Tier List Speculation

[Life]

I don't think Zelda is particularly spectacular, but if people can't get around SH double kick I'm pretty worried about them.

 

[Psyant]

- Pika - I have no idea why this would be true, not that i doubt you. I just can't theorycraft an explanation either way.

Pikachu does well against Marth mainly because Marth just cannot kill him at all. Marth has no reliable setups into Fsmash or Dair on Pikachu and can't edgeguard him reliably either, so Pikachu tends to live until ridiculous %s on a lot of stages. It says a lot that the way I die most often to Marth is off the top from a Utilt at like 150%. Just watch Axe vs any Marth and look at how long his stocks last on average. Pikachu on the other hand kills Marth pretty early and easily, either via gimps or just off the top.

Pikachu also has the ability to play bait & punish against Marth decently well. Pika's dashdance is great, and his SHFFL Nair has a long effective range for whiff punishing and goes over Marth's Dtilt, so Marth doesn't have many moves he can afford to just throw out against Pika. He can stop Pika's Nair approaches cold with Fair/Utilt etc, but then Pika can just push in on him past his tipper range and CC Dtilt, so Marth has to ward the ground with Dtilt more in response, then he gets Nair'd again...it's basically a clear-cut conditioning game between these two, and while Marth has a slight edge in neutral, it's not enough to make up for the fact that Pikachu literally lives twice as long as him on average. He also does pretty badly once Pikachu has him at a disadvantaged state, i.e in the air, or just when Pika is very close to him, where he can't tipper.

This is all from a mainly Melee point of view, btw. In PM it's easier for Pikachu. Jolt isn't laggy like in Melee so it can be used to aid Pika's approach or force Marth to do something, QAC makes baiting and following up on Marth easier. Dthrow gives better reliable followups than anything he can get in Melee. New Bair helps in general. I'd personally say it probably goes from a 45-55 in Melee to a 55-45 in Pika's favour in PM.

 

[foxygrandpa]

A. Link's punish game is basically just as good as Ness's with the exception that it doesn't lose its potency against floaties. His attacks hit like a truck for pretty massive damage and he does not struggle at all at stacking up 50-70% off a single grab on much of the cast

B. He has a LOT of viable combo starters in neutral. Boomerangs, 2nd hit of fair, bombs, zair, jab> jab > dsmash/grab/dtilt

C. He has a neutral game

People have criminally underrated Link all the time here, just because, as Shokio rightfully point out, there aren't any "complete" link players out there. Hero of Time truly is a complete player using a decent character that other players failed to push to the limit because they became obsessed with laming with boomerangs and not learning how to play smash.

My brother and training partner is a link main with a lot of good wins under his belt, and would be a good contender in tri state if he was more active. I wouldn't be speaking about link if I didn't consider myself to know the character considerably well.

Like ness, all of link's combo starters are extremely susceptible to CC. Ness also has much better mobility than link in a game entirely based on positioning. Ness also has strong follow ups out of grab, altough not as potent as links, are good enough to net him some positioning and percent.

Ness's neutral is on the worse end of the cast, but honestly it's far underdeveloped. Ive played both sterokidd and boiko (both of which are amazing players) and both had very different styles and choices in neutral. I think ness is stranger than a lot of characters in the sense that he doesn't really have a "plan A". He's not like falco or marth where you're either controlling space and facilitating bad positioning with lasers or DD grabs. No one really knows what to do with him per say, and I think that's reason that people think he's bad. I play sheik and ike for example, both of which are considerably developed and overall easy to play, and it's very easy for me to gauge which moves are better in certain situations. Ness is still extremely underdeveloped, and not at all as easy to be good or consistent with as link is.

 

[JOE!]

Theres suddenly a 200% increase of ketchup on this page

 

[Journal]

I see your points, but for the same reason you say Bowser gets bodied by so many characters, I think if Marth plays the matchups correctly he shouldn't lose most of these. Here's my opinions

Yoshi- Marth beats yoshi for sure. He may have a hard time killing Yoshi if he doesn't get a spike or nice tipper f smash, but it doesn't matter because if the marth knows what he's doing he will just keep winning neutral/keep edgeguarding til yoshi finally dies. Marth's disjoint is just insanely good and safe against Yoshi. doesn't have the range and/or speed to deal with Marth's neutral assuming 2 equally skilled players are playing each other.

