Tier List Speculation

[Ripple]

hey, its the only move that can hit people who sweetspot the ledge that isn't dair.

 

[JOE!]

More heavyweight smashes should be like Zard's Fsmash:

relatively quick to come out, but then have an epoch of end lag

 

[Draco_The]

What if Ganon's side smash had him taking a step back during the startup (he would start charging it after the step back) and then during the move itself he moves forward more to make up for the step back? Thus the attack would allow him to avoid some close ranged moves and retaliate. Since he's all about punishing and the step back + forward movement would make the attack seem more powerful, it would fit him very well.

 

[Searing_Sorrow]

A "warlock" that is for some reason a falcon semiclone getting a sidestepping full commitment forward moving shoulder thrust would fit the character well? Then again I probably missed that part of the story in spirit tracks or one of the zelda games I didn't play.

 

[TheoryofSmaug]

I hear people complained a lot about 3.5 Bowser Fair. Which led to its current nerf, my understanding was that the move was very powerful and ranged.

Wtf guys, how are the heavy characters supposed to keep up without large hit boxes with kill power out the wazoo? If Fox gets **** like drill shine up smash why can't Bowser have one of the best Fairs in the game?

The Fair change was one of the main things that made me mostly drop Bowser in 3.6B

 

[Deleted member]

I hear people complained a lot about 3.5 Bowser Fair. Which led to its current nerf, my understanding was that the move was very powerful and ranged.

Wtf guys, how are the heavy characters supposed to keep up without large hit boxes with kill power out the wazoo? If Fox gets **** like drill shine up smash why can't Bowser have one of the best Fairs in the game?

The Fair change was one of the main things that made me mostly drop Bowser in 3.6B

the short answer is that no one can have anything except things we can't change from melee.

unless they were already changed from melee, and those changes are still up for discussion.

we're aware of the problem. bowser is just one small symptom (although perhaps the most obvious) to the larger issue.

 

[Warzenschwein]

so did the toon link hotfix remove sheilda by any chance or is that still pending

 

[AuraMaudeGone]

On the subject of Bowser and or -insert fatty here- I made this post in some Bowser Fix thread.

Before you guys start making suggestions to change his kit, think about a concept that will fit the character Bowser.
Who is Bowser and what mold is he designated in the cast of PM. Describe in simplest terms what Bowser should be and what people should expect from him. (It can be as simple as he's a big turtle monster that wrecks you.)

Then from here try to find every single thing (everything that involves pressing a button/moving the stick(s) that makes Bowser do something you should know about it) you can about Bowser and observe them as a whole, then explore every possible solution that would match your defined idea of Bowser.

And there's the start of reworking Bowser. Just my 5 cents.

 

[Bazkip]

what, are you comparing ganon's kill options to sonic lol?
sonic doesn't have a fair that's safe on shield, CC, and kills at 80 near the edge
or a bair that does the same thing at 90
or a uair that does the same thing at like 110
or a dair that does the same thing at like 80-120 depending on fall speed
or a lingering down-b that covers tech options with kill power
Not to mention these all send you offstage like 30-40% earlier to be subject to ganon's incredible option coverage against recoveries thanks to hit long limbs+large hitbox+1 hit equals dead offstage
Like regardless of your opinion of ganon's overall viability, kill power/options is not something he lacks lol
sonic only has a few tools for killing that are all more limited than ganon's, ganon's kill power is a threat in every direction

His example was pretty trash but you can't deny there isn't truth to what he was trying to get at. Let's look at a better example.

Ganon is ostensibly supposed to be slower, stronger Falcon, right?
So why in god's damn name does knee kill better than any of Ganon's kill moves?

This fact is simply absurd as it basically invalidates Ganon as a character. Knee is able to be comboed into from a ton of different moves at a wide range of percents, is safe on block (Ganon gets that too with proper spacing on his aerials but it just seems questionable for Falcon when he can generally play safe due to his speed alone), sends at a relatively horizontal trajectory (idk if 32° is necessarily considered to be a semi-spike, but still) and is attached to one of the fastest characters with a far superior neutral game. Due to his high mobility Falcon enjoys the freedom to combo into his finishers at high percents whereas Ganon generally loses the ability to do so. And it's not like Falcon's other aerials are bad either. The disparity is massive and Ganon's strengths really don't make up the difference.

