Tier List Speculation

[Hylian]

Think about it this way:

Camping IC's turns the game into a war of attrition.

You are having a war of attrition with a character who has one of the highest damage outputs in the game because there are two of them, and has insanely good approach options so they are hard to run from.

 

[941]

Think about it this way:

Camping IC's turns the game into a war of attrition.

You are having a war of attrition with a character who has one of the highest damage outputs in the game because there are two of them, and has insanely good approach options so they are hard to run from.

"Insanely good" might be a bit too far. They do have some great options against grounded opponents, but platform camping them is a legitimate option for most characters. I do agree that most characters should play more aggressively against them, as they have among the worst defensive options in the game, and they are actually really easy to keep separated because of the longer sync distance and Nana sometimes mimicking inputs from way outside that range.

 

[Hylian]

You can platform camp IC's well if you have an amazing dair that beats their uair. That's it really.

Also this is the kind of interactions I'm talking about when I say I love comboing IC's:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlpO2OlXY0s&t=8m24s

Having to react to both climbers, and position combos so that it ends up well for you is so fun to me.

First bair: "Do I jump out and try to shine nana? He's on the top platform and wants to get to me ASAP so he's going to fall through, he won't expect it if I attack him because that lets nana live"

Second attack: "Cover fall down to ledge and airdodge in, I can still hit nana in time. He recovers high my bair will still hit him and I can choose from there"

Upsmash: "I should just launch nana since popo is in tumble and can do nothing about it"

Grab: "He missed tech, I'm going to dash towards him and then bait a get-up attack, so I can throw him towards nana and kill them both"

Stuff like this is exhilarating for me. The thought process when comboing other characters is almost non-existent in comparison.

 

[Frost | Odds]

The only time I've beaten an ICs in a set in Melee was by camping ludicrously hard with Puff and avoiding interaction at all costs - swooping in only very rarely when an opportunity to frag nana presented itself. Despite the fact that wobbling is out, they still seem to have all kinds of chaingrabs in PM - which seems to sorta make the lack of wobbling irrelevant. Are their matchups are more interactive in PM?

I still love the idea of ICs despite my Bowser matchup salt. I'm just curious, really.

 

[Hylian]

Their chaingrabs are worse in PM than they are in melee, even sans wobbling.

 

[eideeiit]

Their chaingrabs are worse in PM than they are in melee, even sans wobbling.

Why?

 

[Hylian]

Why?

Blizzard doesn't hold people in grabs, release points are slightly different, other various reasons that have to do with desyncing.

 

[941]

You can platform camp IC's well if you have an amazing dair that beats their uair. That's it really.

Or decent aerial mobility. If you force them to chase in the air, it's pretty easy for a lot of characters to get below them and exploit their bad landing options. Characters with projectiles can also make use of platform camping, as long as the projectiles can be used at a downward angle. Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq846pbG7es

The only time I've beaten an ICs in a set in Melee was by camping ludicrously hard with Puff and avoiding interaction at all costs - swooping in only very rarely when an opportunity to frag nana presented itself. Despite the fact that wobbling is out, they still seem to have all kinds of chaingrabs in PM - which seems to sorta make the lack of wobbling irrelevant. Are their matchups are more interactive in PM?

I still love the idea of ICs despite my Bowser matchup salt. I'm just curious, really.

If you watch high-level Melee ICs, you'll notice the players that do the best against them (aside from maybe Puff players) are the ones that play more aggressively. If you don't put pressure on them, they can corner you and force you into bad positions without much room to escape. Their MUs in PM are a bit more forgiving for the opponent, purely because they don't have very good grab combos on floaties, and can only really chaingrab fatties and fast-fallers. Trying to combo a Luigi or a Zelda out of a grab is really difficult if the opponent has any idea how to DI.

 

[Foo]

I wasn't talking about camping ICs, as I said, it's a pure spacing game in the matchup. I wind up just spamming spaced bairs because any direct approach is suicide. Also, unless there's some type of DI on throws I don't know about, ICs combo ZSS really well. Dthrow bair didn't work, but regular Dthrow chain grabbed me for a good while and I tried every DI. Thing is with zss is, while she is pretty floaty, she has REALLY fast acceleration meaning she doesn't sit at the apex of her arc (above grab range) for hardly any time at all, but also doesn't hit the ground very quickly. I'm pretty sure ICs and Ganon Dthrows can chaingrab her for a really long time.