Maybe Zard- I think Marth's ability to keep opponent's above him play a huge role in making this matchup good for Marth. I know this because I play DK who also has that same strength, and this + edgeguarding are all you really need to beat Zard. Marth does both of those very well. Also, he has a great shield grab which could be used as a last resort if Marth can't stay below Zard and he tries doing a fast fall aerial to the side to get to the ground. Just run up + shield grab, or simply have a good DD grab game to punish his landing, and it's hella hard for Zard to land safely.

Fox- This was about even in melee and Marth is essentially buffed in PM due to his less lag on many aerials and stuff, and obviously fox is nerfed, so i would say this is even at worst for Marth.

Link- This could be a secret losing matchup Marth has because it was Link's ONE good high tier matchup in melee, and Link is obviously buffed from melee. Aerial mobility is a key trait against Link and Marth is mainly a grounded character. Therefore, he has to resort to amazing powershield game unless the Link simply gets outplayed and Marth consistently finds his way in.

Rob- Marth beats ROB cause grabs and edgeguards lol. Marth has a very easy time grabbing ROB because of his maneuverability, and it's very easy to get ROB offstage from a grab. I would say DK has an easier time dodging dairs than ROB does. That's how free it is for Marth to edgeguard ROB...

Roy- Can't really say much hear, don't have enough experience. However, One thing I do know is that if Roy is above Marth he's pretty much dead because being a semi fast faller he has to DI offstage in order to not get combo'd forever, and from there all he really has is his invincible ledgedash lol

D3 - Ever see Sora v.s. Ripple? Sora had like zero DDD experience compared to Ripple who plays Dart's Marth all the time. Seemed like if Sora had more experience he would have had an easy time winning neutral over and over again due to his DD grab game, and easily transitioning into dair edgeguards. Also, Ripple is really good anyway so it's not like Sora was super outplaying Ripple or anything lol. Sora actually took a set off Ripple despite the matchup inexperience. It looked pretty stressful for Ripple. Sora played super safe and did a lot of work when he got in. Keep in mind he did all this while figuring out Ripple as well as DDD. I would like to see how well Sora would do in that matchup if he had Dart's MU experience

Pikachu - I might agree with this actually lol. Idk how it is in melee, but it's prob safe to say that if Pika does decent vs Marth in melee then it's even better for him in PM

Ganon- I agree with this too. Marth is one of Ganon's best high tier matchups in melee (arguably even) and Ganon is way better in PM than melee. Especially his movement, which is something that Marth easily abused in Melee.

Diddy- I think Marth wins because I've watched Sora body Diddy's back in 3.02 Haha i have a biased perspective admittedly, but still. I think Ground mobility is huge v.s. Diddy because Marth can shield a banana, then quickly get in while running under the banana as it's in the air (assuming Diddy throws the banana from long range). Jumping is a big commitment v.s. Diddy (not gonna explain why) so ground mobility is huge. Also, Marth easily converts grabs into edgeguards Diddy, and he's is hands down one of the best characters in the game at edgeguarding Diddy.

Falcon - Pretty much even in melee, pretty much even in PM as well. If anything, it's better for Marth because he can wall Falcon out a little better with less laggy aerial pressure than in melee.

Falco - I actually agree with b-reverse lasers being huge in this matchup. It makes his neutral much less predictable. Falco may win slightly like 55-45. Prob even at Worst for Falco

Btw, can't forget Sheik. Sheik does pretty damn good v.s. Marth

Don't know about most of these, but it's important to know that Sheik's NTSC down throw is pretty much the reason she was so good against him in melee because there were guaranteed and well known flowcharted punishes for any Marth DI. In previous patches her mixup compensated, but now that she just has PAL down throw it's probably even at best.

 

[Rizner]

People think link is good because hero of time, and hero of time is the only good link pushing the character, so no one really knows how to deal with it.

Village Mascot is a good link as well, but not as widely known. I think as of now he's generally considered better than Tako and myself in Cincinnati; would have been interesting to have him come with us to that TN tournament, but he was at evo instead.

(Unrelated)
By the way, is there a smash con money match thread anywhere?

 

[mimgrim]

I always find when discussing neutral, that there are two frames of reference.

1. One camp (the one i'm in) believes Neutral is everything that isn't "the punish game". Basically, neutral is everything that occurs before you get the first hit on a non-shielding opponent, without you yourself getting hit. This means neutral includes patience non-engagement, control of tempo, it includes things like shield pressure, spacing aerials in a shield. It includes your ability to bait out a poor attack via dash dancing, spot dodging, or shielding, and it includes your out of Shield options.