I don't want Ganon to kill better to compensate though, as that would seriously not be fun to play against and would almost certainly skew a lot of matchups. The solution is definitely to reduce the potency of knee (and other strong kill moves of fast characters). Knee is of course super iconic for Falcon, so significantly reducing it's power would put a damper on the character (though I do think it could stand to do a little less damage, 18% is rather high). The reason knee kills better is because nearly all of Ganon's outright kill moves send at the Sakurai angle (if anyone doesn't know what that is, see here, behaves like Melee in PM iirc), which is a more favourable trajectory for survival. Switching knee to this angle would tone down it's hefty kill potential while still maintain it's classic feel and power.

Also weak knee > strong knee is silly, can we get PAL weak knee?

Btw Ganon generally doesn't kill outright at the percentages you listed unless playing against a light character, playing on a small stage and/or your opponent DI's badly.

This rant is of course fuelled by a lot of salt, and I'm probably somewhat overstating a few things such as Ganon being completely negated by Falcon, but it's just extremely frustrating to see another character similar to yours be so much better in so many different important aspects.

 

[Beorn]

This rant is of course fuelled by a lot of salt, and I'm probably somewhat overstating a few things such as Ganon being completely negated by Falcon, but it's just extremely frustrating to see another character similar to yours be so much better in so many different important aspects.

Hmmmm.... This sounds very familiar. Well, In Links case its....

"but it's just extremely frustrating to see another character similar to yours be so much better at exactly what your character is supposed to do."

This is so very obvious to nearly everyone. My brother, that doesn't even play smash, can see this. Why is this still a thing.

There is so much fear involved in buffing slow characters, because of the perceived amount of skill it takes to play them, or lack there of. Anyone notice that DK, DDD, Bowser, Link, Charazard, and Gan-... Oh wait. Ok, Ganon is the one example of a very, VERY buffed slow character, and even that just puts him at around mid teir. These characters are the slowest in the game. See a pattern?

 

[Deleted member]

There is so much fear involved in buffing slow characters, because of the perceived amount of skill it takes to play them, or lack there of. Anyone notice that DK, DDD, Bowser, Link, Charazard, and Gan-... Oh wait. Ok, Ganon is the one example of a very, VERY buffed slow character, and even that just puts him at around mid teir. These characters are the slowest in the game. See a pattern?

I have been saying for several weeks now that everyone slow in 3.6 basically sucks. Part of this is because the slow characters were nerfed more than the fast ones, which is in turn because nerfs are exacerbated on slow characters (and buffs are exacerbated on fast characters). However, the other part of this is that it skews the tempo of the game in favor of faster characters, de facto hurting the viability of slower characters even if they were unchanged. For example, Wario and Samus are worse off in 3.6, although not because of any major alterations to those characters. Rather, they are worse because the viable characters have become faster, and the slower characters that they can perform better against are less likely to be in a real tournament bracket. As you move from Fox being one of many viable characters in 3.02, to Fox being the only viable character in 3.6, the game may be more balanced from an operational standpoint, but it is less balanced with respect to character viability. We have now seen both ends of this trade-off.

 

[JOE!]

Zard isn't slow...

 

[Boiko]

Samus could care less about how fast you are. Almost all of her bad match ups improved this patch. She's in a better place now than ever.

 

[Ripple]

which is why zard isn't absolutely atrocious. just under acceptable imo

 

[TreK]

I'd sure like my characters to be as under acceptable as Zard.
Then again I only play with Zen and Zef and have absolutely no idea what a bad Zard looks like.

 

[Warzenschwein]

Zef and Zen make Zard look like he's some kind of hidden deity tier monster. Until you realize he's still fat af and they're just good.

