Tier List Speculation

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Openly acknowledging I'm a Lucario main before I post this. (SO BIASED)

I think the reason why Lucario is so hard to place on a tier list is because he has a super polarizing matchup spread. At a high level, he should body certain characters (Ganon, Dedede, Falcon, Charizard), but he also loses to a decent chunk of the cast. Here's who I personally think Lucario loses to, obviously I'm open to discussing it:



Out of those characters, here are the characters he gets BODIED by.

- No answer to shine pressure, stands during waveshines, combos Lucario hard, one of the characters who can very effectively edgeguard Lucario.
- Falco obviously combos the **** out of Lucario, and if a Falco knows the matchup, they should just sit, laser camp to bait Lucario approaches, punish hard. Can also edgeguard Lucario well.
- Wins the neutral every time, even if Lucario has aura. Can nair out of Lucario's combos at decently high percentages, outranges Lucario. Very hard to combo. Nair destroys Lucario.
- Literally cannot be combod by Lucario. Crouch cancel dsmash/nair end any combos that Lucario could potentially start, and he can combo the **** out of Lucario.
- Destroys Lucario in neutral with fireballs, combos him hard, can also nair out of combos to a lesser degree, CC dsmash eats Lucario, and between cape and bair, he can also edgeguard Lucario effectively.
- CC dtilt and one frame upB to escape any combo, while being able to combo Lucario up and down the stage? He can bucket Lucario's only projectile safely? His hitboxes stay out longer than a desperate college kid at a frat party, preventing any sort of approach from Lucario? Why did I make this explanation in question form?
- You'll notice most of the floaties have a nair that can escape any combo effectively. Peach wins the neutral, she's hard to combo, turnips are solid for edgeguards, combos Lucario hard.

All of these characters are imo at least 65-35 against Lucario when the players know the matchup. Lucario can't deal with floaties, disjoints, or good shield pressure, and especially can't deal with characters with good crouch cancel options or low-frame nairs.

Personally, I would make an argument that Lucario's neutral game is very below average WITHOUT aura, but when he has aura, which I've estimated occurs about 11 times a game (assuming Lucario deals 400%, 100% in shield damage, and starts with one aura), his neutral becomes top five in the game. However, 11 times is not that many aura charges, and if you consider that he's also spending it on recovery, combos, and aura bombs, you realize that he doesn't have the aura advantage in neutral all that often.

I just find it hard to believe that a character with that many negative matchups is a top tier character. I believe he destroys some characters, but also loses to enough characters (many of which are in the high tier) to keep him from being the top tier character some of y'all think he is.

Hmm, I agree he loses to spacies bad but idk about the rest.

He doesn't lose that bad to Peach though if he loses at all. While she isn't combo fodder as long as you respect her nair early on and her Float you can abuse her lack of raw mobility.

Also a lot of the losing in neutral comments aren't as true here. His neutral isn't that bad and he only characters who should outright shut him down are the spacies which is his biggest problem in PM. Lucario isn't good against spacies.

 

[941]

ICs also have a hard time against a good zelda. @ 941

I'm pretty unfamiliar with this MU as I've only played it once, and that was against someone who tried win by camping with side-B. Could you explain why it's a hard MU?

 

[Scuba Steve]

People need to waveland their damn aerials already as Ganon. You can do upair combos like Falcon if you waveland them

 

[Frost | Odds]

People need to waveland their damn aerials already as Ganon. You can do upair combos like Falcon if you waveland them

Yeah. Bowser can do it with wavelands from FH fair or nair (into stuff like upb-> ledgegrab -> ledgehop aerials), so Ganon's combo game with doing it from short-hop aerials should be completely insane.

 

[PlateProp]

With optimal DI, Samus dies from the middle of Battlefield at 130% from d-throw, that's not super high for Samus.

