Tier List Speculation

[Player -0]

@Strong Bad @Sethlon

Do you guys know who does the changes to Pit? I made a post earlier and I guess it got skipped/not seen/lolwedon'tcare.

I was wondering the reason for the change to Pit's D-Smash.

 

[PMS | Tink-er]

Tink you're bad m8

you can't even beat Smashdad

yeah, gotta learn to not be dumb in neutral. the MU is still ********.

 

[Life]

So... Uh... Tier speculation?

I speculate there will be tiers.

 

[Swigo]

I have no qualifications, but I was bored and wanted to get back to speculating tiers and lists
S:
A:
B:
C:
D:
I don't know tier:
If I forgot a character just tell me and I'll throw them up there more or less at random, feel free to tell me why I'm wrong, or why this is fine, but still worse than lunchables

 

[Ripple]

Alright finally decided to give a detailed post of MY thoughts on the DDD changes. I'll go from least impactful to most on his game.

Did not affect gameplay​

-Down Special (Jet Hammer)
--Used a set frame command instead of frame speed mods on attack subactions. Frame data is unchanged.
--Altered effect timing.

literally nothing

-Up Special (Super Dedede Jump)
--Altered downward momentum gain to be smoother overall.
--Added plummeting graphic on the frames the hitboxes appear.

nothing really but you can see improved smoothing at the apex.

-Moved Dedede downwards during CaptureHigh animation in order to fix him instantly breaking free from aerial grabs if immediately pummeled.

this was THE glitch that people talked about when they played against me. This never determined the outcome of a set of even a game. it was only nice because it made opponents not pummel me and just throw immediately. DDD could never even capitalize on this fact because DDD has nothing fast on the ground. even his rolls an spot dodges basically force you to just sit in shield after the break.

Smashes
-Forward Smash
--Quake hitbox appears 2 frames earlier (the frame the hammer impacts the ground).

This only really changes the timing on how to edgeguard ike ever so slightly since its the only move DDD has that can hit an ike that tries to sweetspot the ledge. nothing else. consider it a fix

Slight - moderate effect on gameplay​

-Up Smash
--Hits 3 frames earlier, from frame 20 -> 17.
--Damage lowered from 22% -> 20%.
--KBG increased from 75 -> 79.
--Endlag increased from 29 frames -> 32.

I personally don't like the new up-smash since it took a very noticeable hit it knockback and safety on shield if it hit that.

If you couldn't hit with a frame 20 move then making it 3 frames faster isn't going to do much to let you land it. This was a huge punisher if people missed like an up-b OOS or to really trash someone recovering high like ness or lucas. but rarely took effect in other MUs

maybe I shouldn't complain that I could kill sparkle boys at 70% anymore but come on, they combo the **** out of me and grabbing them is hard.

-Forward Special (Waddle Dee Toss)
--Gordos are now rethrowable, like Waddle Dees and Waddle Doos. Their physics have been reworked to compliment this.

I've talked about this before but this was mainly a recovery buff. if the volume on the TV was down, or you were in the blastzone and couldn't see. you had an 8% chance to air dodge into a gordo and die. not really cool. you might see a re-toss like 2-3x per 3 game set but not much more than that.

Moderate effect on gameplay​

Specials
-Neutral Special (Inhale)
--Inhale windbox strength decreased from 10/30/50 WDSK -> 10/20/30.

I have no idea why this was nerfed at all. in 3.5 every character that was at LEAST as fast as squirtle (1.35 speed; slower than mario) could outrun the suction and force me into the cool down of the move. which would be more than 50 frames. Now, every character than isn't jiggs (the slowest run speed) can outrun the inhale.

considering that inhale already had an extremely bad design, when compared to the other command grabs AND by itself (frame negative on throw if they mash out) the nerf was very unwarranted. in 1 tournament set, I had a ganondorf player dash to escape this 4x.

Aerials
-Neutral Aerial
--Sweetspot/sourspot 65/80 angle -> 75/75.

pretty simple, at high levels if people read that I would strong nair them instead of hold in to DI the fair. I simply could not get a follow up into fair or anything else.

Strong effect on gameplay

-Down Aerial
--Hammer moved upwards by 1.2 units in animation.
--Startup is 3 frames slower, hitting from frame 9 -> 12.
--Changed angle of linking hits from 90/270 -> 100/160 (10 degrees more inwards).
--Changed SDI of the hammer head's linking hits from 0.8x to 1x (handle hitboxes were always 1x).
--Final hit has a more dynamic knockback range (BKB 90 -> 40, KBG 50 -> 150).