Additionally, playing against a good Zard feels like a big, janky cheeze massacre. The first time I got stage spiked by seismic toss on Dreamland I commenced questioning my very existence.

 

[Boiko]

Fox the only viable character? He's not even the only viable character in melee. You're saying that with a slew of beefed up characters, and a somewhat weaker Fox, that he somehow became the only viable character in 3.6? Because he can ban FD every time now??

No, Fox being the only viable character is far from true.

 

[NWRL]

3.5 Bowser was the most aggravating and frustrating character I've played against in a fighting game, and I've played against vortex characters in SF4. He needed to be redesigned. 3.6 Bowser sucks and that sucks for Bowser mains but going back to 3.5 is something that shouldn't happen.

I also feel like the character allowed weaker players to beat out stronger players due to the ridiculous matchup knowledge required to compete against him. Our local Bowser who was getting top 3 at every weekly in 3.5 isn't even breaking top 8 since the patch, and it's not because of the Bowser nerfs, because he would play Sonic/Falco as well.

 

[Beorn]

I actually debated putting zard in that list at all, as I don't believe that ganon or zard are bad bad, like Link or Bowser. I wasn't referring to how slow a characters movement is, as DK, and zard are quite fast and Ganon and DK have very fast moves. I was more referring to characters that have slow moves\movement\high endlag\jumpsquats.

If you look at the list of characters I listed what order do people usually put them in on tier lists.

Bowser, DK, Link, DDD, then Zard Ganon is what I usually see and hear. Think about that.

@Umbreon While I agree on your stance about the slower characters. I believe that both samus and Wario are still top half of the cast characters. Neither character has slow anything. Look at their frame data, and compare it to the actual slow characters.

 

[MLGF]

Zard's not slow, honestly he's pretty damn good and pretty well rounded (outside of his projectile sucking)

Only issue is that for all the hurt he can dish out, he takes in more. Other characters have similar strengths, but lack that con.

So yeah, what I'm trying to say is that we should nerf Bowser more.

 

[Life]

I'm curious for feedback about a specific idea I had for Zard, actually. What if PM replaced Flamethrower with a command-grab version of Seismic Toss and then give him a more traditional uthrow? It would give him a new option in the air when he's right on top of someone (most of his best hitboxes require him to space out a little) and let him initiate his Fly combos from a grab--in other words, he would keep roughly the same weaknesses he already has (his particular brand of speed is kinda clumsy and committal, he doesn't escape pressure too easily) while enhancing his potent air-chasing ability. (This would probably also end up turning Seismic Toss into a suicide move--its current functionality makes it arbitrarily stop in mid-air if the platform gets pulled out from under Zard, which looks wrong, but whether a suicide move belongs on Zard or not is another matter.)

Would this hypothetical version of Zard be a stronger character overall? Sure. Would he be in the "right" strength range? Well, that's entirely subjective. Would he be fun to play/play against?

 

[MLGF]

Honestly, flamethrower just needs a few buffs to have utility.

I think PM is at a point where every characters base is fine, and buffs should improve their kit, not rearrange their tools.

 

[zman804]

The first time I got stage spiked by seismic toss on Dreamland I commenced questioning my very existence.

Wait what

 

[CORY]

Are you saying you wouldn't question your existence if you had been stage spiked by seismic toss on dreamland?

 

[MLGF]

You mean like how Charizard players questioned their existence when they found out people can SDI their up throw and tech it if it's on a platform?

...That's a thing BTW, his best kill throw is nulled if it lands on platforms.
Actually, I think that was patched, but I didn't see it in the notes so IDK.

Still though, it's hilarious.

 

[zman804]

How does an upthrow stage spike on Dreamland?

 

[Ripple]

there's this **** called whispy....

 

[CORY]

But zard uthrow doesn't go below the stage and launches at 45 degrees up. Even if wispy's punk ass decided to blow backwards or something, I'm having a hard time seeing how it could stage spike...

 

[Ripple]

whispy blows zard off stage completely. toss stops just under pineapple

and btw, slight correction to earlier. I said zard was just under acceptable. I want to correct that to just under perfect.