There's no way man :/ Are you sure you're ding right? If you are you would fly either straight up or like 12-15 degrees off from that

 

[Scuba Steve]

Ganon can do perfect wavelands out of every single one of his aerials with relative ease. With shorthops, you can waveland out of bair and upair. With full hops, you can do fair, nair, and dair

 

[Divinokage]

That's the main reason I didn't have Ganon super high on my list. I think he's got a lot of unexplored potential with his new nB, but until that gets tapped he's a bit of a question mark for me. Of the players who play PM exclusively and at a high level I probably put him higher than most, actually. Seems there's still some lingering low opinions of our favorite King of Evil from previous versions.

I guess but his x100 times better recovery along with better punishes overall should put him in the high tier because its easy to get back on stage and trick people to fail their edgeguards. Float is extremely good for recovery even Armada said he couldnt edgeguard me properly because now he definitely has various recovery options. In melee that recovery is super free, it's one dimensional. I think you may underestimate how easy it is to put someone off-stage with Ganon then he can cover a crapton of options off-stage for edgeguarding too.

 

[FreeGamer]

What's the consensus on Zelda? Almost all I've seen of her is gimmicks with the returning fireball. ._.

 

[steelguttey]

ganon is always gonna go for ledge unless hes directly above you. he doesnt have many other save options cus up b still has so much lag

 

[Divinokage]

ganon is always gonna go for ledge unless hes directly above you. he doesnt have many other save options cus up b still has so much lag

You dont need to up-B if you are above the ledge. Cmon man..

 

[Zoa]

I agree with KhanYe somewhat. There's a bit of a disconnect that happens to people I play against when using Lucario. When asked they respond that they're afraid of committing too much, or else they'll see massive damage/minus a stock. Lucario's on stage game isn't that threatening in my personal experience from playing him. He has a good DD and options from charge, but no good options to force anything out of the opponent. More often than not I'm playing passively while looking to capitalize on a mistake.

 

[Player -0]

You dont need to up-B if you are above the ledge. Cmon man..

You can still get Baired away. If you go Side-B then invincibility Bair or read -> F-Smash is the way to go for the edge guarder. Ganon definitely has some more options to get back compared to Melee and has more favorable trades (depends if you're on last stock and they're not for Side-B) but patient edgeguarding is still pretty good I think.

How long was Armada playing vs. you and adapting to the new recovery options?

 

[Boiko]

Okay so a few things about Ness' neutral game, shield pressure, recovery and Sheik and Samus match up for those interested.

Ness has a decent neutral game overall. He has a lot of disjoints, good dash speed and dash dance, a solid projectile, quick aerials, numerous mix ups, and fairly quick aerial mobility when using DJC. In addition to that, Ness' movement provides a lot of unique tricks, such as run in>b reverse magnet to quickly get out while potentially baiting a commitment>djc aerial to punish. He can weave around very well, and he really needs to get in on his opponent to do some serious damage. His pivot PKFire is something I don't see many other Ness mains implement, but it's definitely really good. I mentioned earlier in this thread that I've caught a lot of top players with it, and it really makes his dash dance a lot more respectable.

As I'm sure you all know, he has one of the hardest punish games around once he's able to get in. I played Frozen the other day and I chained 4 dairs into each other and there were opportunities for more. His jab reset is insane due to his jab hitting far in front and behind him. He's one of the best footstool users in the game (seriously, magnet>footstool, fair>footstool, footstool>djc dair just to be mean, why not?). He just overall fast moves, long combos, and good kill conversions if he gets a combo going.

Where he lacks is his recovery. Arguably one of the worst in the game at a top level. Yes, it goes very far, but your angle is telegraphed, your thunder can be sniped, and most importantly, it has a bad hitbox. There is no hitbox in front of Ness. It is in the CENTER of his body extending slightly outward to cover directly above and below him. This means that ANY MOVE WILL BEAT IT IF SPACED PROPERLY. Yes, he has seven frames of invincibility once he hits himself, and that's nice, but it almost never comes into play. In order to edge guard Ness, you really just need to wait for him on stage and punish. Try to get the read on his recovery and go where he is going to be. Don't forget, PMDT decided it would be hilarious if they added 20 frames of landing lag onto one of the worst recoveries around (my heart, nooo), so if he's not sweet spotting or edge cancelling, he's very easy to knock back off and reset the situation, or kill, depending on percentage/character.

