Tier List Speculation

[CyberZixx]

Charizard's Nair, aka the most obnoxious aerial not on a spacie, doesn't hit exactly where it used to anymore. Yup, they made an attack less insane and someone complained. Not a pattern at all.

For the most part, the direction of 2.6 seems to be "make characters normalized, see what the overall design does, and /then/ we will tweak the cast to compensate" rather than the tried and untrue alternative "from scratch, let's try to make everyone not named DDD godlike and water down from there".

I prefer that style of character design.

 

[Aenglaan]

So in 2.6, Meta Knight came, Squirtle became at least somewhat good, and Sonic was changed again.

 

[9bit]

For the most part, the direction of 2.6 seems to be "make characters normalized, see what the overall design does, and /then/ we will tweak the cast to compensate" rather than the tried and untrue alternative "from scratch, let's try to make everyone not named DDD godlike and water down from there".

I prefer that style of character design.

It's great.... for everyone not named DDD

One day... one day...

 

[CyberZixx]

It's great.... for everyone not named DDD

One day... one day...

No, No. I meant I prefer the style of 2.6 where we don't make everyone ludicrous. I'd like to see the game take even more in that direction.

 

[Nguz95]

Sheik is so dirty against literally the entire cast - the spacies... Que drago.

 

[bubbaking]

WoT.

@bubbaking whats different about nair? it seems the same to me

also rob is terrible now like wtf

If you're referring to my statement about Zard's nair, it's hitbox has a lot less coverage now. It doesn't start behind him anymore; it starts behind and above him. It may look the same to non-Zard mains, but for us Zards, that initial behind hitbox was absolutely crucial in retaliating OoS when the opponent was behind us. Now it doesn't hit that area until the tail comes back around, which is way too long. Tbh, I wouldn't even have minded much if the PMBR just toned down its range a little (I agree that the distance it scoops under plats is a bit ridiculous), but the hitbox placement was VITAL because Zard already has a tough time getting out of shield pressure reliably. Via RAR nair, it was also a good approach option, another area which, frankly, Zard isn't the best at or even awesome at.

IMO, his nair change was his second most important change after the recovery. Together, these things just make Zard a worse character, which is confusing to me since I wasn't aware that Zard was such a great character who broke all the rules of Smash, especially when every character introduced seems to break some big rule.

You and I are gonna have to agree to disagree about ROB, but all the ROBs up here in MD/VA aka ROB-land (myself, JC, Bstuk, etc.) seem to think that ROB got mostly buffs. SideB reflects a LOT earlier, which makes it a really good approach option now against projectile spammers. During our first 2.6 tourney over here, I got to face one of our top Wolf players, and I can definitely attest to the fact that his sideB actually has great use now. Definitely should make fighting Wolf and Falco a lot easier. It seems like ROB also runs faster, and people were telling me that his DD is better, so I'm going to assume that's in, too. Boost regain mechanics are less janky; he gets them back when caught on a TC. Last but not least, from what I could personally observe, his uair is a lot better for comboing now because it carries the opponent to the last hit with its multi-hits, which gives ROB more frame advantage for comboing. That and it also applies pressure more effectively against opponents shielding on plats above ROB.

Oh, also, it looks like dair keeps more of ROB's horizontal momentum, so now he can do something I'm going to coin 'dair-gliding'. It's really useful offstage for recovery, like after a boost, and it's also nice onstage. It can be used to kinda 'glide' between platforms while covering the space below him with a hitbox. ROB is def better, imo.

Nerfs that would make someone think ROB might be "terrible" now? Well, his uair seems somewhat weaker, in exchange for being multi-hit, and his dthrow has noticeably more KBG, so dthrow > nair doesn't quite work at kill %'s on most chars anymore. Nair kinda feels like it's also a little weaker, so I'm suspecting that ROB got the 2.1 Lucario treatment here (nerf his combo throw AND his kill move out of said combo throw), but that's fine to me. Just dthrow > (boost) uair instead and then proceed to gimp/KO with fairs, more uairs, and lasers.

Charizard's Nair, aka the most obnoxious aerial not on a spacie, doesn't hit exactly where it used to anymore. Yup, they made an attack less insane and someone complained. Not a pattern at all.

