Tier List Speculation

[NW_Gump]

The frame 1 or 0 throws they were referring to I think are from GG and related Anime games, not SF4. And not to overextend but I think odds wanted to know Gief's frame data due to the fact that bowser also has a command grab and they fit the heavy mold, it makes more sense to compare those two, despite the differences between games.

 

[Frost | Odds]

Anyway, I'm pretty upset that I probably won't be able to play the character that I've been practicing obsessively for over a year, at the biggest tournament of my life so far. I've been looking forward to LTC3 for months, and was very much looking forward to taking sets off big names. 3.6b was a great patch overall; it just happened to screw me, personally, extremely hard. So, yeah, I'm salty. That said, if anyone thinks I'm exaggerating, I'll take a $100 MM from anyone who thinks they can beat me with his/her 3.6b Bowser - whether it's in the ditto or I play Ganon or something. If I had even a slight hope that Bowser was remotely playable in this patch, I'd stick to him out of desperation if nothing else - I've sunk a lot of practice hours into him. I'm literally putting my money where my mouth is here.

@ ELI-mination the implicit attack on my credibility/bias is pretty goddamn uncool. Typical disgraceful New Yorker (or maybe it's just FS?) behavior, from what I've seen from you, Gallo, Darkblues, Arr_0w, and others. I'd say that I'm disappointed and that I expect better, but I really don't.

 

[Hylian]

Balancing games sucks.

 

[AceGamer]

The frame 1 or 0 throws they were referring to I think are from GG and related Anime games, not SF4. And not to overextend but I think odds wanted to know Gief's frame data due to the fact that bolo wser also has a command grab and they fit the heavy mold, it makes more sense to compare those two, despite the differences between games.

SPD is from Street Fighter, Potempkins throws are Heat Knuckle and Potempkin Buster

 

[Life]

Can we make Bowser's Fsmash the punch from BiS

It'd be actually useful, referential, and wouldn't be stealing from Smash 4.

I was actually imagining like a vicious backhand, but as we all know being true to canon is the most important factor in new PM things /s

 

[MLGF]

I don't think I've ever made a tier list post, but I'm bored and feel like throwing some theory fighter out there. Grains of salt, early impressions, I'm a nobody, yadda yadda.
No one is in order inside their own sections. Also, yeah, the gap between the tiers is pretty small TBH.
Please note, I'm biased against some characters because Ike vs characters like GnW has never been an issue .

Oh yeah, just wanna say I think essentially every character is perfectly viable, especially if you duel main. Essentially, the further down the list the more you need a sub (EG, S needs no sub, A may want to have someone to cover a weakness, A- is the same but you have more poor MU's to consider, and B+ means that this character is probably best used as a CP character)

"Why won't you actually nerf me?" Tier (S)

"First to lose the tier war" tier (A)


Mediocre Scum (A-)

Low Tier **** (B+)

"No one (outside Hylian) will ever actually play for years even if you are viable" tier (Z - A = (B/C^4) * S)

"Bottom tier until HBox plays" tier (IDK)


I seriously think all those characters in A are around the same level of quality.

And yeah, I still stand that 3.5 Ike was fine because he had to compete with Lucario, Sheik, etc, but now he feels like he's far above everyone else except the rest of the tops... who also seem to be immune to drastic nerfs...
I think he has some losing matchups, but mostly to unpopular characters so for now he seems really well off ATM.

 

[InfinityCollision]

So Roy's ledgegrab release was changed this patch. Mario, Luigi, and Squirtle have "high" release points similar to pre-3.6 Roy... is this intentional? All of these characters can ledgedash with ~10 frames of actionable invincibility. They're not the only characters with such strong ledgedashes (I can easily think of half a dozen other characters with 8 frames or better, counting Bowser's 14 frames via <100% ledge jump->wl), but given that Roy's ledge behavior was specifically changed in this patch I'm curious if the others are intentional or just flew under the radar.

@ MLGF you forgot Mewtwo.

 

[MLGF]

I have no idea what you're talking about.