Some characters also give Ness a hard time getting in. Two examples are Mario and Sheik. Fireballs aren't that bad, since you can just nair through them, but an advancing DJ nair with Ness is difficult, so instead you can rising dair through them to get close to Mario, but dair has less favorable hit box than nair, so it doesn't help too much. His fair, loses to projectiles. I don't really know why, but it does, so that kind of sucks for him. Sheik outranges him in the air and has faster aerials, her tilts and needles also shut down a lot of his approaches when used properly with her wavedash. Getting in on Sheik, is just really hard. She has big, quick limbs and Ness has stubby little arms. It's not as big of an issue against, say, Ganon, because his moves are generally more laggy, as you know.

Anyway, that's an extremely brief, and somewhat vague overview of Ness. I'm going to talk about the Samus MU as I have experience with it on both ends.

As Ness: Nairing through missiles and occasionally batting them back kind of negates her missiles pressure, but it does force you to act, which is always good for the opponent. Samus can throw a zair to keep Ness out, but his zone should be 45 degrees above her, because she can't cover that area particularly well short of a fair, but Ness can kind of get out quickly. What makes this match up hard for Ness is not only his inability to actually combo her, but also, how good she is at getting him off stage and then edge guarding him. In the neutral, Samus can CC everything Ness can do besides dair, which, let's be honest, if you're getting hit by dair in the neutral raw, you're doing something wrong. Her wavedash back, shield options, and crouch cancel really negate everything Ness can do in the neutral. He has a difficult time getting in and getting something starter, and even when he does, she can SDI out of fair, throw out a nair (since she's a heavy and has less hit stun), or just double jump out. Really, Ness should not be getting more than one or two hits off before Samus can pull something to get out. Her edge guarding tools consist of missiles, weak charge shot to drop him down, nair, up tilt, you know, usual Samus edge guards that work really well against Ness. Honestly, being in Samus' crawl to fell out the MU is not bad at all. If Ness decides to aerial PKF, you can just roll under him (where you want to be when he throws PKF), and up smash. If he decides to come in with a fair, you're already CC'ing. I'm not saying spam it, but I've definitely used it to feel out the situation and see how they react, Ness is no different.

I don't know if this really helps, but uh, here ya go.

 

[TreK]

One thing made me scream at my screen while watching Kage vs Armada at McSmashter 4 :

Armada recovered that way several times after being sent offstage from the other side of the stage.
Instead of moving all of that evil fat accross the stage by running, and letting Armada recover, Kage could have edge cancelled a grounded down B into a double jump uair or something.

But it's a Brawl thing :C

 

[trash?]

like I mentioned before, kage's missed out on a lotta PM tech and his ganon is a lot slower/weaker than it could be as a result

I'm kind of scared as to what'll happen once he gets into those things, though

 

[Player -0]

MU things blah!

I think Ness can Up-Air/Bair really low to the ground and then shield safely at medium percents. Not really that big though lol.

One thing made me scream at my screen while watching Kage vs Armada at McSmashter 4 :

Armada recovered that way several times after being sent offstage from the other side of the stage.
Instead of moving all of that evil fat accross the stage by running, and letting Armada recover, Kage could have edge cancelled a grounded down B into a double jump uair or something.

But it's a Brawl thing :C

I love the picture. 10/10. Even then Kage could've done a turnaround nB -> tipman kappa (actually I need to watch these videos).

 

[Neighbor]

I'm pretty unfamiliar with this MU as I've only played it once, and that was against someone who tried win by camping with side-B. Could you explain why it's a hard MU?

I have two friends from my local tournament, one mains Zelda and one plays ICs pretty good so i see this MU all the time, ICs can really only rely on desynch things such as there desynch where they blizzard and throw ice blocks at the same time and create this wall for a few seconds as a grab set up because zelda can capitalize on them approaching and separate them which is the last thing they need in this fight. But basically even with ice block / blizzard desyncs zelda can separate them really fast with dins fire, and then tie that in with teleport canceld attacks or her neutralb and ICs main strategies fly out the window really fast and SoPo has a very hard time doing anything against zelda and most of the time SoPo really has no options. But at the same time if zelda tries to approach in an unsafe way, or with very poorly placed dins fires and the ICs can get off a shield grab, they rack up damage very fast. But since the ICs current chain grabs arent that great and only work if the other person doesn't DI correctly, Zelda always comes out on top this MU

 

[steelguttey]

can a ganon main please make this their avatar

 

[PlateProp]

| Download | Guide |

No johns

GODDAMN IT LUNCHABLES THIS DOESNT WORK WITH SQUIRTLE YOU DAMN LIAR

 

[Frost | Odds]

View attachment 42401

can a ganon main please make this their avatar

hmm?