As for comboing, I'm not talking about juggling popo and then beating up nana, I'm talking about when they are together. If I land a combo starter, I suffer double hitlag giving me several less frames to get a follow up which often means no follow up, and hitting just one for the second hit often leads to the second one hits me out of it.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

I just play peach and float.

 

[941]

I wasn't talking about camping ICs, as I said, it's a pure spacing game in the matchup. I wind up just spamming spaced bairs because any direct approach is suicide. Also, unless there's some type of DI on throws I don't know about, ICs combo ZSS really well. Dthrow bair didn't work, but regular Dthrow chain grabbed me for a good while and I tried every DI. Thing is with zss is, while she is pretty floaty, she has REALLY fast acceleration meaning she doesn't sit at the apex of her arc (above grab range) for hardly any time at all, but also doesn't hit the ground very quickly. I'm pretty sure ICs and Ganon Dthrows can chaingrab her for a really long time.

As for comboing, I'm not talking about juggling popo and then beating up nana, I'm talking about when they are together. If I land a combo starter, I suffer double hitlag giving me several less frames to get a follow up which often means no follow up, and hitting just one for the second hit often leads to the second one hits me out of it.

I don't have much experience against ZSS, but I will say that one MU isn't a representation for the character as a whole. I'm sure almost every character has at least one MU where it's better to play more "lame" than others, but it doesn't mean that either character is badly designed.

Just out of curiosity, who are you playing against that uses ICs? I can see the frustration of playing against an ICs player that relies on desync walls and playing defensively, but from what I've seen, that play style has some hard counters, and most players who default to using walls are somewhat gimmicky and don't have solid fundamentals with the character.

 

[Magus420]

Popo d-throw CGs ZSS 0-89, and you can't land on a BF height platform until 91+. Dunno about ZSS specifically, but from what I've seen if you can CG them you can d-throw spike them if they try to DI offstage. Ganon CGs her 0-78, but you can land on the platform at 59+ (his CG only lasts that long without any platforms because his grab reaches high).

 

[CORY]

(his CG only lasts that long without any platforms because his grab reaches high).

so what i'm hearing is that if ganon's grab was lowered, he wouldn't chain grab as hard?

#2birds1stone

 

[Magus420]

Slightly, since it'd still need to make sense for someone of his height. Also mostly just on FD, since they usually can land on a platform before that'd begin to make a difference already.

 

[CORY]

just use magic, it's all good.

 

[DMG]

Magus doesn't use Magic, he conjures it from pure nothingness and makes it happen

Magus for prez

 

[CORY]

nonono, ganon would use magic to grab.

magus would use magusness to make it so.

 

[Scuba Steve]

Just make it like Snake's grabs and attacks. Snake is tall just like Dorf, but instead of his hitboxes and stuff directly matching up with his hands, the hitboxes are kind of lowered to hit all the small characters in smash while still making sense

http://taerk.net/sartron/snake/Jab_0.5x.gif

http://taerk.net/sartron/snake/Standing Grab_0.5x.gif

 

[Jaedrik]

Y'all just salty
Chaingrabs are just combos with grabs

 

[CORY]

nah, i only play ganon. dthrow chaingrab's dumb, if for no other reason than you can't improve his **** grab range because dthrow chaingrabs are as good as they are.

and legit question: what character has a combo that can straight take someone up as high damage as ganon's dthrow chain, that doesn't involve any tech reads (so, only really has di mixups to get out of the combo, similar to the chain grab)?

 

[DMG]

Other CG's

 

[jtm94]

I've seen DK net actually 6 uairs into charged DK punch on FD. It was with DI. Conversely on FD I can land 8 uairs on DK starting at like 10% off uthrow. 8 uairs is 80% pretty much and I'm certain you can combo into a KO move from it. DK won't die at 80 though, not straight into the blast zone.

Dong was getting DownB > uair string on Oracle and it lead to 60% at least. He did it several times. It's fun because if misfire is stored then if you get caught DIing uair away misfire kills you, but if you don't DI UpB kills you. Luigi is fun, and fun. (: When is GnW getting the ability to always have 9 stored up?

