Tier List Speculation

[MLGF]

When pm players whine about Luigi
<_<

 

[howbadisbad]

When pm players whine about Luigi
<_<

I thought complaining about the characters that fraud alerted you in tourney was the custom in this thread?

 

[TheDarkMysteryMan]

I was saving this for the day that Fox needed to be removed, but I'll go ahead and use it for Luigi...

You take Luigi and replace him with a Penguin named Carl.

Carl still wears the Green Hat and Overalls, but he is obviously not a Mario Bro. He is also not a Carl Bro: him being a Carl Bro would normally be a logical conclusion to arrive at but you mustn't forget that Carl is a Penguin.

His moveset would involve arctic ice/water, slipperiness, Penguin beak attacks, Penguin flight (fictional Penguins can fly, everybody knows that), and ofc Salmon Slaps.

He proudly does not end up using his feet directly for attacks, in an effort to spare the humility of being forced into "Happy Feet" references and garbage memes.

He can break shields in any 2 hits, he cannot be grabbed (blame BP oil slick), he has the longest wavedash (surprisingly not oil slick related, but old fashioned KY Jelly), and he shoots ice cubes for a projectile. Mods where you replace the ice cube texture with the face of Ice Cube are strictly encouraged, and any setup caught using default ice cube texture is banned for being scrubby.


I'd ask for your comments and opinions, but I'm way better than most of you Serf Monglers anyways so I'm just posting it to discourage anyone else from attempting to create a character as good as I can.

Best damn read ever.

 

[941]

Maybe it'll get fixed in 3.6. Do they get wrecked by anything else?

The character itself, is playable and can win in most situations. The issue is there is very little incentive for anyone to play them when there are characters in the game that are better than them at pretty much everything. Aside from Fox, I would say there are at least 3 characters that have better punish, neutral, defensive, and recovery options, and there is a plethora of characters that do some of these slightly worse, but are much stronger in other areas. Maybe when 3.6 drops someone will win a ~50 player tournament with them, and people will say we've been underrating them all this time, but without some changes, I doubt we'll ever see an ICs main make top 5 at a major.

 

[Daftatt]

IDK how I missed this part of the post, but I'll never miss an opportunity to babble about Browser.

You're essentially right about the types of MUs that tend to be troublesome, though projectiles are much less threatening overall than they were last patch due to dash attack's intangibility (as far as I know, the single biggest buff he's ever gotten). Toon Link is far from his worst in my experience, though. Ganondorf, ROB, and GnW, are IMO by far his worst MUs, and I typically switch off to other characters against any of those - but many others are still worse than Tink.

Armor on the Klaw is pretty silly - it just needlessly adds complexity to the opponent's mental model of how Bowser works. It's incredibly unintuitive, as the very core rock-paper-scissors model of basically all fighting games including Smash bros is Attack > Grab > Shield > Attack. Armor on a grab just confuses and frustrates uninformed opponents without actually providing Bowser any benefit whatsoever at high level. I would vastly prefer if the armor were removed from the grounded Klaw entirely, the attack made substantially faster, and the decision between Klaw and standing grab be based on other factors (such as endlag, potential followups, sliding distance on the standing grab, etc) than startup speed.

Unintuitive mechanics like armor on the Klaw, and too much armor on the nair and dash attack, are the types of things that alienate, frustrate, and confuse the hell out of new players looking to pick up PM, particularly if they come from Melee backgrounds. To my understanding, one of the most basic concepts of game design is that you want low complexity (ie. 'easy to learn') but high depth ('hard to master') at pretty much every level of the game - level design, controls, character balance, whatever. The PMDT has done amazing work in implementing this for most characters, so Bowser kinda sticks out like a sore thumb in that regard because he's incredibly high complexity (hard to learn) and low depth (easy to master) in terms of decision making (though his tech is still stupid hard). His matchup is incredibly hard to learn at low levels, but basically a complete joke at high levels, barring some of his attacks which are simply broken as hell and manage to sort of carry him.

