Tier List Speculation

[DrinkingFood]

Just checked using debug, Kirby's aerial mobility is (effectively) higher than ROBs. There's multiple numbers that determine drifting ability, but what I checked is kinda qualitative determining whose is better. Fell through warioware platforms (the outer edge) and immediately started drifting in. ROB landed 21 frames and didn't even to the end of second square in. Kirby, at 21 frames drifting time, reached the end of the second square in, though he landed in 22 frames and got even farther. Measured from center point to center point (dunno what that bone is called that determines the character's center but w/e), with the starting point being while they teetered. Neither fast fell, neither had momentum already going into their drift. So if you started drifting out of a raw fall, Kirby's would be better. And Kirby's really isn't that good, but he can change it suddenly using his double jumps, and his double jumps aren't so high that they are much of a commitment. ROB's only way to shift momentum in a meaningful manner is using his boosts- his double jump is kinda high to be used for that by itself though you can get some degree of small scale positioning from double jumping into another boost.
But either way my point is really that Kirby can weave, less because of raw drifting speed and more because of his double jumps, ROB's boosts aren't at all good for weaving, if you see him retreating with a boost it's not really a threat at all to take the space he just stopped threatening because there's a fair chunk of time where he can't turn around at all.

 

[Foo]

^
Except he did.

No, he didn't. I tested it, and it doesn't reach half that far.

 

[Deleted member]

I'm pretty sure that's not true, from the standpoint of purely drifting, ROB has one of the worst aerial mobilities
And additionally, Kirby has 5 jumps that can suddenly max his speed in either direction (if used with an aerial), so as far as micro-spacing goes it's definitely better than ROBs.

thankfully you're not stuck purely drifting, you have boosts and a disrespect nair option that hits everywhere and beats most other air moves easily, or at least trades favorably, and a lot of weight to accompany it.

sorry DF, rob is just really, really ****ing good. nothing wrong with that though, not like my character is bad either.

 

[PlateProp]

No, he didn't. I tested it, and it doesn't reach half that far.

Saying something didnt happen when it did, and four people witnessed it lol

There are things called glitches you know

 

[DrinkingFood]

Nair isn't without risk, it can lose to lingering/disjointed aerials (which isn't asking much because ROB going for a boost nair IS telegraphed, like he has to be way up there) although that depends heavily on my vertical spacing, but the main thing is you can kinda just either be under ROB and not have to worry at all about it, or or be far away enough to shield the nair and shield grab so long as you are facing my landing positioning
and boost nair also gets ****ed over by platform positioning a lot
boost nair isn't strictly on shield, it depends entirely on cross-ups or spacing to be so
I mean I think ROB is good too, but you just said you don't think he has any bad matchups, rofl, that's what I'm disagreeing with, he definitely has weaknesses that can be heavily exploited by certain character archetypes

 

[Deleted member]

As a reference, here is links standing grab. The Catch Collision Data that has "0-1" can only grab grounded opponents, while the one that has "0-3" can grab both grounded and aerial opponents.

The same thing is in toon links data. The characters CAN grab aerial opponents with their hand grabboxes, but theres no real way to give the rest of the grab aerial grabbing properties without making chain grabs.


BTW I have access to umbreons account and I swear I'm not typing on his account about ROB.

 

[Chevy]

bombs ans jabs create pressure if by pressure you mean ' i dont know how to buffer rolls, ill just sit here and let samus wail on my shield'

samus has 'fake' shield pressure.

They don't even have to buffer anything. Jab cancels are still minus on shield, hell they can be shield grabbed by most characters with good timing.

 

[Myst007_teh_newb]

Everything is more or less true save for the last paragraph. Rob can pretty easily float around divekick since it is so telegraphed. Dive kick is great against certain characters recoveries (like falcon) or for hard reads on recovery, but not against characters like rob. He could just boost up on reaction to down-b and if you tried to just double jump fair he could fair first. I wouldn't say it's super hard to edgeguard rob, but it's a farcry from "free."




