Tier List Speculation

[Beorn]

It goes without saying that player feedback is taken into consideration. This is a fan-based game.

Regardless this isn't the place to discuss that.

I would feel very comfortable placing Pit quite low on any tier list. He just feels so difficult to get anything to link into anything besides a forward air into itself sometimes or mediocre up air juggles into UpB that KOs at 160. He still feels like he could maybe edgeguard well, but he has no means of getting his opponent there. I know he'll be fine eventually, he might even be secretly crazy right now.

I feel like Pit is in a similar situation to Link, in that he was quite good in a stupid not fun way in 3.02, and now he has to play like a real character and is fun. They did a great job making him a real character. He just doesn't feel balanced yet, similar to Link. I have actually picked up Pit in 3.5 because he feels so good and solid. Stuff works well enough and he has some really solid tools. I don't honestly understand why people liked 3.02 Pit better. He was better, yes, but he just felt nothing like a melee character. His moves now feel solid and have enough lag and hitlag that they don't feel lame, like hitting with a steak knife. A problem a few characters like zero suit and squirtle had in 3.02.

I'm a Link main. Been playing link forever in every game, and when I go from 3.5 Link to 3.5 Pit, Pit feels like a better character with much more usable movement\recovery and forgiving tools with better kill moves due to angles and edge guarding. Though his combos require better execution, he has a more flexible combo game. Also his arrows are amazing wtf these were nerfed? I only picked him up a since 3.5 Just my 2cts.

TLDR, He feels great. He's just not good. I love his design, and 3.02 felt wonky and lame. He just needs a bit of help.

EDIT: I'd also like to address what I mean by Link and Pit being in a similar situation in 3.5.
Both characters were considered good or even top 5 (lol m2k) Both characters also had not good designs in very similar ways. These characters were mediocre characters with a couple of broken good moves.(pits arrows and recovery\Links boomerang and recovery and both dthrows) They both had the anti fun good moves nerfed well enough. Then, both just kinda had everything else nerfed in tandem. Now they are sitting in nearly the same spot on the most agreed on tier lists in this thread. A bad spot, but still usable.
The flip side of this curse they have both suffered are characters like Diddy, Mewtwo, and Lucas. They had great moves and stupid anti fun moves nerfed. They were just designed too well for this to matter and are still considered great characters. Even though they looked nerfed to a similar extent to Link and Pit, their inlaid kit was just better.

 

[Juushichi]

Is it possible that some of the things said on the forums are at least considered by the PMDT? Not to accuse you guys of balancing based on popular opinion, but isn't there at least some degree of player feedback taken into account when making balance changes?

I apologize in advance because this will come off as harsh, but:

Do you honestly, truly believe that it isn't?

We have people like Jolteon, Strong Bad, Sethlon, myself, standardtoaster, Gmaster171 and others who are constantly in community threads... who maintain relations or outright run their scenes/threads/etc. I'm not sure what people think the PMDT is, but like I mentioned before a lot of us are community representatives. We talk to our scenes, we talk to top players and players who aren't considered on the same echilon, we very often play against them and come up with our own strategies, speak with peers about them long before something even is presented back there for changes.

Sethlon mentioned the steps that we do without even expressly going into all of the possible stopgaps of feedback that we take in. Of course we can't get everything right (I think, like Sethlon, that Pit got hit too hard... also think that Link is a little too ineffective), but even companies who pay departments that are dedicated to just doing balancing can't get it right.

So yes, we take in feedback from the forums... we take in feedback from players, we test out in practice the things that we spend days or even months debating back in the PMDT. I think we get a lot of it right, I expressly remember people thinking Ike got buried and remember reading facebook posts about how they were going to drop PM because their character got nerfed so hard. One of them has been on a tear winning majors. Imagine that.

---

On topic, for a while I really didn't want to think that Pikachu was one of the worst characters in the game, but he falls into the same category as Pit to me.

I think Pit, Pikachu and like Olimar and Link are among the worst characters in the game right now.

All of them can compete, but it seems like a lot of "yeah, why would I play this?" when you want to shoot for effectiveness.

 

[DMG]

Pikachu is still filthy. Please I pray that people don't get good with him.

 

[B.W.]

It kills me that people think Link is terrible now, when he's pretty much the same character he was in 3.0 but with a worse recovery.

T.Link got hit harder than Link did coming to 3.5 and people think he's high tier, yet when he was way better in 3.0 he was bottom 5?

You guys make no sense.