At low level, in addition to all the other stuff that you have to learn in every matchup (spacing/move speed/combo DI/etc), you have to know/do all of the following:

- Yes, Bowser's dash attack goes through basically anything
- That there are 4 levels of armor
- The rough amount of kB that will break through each armor breakpoint
- Which moves have how much armor, see:


- Bowser's ledge jump is very safe (4 frames) and lets him do a lot of stuff that isn't available to any other character
- Bowser's ledge attack is ludicrously huge, covering more than half of a lot of stages
- Get used to the command grab from the air. While it basically never works at high level, getting used to this is near-impossible for low level players
- Get used to dealing with Flame Cancel
- Get used to having far fewer safe-on-shield options due to upB
- Get used to getting naired out of a lot of combos that work on basically every other character
- Learn to DI the Koopa Klaw
- Learn to edgeguard against upB's ridiculous aerial hitboxes (I often get aerial upB -> grounded upb -> fortresshog -> ledge attack or fair or nair -> edgeguard to death combos from this)
- Learn to deal with Bowser's ridiculously strong/long ranged options from fullhop -> perfect waveland across platform -> fastfall

...And so forth. My point is that Bowser is well beyond OP at some levels of play - he's completely unintelligible. That doesn't really mean he's 'good' at high level play where his matchup is theoretically understood, but the above list is just not at all a reasonable burden of knowledge for most players. Pretty much all of this stuff is currently necessary for Bowser to compete at all at high level play, but, again, it's all bandaid stuff. I'd much prefer if the armor list looked more like this, and Bowser given appropriate buffs to compensate - and he were therefore made simpler and deeper.



Notice how much easier/more intuitive the bottom list is to memorize. There's only one 'heavy' armored move, the smashes are all in the same category, nair is still a wrecking ball, but not that much of an outlier, and everything else is simply light, and therefore not a huge frustrating dealbreaker if the opponent manages to forget about it.

Not necessarily saying that's the exact changes I want to the armor system, but it's pretty close, and a huge step in the right direction imo.

If you want bowser to have a lot more medium armor frames then the PMDT is gonna have to alter the color overlay from blue.

Which means they should probably take all medium armor off squirtle finally

 

[Warzenschwein]

omggggg but if they take medium armor I can't spam through projectiles and ignore enemy hits anymore

 

[PlateProp]

omggggg but if they take medium armor I can't spam through projectiles and ignore enemy hits anymore

The **** are you doing trying to armor through projectiles with fsmash/nair for

If you want bowser to have a lot more medium armor frames then the PMDT is gonna have to alter the color overlay from blue.

Which means they should probably take all medium armor off squirtle finally

**** you daft, I asked for this months ago and you guys said it was stupid

 

[Warzenschwein]

The **** are you doing trying to armor through projectiles with fsmash/nair for

amplifying my sw4g

 

[PlateProp]

amplifying my sw4g

Stop that, trying to swag with squirtle just gets you killed

 

[Daftatt]

**** you daft, I asked for this months ago and you guys said it was stupid

I wasn't a part of that conversation

I've been advocating for the removal of armor longer than anyone, back when 3.0 dropped even.

 

[PlateProp]

I wasn't a part of that conversation

I've been advocating for the removal of armor longer than anyone, back when 3.0 dropped even.

Go download my squirtle pac on slack and play it and love the lack of medium armor on things that arent dsmash and nair

So is luigi fox tier yet

 

[Rawkobo]

It's common knowledge that swords have a hard time hitting luigi

Since when? Marth vs Luigi has always been a joke.

 

[PMS | LEVEL 100 MAGIKARP]

remember when I said luigi was good and people said I was silly

lmao

 

[Foo]

When pm players whine about Luigi
<_<

Let me sum up what I believe is the sentiment behind this. If luigi wasn't like that in melee, he would have been dejanked into the ground in 3.5. I'm always salty when the melee characters get a free pass from the design and balance goals.

