Tier List Speculation

[Frost | Odds]

If you guys want to make a proper tier list, I don't think saying "this character should be slightly higher" and such will make a good one.

Depends on what you're trying to measure. I'm trying to get a feel for what the community in general thinks - if I have no opinion about a specific character, there's no reason for me not to simply use someone else's (especially if s/he's more qualified) opinion unless and until I have reason to disagree.

@ M Manaconda

- DJL in PM is a no-impact landing, meaning that you don't suffer any landing lag whatsoever - unlike even autocancels or empty landings, where you typically take 4 or 5 frames. I've been told that Melee's DJL is functionally an empty landing, but I can't test that claim atm - so if someone can correct me, please do. Anyway Yoshi's dsmash is very long range, and comes out on frame 7. A frame 12 kill move that strong, at that range, out of shield is no joke.

- You can't crouch out of the initial dash animation, hence the utility of DJL in this regard. Especially if you combine DJL and pivot dsmash, you can place the move with a pretty extreme level of speed and precision.

@ G13_Flux I didn't read the ZSS changes until now, but your argument is compelling. Editing the post.

 

[Manaconda]

Melee's DJL is also a NIL. You hit the ground with a downward speed >= -1.

 

[Shokio]

ZSS is very good this patch. She's not Top 10, but I'd personally put her like 15-18ish.

 

[InfinityCollision]

err.... whaa...?

This. Mario just... works. All the time, and sometimes in ways you wouldn't expect. One thing falls out of play, something else takes its place. I rate Lucas highly for similar reasons, he's slightly less pick-up-and-go but could very well be just as solid long-term.

@Juushichi @ InfinityCollision @ Leafeon @ didds you all seem pretty convinced that Pikachu is very strong. Do you not feel that he suffers badly from stubby arm syndrome, having 3 mostly useless special moves, and having a nearly impossible-to-master upB? I'm open to being convinced, but I just don't see it at this point.

The only special Pikachu has that I'd consider close to useless is Skull Bash, and it still has some value in extending his horizontal recovery. While I still think the 3.5 ledgesnap nerf was silly, it technically doesn't need to be significantly better than it currently is because there's no real demand for it in his kit. That seems to be kind of a theme in his kit: each move has its own niche, with very little overlap.

Up-b may have a high skill ceiling but you can still take it pretty far, kind of like what I've been labbing out with teleport setups. What I can do with it, completely unpracticed and off the cuff, implies good things even if total mastery is potentially beyond the realm of human execution. I'd also argue that he gets relatively little out of what's left as compared to something like teleport, so the majority of the move's potential lies within reach.

Pika has limited range but he still has good reach thanks to his solid mobility. The only time I really feel his range seems to be when fishing for grabs, which is as much a product of my background in characters like Marth, ZSS, and Mewtwo as anything. Good dashdance, high running jump speed, relatively low profile during movement, a crawl, great edgeguarding, solid techchases, explosive vertical kill power, etc. There are certainly some hard matchups, but it's difficult for me to gauge just how hard (the difference between aforementioned "lack of free wins" vs insufficient tools for the matchup) because every time I play the rat or watch someone else play him there's this nagging feeling of "but what if <thing>?". Not simply that things can be done better, but that he can apply tools in ways that people aren't thinking about yet.

At the very least I think PM Pika is solo-main capable. He's just underrepresented, highly nuanced, and has to work for everything. Not a combination that lends itself to favorable public perception, but the potential really is there.

I'm barely mediocre at this game and I can personally hit every upB angle Pikachu has to offer in this game.

All 350+ of them? Granted I'm not sure how demanding his QA edge cancels are in terms of precision. He gets a lot of mileage out of QA regardless I think. Even simply having control over cardinal, 45', and ~17' angles goes a long way.

 

[didds]

All 350+ of them? Granted I'm not sure how demanding his QA edge cancels are in terms of precision. He gets a lot of mileage out of QA regardless I think. Even simply having control over cardinal, 45', and ~17' angles goes a long way.

haha maybe not all of the minute angles, but I can do any combination at the 45 degree angles or just with the first part of quick attack. I can even manage goofy ones like down/left -> down/right to sweet spot and escape pressure from directly above ledge if you were on the left side of the stage. but yea, i can do enough that getting knocked off stage is more of a breather/reset time for me rather than panic time.