Nair to fair doesn't work at higher %s because he's a little too floaty. (unless you hit reverse nair). Rob is probably one of the hardest characters for ZSS to kill imo, but you do rack damage like cray. Not sure if it's 60-40, but it's definitely not worse than even unless one or both of the characters see some real development. Main problem I see with the matchup is glide toss oos against spaced bair.

Also, zss isn't "hard" in terms of tech skill and reads, she's just pretty precise and requires a lot of characters knowledge, kinda like ness. Also, she has a lot of pretty specific hitboxes and angles to her combo game like reverse bair and nair, sour dair, first hit fair, and reverse upair (DI mixup), first hit up-b, and edge canceled divekick, that I rarely if ever see ZSS players use ( and I still can't quite get the hang of a lot of that). She has a lot of combos that are pretty easy (like very basic nair and upair strings), but to unlock her entire combo game it takes a lot of work.


EDIT: @ Boiko I really just don't feel ness lol. Something about him just feels icky to me. Also, I am the type of player who can't seem to duo main a character. My zss does better than all my other characters even in really bad matchups except roy vs fox.

I'm talking specifically about reverse nair in that combo string, so we're in agreement there.

As far as kill power is concerned, I think that it's very stage dependent. However there are plenty of stages that let ZSS get kills fairly quick. Aside from the obvious GHZ, YS, and WW, ZSS can kill super quick on PS2 and Smashville. And DP as well if she get's the perfect combo. It's all about platform placement. ZSS can springboard off of the low platforms on PS2, DP, and SV in order to get kills offstage with fair. Sure, ROB is super heavy and can live forever, but that advantage is dwarfed when they only have so much room to DI before the blastzone. Reverse nair, land on platform, and crazy off-stage fair is incredibly potent and can kill many people at sub-100% even. The trick is that they combo-DI the nair which sends them way off-stage. Even with all of this extra space, you can follow up with a fair thanks to down-b. You're basically comboing off of the top corner blastzone, so no DI can help you there.

To address your glide toss OoS comment: don't space bair when ROB has a top in hand. Simple work around. Bait the toss and just crawl under it or catch it. Then spam bair to your heart's content.

As far as down-b divekick for edge guarding is concerned, the threat of the divekick does way more to freak the opponent out during the edge guard than the actual kick itself. That's what makes it so good. It threatens so much space and the opportunity to divekick is present so late into the animation that you can bully ROB out of so much space just by pressing down-b. This forces them to dip below the stage and use the vertical boost, which can be intercepted. It's a chore for ROB to get around ZSS. Free is hyperbole, sure, but it's still very easy to bully ROB offstage.

And all of the subtlety of ZSS doesn't really make her hard in my opinion. It's all just practice and tech skill. Memorize the lines and the spacing. I guess my definition of "hard" is different than other people. That's fine. You don't need the subtle stuff to beat out ROB, though, imo. ZSS's bread and butter is more than enough to overwhelm the robot.

 

[Frost | Odds]

@ DrinkingFood that's fair enough, I stand corrected about the drifting thing. Last time I use that goddamn statistics thread - it has ROB's air mobility listed as 1/8th faster than Kirby's. It's wrong about Bowser's spotdodge, too :/

You still undersell ROB like you're M2K and he's your most-used tournament character. ROB's aerial mobility sans boosts is pretty irrelevant, after all. The problem isn't so much that they let him retreat in the air; it's how far they extend his effective threat radius, and how much he's rewarded for hitting stuff (mainly fair, also nair and uair) from a boost. It's kinda like Kirby's dash attack, except that it can be used from a position that, for almost every other character, is supposed to be disadvantageous (the air). That in itself wouldn't really be problematic if ROB weren't such a ridiculously good character in every other aspect.