For the most part, the direction of 2.6 seems to be "make characters normalized, see what the overall design does, and /then/ we will tweak the cast to compensate" rather than the tried and untrue alternative "from scratch, let's try to make everyone not named DDD godlike and water down from there".

Lolz, the most obnoxious everything not on a spacee in 2.5b was on Sheik or Sonic. I'm not going to say that the move wasn't obnoxious, but I'm saying the wrong thing about it was nerfed. Yeah, let's get rid of Zard's OoS options, but let's keep spacees, Sheik, Peach, Mario bros, etc. the same with their excellent nairs AND bairs for getting out of pressure along with good OoS specials. Yep, seems perfectly fair. I don't know what "normalization" you are seeing here in Zard (ftr, I do agree that 2.6 seems more 'normalized' overall), but I'm just seeing the removal of tools that let him compete in the first place. But hey, if this kind of change is what you're fine with, then you should have no problem whatsoever with the new Sonic.

Also, the concept of "normalization" in a Smash game is kinda funny when you consider that every Smash game has centered around featuring characters who break some sort of commonly accepted 'rule' in one way or another. Project M is no different.

 

[Fuzzyness]

Sounds interesting...I would be up for seeing it.

I definitely would want to play you with Snake and see if I would give or take away on your placement of Snake...is your Snake placement experienced based?
Because it's reasonably high but I don't know if you've played any Snakes (besides you ****** Fuzzy's Snake and it back-firing on him) or is it mostly from seeing Snake.

And lul I just realized Toon Link was 4th from bottom, shoutouts to Jolteon for getting ***** and not changing your perspective (since he thinks a lot of people underrate TL and he wanted to change it when he went to America)

Wut, lol.

- Jolteon

 

[PhantasyStar]

Metaknight is definitely mid-tier.

 

[Oracle]

well those rob "buffs" are pretty piss poor compared to taking away his only useful conversion from grabs, as well as making back air close to useless. a better reflector is cool, but honestly rob didn't have much problem with projectiles since you can just fly over most of them. Uair essentially has the same function as before with maybe more damage? if you hit with multiple hits then the char usually goes behind you, which in most cases means your combo is over. the dair change actually makes it harder to land in combos, because since its so fast, you get less time to control where rob is after starting the move, so the range of areas you can hit with it after a fair or something is significantly smaller. its cute for shield pressure and movement i guess, but its more of a gimmick than anything. also, it feels like the boost takes away more of his vertical momentum, so its harder to get high enough to boost upair people on platforms, which was a big part of pressuring people on them.

i've all but dropped this character, really disappointed in the changes. I sincerely hope i'm wrong and theres just something i'm missing, but i just don't feel like rob is nearly as good as before.

 

[bubbaking]

Lolz, TL's not good, IMO, and ZSS is even worse................................................................................IMO
#IMO

Edit: This wasn't at you, Oracle, just to avoid confusion.

Edit 2: Your displayed sympathies regarding ROB are pretty much how I feel about Zard. I don't think I'll be dropping him, though...

 

[Oracle]

the difference was that zard actually warranted the nerfs lol

 

[bubbaking]

Lolz, being able to act OoS in a metagame where that's pretty much the norm doesn't seem very warranting of a nerf at all.

 

[Vashimus]

Bubbaking is like the older sibling that moves to another country, don't hear from them for a long while, and when they do stop by, they don't even say hi.

 

[Deleted member]

the difference was that zard actually warranted the nerfs lol

And why do you believe that? Charizard was a decent character in 2.5; he wasn't broken. His Nair was annoying, so what? I think Peach's and Fox's Nairs are annoying too, but we know those are never getting changed.

 

[The_NZA]

How was charizards nair changed, btw?

I always found charizard videos insanely boring cause of Nair->nair->nair.

Although the enter the dragon combo vid is hype.

 

[Kink-Link5]

Checking Zard nair data.

Nair seems to be in all ways identical to 2.5.

Meaning it makes me sadmad.

 

[leelue]

WoT.
uhh stuff.

It is also possible that reducing his oos options was a purposeful weakness added into the character. Which is a cool thing, to me.

 

[Strong Badam]

Checking Zard nair data.

Nair seems to be in all ways identical to 2.5.

Meaning it makes me sadmad.

THAT PLACEBO THO........

 

[Oro?!]

Let Bubba rant, it's more fun that way.