 

[Scuba Steve]

When I try to recover with Pikachu, it's always panic time because I'll go for some unnecessarily flashy way to snap to ledge that inevitably kills me because my Pika is ass

 

[Jonyc128]

Mario's bair is stupid good lol, easily his best aerial. Quick, powerful and not a bad approach option when you RAR

 

[JOE!]

The big characters are more fragile than spacies but get none of the op stuff they get...

 

[G13_Flux]

^pretty spot on. i hope were working towards buffed fatties because id hate to see such a correlation between size and tier placement. not to mention the fact that it doesnt make sense why the smallest, quickest characters should have better kill options than the rest.

It would be cool to see some universal changes that fatties get as opposed to the rest, like noticably better shields, or grabs or something like that. individually, it would be good to see some more balance tweaks in the other direction too. I understand they seem to like to get a good design base set, and then buff from there, but i hope they actually follow through more. If they think DDD, zard, bowser, and DK are completely fine as is, id be thoroughly disappointed. zard maybe to a lesser extent, since i think hes pretty close to being very well designed, but ill still throw him in the category that could use a tweak or so.

 

[Life]

Big characters like Charizard and DDD don't have the speed and escapability that small characters have and that makes them worse.

Small characters like Squirtle and Pikachu don't have the giant hitboxes to compete with the superior reach of larger characters.

What do you want from meeeeeeeeeeeee

 

[Narelex]

I think its also worth noting that the difference between the tier levels is far less significant then it is in Melee due to the overall better cast. Barring Bowser and a few really bad MU's this patch Every character can be played as a viable main. Of course then you have to be more skilled then your opponent or outplay if they're using someone like and you're using someone low on the list but its never hopeless.

Just don't get Hit

Very interested in seeing where the list develops as we play more. Looks like a fairly good start to the patch. But sometimes it can be hard to tell.

Big characters do feel like they need some quality of life adjustments however.

 

[G13_Flux]

its not even just escapability, its just the fact that they are pretty much guarenteed to get hit way more often. When you couple with the fact that they typically have poor combo break options, it just means that they will get punished more often, and get punished harder. They do have weight on their side, but it doesnt always outweigh the advantages the slower characters have. many of them have low commitment, quick OOS options, whereas the fatties may have quick OOS options, but theyre high commitment (such as any of their up bs). bowser, DK, and zard have kind of small grab ranges, which is actually really sad given theyre huge characters. I can understand DK having a mediocre grab range, but bowsers and zards should be bigger. escpecially bowsers, whose range doesnt even stick out past his nose! compare this to the frame 4 OOS, low commitment, high reward shines, or the lower comitment frame 6 OOS nairs of MK, shiek, and kirby, or the insane grab ranges that marth and roy have. additionally, 6 frames of jumpsquat makes DDDs and bowsers WDs OOS much slower than many other characters (I cannot stress how much i believe this needs to be lowered to 5 for the both of them).

overall, it is true that they dont have much compensation at the moment for being huge, generally slower moving targets. worse OOS options, worse punishes, and worse neutral games. They also seem to have a much more skewered risk/reward design. DDDs inhale takes 17 frames to come out, and undergoes a guarenteed 70 frames of duration, only to be potentially punished on hit, whereas warios bite take 9 frames to come out, has 45 frames of total duration, and affords him a valuable 50/50 DI mix up. kirbys command grab takes 10 fames to come out, and has a 49 frame total duration. (I should note that kirby's spit posseses the same glitch/misfunctionality that DDDs posseses). and those are on two characters with better aerial mobility than DDD. granted I understand that just because character A has something, doesnt mean that character B should get something equal, but I think its just a tad over-skewered. DDD and DK also have moves that are disfunctional or non-existent, (neutral b and down b, respectively) that i believe should be adjusted.

fatties generally seem to have the advantages of being able to survive more powerful, single hits, as well as having attacks that can cover more range (even though the lighter, quicker variants of roy, marth, ike, tink, etc. can do this much better).

however they have the disadvantages of being punished harder, being punished more often, and having high commitment moves, generally with an inappropriate reward tied to them, compared to the rest of the cast.

for bowser: he needs more powerful moves, or moves with an approraite risk tied to their current rewards. Odds has described pretty well what im talking about now. Im sure the PMDT is working up to this, but ill state it anyways. I also truly believe that the massive outlier of his 6 frame jump squat/landing lag should be lowered to fit the normalization designs of the rest of the cast.