 

[DMG]

TL has Lunchablers and friends

Link has (insert 5 mains that quit)

Therefore, nerf Ike

 

[Beorn]

Pikachu is still filthy. Please I pray that people don't get good with him.

I agree. He has just about everything a character could want. A good recovery, great mobility, good kill moves, ways to deal with CCing, great throws, a good projectile, serviceable OOS game, and great gimping tools. Pika lacks very little a character could possible want. He's a difficult character to play well, but I don't believe he's bad, but probably still not amazing. He could stand to have something else, but it is a slippery slope for Pika.

It kills me that people think Link is terrible now, when he's pretty much the same character he was in 3.0 but with a worse recovery.

T.Link got hit harder than Link did coming to 3.5 and people think he's high tier, yet when he was way better in 3.0 he was bottom 5?

You guys make no sense.

I believe this is a lot of misinformation on the part of players.

Link was not barely nerfed.
Toonlink was not nerfed as hard as Link.
Toonlink was never a bad character. People just had knee jerk reactions.
Link was never top tier, lol m2k

The only reasons Link was a good character in 3.02 were his boomerang being stupid and him being pretty easy to do well with. His boomerang covered up his bad attributes like movement and generally sluggish moves. As I heard Oracle put it in a stream once, his moves didn't scale with skill, they were just good and didn't get better the better you got with him. His recovery was pretty dumb too, but that was the name of the game in 3.02. So it's not like it was spectacular compared to all the other spectacular recoverys.

 

[steelguttey]

yet when he was way better in 3.0 he was bottom 5?

hehehe ct tier list

good times

 

[B.W.]

Even before the CT tier list, there were people that thought T.Link was a trash character though.

I still say 3.0 T.Link is like one of the best characters in 3.0.

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

No

 

[Juushichi]

Pikachu is still filthy. Please I pray that people don't get good with him.

We still have Anther winning a lot of the things in MI. It's a shame he was too lazy to go to Shots Fired. We also have a talented Link player here in Ohio in Village Mascot. I think they're among the weakest characters in v3.5, but if that's the case goddamn we did a good job.

 

[B.W.]

I agree. He has just about everything a character could want. A good recovery, great mobility, good kill moves, ways to deal with CCing, great throws, a good projectile, serviceable OOS game, and great gimping tools. Pika lacks very little a character could possible want. He's a difficult character to play well, but I don't believe he's bad, but probably still not amazing. He could stand to have something else, but it is a slippery slope for Pika.





I believe this is a lot of misinformation on the part of players.

Link was not barely nerfed.
Toonlink was not nerfed as hard as Link.
Toonlink was never a bad character. People just had knee jerk reactions.
Link was never top tier, lol m2k

The only reasons Link was a good character in 3.02 were his boomerang being stupid and him being pretty easy to do well with. His boomerang covered up his bad attributes like movement and generally sluggish moves. As I heard Oracle put it in a stream once, his moves didn't scale with skill, they were just good and didn't get better the better you got with him. His recovery was pretty dumb too, but that was the name of the game in 3.02. So it's not like it was spectacular compared to all the other spectacular recoverys.

Link really was barely nerfed. The moves that got touched, boomerang aside, were moves that weren't overly special in his tool kit. He still can do everything he could in 3.02. Boomerang isn't even much worse than what it was before. He just doesn't live forever anymore, I never thought he was a top tier or even a high tier character in 3.02.

The real reason people don't think Link is good anymore is because there aren't anymore good Link players, so no one is out there with proof that he's still good. All the Link players fell off the earth during 3.02's mid-late life.

He's not winning or coming out on top of tournaments so apparently he's bad.

 

[Player -0]

Link isn't that bad I think.

Nair nerfs were big. Also a couple of other stuff.

 

[Scatz]

We still have Anther winning a lot of the things in MI. It's a shame he was too lazy to go to Shots Fired. We also have a talented Link player here in Ohio in Village Mascot. I think they're among the weakest characters in v3.5, but if that's the case goddamn we did a good job.

IIRC, he told me his flight got canceled to that event.

 

[Juushichi]

I had heard something different from Tetra when I spoke to her at Shots Fired. : 0

 

[PlateProp]

...But link is ****ing amazing

The one time I need videos of Skeith, and my scene has none, Rip lonk

 

[Deleted member]

Link really was barely nerfed. The moves that got touched, boomerang aside, were moves that weren't overly special in his tool kit. He still can do everything he could in 3.02. Boomerang isn't even much worse than what it was before. He just doesn't live forever anymore, I never thought he was a top tier or even a high tier character in 3.02.