This is literally the only thing left and I strongly question some of the changes to dair.

I don't care about the SDI of the hammer or the linking angle of the hits. I have noticed people escaping from the move more despite the angle change which I thought was perfect before but I've only noticed it like 3x so far and is most likely because someone input a SDI.

The hammer moving upwards by 1.2 units was probably a good change actually. it was already hugely disjointed and could hit some average sized characters through the platform of dreamland. a change for the better imo.

The last 2 changes were, and still, are strongly questioned by me.

The knock back change was a huge nerf. we all know what "dynamic" means when the changelog says something has more dynamic knockback. it means you don't get to combo floaties at higher % and you don't get to combo Fast fallers and semi FFers at low %.

If DDD is to still be an edgeguard centered character then he absolutely needs to have the old KB formula back. not being able to pop up spacies or any non-floaty at low% means we cannot get them off stage nearly as often. until mid % if we land a full dair we won't have time to follow up or if we do it'll be extremely difficult. That means we have to tech chase the spacies. something that even falcon mains consider extremely difficult. while we "could" tech chase with f-tilt, that isn't going to give us much.

DDD also had trouble with floaties anyway. dair didn't combo past 70% on jiggs in 3.5. which was just around kill %. now its extremely hard to combo past 40%. and remember, this is hitting with the final hit of dair. hitting with Dair wasn't that hard to do, but hitting with the last hit was. even if you did what I tried to do and jump dair right before landing to hit them , you still needed to land go through FFing, landing lag, and then go through jump squat to have a better chance to follow them up. it still made the timing for true combo tight. I imagine zelda and samus are now like this but we can follow up until like 55.

And last, but the most important is the 3 frames of added start up to dair.

Dair was one of DDD's most useful neutral moves. even if it was just the slow down that came about, itd still make the move much more difficult to use.

The whole point of DDD's neutral game was to make opponents approach by spamming waddles and almost ignoring their neutral by jumping around. we would then pressure opponents into shielding by jumping over them and threatening them with dair/bair/inhale. after conditioning or reading options that they chose we should mix it up by reading what they would do next. reading a shield with inhale wasn't too difficult even though some people would get away by rolling. reading jumps OOS was already extremely hard to do with bair which is a frame 6 move if I wanted the strong hit. throwing out bair early would cause higher level players to just keep shielding. landing a read jump OOS with dair which was 3 frames later was already very difficult. even for me, the highest placing consistent DDD player, it would be very close to frame perfect punishes. which I would be rewarded with a follow up grab assuming I don't hit the last part. adding the 3 extra frames to start up makes these punishes to the point where I am just guessing now. yes, the extra 3 frames push it past the point of reads into the realm of guessing. knowing when your opponent wants to do 9 frames ahead of time is already hard. reading them 12 frames ahead of time requires such precision that it is beyond worth it anymore. I will lose interactions way more often, and when I do win interactions, it will either be at best, just like before an donly at mid %, but more often than not, it will be harder to follow up on due to the finals hit tweaks

 

[ThegreatVaporeon1]

I have no qualifications, but I was bored and wanted to get back to speculating tiers and lists
S:
A:
B:
C:
D:
I don't know tier:
If I forgot a character just tell me and I'll throw them up there more or less at random, feel free to tell me why I'm wrong, or why this is fine, but still worse than lunchables

You forgot wolf

 

[InfinityCollision]

So... Uh... Tier speculation?

99% of the content in this thread is actually relevant to tiers and arguably more valuable than constantly posting speculative tier lists.

 

[Nausicaa]

Not sure what you're getting at. The only reason to interact with Bowser is if you're terrible at Smash Bros, or you're feeling generous for some reason.

Just an easy example, that the first thing 2 people noticed after playing against 3.5 Bowser for ages, then against 3.6 Bowser a bit, BOTH of their initial impressions were about how Bowser can't break neutral because Klaw is gone, DA is worse, and other things like that.
After asking further details, it came down to Armor being the thing they both noticed that was SEVERELY lacking.

Armor is no longer a band-aid (along with other stuff) that degenerates the meta-game with da-jank, but now is more of a 'flavor' thing that is very fitting with Bowser in the areas it has been placed in.
As it should be.