For DDD: same as above with the jumpsquat/ landing lag (they are the only two with a 6 frame empty landing lag. M2 has 5 frames, everyone else has 4. they are the only two with a 6 frame jumpsquat as well). This off the bat will help improve his neutral game since he spends a lot of time transitioning between air and ground. Ive mentioned that i think his grounded up b needs more utility. at the moment its kind of useless. i think that should be a big no-no in terms of design. improving this will create a better dynamic for his OOS game and thus a more THOUGHTFUL and NUANCED game. It fits very well with the PMDTs design goals and im surprised they havent done anything like it yet. fix the spit as well (do the same for kirby). There may be other changes he needs, but these ones I am certain that he should have, as they fit with the DTs stated design philosophy.

For DK: just give him an aerial down b, please lol. Im sure they can give him some kind of weak barrel projectile, and then appropriately adjust the reward of his grab game punishes, due to a better neutral game. It would just make the game more interesting, and allow DK players to do more than DD. If strongbad is correct, and DKs metagame is peaked (at DDing, grabbing, and spacing bairs) it think it would suit the game well to give him a little something that includes more thought provoked neutrals.

Zard: i cant speak as well for this character unfortunately, but a more thought provoking flamethrower would be good for starters.

im sure theres many other edits than can be made, and I know a lot of my above post is mostly loose thought, but i think some of the suggestions and points I made point towards the PMDTs design goals pretty well, and could be useful when taken into consideration. I dont think many of us have a problem seeing that in the current metagame, the fatties specifically could use some updating in order to better fit design goals and generate more interesting gameplay. even if the changes dont work, thats fine. I would rather see some failed innovation at this point as opposed to the cold shoulder.

I will also note that I am very happy with the PMDTs work to date, I dont want to come off as displeased overall. They have done an awesome job on the game, and I would just like for my posts to serve as feedback and suggestions that can be used.

 

[CORY]

Ummm, I'm pretty sure zard at least has a good grab range, almost marth like. I think dk does, as well, since I remember that being one of the annoying things about the match Sethlon told me about (dk's grab range being long enough to punish Roy dtilt or something like that iirc)

 

[JOE!]

One thing of note that I have noticed is that the big, single hit moves that heavies have and survive well against are usually incredibly inefficient. For example, let's say Bowser Usmash does 20% with no way into it. Fox then could jab-usmash for 3+17% for the same results and then some. The smaller characters have means to match or outperform heavies where their supposed strengths are, but heavies seem to not have the ability to match the smaller characters.

Unfortunately, making Bowser have frame 12 smashes that kill at like 40% or DDD being able to live to 350% easily are both weird options to try and push their strengths as compared to smaller characters. In reverse, nerfing smaller characters to make the heavies comparatively better is also too extreme for the sake of only 4 characters. They just need powerful options that fit their weakness of being punished harder.

Edit @ CORY :

Bower technically has the biggest grab range, then ddd, then dk, marth, then zard. Grab range isn't something they lack lol

 

[InfinityCollision]

Bowser, DK, and Zard comprise 3 of the top 5 characters for non-tether grab range, if there's anything their grabs lack it'd be disjoint. All three of them lean/step in on their grabs, so bear that in mind when looking at their ranges. Bowser's jumpsquat has already been normalized, it used to be the lone frame 8 jumpsquat. Mewtwo is by no means the heaviest/biggest character with a 5 frame jumpsquat (DK, Yoshi, Ganondorf, ROB, Snake, Ike, and Link are all heavier).

I think its also worth noting that the difference between the tier levels is far less significant then it is in Melee due to the overall better cast. Barring Bowser and a few really bad MU's this patch Every character can be played as a viable main. Of course then you have to be more skilled then your opponent or outplay if they're using someone like and you're using someone low on the list but its never hopeless.

Just don't get Hit

Very interested in seeing where the list develops as we play more. Looks like a fairly good start to the patch. But sometimes it can be hard to tell.

What I'm curious to see is which characters will primarily see representation from solo mains at higher levels, vs those that may have a perceived need for a secondary. We may be reaching a point where individual spreads are close enough on the whole that how widely those spreads vary becomes an equally or more significant consideration.

Two questions for unrelated discussion:

-Sheik throw changes. Removing unreactable mixups seems to be a trend in 3.6. Where does this put her, both design/gameplay-wise and balance-wise?