(edit: whoops, meant melee. Thanks for the correction thegravytrain.)

 

[TheGravyTrain]

@ Foo

"If Luigi wasn't like that in PM..."

I assume you mean Melee here. This sentiment is very frustrating and something we will have to deal with. Its even worse when certain playstyles can't be given the proper tools to compete because they weren't like that in Melee and its "too janky".

 

[Daftatt]

Go download my squirtle pac on slack and play it and love the lack of medium armor on things that arent dsmash and nair

So is luigi fox tier yet

so you only removed armor from F-smash?

Nair could so simply not have armor by having just a tiny bit of disjoint, where it has literally none right now.

D-smash could have less endlag and therefore be less of a commitment and then armor has absolutely no reason to be there.

 

[PlateProp]

so you only removed armor from F-smash?

Nair could so simply not have armor by having just a tiny bit of disjoint, where it has literally none right now.

D-smash could have less endlag and therefore be less of a commitment and then armor has absolutely no reason to be there.

I just havent gotten to it yet, didnt intentionally leave them that way. though for nair I could see leaving light armor and giving it a bit more disjoint so that it still does the gimping job stuffs. I'll probably do it here in the next hour or so after I finish messing with the smash 3 people

I think dsmash is fine, 4 frames of random armor on it are dumb. It would be cool to have maybe 1-2 more frames of iasa but i'm trying to be sparing with changes outside of fsmash

 

[941]

@ Foo

"If Luigi wasn't like that in PM..."

I assume you mean Melee here. This sentiment is very frustrating and something we will have to deal with. Its even worse when certain playstyles can't be given the proper tools to compete because they weren't like that in Melee and its "too janky".

I understand where you're coming from, but let's look at the highest rated character that didn't get a "Because Melee Pass", and examine the result.

 

[Binary Clone]

i think luigi beats roy texas dont hurt me

I didn't think this was news to anyone.

I talked to Sethlon about this MU months ago, and he said it's actually one of Roy's toughest MUs. One would kind of think that being a swordie would help him enough, but it's not really enough.

The problem with the MU is that it's like the Marth MU, except tippers are bad/useless instead of good, you struggle to edgeguard him, you get combo'd much harder and edgeguarded more easily, and the advantages Roy typically has over Marth are more or less negated - those being better combos and more consistent kill power.

The fact that the only real combos you can do on Luigi are uair strings because of how floaty his is means that Marth combos are just as good as Roy combos, and because Roy's aerial kill move requires him to get so close to Luigi, a frame 3 nair + floatiness means that you actually can't combo into bair at percents where it'll kill.

Beyond that, Roy's awful offstage game means that Luigi's already good recovery becomes very, very difficult to edgeguard, as the main weakness of Luigi's recovery is that if you hit him while he's under the stage, he has limited options. Roy can't hit him while he's under the stage, and Luigi's recovery mixup options and ability to save his DJ etc etc mean that it's tough for Roy to just straight edgehog or anything like that.

So that turns out to be a MU where Roy can only kill with fsmash reads or maybe baiting and punishing with bair because he can't combo into killmoves, and can only juggle slowly to get percent, where Luigi gets good grab conversions, very substantial combos, and can kill Roy with nair or fair or dair, and easily edgeguard offstage with low bairs.

Roy still has the range advantage, but that's not enough overall.

 

[Deleted member]

oh yeah luigi vs roy is really frustrating/bad for roy

sword beats luigi is very vague and simplified

 

[Mr.Pickle]

When pm players whine about Luigi
<_<

For every pm player that has a reasonable complaint on characters with janky grab boxes and weird invincibility frames where they don't belong, there's that guy who attributes it to whining.

More so on topic, I think luigi is really underrated, but he's kinda unpopular so I don't see him going too far in the meta.