 

[Imrik]

Is the new Ivysaur incredibly broken?

Playing with my friends they've very nearly banned me from playing him anymore claiming hes worse than Brawl Metaknight ever was. They complain his attacks have too much range and speed, and his combo's are ridiculously long. We're a pretty casual group so tech skill is pretty lacking across the board. Is Ivysaur really that good now or is this just a symptom of them refusing to learn to tech and DI properly?

For instance, at low percentages (10-20 on most characters) grab>dthrow>fair>dair is pretty much guaranteed (unless i'm missing some smash DI my friends can't do), followed by another dair or nair if they don't tech the dair spikebounce, followed by utilt/usmash/ftilt depending on how high off the ground you catch them. That combo alone has most of my friends throwing their hands in the air in frustration, especially since it can end with solar beam 2/3's charged and ready for a dthrow>solar beam kill at 80%ish.

And its pretty easy to get that grab with the new razor leaf being great for locking people in shield while you dash grab.

 

[9bit]

Your friends are just bad.

 

[#HBC | Joker]

Lol, all the talk about zard's nair being changed was confusing to me, cuz it seemed totally the same to me.

Also, Wario's aerial sideb was made into a terrible thing that is terrible, wanna talk about that?

Like, what's it for? I tried using it, and I don't know what it's for. All i know is that what it used to be good for (recovering) is gone, and it's still just as terrible an attack as it ever was. Why would you ever use sideb in the air when your other options are wario's aerials?

 

[Imrik]

Your friends are just bad.

Care to elaborate a bit? I wouldn't mind having something concrete to tell them the next time they tell me Ivy is all kinds of broken.

 

[#HBC | Joker]

Tell them to learn to di out of razor leaf, and to rush you down so you can't get seed bomb and/or razor leaf zoning going.

I don't really know what they're bad at, so i can't exactly give them advice other than to tell them to do their research.

 

[Imrik]

Tell them to learn to di out of razor leaf, and to rush you down so you can't get seed bomb and/or razor leaf zoning going.

I don't really know what they're bad at, so i can't exactly give them advice other than to tell them to do their research.

Fair enough. I was really just making sure I hadn't missed something and Ivy was now insane broken (ala 2.5b Sonic).

 

[#HBC | Joker]

She's definitely better, but broken is a gross exaggeration. She's got a long way to go before she's broken. I doubt she's even high tier, though I haven't played her more than a little in 2.6.

It's probably more like she just owns hard because a decent player knows how to read people, and scrubs don't, and the rewards off a few reads are high. (ala vBrawl Ike)

 

[Hylian]

Fair enough. I was really just making sure I hadn't missed something and Ivy was now insane broken (ala 2.5b Sonic).

Most people would probably still put Ivy on the lower-end of the cast. She's good, but not apparently broken in any way.

 

[Juushichi]

I just think that the only thing that happened to Ivy is that she walls out the characters she walled out even harder now.

Oh well, though.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

I think the balance for new characters is overall a little too conservative. vMelee spacies and Sheik are like brawl- levels of stupid, but we're sure keeping them.

Melee characters, the good ones at least, are enormously powerful and are all incredibly lame; they are defined by and revolve around their abuse cases. That's fine, it's what people love about the game. But if you want the new characters to be able to compete you have to give them their own abuse cases or you're just giving Melee top tiers more target practice.

Brawl characters are cool and functional but they don't have 1 frame shine pressure, fox usmash, instant kills at 0%, or c.falcon fair. Hell, zero suit's jab was changed from 1 frame to 2 because there are no 1 frame jabs in melee already. Unsafe 1 frame jab isn't okay, but safe jump cancellable 1 frame shine is still a-okay. It's a little bewildering.

 

[Juushichi]

Sheik still doesn't win anything just like in Melee (hell, no one super notable even plays her) and there are a lot of cases of both the buffed Melee characters and Brawl characters doing pretty well against her.

The spacies got small nerfs in this version, leading me to believe that they're up for more nerfs in the future as long as they still mostly retain the feel.

Lasers from a distance are treated like Pit arrows (they get weaker the further you are away) and shine is no longer invincible on startup.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

Sheik still doesn't win anything just like in Melee (hell, no one super notable even plays her) and there are a lot of cases of both the buffed Melee characters and Brawl characters doing pretty well against her.