-Roy's hitbox priority is identical to Marth's, ie the tip hitboxes are lowest in priority. The effect as far as sweet/sourspot priority is of course reversed as a result. Do you consider this appropriate, or should Roy have to commit more for a sweetspot hit? Why? Bear in mind that there's some overlap between hitboxes, especially due to interpolation.

 

[Frost | Odds]

Bowser's jumpsquat has already been normalized, it used to be the lone frame 8 jumpsquat

6 frames is definitely much better than 8. However, the fact that Bowser and Dedede are the only characters with 6 frame jumpsquats is kind of annoying when I'm trying to get the muscle memory down for early aerials, wavedashes, and so forth. No matter who I pick as a secondary (other than D3, who also sucks right now), I basically have to retrain all my muscle memory.

 

[CORY]

Edit @ CORY :

Bower technically has the biggest grab range, then ddd, then dk, marth, then zard. Grab range isn't something they lack lol

That's what I was saying, tho... I'm sure g13 was talking about effective grab range, hence saying browser's doesn't go past his nose. But then he mentioned dk and zard, who both have really good effective grab ranges.

 

[InfinityCollision]

I wouldn't mind seeing Bowser's grab animation reanimated as more of a D3 grab/Klaw-esque swipe. Push his hurtboxes back a bit that way.

 

[D e l t a]

Just got back on, sorry for some delay...

My main training partner is a Lucas players and we're convinced that Lucas is somewhere in the top 10, MAYBE top 15. Really strong combos, pressure, a decent projectile, and of course, great early kill conversions.

Agreed with all of this.

However, I think Lucas suffers from a bit of Marth syndrome. When he gets a character around 110%+, it's a lot harder for him to kill. Down throw with DI away>DACUS stops working, Down throw with DI in>Up smash stops working, Down throw with no DI>bair stops working, dair>usmash stops working, up throw won't kill until later. Outside that, he doesn't have many killing moves. Fair is okay, bair is slow and hard to hit with to get the kill hitbox, smash attacks are smash attacks, and his f tilt won't really kill unless you're being edge guarded. He still has good kill options, and he has the ability to rack up damage so any of these moves WILL kill, but if he can't kill early, it gets a bit harder. Marth has this problem as well, but he's still a good character though, I'm just emulating it here.

Lucas is nowhere near Marth in terms of lacking kill power at high %'s.

For a majority of the cast, Lucas' uthrow kills between 130-140%. Where uthrow doesn't kill (heavies / fast fallers), Bthrow sets up for ledge guards on their easily punishable recoveries.
Bthrow as a DI mixup kills around 120-140% or sets up ledge guards easily.
Dthrow -> standing OU Upsmash works around this % and Dthrow -> OU Dacus works until Uthrow kills
Uthrow works on floaties around 125-130 and everybody else around 132-145+. Against heavies/fastfallers you'd be able to convert off Dthrow or ledge guard with Bthrow so Uthrow killing is disregarded in this situation.

PKF -> Fair / Nair (yes it's a kill move whether people want to use it or not). Sets up ledge guards from 100-130% and kills around 125-135+ depending on DI.
Bair despite being "slow" is still very good and not that hard to hit with a sweetspot if you actually practice it. No DI Dthrow / Dair -> Bair works on every character until kill %
Ftilt & Fsmash are very disjointed and still good kill options regardless of being ledge guard moves.
Nair weak knockback grounded hitbox leads into a Dacus or Fair/Nair. Dair -> Nair also kills reliably around 130 (assuming Dair hits around 110-125% then Nair does the full hit). Weak hit Fair -> semi-poor DI / dependent on certain weight classes -> Dacus works very well.

Even if you can't get necessarily all those conversions listed above (not to mention the countless other setups that I didn't list), Lucas has no problem tacking on another 10-30% from PKF, Dtilts, Nair (shield poke / random hit) etc. As a Lucas player, they should know the kill %'s when moves work and when they don't. As such, they should then be aiming to hit those %'s as a result of using combos that have proven to lead into those %'s.

==

tl;dr Lucas has many larger issues than not being able to kill from 100 - Uthrow kill %. For starters, his range and ability to control the tempo of a match. Not to mention his weight and fall speed allowing others to combo Lucas just as hard as he can combo them.