 

[CORY]

View attachment 42401

can a ganon main please make this their avatar

If I didn't already have a super baller avatar, I totally would.

 

[941]

I have two friends from my local tournament, one mains Zelda and one plays ICs pretty good so i see this MU all the time, ICs can really only rely on desynch things such as there desynch where they blizzard and throw ice blocks at the same time and create this wall for a few seconds as a grab set up because zelda can capitalize on them approaching and separate them which is the last thing they need in this fight. But basically even with ice block / blizzard desyncs zelda can separate them really fast with dins fire, and then tie that in with teleport canceld attacks or her neutralb and ICs main strategies fly out the window really fast and SoPo has a very hard time doing anything against zelda and most of the time SoPo really has no options. But at the same time if zelda tries to approach in an unsafe way, or with very poorly placed dins fires and the ICs can get off a shield grab, they rack up damage very fast. But since the ICs current chain grabs arent that great and only work if the other person doesn't DI correctly, Zelda always comes out on top this MU

Thanks, added Zelda to the original post.

 

[trash?]

can we just get @ TreK to write up guides for everyone with amazing images like that

at the very least I want an ivysaur guide with that flawless artistic ability

 

[Foo]

With optimal DI, Samus dies from the middle of Battlefield at 130% from d-throw, that's not super high for Samus.

I just did this against a standing CPU and it lived....

 

[steelguttey]

hmm?

youre my hero

(someone make an olimar one with (bad) under it pls)

 

[PlateProp]

I just did this against a standing CPU and it lived....

Chevy confirmed not knowing how to DI

 

[Divinokage]

You can still get Baired away. If you go Side-B then invincibility Bair or read -> F-Smash is the way to go for the edge guarder. Ganon definitely has some more options to get back compared to Melee and has more favorable trades (depends if you're on last stock and they're not for Side-B) but patient edgeguarding is still pretty good I think.

How long was Armada playing vs. you and adapting to the new recovery options?

He didn't adapt the whole set because I always mixed it up off-stage, it's just not possible to expect an option when Ganon can float from really far away off-stage. You also save your jump after your float which gives you some nice different timings to get back on. I cant even begin to conceive that players such as Ally or Armada unable to adapt at all, they are world class players if not the best players atm. Its just not possible to discredit their play, they are way too smart for that but what Im saying is that the recovery options are very good and hard to adapt to, you can always find a way to trick someone.

These guys outplay me in the neutral game which is Ganon's main weakness.

Also i'd love to learn the new Ganon tricks to improve my play, I think it will get my punish game even better but i kinda disagree that my play is slow. Im just unaware of a few things.

 

[SpiderMad]

That guy would like to have a word with you

Thought you were gonna mention the Chain Jacket Glitch

@ PlateProp that's why you use OpenSA2 which the other person replied to you

 

[Chevy]

There's no way man :/ Are you sure you're ding right? If you are you would fly either straight up or like 12-15 degrees off from that

I DI'd straight to the corner of the blastzone. It's possible that I'm off by a few percent, cause it's a weird angle, but 130 was about where I started dieing. Samus is the 2nd floatiest character in the game, and since throws ignore weight, she has a relative susceptibility to killing throws. She can't just go up and hope for the best like spacies can.

 

[PlateProp]

I DI'd straight to the corner of the blastzone. It's possible that I'm off by a few percent, cause it's a weird angle, but 130 was about where I started dieing. Samus is the 2nd floatiest character in the game, and since throws ignore weight, she has a relative susceptibility to killing throws. She can't just go up and hope for the best like spacies can.