Though this leaves him quite open to cool stuff that CAN be done from here, now that the quirks are getting 'fit' properly.

Most fun I've had with Bowser for sure.
Love this patch.
Stoked for the rebirth of characters like him and ICs. They're both a blast.

Pikachu fox feels pretty even this patch

Pikachu for prez, he's for ending incarcerations for minor drug offenses too

he's the hero we need

A character that went toe-to-toe with the topest tiers of 3.02 in the form of M2 and Fax canNOT be good.
Go away.
We've been over this with your Pikapraise blasphemy.

99% of the content in this thread is actually relevant to tiers and arguably more valuable than constantly posting speculative tier lists.

You stop making sense too.

Not allowed.

Shiek is fun, just needs her Side-B to grab ledges.
Oli needs his Neutral B double-tap to be a tether too.
Tethers for life.
They're all fine now as far as Brawl > PM tether functioning goes outside of maybe a few tweaks to minor things down the road because 'changes'
Except Ivy's, she sucks.

 

[Chevy]

Tethers are uninteractive, please fix.

 

[Journal]

99% of the content in this thread is actually relevant to tiers and arguably more valuable than constantly posting speculative tier lists.

Yeah I realized how dumb that comment was after I wrote it. Don't mind me for now.

 

[Nausicaa]

Tethers are love
Tethers for life

 

[Chevy]

Melee Tethers are love
Melee Tethers for life

I agree completely, thank you Nausicaa.

 

[Nausicaa]

The interaction can only be in regards to whether the person returning to the stage uses their normal recovery move OR a tether.
Tethers THEMSELVES must be imperturbable. Insurmountable.
All hail Snake's Tranq Dart Tethers.
May they be impenetrable and intangible and above all.

Hence Ivy sucks.
She ain't got nothin but it.

 

[Chevy]

Really though I would like to see even a little bit of changes to the current tether system(since Melee tethers seems like a current impossibility). I think we can all agree that the lag from forced pull-up is a bit overkill. There's no reason someone can miss a move trying to punish and still have enough time to do another. I don't think it's really been realized just how bad it is currently because everyone still sucks at covering the whole 2 options tether characters have once latching(Most characters have at least 1 move that covers both options if they wanna be lazy and not react to drift). Not to mention that they can be hit while hanging there too. It just slows the game down(tetherer doesn't wanna pull up into death, edgeguarder has no reason to drop from ledge), and I'm sure no-one wants a character like Samus to recover any slower than she already does.

I honestly believe that tether dropping would be fine this patch(only 1 z-tether, Lucas Magnet junk is toned down). It's pretty much a series of close to 50/50s if we have tether dropping in. The edgeguarder gets a chance to hit them as they tether(after the inevitable air-dodge), while they're hanging on ledge(fast aerials should be unreactable by the tetherer), and still have the opportunity to refresh on a tether drop read and just edgehog the up-b. It would obviously be a big buff for z-tether characters(and ZSS), and I don't really think Samus needs it right now, but it would at least be some player to player interaction. I don't know, balancing is hard.

 

[PMS | Tink-er]

3.02 style tether cancelling had a strong mixup bent. i think reintroducing it would be okay

 

[eideeiit]

I think it would be ok with set release times. If the tetherer could cancel during the beginning fall, the hang and the pull up it would be kinda crazy. I'd say only when hanging.

 

[Chevy]

I think it would be ok with set release times. If the tetherer could cancel during the beginning fall, the hang and the pull up it would be kinda crazy. I'd say only when hanging.

They could never cancel during the pull-up. If the game has a way to differentiate between swinging down and hanging there that might be ok.

 

[TheGravyTrain]

Yeah man, tethers are in a rough spot. Squirtle can not only cover everything, he can cover it on reaction with things that all hit the user back off stage, which is an important aspect of edge guarding tethers till higher percents where it doesn't matter.

*edit* And if Squirtle has something good against your character, thats saying something /s

 

[DrinkingFood]

Tethers are fine, you should be using tools to force people to stay off the edge as you recover towards it, as well as mixing up up-bs/aerials/projectiles to hit them if they don't refresh invinc and tether snaps to instantly take the ledge if they release ledge to refresh invinc, it's a fake 50/50 where if you fail, you still get the chance to recover/retry the recovery by going onstage with the up-b/forcing tether hop->getting hit back off (at worst). And not even every character has the tools to send you back offstage effectively if you fail the "50/50", so even if you do, you just get sent further instage for a mediocre stagger situation.