==


@ Frost | Odds and anybody else re: Pikachu

Despite my bias of having Anther setting the precedent for my views on Pika / PM Pika, I also recognize Axe and other Pikas. After all, tier lists & matchups should be based on top players & tourney results.

Adding on to the fact that Pika's normals are very fast - on par with squirtle & Lucas for example - and the other traits listed earlier (crawl, best & fastest upsmash, small hurtbox, etc), Pika's specials are also very useful.

His neutral special can create an interesting type of pressure / control.

- When on-stage, it forces an opponent to: shield, clank/beat in priority, jump, spot dodge / roll, or inevitably get hit. This allows to adapt and react to a situation then predict and punish next time that situation occurs. The angle and trajectory resembles a slightly worse Mario/doc projectile in terms of followup and end lag
- When off-stage, it forces opponents to mixup their recovery by beating the attack, changing horizontal movement (if possible), or to typically go higher to avoid (and generally burn their double jump). Pika's ledge guard game restricting certain zones is pretty good with tail spike, thunder, Bair, invincible ledge drop Nair, etc
​

SideB basically grants slight horizontal distance gain while forfeiting a decent vertical height. Equal to Luigi's SideB save for random misfires.

Thunder adds a wall of electricity that can be wavebounced. Speaks for itself.

His recovery isn't that hard. Maybe if you're on a laggy setup / using netplay, then I could see an issue given precise timings & inputs. Anther and to a slightly lesser extent Axe have taken the angles to a new level and are able to sweetspot ledge from almost anywhere within range (especially on stage, arguably the hardest angles). Yes, Anther SD'd for a majority of 2013/2014, but I rarely see him [SD] since last October or so, and Axe / other Pika mains don't seem to have an issue with QA to ledge. The main problem with this move is the removal of QAC on 2nd burst, which is easily worked around in neutral. It can be a gimp tool / force enemies slightly lower while being able to snap back to ledge and punish the resulting option.

 

[G13_Flux]

for what its worth:

http://i.imgur.com/Mrzepjz.png

this was posted by @Magus420 in a zelda thread (5th post down): http://smashboards.com/threads/song-of-time-zeldas-changes-in-pm-3-6-hype.370699/page-5

i may have misremebered DKs, since his actually is pretty good. I stand corrected there.

however:

zard/bowsers overall range is technically good, but their disjoint, (@ InfinityCollision , @ CORY , @ JOE! ) is lacking at least for their character size. Thats a much more meaningful measure of grab range imo. saying bowsers grab range is larger than most is like saying DDDs shield is better than squirtle's because its numerical size value is bigger, when in reality, you have to take into consideration the size of the DDD compared to squirtle. I guess you could argue zards isnt bad really, especially for his speed. regardless, for bowser definitively, i feel it would make sense, and contribute to good design for him to have a good grab range

also, i was referring to M2s empty landing lag, not jumpsquat. M2 is the only one with an empty landing lag of 5 frames, while DDD and bowser are the only ones with 6 frames. Every single other character (including DK, the second heaviest character) has a 4 frame empty landing lag. With characters that transition between the air and ground a lot, this can be a factor, and having 6 frames of lag can be noticeable to nuanced players. I think everyone should just be normalized down to 4 frames. It doesnt make sense to have 3 characters be different, and the rest have a specific value.

on the subject of jumpsquat, bowsers may have been normalized from 8 frames, but 6 frames is still a lot, and i believe since him and DDD are, again, such outliers in this attribute, they should be further normalized down to 5. In conjunction with my suggested empty landing lag reduction, it will create a more fluid gameplay for these characters, as well as help with minute frame data advantages in neutral, particularly for DDD, whos fastest ground attack is frame 7 (grab/dtilt, both are higher commitment than typical "fast" ground attacks: again, a pretty big outlier). both of them have high duration, and endlag aerials, and adjusting these attributes would allow them some better room in neutral. They are characters that could use these minute speed increases, and would still be slower than average.

 

[Chevy]

I'd disagree and say effective range is much more important than disjoint in a grab. You don't generally space out active moves with your grab, you wait until they're over, or grab shielding opponents, or shield grab sloppy aerials. Even if you are trying to grab at attacks you still win same frame trades because of grab armor.