 

[DrinkingFood]

ROB's mobility sans boosts is SUPER relevant. It means there's a workable counterplay in covering the zone he can boost to and not being at threat of punishment for doing so. Like, earlier in the thread Lunchables was talking about how ROB can boost out of combos, and if he has his jump that's actually pretty decent since he can shift both vertically and horizontally quickly, but without his jump, ROB at best has to boost away to escape combos in that situation, because drifting isn't an option when you can barely drift, so all you have to do is aim for where he is and that covers boost forward or no boost. That's really like most characters that just trade off stage position to avoid extra damage. And never mind that that also costs him a huge part of his recovery (the first boost is the most important for his recovery by far, usually it'll be used upward so you can use a high recovery mix-up but the mix-up is gone if you can't also boost forward afterwards and still mix-up airdodge afterwards).

And ROB isn't ridiculously good in every other aspect. He still has a hard time covering the air a couple units in front of him; his DD is slow and short-reaching even if his options out of it are pretty good; his projectiles are very telegraphed and very manageable in neutral (stop letting him get gyro in hand); his primary burst range option dramatically undercuts his recovery and combo escape options if it's successfully counterplayed, something other characters with long burst reach generally don't suffer from; his OoS options aren't anything to write home about and his shield size is still really sad and super easy to poke; his CC options secretly don't get him a whole lot on an opponent holding away (unless you get weird spacing against dsmash, it seems to confuse people's DI sometimes).

I told you I'm not underselling ROB. I think he's a top10 character for sure this patch. Umbreon literally said ROB might have no bad matchups, I think that's horse****, I fail to see how that qualifies as underselling when I'm saying a character who is not the best character in the game is not the best character in the game

Just remembered a fun fact, ROB is closer in floatiness to zard/ivy/squirt in floatiness than he is to Samus. He could be a floaty or a semi-floaty depending on where you draw the line. Because of that and his square frame and lack of quick body covering hitboxes I'd say he's definitely easier to combo than samus, although neither really is.

 

[Frost | Odds]

I respect that passion, because that's exactly how I feel, though for a different character. I'm way too tired to do the internet meganerd point-by-point rebuttal thing, and that would be dumb anyway because you're right more often than not. Just a couple things I disagree with:

- pretty much everyone has trouble covering the air a couple units in front of them. ROB still has up-angled ftilt, sh fair, up-angled laser(likely after a WD back), forward glidetoss (while throwing upwards), up-angled fsmash, and possibly other stuff.
- His DD really isn't that bad. It's not great, but at least servicable, and the way he leans forward means it's much more conducive to him dodging some things than other characters' DDs may be.
- I think most ROBs way overuse boost fair. I'm of the opinion (and, per usual, may be wrong) that DACUS is usually a much better burst approach, because it starts from a grounded state (even crouching), typically has better rewards, and comes out awful quickly. It's less safe, but if you're in a position where you're using a burst approach option, safety shouldn't be a priority anyway.
- You don't really need to approach at all though in almost any matchup; not with projectiles like the ones ROB has.

I think ROB has a strong possibility of being top 3 in the cast, but then I've had more terrible and wrong balance opinions than half the other people in this thread combined - I'm only really confident at all when addressing Bowser-related topics; and am often wrong even then. >.>


========= DAILY REMINDER THAT FOX STILL EXISTS, AND BOY HOWDY IS HE EVER STILL BROKEN =========

 

[DrinkingFood]

wtf you think DACUS is a good burst option? You think either fsmash or ftilt angled up are workable anti-airs? I can't really say I value your opinion of ROB if you think one of his most committed ground moves with the worst grounded coverage could be used for real approaches or that you think a frame 15 move and also one of his more committed moves can anti-air or that he could anti-air with an ftilt that barely tilts up at all. forward glide toss up is the only one out of those I consider worth much because of low endlag, but the hitbox is still very small so it only covers a vertical column, the real strength is that it moves you more directly underneath them if the gyro misses, so you can the use moves that hit directly above you which ROB actually has moves good for, see utilt/usmash/ SH uair