 

[Bazkip]

Oh yeah, one more thing I want to complain about in regards to Falcon. Why is his Nair fine at 16 active frames but Ganon's Nair wasn't at 12 frames and needed to be reduced to a measly 4? I can't make any sense of that.

 

[CORY]

whispy blows zard off stage completely. toss stops just under pinapple

Does it actually release lower than starting height if there's no ground beneath it? That's weird, didn't know it did that...

 

[Zigludo]

3.5 Bowser was the most aggravating and frustrating character I've played against in a fighting game, and I've played against vortex characters in SF4.

I can only imagine that the players who hold opinions such as this are literally incapable of forcing themselves to to wait for Bowser to attack first and then whiff punish Bowser.

I also feel like the character allowed weaker players to beat out stronger players due to the ridiculous matchup knowledge required to compete against him.

One could argue that the weaker player is the player who can't dedicate himself to the several-minutes'-worth of study that Bowser's armor system demanded in order to be countered by dashing away, rolling, or hitting the Z button...

seriously the character was not a complicated matchup. I could give any character in the game a two minute primer on playing against the dreaded 3.5 Bowser:

1) don't try to trade with his dashattack or nair or smash attacks, he will win the trade
2) DI all of his moves in front of him and slightly down, except for when he tries to kill you with fair (behind him and up), combo you with utilt (behind him and down), and klaw bthrow (in front of him and up)
3)his only oos option that beats grab is upB which is highly commital and only safe at the ledge. it loses to a well-spaced aerial on shield, shield pressure followed by dashing away, and shield pressure followed by shield. he can nair oos, which loses to all the same things, but also loses to grab during startup unlike upB
4) just grab him, seriously, his rolls and spotdodge lose to grab
5) he has decent horizontal recovery and a deep sweetspot, so instead of trying to edgeguard him from onstage go ahead and gimp him or hit him with spikes/meteors.
6) his edgeguards are unabashedly overpowered. once you're sufficiently far offstage, you're basically dead, especially if you don't have a horizontal burst movement option because he'll just downB your recovery on reaction, or klaw bthrow you after hogging ledge. (Note: this is the only truly "polarizing" aspect of Bowser's design and it was basically left unaddressed in 3.6 because.... reasons)

just showing the players in my local scene the basic counterplay to his tools was enough to swing most people's opinions on Bowser. you honestly just sound like you couldn't control the impulse to go in with attacks in neutral instead of playing a bit more patiently

 

[DrinkingFood]

Since we're talking about ganon's kill moves still, comparing to falcon isn't strictly accurate. Falcon needs to combo into his kill moves (read: knee) most of the time because their hitbox coverage isn't that spectacular. Knee has some disjoint in front of him and the strong hit is active for a few frames, yeah. It's not HARD to hit. But it's not a neutral tool as much as it is a punishment tool. And you might say "but I see falcons use knee in neutral all the time" but I think that is a worse understanding of when neutral is really neutral. You can punish bad neutral, that's what I mean by that. If falcon has you cornered, then yes knee is fairly safe to throw out because he can either cover retreat options with the only way being to escape it to either run offstage (no punish or weak punish on his whiff) or cross him up (as in, run past him as he knees your previous location) or he can cover the location you'd be where you'd cross him up. So it's got a good chance of hitting in that "kinda neutral" scenario because falcon has almost total control over the stage. Outside of this, double jump spacings to try and hit it randomly in the middle of the stage should be a very unreliable thing. The way ganon's kill moves compare is that they are available from some of his safest positions- the air. Float+double jump are becoming more apparently to me a very powerful combination. Sans characters who have absurd fast fall speeds to put out aerials above them and then fast fall and retreat at a ridiculous speed (whodathunkit, spacies again), trying to anti-air a ganon floating runs a big risk of him double jumping out of the way and coming down on you with any of 3-4 moves that are: Kill moves, safe at 0 percent because they beat CC; safe on shield because they either autocancel, have absurd damage, not much landing lag, or a combination of these, all while doing a bunch of shield damage and linking into a jab that beats CC at low percents; and have tons of reach/coverage. Falcon's knee, while on a character that can combo into it, doesn't fill these roles all at once, and doesn't exist on a character that has a "do nothing" option in the air. On top of that, good SDI reduce the number of scenarios falcon can land need from a combo, especially if you have the DI+SDI to complement certain character weights (fast fallers/semi FFers almost always being able to get away with good DI/SDI away+down/away, and super floaties being able to get out upward). Outside of somewhat fringe scenarios where falcon may have a higher chance of getting random knees, ganon has a much higher chance of landing his kill moves raw because the only proper response to his moves is getting out of the way, which can be harder against moves with more coverage; additionally the coverage gives him way more scenarios where dealing with the opponent in the air/on a platform/an opponent behind you on the ground/etc either kills earlier or sends them offstage earlier, whereas falcon has to hope in these situations that they don't CC tech/DI too far up/the vertical spacing is proper/etc. As a whole ganon's aerials give him a threat zone from the air that's hard to challenge directly, letting him inch forward with his float before dropping down with possibly nothing or possible a waveland to re-establish burst reach on the ground in the form of his quick CC breaking dash attack.