 

[foxygrandpa]

In what world is Dthrow stupid? It's a frame 11 grab that doesn't grab in the air and has ~75 frames of endlag. Stop getting grabbed by Link. Other characters have equally good or better conversions out of throws but have an actual grab. I'd be outright ****ing offended if Link didn't get anything good off of grab. No Samus intended.

Zelda was terrible in 3.02 along with her playstyle. I don't get why Zelda players jerk to her in 3.02. She was objectively bad. She became a far better designed character and gained a Din's fire with some actual mild use.

I'm not claiming that link shouldn't get anything off a grab, but I do think that charcaters should have more than one viable option off throws.
Dthrow chaingrabs are just inherently overcentralizing(mario), and I don't understand why they haven't been phased out of the game completely. Link's doesn't work on too much of the cast, but is it really a good desgin mechanic for MK to just be dthrow--> regrab for 25ish percent
Also, I play with a strong link player on a daily basis, and "don't get grabbed" isn't really a viable option 100% of the time. There'e plenty of ways for link's grab to be different without it being non-interactive at certain percents on some characters, and maybe even tweaked so that his other throws could net him more positioning and actually be favorable compared to dthrow more than ~8% of the time.


On a side note, this thread is so hostile lately.

 

[Strong Badam]

So Roy's ledgegrab release was changed this patch. Mario, Luigi, and Squirtle have "high" release points similar to pre-3.6 Roy... is this intentional? All of these characters can ledgedash with ~10 frames of actionable invincibility. They're not the only characters with such strong ledgedashes (I can easily think of half a dozen other characters with 8 frames or better, counting Bowser's 14 frames via <100% ledge jump->wl), but given that Roy's ledge physics were specifically changed in this patch I'm curious if the others are intentional or just flew under the radar.

It wasn't that his ledgedash was too good, but that he visually warped upwards on release. Other characters will of course have better ones by virtue of their better double jumps, and that's fine. 'Twas more of a routine cleanup than a targeted balance change.

 

[SpiderMad]

I have no idea what you're talking about.

http://smashboards.com/posts/19495976/

 

[Chevy]

for reference, i consider wolf to be a good base for the fast lights, especially the aggro archetype. he can make you shield (or commit to something to try and stop it) with the projectile, he has a really good ground speed with good options out of it (aerials that are/can be made safe, projectile, and is his dash attack solid or is it more of a punish tool? can't remember, tbh...). his projectile has utility in its wl-ing tricks, his shine (which makes things safe, as well) is a good combo tool that can combo into side b on a di read (iirc it's not reactable against most of the cast, right?), and he has a good kit for general combos to gain stage control at the very least, and good damage along with it. his smashes aren't super powerful for their speed (or at least don't feel like it), his aerial kill options aren't super powerful for their speed, either, afaik. he would probably still need killing potential tweaks under my prior statements, but he has a really solid base in terms of speed/weight traits and archetype traits.
this is also basically concerning the extremes of both ends, since they're typically the most polarized.

I'm pretty sure wolf can react to shine DI with side-b. Wolf is in a pretty good place, he actually has to work for his kills. His only ways to kill early are side-b near edge or off stage or a good ol' fashioned gimp. He might have a slightly better combo game than (non-infinite waveshining)Fox, but he doesn't convert straight to ridiculous kill moves with every tool he can win neutral with, so he actually struggles to kill heavy characters. I'd say his neutral might be better than Fox, but he can't really camp as well because his projectile can be used against him like every other character.

Wolf is great, it's just sad because he's pretty much Fox without the free kills. Not much reason to play him over the other.(besides being cooler)

 

[Boiko]

http://smashboards.com/posts/19495976/

He meant regarding missing Mewtwo.

Edit: @ Chevy I think Wolf has comparable kill options to Fox. Laser>dsmash, jab>dsmash, dair>fair, dair>flash, shine>flash, shine>fair, shine>bair, dtilt>fair, etc. etc.

 

[InfinityCollision]

It wasn't that his ledgedash was too good, but that he visually warped upwards on release. Other characters will of course have better ones by virtue of their better double jumps, and that's fine. 'Twas more of a routine cleanup than a targeted balance change.