 

[Zigludo]

Armor is no longer a band-aid (along with other stuff) that degenerates the meta-game with da-jank, but now is more of a 'flavor' thing that is very fitting with Bowser in the areas it has been placed in.
As it should be.

Though this leaves him quite open to cool stuff that CAN be done from here, now that the quirks are getting 'fit' properly.

this may not be the place for this, but... I don't agree with a single thing you've said.

Armor was never degenerate. Nor was it janky, nor did it 'break neutral.' Armor is a very simple and intuitive mechanic that has a long and storied history in all sorts of fighting games, and, as of Smash 4, has even been viably implemented into an official mainline Smash game.

Armor is a simple solution that allows a game designer to create a character that has an intimidating (or at the very least, usable) neutral despite being slower and more committal than the faster characters in the roster. You can throw out your slow attacks without getting run over by pressure, if you have armor.

You can call it "a band-aid", but what it really does is allow for the existence of the character in the first place. A character can't be balanced AND slow unless you either make his punishes ridiculously overpowered to compensate, which leads to weird polarizing characters that suck in matchups where their punishes don't connect, or give him tools to avoid being run over by the offense of other characters. Armor is one of those tools, so is the upB oos. They allow Bowser to fill his niche.

Like what exactly is so weird about the armored sideB? It functions the same as a shieldgrab - it absorbs an attack and then grabs you. In fact it requires more commitment than a shieldgrab, so it's slightly less useful. And yet I constantly hear people saying "oh this is so toxic, that totally invalidates the normal rock-paper-scissors game, this character has a massive burden of knowledge." None of that is true. It's just an offensive option stapled to a defensive option. Why do people complain when their nair approach gets beaten by a Klaw or dash attack, but not when it gets beaten by dashdance grab? Either way you got read and outplayed. Armor is cool.

As of 3.5, the only major remaining gaps in Bowser's gameplay were the fact that:

1) he was ridiculously vulnerable to grab spam (mainly because he had terrible rolls, even worse tech rolls, and an even WORSE spotdodge, and his upB oos actually would lose to lingering grab boxes like Yoshi's tongue, Link's hookshot, Wario Bite, Flame Choke, etc).


and 2) he was bad against stuff like Link bomb camping and Snake runaway grenade shenanigans, because they can box him out. I honestly don't think he ever had a big issue with Fox laser. You can just walk through the lasers, then you're up close and personal and your opponent Fox has given up all of his stage position, which is where a big huge character with armored approaches is dominant. But what really gave Bowser a problem was the **** he couldn't walk through - bombs, boomerang, missiles, grenades, land mines and etc


If you just gave 3.5 Bowser drastically improved spotdodge (like Ganon got!! pls!!! ) and rolls, gave him one single frame of intangible hitbox on his upB (like Samus, or Shine in Melee), and made it so that his tech rolls weren't totally useless because of how big he is, I would be hard-pressed to find a glaring hole in his design and neutral game. Sure he struggles against the aforementioned camping, but... just ban the big stages man.

He has the tools necessary to go on the offensive - his massive range and shieldstun lets him land attacks safely on shield as long as he spaces intelligently, like Marth, or Sheik. Not every character needs to have a huge dashdance or a shine, or anything that's positive on shield, to have a good neutral game.

Bowser's design got dragged through the mud a lot, even by some prominent Bowser players. But I think it was healthy, viable, and unique and interesting - it adds a lot of deep counterplay and bait-and-punish mindgames without invalidating any core concepts of spacing, baiting, etc.

I would rather see a return to his previous form and further attempts to fix remaining imbalances, rather than to see the entire character scrapped back down to Melee Bowser, homogenized with the rest of the low tiers, and then given better frame data here and there to compensate. That isn't the character I fell in love with, and it's just not very Bowser. As for 3.6, it basically just removed what made him interesting and made him totally unviable to boot lol. I don't think it's very cool to more or less remove a character in one patch, under the pretense that "we'll put him back in the next patch. except he'll be totally different."

 

[Nausicaa]

Sometimes it's like edge-guarding a Ganon, or Shiek and her Up-B and it just lasts for days because it's easy and effective and what else are you gonna do to them if you can just spike or out-right kill them at the %/position/character otherwise?