As for nair, ganon's nair beat CC and was safe on shield (like +2 I think?) when autocanceled. He could put up a really silly wall with it. Falcon's doesn't work as well for that purpose, it's safe when crossing up/at later percents. I mean, I think it's okay for ganon to have good things like that, I just dunno why they butched what was an amazing counter-aggression tool without really compensating an already mediocre character any other way.

 

[OSCA MIKE]

The solution is definitely to reduce the potency of knee

**** YOU STAY AWAY FROM MY KNEE OF JUSTICE

also it seems that the only solution to making heavy characters viable is to increase their speed, as smash is a game where the faster characters rule, slower characters are doomed to invalidation

then again, what do i know, im limited to playing with only level 9 cpus with no human interaction

 

[CORY]

I still think the truly ideal solution is to make characters capable of winning neutral more often have to do so.

If character a wins neutral 8 out of 10 times, make them have to win neutral 7 to 10 times to land a kill (even counting proper tech reads and do mixups as a potential win). Then, let character b, who really only wins neutral 2 out of 10 times only need to win it 2 to 4 times to land the kill (same restrictions). Not counting gimps on recovery or anything like that.

Just a general idea I had while sweeping floors tonight /shrug

 

[Bazkip]

Since we're talking about ganon's kill moves still, comparing to falcon isn't strictly accurate. Falcon needs to combo into his kill moves (read: knee) most of the time because their hitbox coverage isn't that spectacular. Knee has some disjoint in front of him and the strong hit is active for a few frames, yeah. It's not HARD to hit. But it's not a neutral tool as much as it is a punishment tool. And you might say "but I see falcons use knee in neutral all the time" but I think that is a worse understanding of when neutral is really neutral. You can punish bad neutral, that's what I mean by that. If falcon has you cornered, then yes knee is fairly safe to throw out because he can either cover retreat options with the only way being to escape it to either run offstage (no punish or weak punish on his whiff) or cross him up (as in, run past him as he knees your previous location) or he can cover the location you'd be where you'd cross him up. So it's got a good chance of hitting in that "kinda neutral" scenario because falcon has almost total control over the stage. Outside of this, double jump spacings to try and hit it randomly in the middle of the stage should be a very unreliable thing. The way ganon's kill moves compare is that they are available from some of his safest positions- the air. Float+double jump are becoming more apparently to me a very powerful combination. Sans characters who have absurd fast fall speeds to put out aerials above them and then fast fall and retreat at a ridiculous speed (whodathunkit, spacies again), trying to anti-air a ganon floating runs a big risk of him double jumping out of the way and coming down on you with any of 3-4 moves that are: Kill moves, safe at 0 percent because they beat CC; safe on shield because they either autocancel, have absurd damage, not much landing lag, or a combination of these, all while doing a bunch of shield damage and linking into a jab that beats CC at low percents; and have tons of reach/coverage. Falcon's knee, while on a character that can combo into it, doesn't fill these roles all at once, and doesn't exist on a character that has a "do nothing" option in the air. On top of that, good SDI reduce the number of scenarios falcon can land need from a combo, especially if you have the DI+SDI to complement certain character weights (fast fallers/semi FFers almost always being able to get away with good DI/SDI away+down/away, and super floaties being able to get out upward). Outside of somewhat fringe scenarios where falcon may have a higher chance of getting random knees, ganon has a much higher chance of landing his kill moves raw because the only proper response to his moves is getting out of the way, which can be harder against moves with more coverage; additionally the coverage gives him way more scenarios where dealing with the opponent in the air/on a platform/an opponent behind you on the ground/etc either kills earlier or sends them offstage earlier, whereas falcon has to hope in these situations that they don't CC tech/DI too far up/the vertical spacing is proper/etc. As a whole ganon's aerials give him a threat zone from the air that's hard to challenge directly, letting him inch forward with his float before dropping down with possibly nothing or possible a waveland to re-establish burst reach on the ground in the form of his quick CC breaking dash attack.