 

[G13_Flux]

its extremely important for OOS applications

additionally, the smaller your grab disjoint, the less disjoint it takes for characters to stuff you on a grab attempt. I think its very important and meaningful, moreso than simply how much space (even overlapping your character model) it can cover. refer to my analogy comparing this to shields.

if you dont believe me, read Magus420's post, as he went into a lot of detail and i am on board with the information he gave.

edit: effective grab range and grab disjoint are the same thing, going by the terminology of the current conversation.

 

[Chevy]

I'd say effective grab range is the amount of space that they cover from their standing position, disjoint is obviously the amount of distance the grab-box is from your hurtboxes. I'm not saying disjoint isn't important, either.

 

[C0rvus]

Hi everyone. I like this game a lot. Been playing it over a year now, was super hype for 3.6 (until I saw Bowser got gutted for no reason. Why.) How on earth is Ike's design considered fair or balanced? Am I missing something? Like, I'm sure he loses to Fox and Falcon like everyone else, but damn he's got everything. Range, absurd power, recovery, and QD is a free 50/50 and a silly tech chasing tool. Yet Bowser is getting cut down. I have faith in the dev team and realize they work super hard for no pay or anything, and I do appreciate it. I love Project M. But man does it make me salty.

A bit more on topic, I would love to see the fatties touched up in some way. Smash has never been kind to them unless they have chaingrabs or something, and I doubt anyone wants Brawl Dedede back. As janky as armor might be, I feel it is at least in line with Bowser as a character.

 

[Boiko]

Lol, @ D e l t a you literally just listed a bunch of kill set ups that either require high commitment (grab, dair) or other moves that lead into an edge guard situation (nair, fair) but he can keep racking up damage with tilts and pokes.

In other words, Marth.

 

[CORY]

Ganon has a 5frame empty landing, too, I thought.ht've forgotten that change if it happened...

And effective grab range and grab disjoint aren't the same, at least not in the sense I'm discussing. Disjoint would be the grab box physically removed from you hurtbox, more like a tether grab.

Effective grab range is like marth leaning forward really quickly as he grabs, making him have his absurd grab range. Zard does this, since he lunges withbhis head to bite for his grab, giving him a really large effective grab range, but not any sort of disjoint on hisngrab boxes themselves.

Contract with ganon, who hardly shifts his body at all, barely extending his arm : (

 

[Narelex]

Hi everyone. I like this game a lot. Been playing it over a year now, was super hype for 3.6 (until I saw Bowser got gutted for no reason. Why.) How on earth is Ike's design considered fair or balanced? Am I missing something? Like, I'm sure he loses to Fox and Falcon like everyone else, but damn he's got everything. Range, absurd power, recovery, and QD is a free 50/50 and a silly tech chasing tool. Yet Bowser is getting cut down. I have faith in the dev team and realize they work super hard for no pay or anything, and I do appreciate it. I love Project M. But man does it make me salty.

A bit more on topic, I would love to see the fatties touched up in some way. Smash has never been kind to them unless they have chaingrabs or something, and I doubt anyone wants Brawl Dedede back. As janky as armor might be, I feel it is at least in line with Bowser as a character.

Ike is very Solid but he has his drawbacks.

• Most of his moves have a decent amount of startup.
• He has Poor OOS options So he folds to good shield pressure/cross-ups
• Projectiles can hinder his QD game
• Fairly easy to edgeguard once you get used to it
• Fairly easy to combo his weight/fallspeed

Fatties should be improved soon, seems silly for all these quick characters to have better kill options and that's coming from a MK main. IDC <3

 

[C0rvus]

Ike is very Solid but he has his drawbacks.

• Most of his moves have a decent amount of startup.
• He has Poor OOS options So he folds to good shield pressure
• Projectiles can hinder his QD game
• Fairly easy to edgeguard once you get used to it
• Fairly easy to combo his weight/fallspeed

Fatties should be improved soon, seems silly for all these quick characters to have better kill options and that's coming from a MK main. IDC <3

Thanks, I'll try to keep this stuff in mind. Since I primarily play Ivysaur, not being able to edgeguard Ike makes it a very frustrating MU. I'd better get on that.

To bounce off of what others have been saying about Pikachu, I feel he is a particularly strong character. His raw speed and crossup pressure is very hard for a bunch of characters to deal with. His stubby range is possibly the only thing holding him back. Easily one of the best characters at edgeguarding, the ever potent up air and the incredible 64 bair can both end stocks early. Thunder keeps juggles going, Jolt covers his return to the stage and can gimp, but Skull Bash really only seems useful for recovering high, if that. Up smash is still fearsome. Pika always keeps me in shield. I have little knowledge about his grab game, though.