The real reason people don't think Link is good anymore is because there aren't anymore good Link players, so no one is out there with proof that he's still good. All the Link players fell off the earth during 3.02's mid-late life.

He's not winning or coming out on top of tournaments so apparently he's bad.

the real reason people think link is bad is because you dont have to respect his conversions if you know how to hold the down button while you do things to him. no one is out there with proof that he's still good mostly because he's not still good. lots of people still play link, he's one of the most popular nintendo characters by far, he's just not good.

 

[Boiko]

the real reason people think link is bad is because you dont have to respect his conversions if you know how to hold the down button while you do things to him. no one is out there with proof that he's still good mostly because he's not still good. lots of people still play link, he's one of the most popular nintendo characters by far, he's just not good.

Aklo got 7th at The Flex Zone beating DJ, Zubat, The Moon, and Envy. He was double eliminated by Poob.
Idk, that's pretty good.

 

[Bazkip]

I expressly remember people thinking Ike got buried and remember reading facebook posts about how they were going to drop PM because their character got nerfed so hard. One of them has been on a tear winning majors. Imagine that.

lol ally
At Smash Intensifies (which was shortly after 3.5 dropped) he was complaining about Ike being bad and how the Melee characters just win in this version.
And then he still beat Weon-X.
He's wised up since though.

Also in regards to Link, Vwins has picked up him recently and it's kind of scary. Though also entirely possible that that's simply due to Vwins being so good. But damn.

 

[trash?]

notable quotes from ally's AMA:

"and please no questions about "Ike being broken" he is not LOL just mad good."

"I don't have an actual top 5 but Fox is the best character in the game."

[Do you think Fox is the best character because he's so developed or do you actually think he is the best character in the game because he has the best matchups/options, etc.?] "His shine lol and yeah he's really developed"

"Falcon is top 10 in my eyes. still horrible offstage"

"M2K doesnt mixup enough, he kept getting caught by the same thing over and over. His spacing with Nair wasnt on point and he kept nairing on the same spot as fox, I was getting free grabs all day."

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

"M2K doesnt mixup enough, he kept getting caught by the same thing over and over. His spacing with Nair wasnt on point and he kept nairing on the same spot as fox, I was getting free grabs all day."

Any possible hopes I had of Ike maybe having a close to even MU with Fox were just sort of dashed when I saw Armada v/s Ally.

 

[Bazkip]

Fox is so broken he still wins even when he's dead.

Though seriously...is there any good reason to make dying off the top not take your stock immediately? Can that be changed?

 

[Soft Serve]

Fox is so broken he still wins even when he's dead.

Though seriously...is there any good reason to make dying off the top not take your stock immediately? Can that be changed?

It'd be an indirect nerf to jiggs, so no matter what she gets punished for landing rest

 

[DMG]

Don't think that can be changed. Upper blastzone works different than the others iirc since people can jump and recover on their own way up there without dying? Making it instant might affect those situations where you get tossed far in the corner, and try to jump to slow down momentum. They have looked into making ceiling deaths standardized before though, like 1 consistent result (preferrably the star KO to not block the screen).

 

[Foo]

It'd be an indirect nerf to jiggs, so no matter what she gets punished for landing rest

I assume that, ideally, the animation would stay the same, you'd just lose the stock the moment you went off the blast zone. Idk how possible that is, but it'd be better.

 

[Ningildo]

I'm just going to leave a list of Oli bugs that need fixing since 3.0 and I want them gone in 3.6/4.0/whatever next version is, cause dying due bs is never fun:

1. UpB
This thing was buggy since 3.0 and was never really fixed. Basically, sometimes pikmin just fall out of line when in the air and don't form a part of the chain when recovering, which usually results into you dying horribly. Doesn't help that in these cases, whistling doesn't put them back in line for some reason if the pikmin is too far away. Maybe let pikmin jump back in line/regain DJ after whistle?

2. Instant break from a perfectly spaced grab
Take any pikmin, and perfectly space a standing/pivot grab. Your opponent will instantly break free, for no reason. No idea how to fix it, but please do, as punishing Oli players for spacing their grabs makes no sense at all.

3. Red pikmin Dsmash
Pretty sure that the sourspot on a red pikmin Dsmash is non existent (it has a hitbox size of 0, which means it can never hit). Why...?