 

[DrinkingFood]

Luigi as a whole is fine, but **** that fact that he recovers from ridiculous places while also making the punishment game stupidly in his favor by being difficult to punish
LUNCHABLES WHY AREN'T YOU COMPLAINING ABOUT LUIGI, TOO

 

[JOE!]

it is now 20LL

 

[Deleted member]

LUNCHABLES WHY AREN'T YOU COMPLAINING ABOUT LUIGI, TOO

Because Luigi actually suffers from poor position due to having bad aerial mobility and no burst movement to avoid juggling

He also has to interact with projectiles and actually dies to kill moves. He's a dumb character, but relative to ROB hes actually not too bad.

 

[DrinkingFood]

You've got this weird thing in your head where you seem to think ROB players don't mind being knocked into the air
It's still a bad position for him, even if it's less bad than most other characters

 

[Boiko]

Kind of surprised Lunchables lost to dong. I didn't watch anything yet, but I use Tink against most Luigi's I face and find it to be pretty simple.

 

[Deleted member]

You've got this weird thing in your head where you seem to think ROB players don't mind being knocked into the air
It's still a bad position for him, even if it's less bad than most other characters

Oh yeah, ROB players hate being put into the air, like every character

except yknow, he only takes 15% every time instead of 80% like every other character. @Umbreon @Jolteon

Kind of surprised Lunchables lost to dong. I didn't watch anything yet, but I use Tink against most Luigi's I face and find it to be pretty simple.

I never played vs. Dong, where'd you hear this?

 

[Ogopogo]

Luigi has slowly been buffed over... maybe almost every patch? The power creep is real here.
Side b has gotten really good with chargable misfires, invincibility, and the "WOW @ THAT" grab box. But it's still pretty punishable. If more people played Luigi we'd know how to counterplay him better.

He still suffers from:
Shield pushback that means way too much stuff is safe on block
Terrible aerial mobility
Predictable recovery
Low range, so he's not hard to box out

 

[Boiko]

Oh yeah, ROB players hate being put into the air, like every character

except yknow, he only takes 15% every time instead of 80% like every other character. @Umbreon @Jolteon


I never played vs. Dong, where'd you hear this?

Oops. Some miscommunication I guess.

 

[Deleted member]

btw I agree Luigi vs. Toon Link sucks, if I lost vs Dong I'd be very impressed. He did look pretty good though, so who knows

I might have to bust out my Sasuke Uchiha vs him

 

[Ripple]

did someone say that being in the air is bad? Kappa

 

[DrinkingFood]

Oh yeah, ROB players hate being put into the air, like every character

except yknow, he only takes 15% every time instead of 80% like every other character. @Umbreon @Jolteon

That's not totally true, not every other character takes 80% in the air, and ROB's boost options while airborne can be covered depending on how he gets there

 

[Gawain the Knight]

That's not totally true, not every other character takes 80% in the air, and ROB's boost options while airborne can be covered depending on how he gets there

Well to be fair everything in the game CAN be covered, but how easily things are covered or how reasonable the timing is is a different story.

 

[G13_Flux]

Luigi has slowly been buffed over... maybe almost every patch? The power creep is real here.
Side b has gotten really good with chargable misfires, invincibility, and the "WOW @ THAT" grab box. But it's still pretty punishable. If more people played Luigi we'd know how to counterplay him better.

He still suffers from:
Shield pushback that means way too much stuff is safe on block
Terrible aerial mobility
Predictable recovery
Low range, so he's not hard to box out

Having a high shield pushback also keeps lots of his own moves safe on block like dtilt for instance. its a nerf in cases but it can still act as a buff depending on how you look at it.

having 3 options to recovery (side b, down b, and up b) really allows him to keep his jump. he can also throw out fireballs easily to cover himself, or throw out aerials since hes so floaty. im not sure id put recovery as one of his drawbacks.

also not sure about the low range. ftilt is kind of massive. he also has some surprising disjoint on other normals and aerials such as bair, fair, uair, dair, and dsmash. his WD allows him to cover a ton of space on the ground with things like jab, ftilt, or any of his smashes. im not sure id put this as one of his weaknesses either.

the air mobility certainly is a thing though, and i feel like its probably accepted as his biggest weakness.