Link, TL, Samus, ZSS, Lucas, basically everyone but Ivy (and 3.5-and-earlier Oli) have it done well.
The tether itself will likely still go through some tweaks, but it's in a pretty good spot mechanically and balance-wise within the characters that have them as options.
Those minor tweaks will likely come with the less-linearizing of them once IN ACTION, and hopefully Ivy/any character that's limited to Tether-only will be appropriately manipulated to actually have an interactive edge-game worth playing.
I trust the community and DT to do it, but right now, even with the bleh that's there, this tether thing is in the best spot it's ever been.
Only Ivy is left to suck the hardest of bulbs in this area of the game.
Bad recovery is one thing (DK/Bowser/etc), but bulb-sucking is another story.

Balancing games sucks.

I don't know, balancing is hard.

Collecting now. Where's mah game is hard thread at

this may not be the place for this, but...

I don't agree with a single thing you've said. Armor was never degenerate, nor was it janky, nor did it 'break neutral.' Armor is a very simple and intuitive mechanic that has a long and storied history in all sorts of fighting games, and, as of Smash 4, has even been viably implemented into an official mainline Smash game. It is a simple solution that allows a game designer to create a character that has an intimidating (or at the very least, usable) neutral despite being slower and more committal than the faster characters in the roster. You can call it "a band-aid", but what it really does is allow for the existence of the character in the first place. A character can't be balanced AND slow unless you either make his punishes ridiculously overpowered to compensate, or give him tools to avoid being run over by the offense of other characters. Armor is one of those tools, so is the upB oos. Like what exactly is so weird about the armored sideB? It functions the same as a shieldgrab - it absorbs an attack and then grabs you. In fact it requires more commitment than a shieldgrab, so it's slightly less useful. And yet I constantly hear people saying "oh this is so toxic, that totally invalidates the normal rock-paper-scissors game, this character has a massive burden of knowledge." But none of that is true, it's just an offensive option stapled to a defensive option. Why do people complain when their nair approach gets beaten by a Klaw or dash attack, but not when it gets beaten by dashdance grab? Either way you got read and outplayed. Armor is cool.

The only major remaining gaps in Bowser's gameplay (as of 3.5, I mean. in 3.6 he's totally ruined lol) were the fact that:

1) he was ridiculously vulnerable to grab spam (mainly because he had terrible rolls, even worse tech rolls, and an even WORSE spotdodge, and his upB oos actually would lose to lingering grab boxes like Yoshi's tongue, Link's hookshot, Wario Bite, Flame Choke, etc).

and 2) he was bad against stuff like Link bomb camping and Snake runaway grenade shenanigans, because they can box him out. I honestly don't think he ever had a big issue with Fox laser. You can just walk through the lasers, then you're up close and personal and your opponent Fox has given up all of his stage position, which is where a big huge character with armored approaches is dominant. But what really gave Bowser a problem was the **** he couldn't walk through - bombs, boomerang, missiles, grenades, land mines and etc

Just an easy example, that the first thing 2 people noticed after playing against 3.5 Bowser for ages, then against 3.6 Bowser a bit, BOTH of their initial impressions were about how Bowser can't break neutral because Klaw is gone, DA is worse, and other things like that.
After asking further details, it came down to Armor being the thing they both noticed that was SEVERELY lacking.

Armor is no longer a band-aid (along with other stuff) that degenerates the meta-game with da-jank, but now is more of a 'flavor' thing that is very fitting with Bowser in the areas it has been placed in.
As it should be.

Though this leaves him quite open to cool stuff that CAN be done from here, now that the quirks are getting 'fit' properly.

You just elaborated on exactly the points I made, in 100% agreement.
Thanks, but try reading the quote that you quote before saying you disagree with something. lol
You literally just went through a bunch of specific details on exactly why Armor = good, and it's well fitting to Bowser, and how having it in good places is a good thing.
Where are you getting that Armor is bad and should be removed? Seriously. Comprehension.
Good post though.

I would rather see a return to his previous form and further attempts to fix remaining imbalances, rather than to see the entire character scrapped back down to Melee Bowser, homogenized with the rest of the low tiers, and then given better frame data here and there to compensate. That isn't the character I fell in love with, and it's just not very Bowser.