4. Lack of grab armor
Not really a bug, but nonsensical nonetheless. Why exclude Olimar from something EVERY OTHER DAMN CHARACTER GETS? "But the pikmin grab, so only they should have grab armor." Then why do tether characters have grab armor too? Remove it cause range makes up for the lack of grab armor. Except...no. Tether grabs already have slower startup and longer endlag as compensation for better range. Same for Oli, so...

Hopefully these get fixed, cause with these, Oli will become a good deal better then he is now. Tagging @ steelguttey cause he always pops up when Oli talk happens and might remember/know about other glitches/bugs that need fixing in the next patch.

 

[mimgrim]

Fox is so broken he still wins even when he's dead.

Though seriously...is there any good reason to make dying off the top not take your stock immediately? Can that be changed?

Yes yes. Star/screen KOs are a bunch of BS. It would be nice if PMDT could make it to where the ceiling acted like the other blast-zones instead, ala Smash 4 but completely getting rid of star/screen KOs rather then them having even a random chance of happening).

It'd be an indirect nerf to jiggs, so no matter what she gets punished for landing rest

It can also be argued to be an indirect buff to her for YOLO Rests off the stage.

 

[eideeiit]

Should Olimar just be reworked completely? Well OK, not completely, but AFAIK loads of guys would love to have his pluck changed to something non-random and side-b is dumb and promotes boring play. A fastfalling Olimar with new tech would be hilarious. A character that requires the brains of a scientist and the execution of an ace pilot. Actually kinda faithful to what Oli is in his games. lol

 

[PlateProp]

Pretty sure they could set it so that only last stocks KO normally off the top

 

[Rhubarbo]

Should Olimar just be reworked completely? Well OK, not completely, but AFAIK loads of guys would love to have his pluck changed to something non-random and side-b is dumb and promotes boring play. Fastfalling Olimar with new tech would be hilarious. A character that requires the brains of a scientist and the execution of an ace pilot. Actually kinda faithful to what Oli is in his games. lol

I've always thought Olimar off since Brawl. Back in the day I came up with an Olimar moveset that I think would be mint for him:

Neutral B: Press B and Olimar bends forward. After one frame, enter up, down, left, right, or B again to pluck a Pikmin; the Pikmin's colour corresponds to the input you entered.

Side B: Pretty much the same, but smashing the input causes Olimar to throw Pikmin at a ~160 degree angle that travels a shorter distance.

Up B: On the ground it's still the chain; in the air, Olimar is engulfed by a shrunk down interpretation of the SS Dolphin which he can pilot around before it crash lands.

Idle Pikmin: If a tossed Pikmin doesn't latch onto an opponent, it idles about. Each type of Pikmin has a unique effect that can be triggered with Olimar's whistle while in this state (e.g. blue Pikmin have Piplup's surf effect, yellow Pikmin are bombs, white Pikmin dig for basic items, and so on). Additionally, idling Pikmin bud more quickly.

Down B: The whistle only recalls Pikmin within its range. Holding the whistle down increases its range; smashing the whistle makes its effect global.

Snap to Pikmin Colour: Each taunt button, and one smash taunt input causes Olimar to switch to a specific Pikmin colour in his order. Snapping to a Pikmin also causes Olimar to blow his whistle, which functions as a weak attack in this respect.

To compensate for Olimar's lack of taunts:

Rapid jab=around the world dancing animation
diagonally down tilt=the worm

 

[PoTheDragonSlayer]

We still have Anther winning a lot of the things in MI. It's a shame he was too lazy to go to Shots Fired. We also have a talented Link player here in Ohio in Village Mascot. I think they're among the weakest characters in v3.5, but if that's the case goddamn we did a good job.

Have you seen Axe rocking Pikachu as of late? He did amazing at Dehydration and mainly (or completely, not sure) played Pika all the way to GF.

 

[Player -0]

2. Instant break from a perfectly spaced grab
Take any pikmin, and perfectly space a standing/pivot grab. Your opponent will instantly break free, for no reason. No idea how to fix it, but please do, as punishing Oli players for spacing their grabs makes no sense at all.

At what percent does this happen? It takes a bit for the pikmin to walk back to Olimar and they can mash during this time.

 

[B.W.]

At what percent does this happen? It takes a bit for the pikmin to walk back to Olimar and they can mash during this time.

I'm pretty sure this isn't a matter of perfect spacing, but exactly what you seem to be saying.

When you grab a player with a Pikmin they can mash the moment the Pikmin connects. The problem is, Olimar can't input a throw or a pummel during this time so opponents can still break free. It'd be nice if they couldn't mash until the Pikmin "reeled" in the opponent completely.