The spacies got small nerfs in this version, leading me to believe that they're up for more nerfs in the future as long as they still mostly retain the feel.

Lasers from a distance are treated like Pit arrows (they get weaker the further you are away) and shine is no longer invincible on startup.

This is good to hear, but I am still hesitant to say that I have confidence that newer characters as they stand now are going to compete in Project M final. That's okay, there's plenty of time for the game to grow and prove me wrong and/or changes to be made if I'm right. It's just concerning.

 

[Scythe]

did you just complain about falcon?

 

[Kink-Link5]

I think the balance for new characters is overall a little too conservative. vMelee spacies and Sheik are like brawl- levels of stupid, but we're sure keeping them.

Melee characters, the good ones at least, are enormously powerful and are all incredibly lame; they are defined by and revolve around their abuse cases. That's fine, it's what people love about the game. But if you want the new characters to be able to compete you have to give them their own abuse cases or you're just giving Melee top tiers more target practice.

Brawl characters are cool and functional but they don't have 1 frame shine pressure, fox usmash, instant kills at 0%, or c.falcon fair. Hell, zero suit's jab was changed from 1 frame to 2 because there are no 1 frame jabs in melee already. Unsafe 1 frame jab isn't okay, but safe jump cancellable 1 frame shine is still a-okay. It's a little bewildering.

I feel the exact opposite lol

It feels like every character is designed with extremes in character attributes and characters hard counter one another in a rock-paper-scissors manner. I don't think there are any super dumb -3 matchups (I lied, Ness:Marth and Ness:Sheik are awful), but it feels a lot more like character vs character than player vs player to me.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

did you just complain about falcon?

No.

But Falcon as a character is defined by this "abuse case." He has other strengths and many weaknesses, but his fair kills super early and combos from a wide variety of starters. It's a very strong move, probably too strong, but it works within Falcon's context. That's what he is. He's a combo character with a strong finisher.

What happens if you remove fair? Why don't we ask Squirtle, Ivysaur, and ZSS?

I feel like the characters (newbies) in PM that have been good have been overloaded with strong basic tools rather than having strengths revolving around things that make them unique and cool as characters.

When porting over ZSS from brawl, I would have looked at her strengths and unique moves: jab, dash attack, dsmash, paralyzer, up-b, uair, and asked myself how I can make those strengths so scary that she is defined by them, rather than cutting away the excess so that she fits within the proverbial melee cookie cutter.

Granted there are different balance philosophies and I don't doubt the PM team has their own valid one.

 

[Juushichi]

I feel the exact opposite lol

It feels like every character is designed with extremes in character attributes and characters hard counter one another in a rock-paper-scissors manner. I don't think there are any super dumb -3 matchups (I lied, Ness:Marth and Ness:Sheik are awful), but it feels a lot more like character vs character than player vs player to me.

That's why when I make a tier list, I expressly think about a character being able to "reliably" solo before I go into anything else. Or rather, a character that can reasonably expect to not run into bad matchups.

This is why, for example, SnakeEyes winning a major with Zangeif last year really didn't happen again. He would run into Sanford (Sagat 3-7) or Akuma or Cammy or some stupid ass MU because he has too many worries to be a consistent pick. This is what I believe most of the characters in this game are going to end up with. Technically they're not going to be #viable, but they're not necessarily bad.

You can ignore the Squirtles of the world, the Ivysaurs, the Zeldas (the Mother kids, yeah I said it **** you) whose design is going to be pretty polarizing towards certain things and really bad against others and doom them to mediocrity while allowing for a "stable" top-only relevant meta... or you buff them and watch as you have to buff other characters and so on and so on because attributes and etc... and have a game where mid and mid high tier strength characters have to dodge each other long enough to have that sweet, creamy 50-50 MU with Marth or Sheik that they got buffed for in the first place.

 

[Yung Mei]

did i just read falcon and the word abuse in the same sentence

 

[Oro?!]

Everything you listed is amazing on ZSS in PM, sans dash attack. The way her dash attack functioned in Brawl would not fit into a Melee environment so well.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

did i just read falcon and the word abuse in the same sentence

And apparently that's all you read!

 

[Strong Badam]

Falcon is probably one of the lamest characters in Melee
Which is depressing because he's not even top tier

 

[Kink-Link5]

Hax is a very funny player.