Having decent spacie MUs is a godsend in 3.6b, and i suspect Pika can deal with Falcon. Swords are probably his hardest MUs, though.

 

[Leafeon]

Thanks, I'll try to keep this stuff in mind. Since I primarily play Ivysaur, not being able to edgeguard Ike makes it a very frustrating MU. I'd better get on that.

To bounce off of what others have been saying about Pikachu, I feel he is a particularly strong character. His raw speed and crossup pressure is very hard for a bunch of characters to deal with. His stubby range is possibly the only thing holding him back. Easily one of the best characters at edgeguarding, the ever potent up air and the incredible 64 bair can both end stocks early. Thunder keeps juggles going, Jolt covers his return to the stage and can gimp, but Skull Bash really only seems useful for recovering high, if that. Up smash is still fearsome. Pika always keeps me in shield. I have little knowledge about his grab game, though.

Having decent spacie MUs is a godsend in 3.6b, and i suspect Pika can deal with Falcon. Swords are probably his hardest MUs, though.

Pika doesn't struggle that much from swords, it's actually Puff, Luigi, Ice Climbers, and Mewtwo, imo, mewtwo the only one who can act kinda like a swordie. Most of these characters aren't that common though, luckily.

 

[Shokio]

I Bair Ike out of his Aether once he reaches the apex all the time. A lot of people don't know that they can do that. Or I'll just FSmash him on his way down, though it's much safer to do with ZSS than probably anyone else since she has so much range on it.

 

[Soft Serve]

Pikachu just suffers from working hard than fox to do less than fox

great character but so much work, just play fox

 

[Frost | Odds]

Pikachu just suffers from working hard than fox to do less than fox

great character but so much work, just play fox

Like many characters, he does struggle from not being Fox, yes.

 

[Zoa]

So we're circulating over to and spacie talk again. There was a previous topic about the lack of killing options for Bowser, but I'd like to talk about . Can we please see more of a nerf to his uair and usmash please? They're ridiculous.

 

[steelguttey]

i really dont want to talk about spacies but i have to say this

pmdt needs to realize that fox is not gonna stop being a ridiculous character if they keep nerfing numbers alone. he needs reworks to specific parts of his kit, mostly the part that makes his neutral so dominating. fox doesnt win every matchup in the game because his usmash kills early, he wins every matchup in the game because he doesnt lose neutral. people have to understand that punish is achieved through neutral, and if you win neutral and have a **** punish game it doesnt matter because you can just continue winning neutral. everyone has a great punish game on fox, but nobody has a good matchup against fox because nobody has specific advantages over fox in neutral, at least not ones he doesnt have more of.

please stop asking for usmash and uair nerfs, they arent the problem. if we keep nerfing fox's knockback then hes jsut gonna be a character with an amazing neutral and really bad punishes. he needs a big hit to his neutral

 

[Lens]

Whether they have a sheer advantage in KO percent or not, I'd argue that it's a good start to at least get the struggling heavyweights (Bowser in particular) up to par on reliable vertical KOs. Considering that vertical KOs tend to be less position-dependent when it comes to KO percent, doesn't it make sense that the better ones would tend to go to characters that have the most trouble positioning themselves?

I was glad to hear about Bowser's usmash buffs for this reason, but ultimately it seems like too little, too late, since the trajectory, frame advantage, and percent range needed to set up for it seem to only work together situationally, if at all (but hey, give him some equivalent of a stomp, and that's an easy fix).

 

[Zoa]

Somehow I believe that response was targeted at me, but I wholeheartedly agree. Fox's kit needs a reworking. I'd really like to see more cooldown on blaster, or an ammo system integrated into it. I'm just hella salty over my latest weekly because of Fox's ridiculous kill potential on top of his existing punish and neutral games. It's very unhealthy to play against.

