dthrow, jab reset, dthrow to another option at low percentages. Also doesn't have much of an answer to projectiles coming from an angle.