@f00 tested it and said that a standing cpu didnt die at 130, so you must be diing into it or something man.

 

[Chevy]

@f00 tested it and said that a standing cpu didnt die at 130, so you must be diing into it or something man.

Maybe standing CPU has very good DI. That guys a boss.

 

[PlateProp]

Maybe standing CPU has very good DI. That guys a boss.

standing cpus generally di into/ or dont di squirtle's dthrow at all xD

 

[Foo]

Actually, I think it's because no di IS optimal DI for that specific situation. The cpu didn't DI at all, but starting drifting the moment it could.

 

[Chevy]

Just tested a little more thoroughly. 135% is unsurvivable from the middle of the stage.
Optimal DI seems to be about halfway between top right and middle notch. Top right she dies off the top, middle she dies off the side.

 

[DrinkingFood]

There isn't an optimal DI for squirtles dthrow, it sends at a high angle like charizard's uthrow so DI is defendant on stage location/fall speed. In fact it's almost exactly like zard's uthrow except it's slightly weaker and doesn't go onto platforms. But it's also way quicker. It throws frame 20 universally so it's on that "ehh, maybe?" boundary where it's hard to tell if you can reliably DI it on reaction, possibly dependant on person and practice. It is a decision-based reaction, and you have to make the counter-intuitive decision to NOT DI it, unless you are super floaty then you might want to DI slightly away or a spacie who might want to DI up. Or if you're in a weird part of the stage like the very edge, or a platform, would require you to choose a different DI.

 

[Chevy]

There isn't an optimal DI for squirtles dthrow, it sends at a high angle like charizard's uthrow so DI is defendant on stage location/fall speed

I mostly just meant from the middle of battlefield to stay alive knowing the kill throw was coming.

 

[Deleted member]

GODDAMN IT LUNCHABLES THIS DOESNT WORK WITH SQUIRTLE YOU DAMN LIAR

Oh yeah, I think this version of PSA randomly doesn't work with squirtle, DDD, ZSS, and maybe a few others?

You have to find version 1.3 of PSA, and idk where it is. I also wear a bathrobe, so I'm x10 better than everyone in this thread

 

[Juushichi]

Wearing a bathrobe doesn't make you special, @Lunchables.

You're basically cosplaying a dad whose wonder years have already passed him by.

You're like Pit in 3.5.

 

[KhanYe]

Hmm, I agree he loses to spacies bad but idk about the rest.

He doesn't lose that bad to Peach though if he loses at all. While she isn't combo fodder as long as you respect her nair early on and her Float you can abuse her lack of raw mobility.

Also a lot of the losing in neutral comments aren't as true here. His neutral isn't that bad and he only characters who should outright shut him down are the spacies which is his biggest problem in PM. Lucario isn't good against spacies.

I think I made it clear that I think Lucario's neutral isn't as bad as most Lucario players would have you believe, but the characters I listed I believe SHOULD win the neutral. DownB is useless without aura if a player just baits it out and punishes, and Peach's combo game on Lucario is just as strong on him as Lucario's is on Peach. Lucario's is just flashier.

Lucario is shut down against the seven characters I listed in my experience for the reasons I outlined. If you can give me valid reasons why Lucario wins the neutral against those characters, I'll eat my hat. (My hat is tasty tho)

I just find it extremely hard to believe a character who loses to about a third of the cast is top tier. There's too much character variety in the PM scene to just discount that fact.

 

[TreK]

Also i'd love to learn the new Ganon tricks to improve my play, I think it will get my punish game even better but i kinda disagree that my play is slow. Im just unaware of a few things.

Oh I was referring to Ganon's run speed, not to you as a player, haha

The Brawl AT I was reffering to is this. It's Ganon's fastest way to go from one side of the stage to the other as far as I am aware. And from there you can double jump, do a dropzone aerial, or waveland back onto the stage. Maybe more idk, you're basically airborne right next to a ledge, go crazy dude.
And here's an example of when you could have used it.

Actual PM Ganon mains could probably expand your bag of tricks more than I could in a year, but that's what really stood out to me as a former Brawl player and stuff.