This part doesn't cover what I said, but I can agree with it too. He feels a lot less Bowser-ish, but feels good. Melee Bowser wasn't really much of a character, so scrapping him back to that definitely implies 'less character' haha

 

[Chevy]

Tethers are fine, you should be using tools to force people to stay off the edge as you recover towards it, as well as mixing up up-bs/aerials/projectiles to hit them if they don't refresh invinc and tether snaps to instantly take the ledge if they release ledge to refresh invinc, it's a fake 50/50 where if you fail, you still get the chance to recover/retry the recovery by going onstage with the up-b/forcing tether hop->getting hit back off (at worst). And not even every character has the tools to send you back offstage effectively if you fail the "50/50", so even if you do, you just get sent further instage for a mediocre stagger situation.

They're mostly fine balance-wise, but they're abhorrent to play with and around. Any time the tetherer can't force them off ledge(which isn't very do-able against someone who knows how to refresh invincibility) everyone has to play and watch the same scenario play out without any hope of something different happening(aside from maybe what direction they get sent). I can't speak for other characters, but I don't think Samus should ever be sent forwards even if she drifts forwards. She takes so long to land and there's so much lag they they should be able to waveland past you and reverse f-smash or something, or just grab, or anything.

 

[DrinkingFood]

If someone is refreshing invinc, you can snap to the edge during any of the duration that they aren't on it, which is going to be more than half even for the best edge stalls; yes, that risks bad timing getting you edgehogged into a forced hop, there's nothing unreasonable about being required to take risks to return to the stage. Refreshing invinc isn't a cure-all against tethers.

 

[steelguttey]

yea the problem with oli's tether and why it was removed was not only that it was unreliable as **** but his way of getting people off the ledge was throwing a pikmin and you can tell how the rest goes

 

[DrinkingFood]

yeah Oli's was geniunely bad, length too variable, pikmin proximity too unreliable, likelihood of having a purple to throw at an edgehogger to force refreshing low. He did/does have pretty good stalls, besides that it was a bad tether on a character with not a whole lot else going for his recovery

 

[Nausicaa]

If someone is refreshing invinc, you can snap to the edge during any of the duration that they aren't on it, which is going to be more than half even for the best edge stalls; yes, that risks bad timing getting you edgehogged into a forced hop, there's nothing unreasonable about being required to take risks to return to the stage. Refreshing invinc isn't a cure-all against tethers.

Refreshing invincibility is simply one of many variables that goes along with everything from avoiding getting hit while recovering IF you aim for alternatives to tethering, to avoiding getting hit when you tether and drop, to trying to tether to the ledge in the mix of all that at a time when they're not grabbing the ledge.
It's not much, but it's a piece of the situation, and there are a lot of pieces.
There are like... maybe a COUPLE pieces in the puzzle of tether-is-gonna-happen that are COOL
The rest are bland.
Ivy is bland there.
So bland.

tl;dr Obviously you know this, but coolness comes from interactive stuff.
When the only interaction going on is to force the tether-situation to be
'Tether-while-I'm-grabbing-Ledge'
vs
'Tether-while-they're-NOT'
then it's
VERY
NOT
COOL

 

[Player -0]

Most tethers aren't instant snap. People can regrab while reeling. Like, can we go through examples for each character?

 

[Chevy]

If someone is refreshing invinc, you can snap to the edge during any of the duration that they aren't on it, which is going to be more than half even for the best edge stalls; yes, that risks bad timing getting you edgehogged into a forced hop, there's nothing unreasonable about being required to take risks to return to the stage. Refreshing invinc isn't a cure-all against tethers.

Um, no. For one, every projectile that can reasonably force someone off the ledge should be reactable with a refresh, and the endlag in using that projectile will inhibit you from tethering while they're off. Two, only maaaybe Ivysaur or ZSS can actually snap while they're off, everyone else snaps and reels in way too slow unless they're blatantly refreshing at terrible times.

 

[DrinkingFood]

You do realize many characters' only way to refresh invinc to not get hit by a projectile aimed at the edge is to refresh perfectly, which means only 8 frames of ledge occupation and up to 29 frames not on the ledge (some can do slightly less but not many)? I don't think there's any character that takes nearly that long to get to the edge with their quickest possible tether+reel-in. You could very possibly catch them releasing the edge as you tether to it (meaning they can't just choose to regrab right away) or just before you tether it (meaning not enough reaction time to stop themselves from refreshing) and reel in before the regrab happens.