2. The second camp (I think DF is in this one) believes neutral is deliberately different than "stagger game". Falco's neutral game would be defined by lasers and nairs, but dair->shine on a shield is not a neutral game tool or a tool in his neutral game. This camp does not consider your OOS options as being a part of neutral. I personally find this camp confusing.

The second camp is the correct one.

And the reason is pretty simple.

Shielding isn't a part of the neutral as it gives up advantage (and the neutral game is when neither play has advantage and are trying to get the advantage).

Shielding is like a limbo between the neutral and punish game. It isn't a part of the neutral because it is too big of a commitment and gives up advantage but it isn't quite part of the punish game either because there is the chance to reset back to neutral still.

This is where the advantageous and disadvantageous states come in to play.

Everything being the neutral game that isn't the punish game is very misleading.

Fighting games are deep yo.

 

[Boiko]

Ness's neutral is on the worse end of the cast, but honestly it's far underdeveloped. Ive played both sterokidd and boiko (both of which are amazing players) and both had very different styles and choices in neutral. I think ness is stranger than a lot of characters in the sense that he doesn't really have a "plan A". He's not like falco or marth where you're either controlling space and facilitating bad positioning with lasers or DD grabs. No one really knows what to do with him per say, and I think that's reason that people think he's bad. I play sheik and ike for example, both of which are considerably developed and overall easy to play, and it's very easy for me to gauge which moves are better in certain situations. Ness is still extremely underdeveloped, and not at all as easy to be good or consistent with as link is.

I actually agree with this. I think that Ness has one of the higher skill ceilings in the game, tbh. He can played with many different styles and knowing which style to use when is very important. You have to know your opponent and their character and how they operate.

I still think that his tools are pretty weak though, tbh. But whatever. I really don't want to talk about it much anymore.

 

[Deleted member]

Kind of off topic but

I just now noticed that to this day, I've never had someone in this thread call me out on toon link being ******** or busted. Everyone kind of just places him in high/top tier and we never discuss him. He's just... there lol

 

[hamyojo]

Weren't you the one advocating some of these nerfs, or are the Yoshi mains out there really out for your blood for some reason?

I've been advocating a lot of the nerfs, but I expected a buff or two outside of the footstool thing. They took away much more than I thought, and gave less than Yoshi needed in 3.6. It's okay, I expect things will change in the future.

 

[DMG]

I've been advocating a lot of the nerfs, but I expected a buff or two outside of the footstool thing. They took away much more than I thought, and gave less than Yoshi needed in 3.6. It's okay, I expect things will change in the future.

Soon ™

Edit: Apparently we're in "No Fun Zone" ™

 

[Frost | Odds]

Kind of off topic but

I just now noticed that to this day, I've never had someone in this thread call me out on toon link being ******** or busted. Everyone kind of just places him in high/top tier and we never discuss him. He's just... there lol

I mean, you've done a pretty solid job of recognizing and addressing his problems to date. Toon link is problematic atm, but I'd trust your expertise in that regard over mine or boikos or whoevers.

 

[hamyojo]

Soon ™

Or if they never change that'd be cool too. Yay Melee
PMBT pls free Yoshi tho
give dash dance or fast fall or something pls

 

[NWRL]

Kind of off topic but

I just now noticed that to this day, I've never had someone in this thread call me out on toon link being ******** or busted. Everyone kind of just places him in high/top tier and we never discuss him. He's just... there lol

Toon Link is carrying you, you ****ing baddie

Pick a real character like Bowser

 

[Life]

I don't think I've heard about Toon Link. What's his deal?

 

[AuraMaudeGone]

I don't think I've heard about Toon Link. What's his deal?

There's only one recognizable one. :T Solid high tier imo.

 

[Soft Serve]

Kind of off topic but

I just now noticed that to this day, I've never had someone in this thread call me out on toon link being ******** or busted. Everyone kind of just places him in high/top tier and we never discuss him. He's just... there lol

Why does toon link have Melee GnW throws instead of DI mixups. Why can't kirby have nice things like good throws that aren't dthrow >.>

Tinks is cool though, unless you're playing a character that actually can't do anything to platform+bomb camping, he's pretty fair

 

[Jonyc128]

This is my opinion on the tier list. Very vague order with their tiers.