Wasn't looking at it as a balance issue, like I said there are other characters with comparable invincibility. Went back and compared it to Roy's old ledge release though and I see what you mean. These characters don't move upwards like that, they just have a relatively high starting point on release. Nothing to see here then~

 

[ELI-mination]

Anyway, I'm pretty upset that I probably won't be able to play the character that I've been practicing obsessively for over a year, at the biggest tournament of my life so far. I've been looking forward to LTC3 for months, and was very much looking forward to taking sets off big names. 3.6b was a great patch overall; it just happened to screw me, personally, extremely hard. So, yeah, I'm salty. That said, if anyone thinks I'm exaggerating, I'll take a $100 MM from anyone who thinks they can beat me with his/her 3.6b Bowser - whether it's in the ditto or I play Ganon or something. If I had even a slight hope that Bowser was remotely playable in this patch, I'd stick to him out of desperation if nothing else - I've sunk a lot of practice hours into him. I'm literally putting my money where my mouth is here.

@ ELI-mination the implicit attack on my credibility/bias is pretty goddamn uncool. Typical disgraceful New Yorker (or maybe it's just FS?) behavior, from what I've seen from you, Gallo, Darkblues, Arr_0w, and others. I'd say that I'm disappointed and that I expect better, but I really don't.

What are you upset about exactly

 

[zman804]

I feel like saying crouch teching checks throws is sort of disingenuous. In older games (and in SF5) crouch teching was not a thing and you just had to guess.

@BOwser/Odds talk, I feel like Odds has enough credibility that even though he sounds like a whiny top player, I know (we all should know) that Odds really isn't about that life, which is why I think more people taking him seriously. Honestly while I don't mind too many of the 3.6 changes the fact someone thought DDD needed to be nerfed honestly makes me scared as to the direction of the BR but whatever.

 

[LupinX]

Someone actually though D3 needed a nerf? What? lol

 

[didds]

My parents are New Yorkers and they are honorable

 

[Chevy]

He meant regarding missing Mewtwo.

Edit: @ Chevy I think Wolf has comparable kill options to Fox. Laser>dsmash, jab>dsmash, dair>fair, dair>flash, shine>flash, shine>fair, shine>bair, dtilt>fair, etc. etc.

But like every one of those is harder to get than shine->upsmash/jab-upsmash/grab->up-air/random up-smash etc. And they don't kill as early. I guess Wolf might have a comparable time killing fast-fallers, but Fox combos fast-fallers better anyway.

 

[Frost | Odds]

What are you upset about exactly

Eh, I probably responded way too hard there out of salt, sorry. But this

In what universe was Bowser bottom 5

Oh I forgot
Everyone thinks the character that they main is bottom 5

is just a blatant lie and colossally ignorant on an absolutely magnificent scale.

@ zman804 thanks for the backup.

Anyway, idk how this sort of thing would be determined, and I'm obviously biased -- but for any PMDT members reading this, I implore you to please consider giving cmart the time and creative freedom she would need to help fix Bowser before the 3.6 full release, if at all possible. He's not a full character right now, so I'd indeed consider positive balance changes thrown his way as "fixes" befitting the transition from a beta to a full version.

 

[Boiko]

Anyway, idk how this sort of thing would be determined, and I'm obviously biased -- but for any PMDT members reading this, I implore you to please consider giving cmart the time and creative freedom she would need to help fix Bowser before the 3.6 full release, if at all possible. He's not a full character right now, so I'd indeed consider positive balance changes thrown his way as "fixes" befitting the transition from a beta to a full version.

What if other Bowser mains disagree with you?

 

[PootisKonga]

What if other Bowser mains disagree with you?

While the requests of newer but serious players should not be ignored, as stated previously Odds has more credibility. Heck, there's precedent involving his input since most of the Bowser nerfs came from his suggestions

 

[Frost | Odds]

What if other Bowser mains disagree with you?

Let's ask.

@ PootisKonga
@ Electric Tuba
@Calm_Animal
@Deff
@Jacob29
@ Zigludo
@Master WGS
@Jiangjunizzy

I summon thee!