But disregarding that, I do think your vision is tainted by playing a character that also can't handle projectiles well. ROB's projectiles are not that great for encouraging approaches at all. Both have heavy enough start-up and cool down to be very manageable; you can shield laser on reaction at all times (while grounded obv) with frame advantage, nevermind that the hitbox is extremely tiny so if the opponent jumps or falls or crouches when you don't expect it or makes any odd move you can very well just miss; and gyro takes so long to get it into his hands which is the only time it's really any good in neutral. Plus it's still an item so catching it is a valid solution (and I see it happen pretty frequently with item-savvy players, even against glide toss). ROB's only real mix-up in getting gyro out that doesn't cost him (It's a mix-up tho so it inherently works only part of the time) is an approaching gyro jump (FH gyro shot into catch) mixed up with canceling the gyro into a boost approach/retreat. Any other time, he risks getting the gyro taken from him if he shoots it forward, or loses stage space if he shoots it behind him. Of course, most of this is invalid if your too slow a character to take ROB's gyro or catch it.

ROB's gyro/laser are more punishment tools for me than anything else- gyro is neat in that it's a punishment tool that succeeds stocks- I take a stock, my neutral gets way better because I can now get a gyro in hand. But idfk why anyone has an issue with laser. In neutral it's a bad falco laser with a recharge time, and using it frequently costs me the use of super laser, which is important in securing kills off boost fairs at the edge.

 

[Beorn]

As a reference, here is links standing grab. The Catch Collision Data that has "0-1" can only grab grounded opponents, while the one that has "0-3" can grab both grounded and aerial opponents.

The same thing is in toon links data. The characters CAN grab aerial opponents with their hand grabboxes, but theres no real way to give the rest of the grab aerial grabbing properties without making chain grabs.


BTW I have access to umbreons account and I swear I'm not typing on his account about ROB.

I don't understand why this needs to be clarified guys. Of course links hand grab box (the small one) can grab out of the air. With links dash and run speed combined with the kick of the tether coming out and the fact that it doesn't come out until frame 11. It's not all that usefull, but yes he can grab out of the air.

 

[Leafeon]

========= DAILY REMINDER THAT FOX STILL EXISTS, AND BOY HOWDY IS HE EVER STILL BROKEN =========

I feel bad when you have to put this at the bottom of your post, but at the same time... :\

 

[TreK]

Made a few updates, working partly with JZ. Hopefully accurate. Discuss!

Large Advantage - (65:35) +

Advantage - (60:40)

Slight Advantage - (55:45)

Even - (50:50)

Slight Disadvantage - (45:55)

Disadvantage - (40:60)

Large Disadvantage - (35:65) +

(Characters in each tier organized by alphabetical order)
???

Mach and JZ who most people believe are the 2 best Ivies atm have been working on Ivysaur's matchup chart if you guys are interested.

There are a few differences with mine, but I feel like this list the most accurate one we'll get until 3.6 :V

My biggest and probably only real gripe with it is that I think we win against Snake. I've got a lot of experience against Leon and against me he's forced to switch to Marth despite him consistently placing 1st and me consistently placing 3rd-4th. He's only won one set against me as Snake.
JZ probably has a lot of experience with FlashingFire if my US geography isn't too shabby, but if that's the case I think he's the one who's wrong here :V

edit : yeah DDD is easier than that as well thanks for pointing it out v

 

[Ripple]

You should probably change that DDD MU to large advantage because it's seriously not close to even

 

[Juushichi]

I really, really want to see JZ vs Hanky and XYK now, because I know Papa hates the Luigi MU and I am almost 100% sure that Peach wins as well.

 

[Frost | Odds]

@ DrinkingFood How are you able to intellectually appreciate that ROB is one of the best characters, and yet manage to pretend that every one of his moves is total garbage in every situation? For God's sake, you sound like I used to when talking about Melee Jigglypuff.

By your logic, literally nobody can ever defend against approaching aerials, recovery is impossible, projectiles are always garbage and will always be caught or powershielded, tilts are unusable, and every move in the game is far too much commitment to ever get away with.

Dude, DACUS comes out frame 13, has amazing launcher and vertical hitboxes, and travels farther than all but a handful of DACUSes in the game. I can't tell if you seriously think it's a bad punish option, or if you're trying to pull one over on us. From watching some of your games, you seem to dsmash approximately twice as much as every other move combined, which is pretty strange behavior for someone who thinks dsmash is a garbage move. :/

 

[Deleted member]

i can understand that rob might have bad MUs, i just dont know what they are. but right now, i dont see any. i also think rob is very clearly top 5 in the game.