Any reason as to why Mario isn't at least B tier?
EDIT: TFW you replied to a tier list that was 2 pages ago and then there's another tier list where Mario is top tier

 

[Deleted member]

Why does toon link have Melee GnW throws instead of DI mixups. Why can't kirby have nice things like good throws that aren't dthrow >.>

Tinks is cool though, unless you're playing a character that actually can't do anything to platform+bomb camping, he's pretty fair

DI mixups were super forced and didn't really work right.

I don't really know how I feel about 3.6 throws, they're ****ing crazy but I don't know what to do with them since hes a tether grab character

 

[Professor Pro]

Kind of off topic but

I just now noticed that to this day, I've never had someone in this thread call me out on toon link being ******** or busted. Everyone kind of just places him in high/top tier and we never discuss him. He's just... there lol

Toon Link is OP and he's made him that way to specifically benefit you in tournament.

Just like Snake is OP and made that way to specifically benefit me in tournament

Project Cheat.

 

[FreeGamer]

Why can't kirby have nice things like good throws that aren't dthrow >.>

Because his D-Throw, Dash Attack, Inhale, and crouch already make people salty enough? If you give him too many good traits he'll cause too much salt and upset the delicate balance of our ecosystem.

 

[Electric Tuba]

Maybe Kirby and Ganon should both get their down throw toned down a little.

Kirby has the tech chase from hell, Ganon has either chaingrabs to death on fast fallers and any follow up he wants on everybody else. Couldn't they have some reason to use their other throws?
(Aside from ganon's up throw being part of the chaingrab. I also assume Kirby's other throws are occasionally useful but not on the level of down throw)

 

[MEnKIRBZ]

Note: I am a noob, but I am bored and want to make a tier list. This is on my phone so expect grammatical errors.

My first list will be my serious list. My second will be who I like/don't like to play against.

S:
Fox
Wolf
Rob
Diddy

A+:
Falco
Ike

A:
Captain falcon
Lucario
Roy
Samus
Marth
Wario

A-:
Metaknight
Lucas
Toonlink

B+:
Sheik
Mario
Snake
Link
Luigi

B:
GnW
Pikachu
Mewtwo
Peach

B-:
Zelda
Pit
Zero suit
Ivy

C:
Squirtle
Ganon
Sonic

C-:
Kirbz
Yoshi
Ness

D:
Dk
Charizard
OlimarOlimar
ICs

D-: jigs

Don't bother playing:
DDD
Bowser

That list took a lot out of me. I aint gonna do the second one.

 

[FreeGamer]

Maybe Kirby and Ganon should both get their down throw toned down a little.

Kirby has the tech chase from hell, Ganon has either chaingrabs to death on fast fallers and any follow up he wants on everybody else. Couldn't they have some reason to use their other throws?
(Aside from ganon's up throw being part of the chaingrab. I also assume Kirby's other throws are occasionally useful but not on the level of down throw)

Kirby's B-Throw is good for positioning, and the other 2 are only good for exposing people who have bad DI.

I'm all for that kind of change provided they get proper compensation (which is something that seems to be rare these days).

 

[DrinkingFood]

I always find when discussing neutral, that there are two frames of reference.

1. One camp (the one i'm in) believes Neutral is everything that isn't "the punish game". Basically, neutral is everything that occurs before you get the first hit on a non-shielding opponent, without you yourself getting hit. This means neutral includes patience non-engagement, control of tempo, it includes things like shield pressure, spacing aerials in a shield. It includes your ability to bait out a poor attack via dash dancing, spot dodging, or shielding, and it includes your out of Shield options.

2. The second camp (I think DF is in this one) believes neutral is deliberately different than "stagger game". Falco's neutral game would be defined by lasers and nairs, but dair->shine on a shield is not a neutral game tool or a tool in his neutral game. This camp does not consider your OOS options as being a part of neutral. I personally find this camp confusing.