 

[DrinkingFood]

You can CC any of those and jab grab isn't guaranteed. You can buffer spot dodge then graciously accept your free punish. At full length it hits on frame 17. If you're using a move against a tether that's THAT unsafe with its only saving grace being distance, then you're doing it wrong. Pivot grab is good but link doesn't have the dash speed to facilitate easily forcing whiffs in such a manner. He's not marth.

You can't CC while airborne unless very close to the ground; weak aerials would push them slightly back and up, and you'd be able to grab the empty landing lag. As for getting hit while grounded, there are lots of reasons why someone would not CC while grounded- for example, they fear a strong hit that needs to be DI'd well, like up-b. They can't account for both up-b and jabs.

Also full length at frame 17 is way faster to grab well spaced moves than wavedash OoS->grab, which is frame 21 for the fastest characters. There's lots of stuff that could hit your shield that way and be punished- well spaced tilts (samus, ROB) and early+retreating aerials (many characters) are examples, plus anything that can be WD OoS grabbed, you can do without the wavedash OoS.

 

[Electric Tuba]

Odds is pretty much right on. I'm losing with bowser to players and characters i beat clean two weeks ago.
In two weeks, people have put in bad di on forward klaw throw exactly three times (meaning there were, at most, three chances to follow up in hours and hours of playing). Fair is a shadow of last patch, and bowser just feels anemic. He loses his bad matchups even worse and matchups that were closer are definitely not in our favor anymore.
The majority of what made bowser okay is gone, with what to make up for it? Flame breath? Fast klaw? It's not enough to make him work

 

[Apollo Ali]

Someone actually though D3 needed a nerf? What? lol

He.... was nerfed though, you know that right.

 

[LupinX]

He.... was nerfed though, you know that right.

I know he was nerfed... I just want to know why would someone nerf D3 lol

 

[Ripple]

It's obvious the pmdt didn't like how they lost to me.

It's all so clear to me now

 

[Electric Tuba]

And a random bowser beat Sethlon a month or so ago... hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

 

[Zigludo]

yo wassup @ Frost | Odds

honestly I find it hilarious that Odds, of all people in the entire universe, is being accused of having a pessimistic mindset towards the changes / "being a whiner", or whatever. Nothing could possibly be further from the truth.

When the patch released, Odds was ecstatic. You guys should have seen him, he was so crazy excited and optimistic, he kept saying things like "Guys, Bowser might actually be great now! I can't wait to experiment with these changes!" etc etc etc. I was cautiously optimistic at first but after spending about a day with the character in friendlies with a Falcon main I was convinced that Bowser could no longer compete in a tournament environment.

Cue two weeks of me and Odds clawing each other's eyes out back and forth over every form of media we use to discuss Boozer - Skype, Twitch, Smashboards. Any location where he and I both talked about Bowser, we were at each other's throats about the changes. Odds was the #1 defender of the Bowser reworks and he made me feel like a moron left and right because he spoke very convincingly - basically, everything he was saying was the same as what the naysayers calling him a whiner are saying in this thread.

"3.6b Bowser is different, not worse." "Your old tricks won't work any more, you need to adapt instead of complaining." "Bowser's gameplay is better against people who know how to counter him now." "The old Bowser was braindead and toxic, the new one is much better." (This one always hurt my feelings lol, because I personally am in love with 3.5 Bowser to this day). That's the kind of stuff Odds was saying every day for the past two weeks.

If you don't believe me, just peep this massive wall of text I threw down two weeks ago:

http://smashboards.com/threads/bowser-general-discussion-thread.331758/page-18#post-19519271 This serves as a decent writeup on the nerfs, but frankly I didn't go nearly as in-depth as I wanted to. I focused pretty strictly on the changes to Bowser's punishes, and limited what I wrote to the matchups vs fastfallers (the most common characters in the game, for what it's worth)


and look how Odds goes over my post line-by-line in his reply, saying that he thinks either my conclusions or mindset are flawed for every point I bring up. I mean he's vehemently defending the 3.6b design in that post. I would show you Skype logs and whatnot too, but I don't like digging through the Bowser chat for that, suffice it to say that we argued just as much in Skype.

but then Odds spent a about a hundred more hours on this char (srsly) and he did all the research. and over time, he couldn't deny that the character had been severely nerfed. I mean everything I wrote in that post is basically true lol.