 

[PlateProp]

I forgot to mention this but...

Why the **** does gnw dair combo into bucket? D:?

 

[jtm94]

Everytime Dong got Oracle in the air he did at least 60%

Why are you filling GnW's bucket? Why does dair combo into knee? Why does knee combo into knee? These are the questions that keep me awake at night.

 

[robosteven]

because gnw dair combos into everything itself included

why can Olimar fair into fair

why is fair into fair Olimar's best combo

why is Olimar

 

[DrinkingFood]

Everytime Dong got Oracle in the air he did at least 60%

Why are you filling GnW's bucket? Why does dair combo into knee? Why does knee combo into knee? These are the questions that keep me awake at night.

are the vids on YT? I haven't seen oracle playing ROB in awhile so I'm curious

Just watched it, omg the finish

 

[TheGravyTrain]

Speaking of dair complaints, lets take a moment to remember 3.0 Yoshi dair. Not only did it potentially do 30+% and eat shields, but its landing hit (which makes it -4 on block) would pop people up for combos even better than G&W/Falcon/others because it had less scaling...

 

[ThegreatVaporeon1]

Luigi has slowly been buffed over... maybe almost every patch? The power creep is real here.
Side b has gotten really good with chargable misfires, invincibility, and the "WOW @ THAT" grab box. But it's still pretty punishable. If more people played Luigi we'd know how to counterplay him better.

He still suffers from:
Shield pushback that means way too much stuff is safe on block
Terrible aerial mobility
Predictable recovery
Low range, so he's not hard to box out

He actually remained relatively untouched throughout the updates. Most of his changes are down b and up changes (the distance they go, not power). In 2.6, his up b had less landing lag than it does now, and down b had less end lag, and 3.0 retained both moves. His mobility both ground and air were the same as they are now (dash dance, wavedash distance, wavescuttle, platform movement, etc). The only real difference I can think of off the top of my head was his dtilt, which popped them up like in melee. In 3.0, his up b didn't go as high, and his dtilt became a 15% mr saturn (except not as much shield damage, but still a considerable amount). Side b sweetspot was always the same throughout every version thus far (at least 2.5 and up; I have no experience with anything before).

In 3.5 the only buffs he got were indirect, and that's mainly due to other character getting nerfed and the dpad down b, which was the result of adding simultaneous button press for 3.5. The only direct buffs he got were dash attack (which is now safe on hit and does a ton of shield damage, plus actually knocks the opponent back a little) and uair (which has two more active frames). Down b got nerfed because it has more endlag and thus cannot really follow up with anything threatening, thus making it a less safe approach option (3.0 down b was mad stupid because it had almost no end lag and could follow up with up b and down air, nair, etc). The only reason as to why the down b nerf is negligible is because of dpad, which in turn makes it even better. Up b also has more landing lag now. I think removal of the dpad trick will make his recovery pretty easy to gimp. The only other changes he got were the green effect on fireball, misfire, and up b sweetspot, which was simply cosmetic. And fixing a few glitchy things like the hitlag on down air.

The reasons why Luigi is doing well now is because more players are using him, and thus are finding newer things with the character. MU inexperience also seems to play a factor as not many Luigis made it to top 8 or grands, etc, in previous installments. Aside from Eli and Vist, there really weren't many good Luigi's either. And this is noticeable in the match with Dong and oracle where Oracle's di button just stopped working when he was getting combo'd into aerial up b. He also got hit by jab up b's (which should never work unless the opponent is a little above ground). Sethlon did not know that he could crouch cancel down b and punish the end lag either, among other things.

@ Foo What do you mean by "dejanked"? Is Luigi's long wavedash "janky"? Or perhaps is it the down and side b? (I can probably agree with the latter two, but I don't know what you really mean by "jank")