 

[941]

I apologize in advance because this will come off as harsh, but:

Do you honestly, truly believe that it isn't?

Sorry if I used poor phrasing, but I was genuinely just asking a question, not trying to imply anything or state an opinion. @Sethlon made a post saying balance wasn't decided by player complaints, I thought that player feedback was considered when making changes, so I asked for clarification. You did answer my question though, so thanks.

Also, my apologies for derailing the discussion, I wanted to post something relevant here but couldn't think of anything.

 

[TheGravyTrain]

Doesn't perfect spacing go slower too (like Toon Link).

 

[Player -0]

What makes sense and what the PMDT probably does is look closely about popular complaints but they don't act on these complaints unless they test more and deem it necessary. While this is happening they check other characters that aren't complained about as much.

Doesn't perfect spacing go slower too (like Toon Link).

For Link's and TLink's grab if they space it on the very edge then both characters will freeze for a second before the other person is reeled in really fast. I believe they can't mash during this though.

 

[Paradoxium]

Pikachu is still filthy. Please I pray that people don't get good with him.

I don't see why people don't notice Pikachu has some broken ****, like yall will think pikachu is stupid after playing a good pikachu main.

 

[TheGravyTrain]

What makes sense and what the PMDT probably does is look closely about popular complaints but they don't act on these complaints unless they test more and deem it necessary. While this is happening they check other characters that aren't complained about as much.


For Link's and TLink's grab if they space it on the very edge then both characters will freeze for a second before the other person is reeled in really fast. I believe they can't mash during this though.

Thats what I meant. I know they can't mash during theirs but for Olimar I believe it takes longer to reel in (aside from the extra distance). Since they already are grabbed, they can mash out (because Pikmin) and the extra time makes more noticeable.

 

[steelguttey]

Should Olimar just be reworked completely? Well OK, not completely, but AFAIK loads of guys would love to have his pluck changed to something non-random and side-b is dumb and promotes boring play. A fastfalling Olimar with new tech would be hilarious. A character that requires the brains of a scientist and the execution of an ace pilot. Actually kinda faithful to what Oli is in his games. lol

I've always thought Olimar off since Brawl. Back in the day I came up with an Olimar moveset that I think would be mint for him:

Neutral B: Press B and Olimar bends forward. After one frame, enter up, down, left, right, or B again to pluck a Pikmin; the Pikmin's colour corresponds to the input you entered.

Side B: Pretty much the same, but smashing the input causes Olimar to throw Pikmin at a ~160 degree angle that travels a shorter distance.

Up B: On the ground it's still the chain; in the air, Olimar is engulfed by a shrunk down interpretation of the SS Dolphin which he can pilot around before it crash lands.

Idle Pikmin: If a tossed Pikmin doesn't latch onto an opponent, it idles about. Each type of Pikmin has a unique effect that can be triggered with Olimar's whistle while in this state (e.g. blue Pikmin have Piplup's surf effect, yellow Pikmin are bombs, white Pikmin dig for basic items, and so on). Additionally, idling Pikmin bud more quickly.

Down B: The whistle only recalls Pikmin within its range. Holding the whistle down increases its range; smashing the whistle makes its effect global.

Snap to Pikmin Colour: Each taunt button, and one smash taunt input causes Olimar to switch to a specific Pikmin colour in his order. Snapping to a Pikmin also causes Olimar to blow his whistle, which functions as a weak attack in this respect.

To compensate for Olimar's lack of taunts:

Rapid jab=around the world dancing animation
diagonally down tilt=the worm

stop
stop

stoooooooooooooooop

olimar doesnt need a rework at all, hes fiiiiine

all he needs is a smart way of temoving rng that doesnt reward you with pikmin for doing nothing (like the holding direction+b ****) and everything @ Ningildo mentioned. most importantly, a real recovery.

every time people who dont play olimar try to propose a rework for him i get a hernia

 

[trash?]

still think it should be based on holding down the b button

the purple pikmin can take like four seconds to pluck and then the weakest baby pikmin (prolly white pikmin) can be plucked immediately. at the very least, purple pikmin should just take the avg amount of time from the opponent losing their stock to the opponent catching up to olimar after respawning, make it a big meaty reward

 

[B.W.]

Olimar as he is right now would be mostly fine if his bugs were fixed and tether recoveries were reworked as a whole. Then maybe a few tweaks to his moveset (frames, damage, knockback)

RNG really isn't hurting Olimar that bad, especially right now because every Pikmin has a 20% chance of being plucked rather than the chances being all over the place.