Bowser really is butt butt poopoo bad now. I would use more powerful language but Smashboards has a profanity filter. When it comes right down to it, what is this character now? What is he good at?

He's still terrible in neutral. In fact, I would say his neutral is worse in 3.6b than in 3.5, thanks to the armor nerfs, and ESPECIALLY due to the size reduction. this is a massive nerf, despite what you may have heard elsewhere, it basically means Bowser is worse at recovering, edgeguarding, pressuring shields, tech chasing [especially platform techchase], basically everything. but in reward for all of that, he is about a frame or two more difficult to combo... yay. Flame cancel was buffed, which is helpful in matchups against opponents who lack intangible projectiles or high aerial mobility (read: not useful against fastfallers). The dash was slightly improved, but the increase is ridiculously miniscule. The actual increase in distance covered by dashdance is something like 5%, Bowser's dd is still horrendous.

But Bowser was always sucky in neutral, right? That's why he had such powerful and reliable punishes - to reward his hard-fought victories in neutral. But, wait... they nerfed every single one of his punishes except for ftilt and flame breath. Klaw hitbox kills later. Klaw fthrow is more difficult to combo out of, and now has no reliable followups at any percentage in any matchup. Usmash is smaller and no longer covers entire platforms. Dsmash kills later and no longer combos into downB aerials. Utilt late hit no longer KOs or combos, and the utilt should no longer be used to platform techchase ever, at all, because it doesn't KO or obtain followups. Tipper f-air was nerfed into the toilet, it has nowhere near as much killing power now. Uair kills later now, in fact it is a worse KO move than it was in Melee... why?? Fsmash was nerfed and now KOs at like 80% instead of 45%. Whose idea was this.

Even Bowser's edgeguards were nerfed, it is much easier to sweetspot underneath the bair and dtilt than before because the reduced size results in them not reaching as far beneath the ledge. He's still decent at edgeguarding, but his edgeguarding was definitely nerfed.

Bowser's punishes are now less powerful than those of Fox, Falco, Captain Falcon, Marth, Roy. Note that these are characters who are legitimately good in neutral, unlike Bowser. I mean, name a good character, and that character will have better ability to kill their opponents than 3.6b Bowser. And on top of that he has the same old awful Bowser neutral that instantly folds to well-spaced aerials, projectiles, and grabs. Also his rolls and spot dodge are still unusable (spot dodge loses to grab > grab, wtf) , and tech rolls are still the worst in the game.

So what is this character even good at? Well he has an aerial command grab, the longest ledge attack in the game, and his ledge jump is actionable on frame 3. So on the ledge he is SSS tier until his third and fifth regrab, at which point he drops back to Pooptown. Maybe things wouldn't be so bad, ledge camping might be viable... if only Bowser wasn't the single worst character in the game against camping with literally zero ways to force an opponent to approach him on the ledge unless he has the lead.

This character is just booty. The only reliable punish he has on fastfallers now is uthrow > fair, and that got eviscerated in the last patch. Everything else doesn't work any more. There's no adapting to be done here, the old good moves have not been replaced with new good moves. Bowser blows chunks now

And for the record, if you think @ Frost | Odds is the kind of person who would make a snap judgment that Bowser had been nerfed, you don't know Odds.

 

[AuraMaudeGone]

Whoa. I haven't paid much attention to Bowser in the past but this is really bad.

 

[Electric Tuba]

ESPECIALLY due to the size reduction.

This is a really huge change that seems very small initially. In 3.5, Bowser's fair and dtilt could outrange a ton of characters, and made it possible to do anything to characters like Marth. With the size reduction, it just doesn't work anymore. Combos still work on us (don't forget, our only combo escape was nair and it's two frames slower and has less armor now), but bowser's ability to outrange characters is gone from matchups where it mattered. If Marth decides to dash dance and dtilt, there's nothing you can do about it except hail mary dash attacks.

They don't really work.

 

[Zigludo]

This is a really huge change that seems very small initially. In 3.5, Bowser's fair and dtilt could outrange a ton of characters, and made it possible to do anything to characters like Marth. With the size reduction, it just doesn't work anymore. Combos still work on us (don't forget, our only combo escape was nair and it's two frames slower and has less armor now), but bowser's ability to outrange characters is gone from matchups where it mattered. If Marth decides to dash dance and dtilt, there's nothing you can do about it except hail mary dash attacks.