I mean, it's not a cut-and-dry thing lol. I just see it as a scale from totally neutral to totally advantageous. Where you place the lines to divide "neutral" from "stagger" and "stagger" from "punish" doesn't matter that much. Obvious extremes being from a ditto where both characters are equidistant from opposite ledges and the other extreme being a single remaining option to close out the stock (such as a ledgehog). Neutral is very rarely actually "neutral" in the literal sense since often one player will have slight positioning advantage, a character takes advantage of a given situation better than the opponent can escape it, a player having some kind of read/intel on the other, etc. Cutting it in half and saying "I'm in the camp where it's cut in half" isn't just an opinion, that's wrong lol. If you want to strictly define it, you could just look at frame advantage in any one position (yes this shifts constantly and dramatically and at any one moment you could argue that neutral has shifted in a matter of frames from one player's favor to the other) and say "Here's the potential punish they could get off of it and how much frame advantage there will be following it, is there a way for the opponent to escape that frame disadvantage if their read is correct+game knowledge+execution is proper?" To suggest that shield pressure is neutral is to imply that neither player has advantage when really, it falls somewhere down the line of frame advantage for either player, and each interaction of a hit (or lack thereof) on shield shifts from frame advantage to the attacker to advantage for the defender (depending on the hit) meaning the overall branching of the option tree favors one player at a time, and statistically speaking, picking a random option from the set of options that interact to give you a favorable scenario based on all your opponent's available potentially favorable options should give a higher chance of success to the player with even the slightest frame advantage.

 

[CORY]

I mean, it's not a cut-and-dry thing lol. I just see it as a scale from totally neutral to totally advantageous. Where you place the lines to divide "neutral" from "stagger" and "stagger" from "punish" and "punish" doesn't matter that much. Obvious extremes being from a ditto where both characters are equidistant from opposite ledges and the other extreme being a single remaining option to close out the stock (such as a ledgehog). Neutral is very rarely actually "neutral" in the literal sense since often one player will have slight positioning advantage, a character takes advantage of a given situation better than the opponent can escape it, a player having some kind of read/intel on the other, etc. Cutting it in half and saying "I'm in the camp where it's cut in half" isn't just an opinion, that's wrong lol. If you want to strictly define it, you could just look at frame advantage in any one position (yes this shifts constantly and dramatically and at any one moment you could argue that neutral has shifted in a matter of frames from one player's favor to the other) and say "Here's the potential punish they could get off of it and how much frame advantage there will be following it, is there a way for the opponent to escape that frame disadvantage if their read is correct+game knowledge+execution is proper?" To suggest that shield pressure is neutral is to imply that neither player has advantage when really, it falls somewhere down the line of frame advantage for either player, and each interaction of a hit (or lack thereof) on shield shifts from frame advantage to the attacker to advantage for the defender (depending on the hit) meaning the overall branching of the option tree favors one player at a time, and statistically speaking, picking a random option from the set of options that interact to give you a favorable scenario based on all your opponent's available potentially favorable options should give a higher chance of success to the player with even the slightest frame advantage.

Nerd.

 

[DMG]

Nerd.

This post deserves 1000 likes but they might warn everyone that does or something. *cough* UH I MEAN WARIO'S HIGH TIER AND G^W IS AN INTERESTING CHARACTER *cough*

 

[Strong Badam]

This post deserves 1000 likes but they might warn everyone that does or something. *cough* UH I MEAN WARIO'S HIGH TIER AND G^W IS AN INTERESTING CHARACTER *cough*

Stop it. Take the memey nonsense to the social thread and let people who actually want to discuss the game in a productive manner do so here without disruption. Last warning folks.

 

[InfinityCollision]

Mewtwo goes at least even with Marth and Roy, possibly better.

Tink is kinda whack because he can just run circles around certain characters and fish for conversions with almost no risk. He mostly gets away with it because he's widely held to lose or go even vs many popular characters, has low representation, and many of his better matchups are against characters generally seen as flawed (fatties, ICs, Puff). He's not really broken, just good at playing the game his way and making the opponent work that little bit harder. At the same time there are changes I'd like to see, such as universally buffed horizontal AGTs and giving both Links GTs, that would probably require adjustments to his current kit.

Trying to strictly delineate differences between neutral/stagger/advantage/whatever is silly because as stated above it all exists on a spectrum.

Speaking of item characters, I'd like to see Peach get better item toss frame data and the ability to JC Peach Bomber during airborne frames, possibly with slightly reduced startup. Maybe also slightly more distance on GT but she might be fine with her current one if she didn't have some of the slowest item throws of any item-generating character in the game. Only D3 has comparable frame data.