 

[Jolteon]

I've thought ivy bodies marth since 2.5, am I sacrilegious?

 

[Boiko]

I've thought ivy bodies marth since 2.5, am I sacrilegious?

I always thought it was more in Ivy's favor also. Or if anything, at least close to even.

Maybe @ TreK could elaborate.

 

[Juushichi]

Every Ivy ever hates the MU to my knowledge. I think it's Marth favor, personally @ Jolteon .

I also think that Marth does ok enough on CPs vs most characters too.

 

[Soft Serve]

Ivy can't di out of fthrow followups, they have comparable ranges but Marth is more mobile. It's pretty bad

 

[CELTiiC]

Through my experience I think it's in Marth's favor. Ivysaur's recovery is a huge detriment to him in this matchup and Marth's better mobility helps him immensely.

Edit: To add also as Softie said Ivysaur will almost always eat something out of f-throw and Marth can deal pretty well with razor leaf and Ivysaur's shenanigans.

 

[Frost | Odds]

I'm sure that Ivy loses horribly to Marth, but I'm not sure how it could be true that he has guaranteed followups from fthrow. His followups aren't even guaranteed on Jigglypuff, and she's way lighter and floatier than Ivy; and they're not guaranteed on Charizard, who's way fatter. What am I missing?

 

[Juushichi]

the thing is that he does on Puff if you pivot. I know when I saw it, I went and did it on our local puffs in Melee.

The talk has been around since at least 2011 and we saw it in practice on a grand stage w/ PPU vs HBox at APEX.

As far as Charizard, idk much about that MU discussion wise so I can't crosscheck that.

We obviously don't have that in PM, but I am sure that a fair amount of things from the "Best Thread on Smashboards" (aka Kadano's Perfect Marth Class) still applies.

 

[Yambotico]

I was under the impression that if puff does the wrong di marth can then catch it with a pivot.

 

[CELTiiC]

It isn't a horrible matchup for Ivy but it isn't preferable for him at least in my opinion. I have played the matchup from Marth's side at least 100+ times, and except for the first couple times I've played against Ivysaur I haven't had much trouble against my friend and we are about equal skill level or he may be a little better than I am. I just feel Marth has better tools in the matchup, like his options out of his grab game and just his dash dance game in general, which make it hard for Ivysaur to be effective. Ivysaur's recovery really hurts him too.

 

[steelguttey]

Mach and JZ who most people believe are the 2 best Ivies atm have been working on Ivysaur's matchup chart if you guys are interested.

There are a few differences with mine, but I feel like this list the most accurate one we'll get until 3.6 :V

My biggest and probably only real gripe with it is that I think we win against Snake. I've got a lot of experience against Leon and against me he's forced to switch to Marth despite him consistently placing 1st and me consistently placing 3rd-4th. He's only won one set against me as Snake.
JZ probably has a lot of experience with FlashingFire if my US geography isn't too shabby, but if that's the case I think he's the one who's wrong here :V

edit : yeah DDD is easier than that as well thanks for pointing it out v

olimar is 70:30 in ivy's favor

if you wanna know why, get someone to throw a pikmin at you. then press the b button

 

[InfinityCollision]

the thing is that he does on Puff if you pivot.

His options aren't guaranteed. Puff can escape any combination of throw + followup if she DIs it correctly, the key is that there is no one DI option that escapes all of his options until well into kill percent.

 

[Deleted member]

i hate playing marth vs ivysaur. if the ivy has bad DI (most of them) its a free MU but if the ivy has good DI then marth has the same problem he has vs every character with no reliable setups. ivy can literally just DI everything down+away over 8% and tether to the edge and marth can do a lot of nothing about it. admittedly it's a LOT better than it was in 3.02 where marth dies at 70% every stock but its still obnoxious as ****.

 

[trash?]