If you're not in a position to up-b and hit the ledge grab area or tether with the same timing (forcing them to refresh) then of course your recovery options will be worse. I find it strange that whenever you "accuse" somebody's main of having a good recovery, their first counter-argument assumes their character is recovering from a distance below a high angle, when most recoveries happen from fairly close, and many others happen at a high enough angle that a character with good stalling/drifting power (see: samus bomb jumping) can effectively make it the equivalent of a close recover without going too low to retain their options. Reminder: everyone's recovery is bad if you're far offstage and not at a high angle. What makes a good recovery is your options up close. Samus can get very close to the edge while maintaining her double jump, tether, and up-b options, forcing opponents to respect her ability to put a hitbox with an aerial or up-b by refreshing, which stops them from being on the edge at all times; I don't know the exact data behind samus's tether, but even if a quick tether+reel-in takes 20-25 frames (in the barely reactable threshold) Then catching their timing for the invinc refresh (which has to be consistent with most characters) at the large window where they aren't on the edge is entirely possible against a competent opponent. If you can show me some frame data indicating that her tether is dramatically slower, then I'd give this to you, and rebut that the way to improve her tether (and anyone elses) would be to just speed-up the reel-in rather than removing so much interplay by making forced hops safe or giving the tetherer such freedom to release the edge once they've already committed to the tether.

 

[NWRL]

Armor should only exist if there are moves for each character with armor breaking properties. Armor breaks the RPS rules and that's reason enough for it to be removed. This isn't like SFIV where every Character has access to armor and armor breaking moves.

 

[Zigludo]

@ DrinkingFood everything you just wrote is so correct holy ****. if I hear one more tink or link saying they have a terrible recovery I swear

Reminder: everyone's recovery is bad if you're far offstage and not at a high angle.

except for d3 and Puff, Kappa

 

[Chevy]

You do realize many characters' only way to refresh invinc to not get hit by a projectile aimed at the edge is to refresh perfectly, which means only 8 frames of ledge occupation and up to 29 frames not on the ledge (some can do slightly less but not many)?

What? No you just have to fall off DJ re-grab on reaction to the projectile being thrown, and continue to hold afterwards. You don't have to stay invincible the whole time.

I don't think there's any character that takes nearly that long to get to the edge with their quickest possible tether+reel-in. You could very possibly catch them releasing the edge as you tether to it (meaning they can't just choose to regrab right away) or just before you tether it (meaning not enough reaction time to stop themselves from refreshing) and reel in before the regrab happens.

They're not perfectly refreshing over and over again, they should do it selectively to dodge projectile hitboxes.

If you're not in a position to up-b and hit the ledge grab area or tether with the same timing (forcing them to refresh) then of course your recovery options will be worse. I find it strange that whenever you "accuse" somebody's main of having a good recovery, their first counter-argument assumes their character is recovering from a distance below a high angle, when most recoveries happen from fairly close, and many others happen at a high enough angle that a character with good stalling/drifting power (see: samus bomb jumping) can effectively make it the equivalent of a close recover without going too low to retain their options. Reminder: everyone's recovery is bad if you're far offstage and not at a high angle. What makes a good recovery is your options up close. Samus can get very close to the edge while maintaining her double jump, tether, and up-b options, forcing opponents to respect her ability to put a hitbox with an aerial or up-b by refreshing, which stops them from being on the edge at all times; I don't know the exact data behind samus's tether, but even if a quick tether+reel-in takes 20-25 frames (in the barely reactable threshold) Then catching their timing for the invinc refresh (which has to be consistent with most characters) at the large window where they aren't on the edge is entirely possible against a competent opponent. If you can show me some frame data indicating that her tether is dramatically slower, then I'd give this to you, and rebut that the way to improve her tether (and anyone elses) would be to just speed-up the reel-in rather than removing so much interplay by making forced hops safe or giving the tetherer such freedom to release the edge once they've already committed to the tether.

No one is arguing tethers are bad up close, or that specified tether characters(besides Ivysaur) actually have BAD recoveries. What I'm saying is that anytime someone is forced to tether, they effectively have no counterplay and everyone including the players has to watch the same lengthy and predictable scenario be auto-piloted by both parties; there is no meaningful interaction. I don't think Samus or probably any other tether wielder needs a recovery buff, I'd just like the game to be fun and fun to watch. Current tether mechanics inhibit that.