 

[PMS | LEVEL 100 MAGIKARP]

I've seen DK net actually 6 uairs into charged DK punch on FD. It was with DI. Conversely on FD I can land 8 uairs on DK starting at like 10% off uthrow. 8 uairs is 80% pretty much and I'm certain you can combo into a KO move from it. DK won't die at 80 though, not straight into the blast zone.

Dong was getting DownB > uair string on Oracle and it lead to 60% at least. He did it several times. It's fun because if misfire is stored then if you get caught DIing uair away misfire kills you, but if you don't DI UpB kills you. Luigi is fun, and fun. (: When is GnW getting the ability to always have 9 stored up?

uair strings aren't guaranteed 60% that's not a thing

 

[Foo]

I don't have much experience against ZSS, but I will say that one MU isn't a representation for the character as a whole. I'm sure almost every character has at least one MU where it's better to play more "lame" than others, but it doesn't mean that either character is badly designed.

Just out of curiosity, who are you playing against that uses ICs? I can see the frustration of playing against an ICs player that relies on desync walls and playing defensively, but from what I've seen, that play style has some hard counters, and most players who default to using walls are somewhat gimmicky and don't have solid fundamentals with the character.

(thought I posted this part last night, but idk what happened)

I'm just using ZSS as an example since that's where I have the experience. Maybe it's just that one matchup, but from what I've seen and heard LOTS of people really hate playing against ICs. Also, I am not the one being walled out, my gameplan was to try and "wall" him out with spaced back airs to prevent him from camping with projectiles and keep me safe from grab. Doesn't seem like IC's have a good answer for that, but the problem was, if I made one mistake or got hard read once, I'd get punished really hard and I couldn't get too much punish on him because it's so awkward to combo ICs. Even if I split nana and took her out, I'd get chaingrabbed FOREVER into an aerial. I really think Hylian undersold ICs punish game on ZSS. It's SUPER free.

Anyway, the player is Sharkz, a ICs Pit duo main. He's PRd 8th in our region right now, and he'll probably go up when the next season starts (pretty soon).

nah, i only play ganon. dthrow chaingrab's dumb, if for no other reason than you can't improve his **** grab range because dthrow chaingrabs are as good as they are.

and legit question: what character has a combo that can straight take someone up as high damage as ganon's dthrow chain, that doesn't involve any tech reads (so, only really has di mixups to get out of the combo, similar to the chain grab)?

ZSS can land some pretty sick zero to death's on a few characters if they flub DI on a few key moves. Especially if they are heavy. Start with flubbed with downair, bad di on a second downair into one last down dair into a falling upair another upair, a couple nairs and finally a forward air. I think most % I've netted in game on one combo was around 90%. Not sure just badly people were DIng for combos like that, but it certainly wasn't perfect. I've also done similar combos with falcon against charizard.

 

[RelaxAlax]

You know what's funny? Fox's Lasers beat Pikmin.

Like, um...

 

[jtm94]

We can pretend it's not a thing. From one good uair main to another.

ICs being able to confirm death off a grab isn't warranted. They can get smashes, hand offs, infinites, but why do they also have access to debilitating chaingrabs that lead to the edge into fair death? This is another scenario where I would rather just fix them so they don't need that instead of encouraging something like that to exist. I don't mind facing Ice Climbers but only with GnW because I think he ruins them. Any other character and facing them becomes the most unfun lame campfest that I've ever been a part of and me awkwardly trying to punish blizzard ice block walls under a platform.

We can objectively confirm that ICs objectively have a better downthrow CG into whatever than Ganon minus his terrible neutral game and grab range.

 

[Nausicaa]

I've never been a fan of doing typical CGs with Melee IC or PM ICs. It's too much fun to try wonky things like tech-chasing and pressuring with their Jab/Dash-A/Dair/Nair/Bair/Ftilt (my fave move)/Dtilt/Utilt/Smashes/and Uair stuff.
If that was made 'stronger' in place of actual 'true-chains' with their grab-game auto-built into the game, that would be very beneficial to both the game, and the people playing would benefit from it on a creative and mental end, which is was matters the most in the end.

Though I've said all of this before, and everyone kinds of knows it already...