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

I really don't think Mewtwo goes even with Roy. Roy doesn't have a range advantage, reliable ways to combo into his kill moves and Mewtwo definitely can edgeguard him now. Low percent Uthrow to Mewtwo juggle offstage sounds like straight-up wreck for Roy to deal with and I doubt he can harsh back as hard. Not have reliable vertical kill moves [besides like Uthrow at 160? lol] can only compound that issue.

 

[DrinkingFood]

dsmash is a "reliable" vertical kill move for floaties, as far as having enough knockback goes, but you probably are going to need a solid knockdown situation, read, or CC to land it

I still think MewTwo is a top ten character as far as potential performance goes; the tools I see used already are ridiculously good and there's bound to be all kinds of new optimizations made that turn him into one of the best punishers in the game with a top tier neutral to boot.

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

dsmash is a "reliable" vertical kill move for floaties, as far as having enough knockback goes, but you probably are going to need a solid knockdown situation, read, or CC to land it

Yeah, I know, that's why I didn't count it as 'reliable', it's not easy to lead into.

 

[DrinkingFood]

MewTwo is also ROB-esque in that he's more immune to vertical juggles than other floaties thanks to some aerial burst movement in the form of teleport; having a quick horizontal disjoint also makes him more challenging to juggle across the stage
Honestly don't see Roy:MewTwo being anything short of advantageous for mewtwo

 

[InfinityCollision]

I really don't think Mewtwo goes even with Roy. Roy doesn't have a range advantage, reliable ways to combo into his kill moves and Mewtwo definitely can edgeguard him now. Low percent Uthrow to Mewtwo juggle offstage sounds like straight-up wreck for Roy to deal with and I doubt he can harsh back as hard. Not have reliable vertical kill moves [besides like Uthrow at 160? lol] can only compound that issue.

I'm inclined to agree (I think he beats Marth too), but I say a lot of things about Mewtwo. I'll also note that he's always been quite capable of edgeguarding Roy even at the ledge, not just in 3.6.

 

[Manaconda]

Speaking of item characters, I'd like to see Peach get ... ability to JC Peach Bomber during airborne frames...

I'm no longer interested in discussing balance changes but I'd just like to point out that aerial attack cancelling Peach Bomber exists in Brawl- if you want to see how it turns out in that game. Not only is it kind of stupid but with 21 frames of startup and regaining actionability on frame 71 (?) she can already run a greater distance than the Peach Bomber takes her in the same amount of time. All you do is move horizontally a bit faster during your aerial, but your opponent is prepared for it.

 

[The_NZA]

To suggest that shield pressure is neutral is to imply that neither player has advantage when really, it falls somewhere down the line of frame advantage for either player, and each interaction of a hit (or lack thereof) on shield shifts from frame advantage to the attacker to advantage for the defender (depending on the hit) meaning the overall branching of the option tree favors one player at a time, and statistically speaking, picking a random option from the set of options that interact to give you a favorable scenario based on all your opponent's available potentially favorable options should give a higher chance of success to the player with even the slightest frame advantage.

My suggestion isn't to say "stagger game" is actually neutral. My suggestion is to state that, when we are evaluating the strenght of a character, we seldom isolate and evaluate the stagger game. We tend to strictly be speaking about hte ability of the character to define the tempo of a scenario and get into punish game better than his opponent, and start creating a "damage/stock advantage". In this scenario, I don't make delineations about the capabilities of a character to stagger an opponent, or play neutral--I strictly am evaluating the ability of a character to start damaging his opponent vs the opponents' ability to do the same back.

Basically, i'm saying the "ACTUALLLY, Thats Not Neutral Game" clarification doesn't help the conversation about evaluating character strengths, since we never evaluate a characters' stagger game independently from the neutral game.

If i'm commentating a match or teaching someone, the concept of hte phase of the game known as "staggering" is essential. WHen comparing Ness, Marth, Falco, and Squirtle, I don't really care what forms of pressure count as neutral pressure versus stagger pressure. I just care about how well a character can get the first hit, PRECISELY because as you mentioned, neutral is always in flux without clear delineators, with the exception of us being able ot pause the game, take a snapshot, and evaluate it within that moment of time. For evaluating a tool kit, I see it as pretty pointless.

EDIT:

Also, Diddy Kong is really well designed. It would be swell if the lower half of hte cast was buffed to be in the ZSS - Diddy Kong range.