 

[Zigludo]

Armor should only exist if there are moves for each character with armor breaking properties. Armor breaks the RPS rules and that's reason enough for it to be removed. This isn't like SFIV where every Character has access to armor and armor breaking moves.

SFIII doesn't have Armor Break lol. also grab

 

[Nausicaa]

I'd just like the game to be fun and fun to watch

I love how this page is full of good posts.
But all of the good ones missed the points they were addressing, entirely, and addressed completely different stuff.

lol

 

[Zigludo]

you just have to fall off DJ re-grab on reaction to the projectile being thrown, and continue to hold afterwards. You don't have to stay invincible the whole time.

I don't think it's possible on reaction. Say your reaction time is 13 frames, and the opponent does a dj refresh - that's another 29 frames at least. 42 frames right there. how long does the tether reel-in animation take?

 

[TheGravyTrain]

He's saying that the person on the ledge hangs there and reacts to the projectile, not the tetherer reacting to the ledge refresh and tethering.

 

[G13_Flux]

Um, no. For one, every projectile that can reasonably force someone off the ledge should be reactable with a refresh, and the endlag in using that projectile will inhibit you from tethering while they're off. Two, only maaaybe Ivysaur or ZSS can actually snap while they're off, everyone else snaps and reels in way too slow unless they're blatantly refreshing at terrible times.

ivysaur and ZSS are the only ones with special tethers now though. ZSS's tether reel in takes approximately 10 frames from full range, with ivys taking 6. (@ Zigludo ). thats unreactable, and allows a very good method at sneaking in if you can fake your opponent to get off the ledge. ZSS, more notably, can work mix ups like that because she has a good down b recovery to get her back onto the stage if the opponent consistently just goes for the ledge. ivysaur is at least floaty, has a pretty good projectile to force reactions at the ledge, and has a stalling aerial. I do think ivy might be worse off since he/she is forced to tether to the edge more of the time (doesnt have an additional burst movement special) but I dont know Ivy as well as ZSS so i wont judge too much there yet.

characters with regular up b recoviers AND tethers have very good counterplay options for getting back to the ledge. for link, tink, samus, and lucas, they can airdodge before their tether, which is kind of big. if anything, I think some of the Z tethers are TOO good considering the characters theyre attatched to and their additional recovery options present, maybe excluding lucas though, whos recovery is more modest in comparison to the other 3. .

 

[Chevy]

Honestly, the whole projectile thing isn't really relevant to my argument anyway. Any time someone can throw out a projectile and still tether to stage, they could have used another option to recover instead(R.I.P. Ivysaur). The only case where tethers are truly awful is when a character is obviously forced to tether, this effectively only happens to ZSS, Ivysaur, and Samus(due to the sheer length of her tether). Link and Tink's tethers are short enough where they should always be in up-b range(or close to it, someone can correct me).

I know this is supposed to be Tier List discussion, but I will reiterate that this is not a balance concern.

 

[NWRL]

SFIII doesn't have Armor Break lol. also grab

Moves with armor in 3rd strike were EX or supers which required the use of a resource in order to Have access to the armor.

In SFIV everyone has a focus attack and red parry and at least one special or command normal that has armor breaking properties.

You cant reastically grab nair or bowser bomb so there's no real way of beating those moves without knowing the KB threshold to break through the armor.

Armor is also just very frustrating to play around, which should be taken in consideration when viewing the game from a pure design standpoint

 

[Zigludo]

you 'beat' the moves by baiting them out and punishing the (absurdly long, in Bowser's case) endlag. I don't think it's as frustrating to play against once you get your mindset right. To me it only seems frustrating if, mentally, you can't get past "I hit him but I didn't win wtf"

It's certainly not the most annoying thing to play against in a game where Rob's gyro, Ganon's dthrow, Falcon's uthrow knee, Falco lasers, super fast low-commitment dashdances, etc, all exist.

The only time in which I think the armor is sorta busted is during edgeguard situations. Bowser Bomb to ledge is pretty ****ing crazy when the opponent has a recovery with low horizontal speed. Marth is pretty much doomed unless he's far above the ledge and even then it's not pretty.

In neutral you just have to treat it like a disjointed move - ie, forget about "winning the trade", and dodge or block the move instead. Once you treat it that way, a move with armor is really just countered the same way as any other move with a good hitbox and frame data /disjoint. Like nobody complains about the fact that they can't win trades with Marth's sword lol, Bowser nair is definitely not harder to deal with than Marth fair