They don't really work.

Those dash attacks can work, but they will only earn you 25% if the Marth has terrible DI (dashattack nair) or just the 12% from dashattack. Meanwhile one DD grab from Marth will get you tech chased to 40% because you have the worst tech rolls in the game and PMDT is just okay with that lolololol

 

[TTTTTsd]

Kind of on the Bowser tangent but the fact that he has never had a functional spotdodge throughout all these versions of P:M is quite frankly bizarre and unsettling. When a character like GANON can get one (not that I'm upset, Ganon's is really good!) it's kind of disheartening. I mean Bowser's doesn't have to be that good but he's fat combo food who's supposed to be defensively oriented and he has an absolutely **** spotdodge?

I mean I can't go in depth about the other changes outside of what's already been said.

There is one move that I believe did get strictly better overall by a small amount (by virtue of longer lasting hitboxes and speed) and that's Ftilt, but it could use some more juice and power.

If 3.6 Bowser had all these nerfs but was given a half decent neutral we'd probably be playing a viable character. The problem is he kind of lacks anything now because his neutral is so bad. That was always the one flaw Bowser needed to have fixed more than armor or what have you. His neutral game. Bowser's neutral has been consistently bad, CONSISTENTLY, meaning that in every version he still lost tournament crucial MUs really badly because all they have to do is not run into you. Now they CAN run into you. Even better!

Poor *******....

 

[Nausicaa]

Balancing games sucks.

Best post in this thread.
Or like this thing.
/thread

My parents are New Yorkers and they are honorable

LOL this was great.

Anyway, idk how this sort of thing would be determined, and I'm obviously biased -- but for any PMDT members reading this, I implore you to please consider giving cmart the time and creative freedom she would need to help fix Bowser before the 3.6 full release, if at all possible. He's not a full character right now, so I'd indeed consider positive balance changes thrown his way as "fixes" befitting the transition from a beta to a full version.

I 100% believe it shall be done as such.

I find him a lot funner than before, so at least there's some solid ground-work to go from.
I still want a bigger Jab and faster D-Tilt, but that's just 2.1 wishes lingering.

Still mah draem

 

[Zigludo]

There is one move that I believe did get strictly better overall by a small amount (by virtue of longer lasting hitboxes and speed) and that's Ftilt, but it could use some more juice and power.

Technically, it lost some range from 3.5 due to a decrease in disjoint, and then suffered an additional loss of range due to the size reduction. It also had its damaged reduced by 1%, which makes it slightly worse for KO'ing. So it's not "strictly better" however I do agree that it is more useful overall (dthrow > ftilt exists now) thanks to the speed increase. I would say that there are 3 moves for Bowser that are better in 3.6b than in 3.5:

-Klaw bthrow
-ftilt
-flame breath

every other move is overall worse, either due to the indirect nerf of the size reduction (usmash, bair, dash grab, standing grab, jab, dtilt) , or direct nerfs to frame data/knockback/armor/angle/damage (dash attack, uair, fair, dsmash, nair, utilt, dair, sideB, upB, downB jump, dthrow, fsmash) seriously whose idea was it to nerf fsmash???

 

[Johnohue]

I'm here to talk about Bowser but it seems everything's been hashed out. So how about that Luigi? Kappa

 

[Nausicaa]

dsmash

I like this move way more than 3.5
4 is all Fox needs. Why would Bowser need more than 4 moves?
*jokeaboutspeed

 

[Zigludo]

I like this move way more than 3.5
4 is all Fox needs. Why would Bowser need more than 4 moves?
*jokeaboutspeed

well maybe you never landed dsmash > downB > jump > fair/nair, which does the same thing as the new dsmash + about 20% damage and could KO

 

[Sardonyx]

I'be never cared much for playing as bowser or him as a character since he just doesn't interest me at all, but even I think he needs help. Like I'd be perfectly okay with Zelda staying awfully designed like she is now if bowser gets help. #HelpBooser