 

[4tlas]

i really dont want to talk about spacies but i have to say this

pmdt needs to realize that fox is not gonna stop being a ridiculous character if they keep nerfing numbers alone. he needs reworks to specific parts of his kit, mostly the part that makes his neutral so dominating. fox doesnt win every matchup in the game because his usmash kills early, he wins every matchup in the game because he doesnt lose neutral. people have to understand that punish is achieved through neutral, and if you win neutral and have a **** punish game it doesnt matter because you can just continue winning neutral. everyone has a great punish game on fox, but nobody has a good matchup against fox because nobody has specific advantages over fox in neutral, at least not ones he doesnt have more of.

please stop asking for usmash and uair nerfs, they arent the problem. if we keep nerfing fox's knockback then hes jsut gonna be a character with an amazing neutral and really bad punishes. he needs a big hit to his neutral

Theoretically, if they nerf the punish game enough that Fox has to win neutral a number of times proportional to how strong his neutral game is, then he would be balanced. That would probably have to be absurdly weak though (like 1 damage on all moves lol) and at that point he would lose all of his "oomph". The biggest problem is that he can still gimp like a god with shine no matter how much you nerf his other options. He can outrun, out-chase, out-gimp, out-kill, out-live, out-combo, and out-pressure everyone in the game, and when there's a character that can outdo him at one of those things he still has all the others to fall back on.

A flexible character is fine, but at least his power level should be turned down. He's jack of all trades, master of Smash.

 

[DrinkingFood]

The big characters are more fragile than spacies but get none of the op stuff they get...

Zard has huge grab reach, huge normal reach and generally huge hitbox coverage (probably better than even the other fatties in terms of sheer space), huge base knockback, a great DD, is literally made of kill moves and anti-airs, an excellent punish/stagger game as a result of these; maybe he doesn't have spacies' "OP" stuff but he has Marth's "OP" stuff and then some

 

[xLithiumx]

Theoretically, if they nerf the punish game enough that Fox has to win neutral a number of times proportional to how strong his neutral game is, then he would be balanced. That would probably have to be absurdly weak though (like 1 damage on all moves lol) and at that point he would lose all of his "oomph". The biggest problem is that he can still gimp like a god with shine no matter how much you nerf his other options. He can outrun, out-chase, out-gimp, out-kill, out-live, out-combo, and out-pressure everyone in the game, and when there's a character that can outdo him at one of those things he still has all the others to fall back on.

A flexible character is fine, but at least his power level should be turned down. He's jack of all trades, master of Smash.

I don't think Fox out-chases/out-lives/out-combos/out-pressures Falco. He definitely out-gimps/kills him though. I mean, Falco has to combo into a kill and Fox can just run-in U-Smash for days. Plus, I think Falco out neutrals Fox in their MU if you play it right. Falco Lasers > Fox Lasers any day. Plus, if you can out-range Fox with projectiles or a tilt, it makes things easier.

When I used to main Link, I'd approach with projectiles all day b/c Fox can't do **** about them since his shine is soooo laggy after reflecting and his moves will clink/lose to the projectiles.

For Roy, CC D-tilt wrecks Fox and goes into U-throw -> F-smash, plus Roy's counter is great if you can react good.

Charizard can f-tilt maybe, idk since I've never mained him. I'd have to think about the other characters, as any projectile against Fox is a projectile worth using which is why Ganon, for example, would probably struggle more than Falco, for example, even though Ganon could probably just F-air Fox. Let's be honest though, Foxes approach with N-air/D-air shines more often than not, well I do, so maybe you could develop a move that beats those. Just my thoughts though.

 

[D e l t a]

Lol, @ D e l t a you literally just listed a bunch of kill set ups that either require high commitment (grab, dair) or other moves that lead into an edge guard situation (nair, fair) but he can keep racking up damage with tilts and pokes.

In other words, Marth.

Yeah but Marth doesn't have a projectile. Dair isn't that high of a commitment and at least Lucas' tilts will kill at reasonable %'s.To get kill setups as most characters, you need some sort of commitment move that leads into a kill move

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@ C0rvus Edge guarding Ike (or any character for that matter) is where Ivy excels the most lol. Her bair despite constant range nerfs, is still one of the best disjoints out there, similar to Marth's sword. Razor leaf can zone out Ike while tilts and aerials stuff his approaches. Both can kill each other at absurdly low %'s which means avoidance of his slow, powerful sword are key in the MU.

Pika v swords (mainly v Marth) is better for Pika in PM. It was considered an even MU in Melee and with buffs to Pika's moves in PM, I'd say the MU leans slightly towards Pika now. Against Roy, I've heard the MU is somewhat harder (dsmash kills, DED1 setups, etc), but Pika can combo Roy harder. Only main difference for the Ike MU seems to be his disjoint and QD being a part of his moveset.