As for nair, ganon's nair beat CC and was safe on shield (like +2 I think?) when autocanceled. He could put up a really silly wall with it. Falcon's doesn't work as well for that purpose, it's safe when crossing up/at later percents. I mean, I think it's okay for ganon to have good things like that, I just dunno why they butched what was an amazing counter-aggression tool without really compensating an already mediocre character any other way.

Don't see why we can't compare their kill moves considering Ganon is a clone of Falcon, and it fits the broader discussion we've been having on fast/small characters having equal/better kill moves than fatties. Of course they have different setups/methods of landing the moves, I'm more strictly talking about the likelyhood of them killing when landed in the same position/percents. Though I don't think anyone would disagree with me that Falcon also has an easier time creating/finding opportunities to knee opponents. Still, interesting write up.

You are correct in that their nairs aren't particularly comparable though, that's just salt over losing a solid tool that was silly but not degenerate. I definitely agree with your assessment of that, 3.5 nair with it's autocancel window pushed back would've been perfect.

 

[DrinkingFood]

I mean, talking 'strictly' about what happens when the moves are landed is really deluded. Otherwise Warlock punch and bowser's fsmash would be relevant moves lol

 

[Bazkip]

I mean, talking 'strictly' about what happens when the moves are landed is really deluded. Otherwise Warlock punch and bowser's fsmash would be relevant moves lol

Obviously I mean in the context of moves that are feasible to use in competitive play, come on man I shouldn't have to explain that.

 

[DrinkingFood]

That's what we are discussing, the feasibility of moves to be used in competitive play; discussing anything else, as in "the likelihood of killing assuming it hits" is really insignificant if it's that much harder to land. There's more pre-requisites to landing bowser's fsmash (that is, more difficult pre-requisites, being usually a hard read on a recovery/approach spacing) than most other moves, it's on the extreme end of the scale, it's a relevant reducio ad absurdum; but to say that falcon's knee and ganon's everything are on the same location the scale and falcon's knee is "on a fast character with combos" is still not accurate. Ganon's kill moves have way more coverage and utility all for the same cost, whereas falcon's knee is more likely to be restricted to being a combo finisher. Being a combo finisher has more pre-requisites, such as ending neutral with a tool that starts the combo, extending the combo to kill percent/location, and connecting the set-up into the finisher; it's reliant on both ending neutral in a certain way AND certain kinds of DI lining up; falcon has enough DI mix-ups/tools to make this feasible a lot of the time, but not ALWAYS. Meanwhile ganon only has to end neutral in order for his kill moves to actually kill, because his neutral consists of kill moves.

 

[StarshipGroove]

Oh yeah, one more thing I want to complain about in regards to Falcon. Why is his Nair fine at 16 active frames but Ganon's Nair wasn't at 12 frames and needed to be reduced to a measly 4? I can't make any sense of that.

Because that's how it was in Melee