I recall @ TreK mentioning that he has an amazing marth player that's considered significantly better than him that has huge trouble in tournament solely because of how ivy/marth plays out

 

[Deleted member]

france has a couple amazing marth players in melee, would not be surprised if it transferred well.

im pretty sure mid level marth obliterates mid level ivysaur badly but it switches pretty hard when its the best players at their characters that know what to exploit.

 

[941]

Mach and JZ who most people believe are the 2 best Ivies atm have been working on Ivysaur's matchup chart if you guys are interested.

There are a few differences with mine, but I feel like this list the most accurate one we'll get until 3.6 :V

My biggest and probably only real gripe with it is that I think we win against Snake. I've got a lot of experience against Leon and against me he's forced to switch to Marth despite him consistently placing 1st and me consistently placing 3rd-4th. He's only won one set against me as Snake.
JZ probably has a lot of experience with FlashingFire if my US geography isn't too shabby, but if that's the case I think he's the one who's wrong here :V

edit : yeah DDD is easier than that as well thanks for pointing it out v

Isn't the Sheik MU a bit more in Sheik's favor? From what I've seen, Sheik's punish game on Ivy is really good.

 

[Deleted member]

Ivy vs. Marth in 2.6 and 3.0 was probably ivys favor imo but in 3.5, ivys lack of proper stage control is very very very relevant. Marth definitely wins now.

She has pretty poor options vs proper dash dancing, and you can ACTUALLY EDGE GUARD HER NOW!!!! HOOOORAAAAAY (I've wanted to say that for a long time)

 

[Frost | Odds]

you can ACTUALLY EDGE GUARD HER NOW!!!! HOOOORAAAAAY (I've wanted to say that for a long time)

Yeah, Ivy's pretty hype now that some things actually work on her. I hope she gets some minor buffs in 3.6 or 4.0, but this is easily the most balanced I've ever seen her.

 

[supascoot]

Yeah, Ivy's pretty hype now that some things actually work on her. I hope she gets some minor buffs in 3.6 or 4.0, but this is easily the most balanced I've ever seen her.

You know, thinking about this, it made me ask a question. What tier does a character need to be to be "balanced"? So far what I've seen about Ivy on tier lists is that she is usually lower down, in around B- tier with other low-tier non-broken chars. Does this make Ivy "balanced", as a character which is lower than a majority of other char? Or is it more based on design and the individual strength of the character?

 

[Narpas_sword]

i put 'balanced' as having nearly even matchups with 90% of the cast or so. (theres always going to be one matchup outlier)

 

[Frost | Odds]

You know, thinking about this, it made me ask a question. What tier does a character need to be to be "balanced"? So far what I've seen about Ivy on tier lists is that she is usually lower down, in around B- tier with other low-tier non-broken chars. Does this make Ivy "balanced", as a character which is lower than a majority of other char? Or is it more based on design and the individual strength of the character?

There's two major components to 'balance' (disregarding 'design' and the feel of a character).

1. Relatively equal matchup spread - which is to say that the number of characters beaten by Character X is roughly the same as those that beat X; as well as that the severity of the winning and losing matchups are similar (ie. not having 10 winning matchups at 90:10 and 10 losing ones at 55:45).

2. Lack of matchup polarization - ie, the character's matchups roughly follow a bell curve with few or no major outliers. X's most-winningest matchups are still winnable for X's opponent, as well as the converse (X's matchups are still winnable).

Ivysaur is now much less polarized than she was (which is still pretty polarized), but now kinda suffers from a poor matchup spread. The same can be said for quite a few characters in this patch.

Having a somewhat poor matchup spread is bound to happen, but can be minimized with care without totally polarizing a character. The purpose of 3.5, according to its blog posts, wasn't to accomplish #1 nearly so much as it aimed at #2; which ended up temporarily weakening a lot of characters in service of better design and less polarization.

 

[Juushichi]

Fwiw @Umbreon I think aside from I guess you vs denti which I imagine would have had to be around nowish, the only other time we saw high level ivy vs Marth was when kev and reflex had it out

I know reflex absolutely hated the mu even with the older ivy versions