 

[Hylian]

Er..no. I'm pretty sure IC's can't get fair after dthrow chaingrabs(on like..90% of characters and of course talking solo climber here as otherwise you would die from hand-offs anyways), and you can mix up DI up and out to make IC's have to react and potentially drop the dthrow chaingrab(which, if you read my post vs zss you notice I say they can dthrow cg her but not other throw combos). The chaingrab to the edge does like 14% from 3/4ths of most stages -.-.

Also Ics have a shorter grab range than ganon AFAIK lol. It's tiny. Ganons dthrow leads into an extremely powerful fair, or uair, IC's leads into at most dash attack or upair on wrong DI. You can't chaingrab to the edge and start hand-offs because nana is slow to stop at the edge and your opponent can mash out at any reasonable %.

Also I think GW vs IC's is fairly evenish. I do fine whenever I play strong bads GW with IC's. Slight favor may go to GW.

 

[Jaedrik]

Why does Twitch chat always edit: sometimes maybe agree with me but then you scruberinos don't?

WARNING, OPINIONS NOT ON THE 3x5 INDEX CARD OF ALLOWABLE OPINION AHEAD

What's good Smashboards, roll up, balance is ass, 3.5 is straight booty.
The PMDT has a false dichotomy much like Sakurai's fabled "can't design for both casuals and hardcore at the same time"
Except it's more subtle and less straightforward. One part of it is "can't have anything considered jank--" read, 'jank' is accurately translated as 'I refuse to adapt / learn this new thing', "--at the same time as balance". Another part is "balance = fun", which is patently wrong, since poorly designed balance can obstruct fun. The last part is "can't keep x feature of a character, because it's broken as hell and can never be balanced or designed around". No, **** that, that's bull****. 3.5 watered everything down (except my main ***** Ganon <3) and made the game less fun, and dubiously more 'balanced'.
(∩ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)⊃━☆ﾟ. * ･ ｡ﾟ flippidy flap, whippidy wehd, with this chant I summon BM to the thread (∩ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)⊃━☆ﾟ. * ･ ｡ﾟ

 

[Nausicaa]

I'm am so confused at what you just posted MonK4, and I'm not sure you're making any sense or know any of that means yourself, let alone what's actually going on ABOUT whatever that post is about.



In other news.




Why...
Are there so many characters in this game.
LOOK AT THEM ALL
WHY ARE THERE SO MANY
THIS GAME HAS TOO MUCH STUFF IN IT ALREADY
WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

 

[themaziest]

Who is it?

 

[Nausicaa]

Love and life

 

[FreeGamer]

Guys, I had a dream last night that I downloaded 3.6 and found out they nerfed Zelda again. Could this be a sign? D:

 

[steelguttey]

You know what's funny? Fox's Lasers beat Pikmin.

Like, um...

and pikmin beat fireballs

and fireballs beat lazers...

 

[941]

Guys, I had a dream last night that I downloaded 3.6 and found out they nerfed Zelda again. Could this be a sign? D:

No, because only in dreams will we ever download 3.6.

 

[TheGravyTrain]

The dream obviously had a crappy build from 2015. We all know the final released 3.6 build will come out sometime in 2020...

 

[PlateProp]

When is mashing gonna be removed so that we dont have to destroy controllers to escape cgs and handoffs from ics

Like if I wanted all control taken from me when I got touched i'd play mahvel or somthin

 

[SpiderMad]

When is mashing gonna be removed so that we dont have to destroy controllers to escape grabs

When we come up with a better alternative to make up for the loss of player-game/player interaction that Smash has kept constant including for grabs with mashing

 

[PlateProp]

When we come up with a better alternative to make up for the loss of player-game/player interaction that Smash has kept constant including for grabs with mashing

Code it to the Dpad so that mashing it while set to taunt still counts as mashing for grabs

Still mashing, but shouldnt damage important parts

 

[Vashimus]

After a few tries I managed an average of 27 frames on that Millia test with 23 being the best. Ugh. But this type of a reaction is the kind that improves with experience, right? Any sources or info on where it will cap out? I know the theoretical human reaction limit is 100ms, but what about when the reaction is choice based?

Only marginally. Her overheads are way too fast for me to block on reaction with that test, yet in matches I can block them at least 50% of the time. I'm not really reacting to the mixups, I'm anticipating them based on her blockstrings and the playstyle of the opponent, or sometimes just flat-out guessing. Add throws into the equation, and you'll inevitably get opened up. The easiest solution is to not put yourself in that situation in the first place.