 

[InfinityCollision]

I'm no longer interested in discussing balance changes but I'd just like to point out that aerial attack cancelling Peach Bomber exists in Brawl- if you want to see how it turns out in that game. Not only is it kind of stupid but with 21 frames of startup and regaining actionability on frame 71 (?) she can already run a greater distance than the Peach Bomber takes her in the same amount of time. All you do is move horizontally a bit faster during your aerial, but your opponent is prepared for it.

I'm aware that I'm not exactly treading new ground here; Balanced Brawl also lets you cancel into any non-special action. Granted the fundamentals of Brawl and BB Peach also differ from Melee and PM's incarnations in certain subtle but meaningful ways - I'm not knowledgeable enough regarding Minus to comment on how those subtleties might translate to that game.

Specifics can be adjusted, but the underlying concepts are clear enough. Peach is adept at controlling her own space, but struggles when she is unable to exert that control in a way that is adequately threatening to her opponent. PM turnips are also weakened slightly by the expanded counterplay available to her opponents. Improving her ability to utilize turnips and expanding her means to get in on her opponent's space could go a ways towards rounding out her matchup spread.

 

[Rachman]

Marth is really good. He has almost no losing match ups. Idk, I find it hard to see him anything but top tier, but I get it.

Ness sucks though. Definitely not B tier.

Marth definitely has losing match ups T.T.

I think he probably loses to Falcon in Melee and in this game Falcon's ability to consistently recover vs Marth is huge on its own. Add in the fact that the stage list is unbelievably good for Falcon and this becomes a legitimate counter.

DK definitely beats Marth and Roy. You guys seem to equate probably lower tier character with not having good match ups ><

Link wins. People sleep on Link way too much. Like this is another legitimate counter.

Ganon wins by a decent bit in this game imo

Pika wins very slightly imo, few buffs to pika in the mu overall and Marth struggles even more to kill him

Dunno enough about other chars to REALLY say but I'd imagine Yoshi (idk what's going on with him in 3.6 tho)/Zard/Kirby/D3(idk about him anymore but he did win) have at least a small advantage. No one is going to agree with me about Kirby but meh. Dunno what all these heavily skewed match ups are besides maybe Bowser/Ness/Snake/maaaaaybe Ivy (disagree on Ivy but that's an undeveloped meta for you). When I see Mario/Luigi/G&W players act like their mu is far from even in any direction it's just silly lol, Mario is like dead even with Marth and G&W is 40-60 vs Marth in Melee according to Qerb. Luigi....gotta set up your utilt somehow and unless the Luigi keeps falling down mashing A like it's vBrawl airdodge it's not going to be that easy. Then, everything Marth does is punishable and Luigi punishes are obviously godlike. I'd buy Marth winning slightly at top level PM but no more.

This all reminds me of a post about 3.02 Mario where it claimed that 3.02 Mario lost 30-70 to 3.02 Marth. 0 chance Marth even won that MU. Like come on guys Marth is pretty good but he whoops ~1 character you think is any good. Yea he can hang with most characters but most characters can hang with him. Anyone familiar with decently high level Melee will tell you that Marth is the one uber top tier that can't just "tier" his way through worse characters and has the most even MU spread of them all by far.

Sorry if I'm way late or this has been beaten to death, not really keeping up with this thread anymore

Ness' punish game seems way too good and potential neutral game trickery (not going to go in depth but it's real) to be absolutely crap. He isn't that good though and SDI mitigates his punish game a decent amount. Also, why does his "kill" throw send so high? Stuff like that, and his struggles with specific match ups he can't punish super hard in and probably magnet should be a little bit faster. A few more little things like that and Ness is pretty darn good and super cool imo

 

[Xcite]

So here's a thought that I had for Ness that's probably been mentioned before but I haven't seen talked.
Most would probably argue that Ness has a weak neutral game (to which I would agree), so could a redesign of his specials help alleviate this problem? I'm speaking more specifically towards PK Flash and Thunder. I think that they could be designed in a new way that would essentially have them become integral in Ness' gameplan. Something along the lines of how Link's projectiles flow together. Thoughts?

 

[FreeGamer]

It'd be pretty cool if you could PK Fire into the ground to create a stage hazard (think Holy Water in Castlevania), "let go" of a summoned PKT to fly off and cover space like a much weaker Nikita, and/or have the option to set PK Flash as a timed explosive like Din's Fire. As long as it isn't 2.0-3.02 PK Fire, I think the little boy could use some new toy.