Tier List Speculation

[Player -0]

Sethlon has played people like Mango before. It was probably Sethlon studying Lucky if anything.

You can't really afford to not know the spacies/Marth MU in PM.

I could be wrong.

 

[PMS | LEVEL 100 MAGIKARP]

lucky is the best PM fox tho
do people still say otherwise?

 

[Diego Brando]

G&W and Squirtle/Yoshi/etc were probably going to be the next couple I listed in the CF/Roy package. He's right there (better than Melee-Tops) just didn't make the cut to the Top.

I'm curious as to why you have squirtle up so high

 

[PMS | LEVEL 100 MAGIKARP]

because movement options, being small and annoying, and having the ability to control space and wall out make a good character

edit: look at the five characters that strong bad said were the best in the game
fox
falco
wolf
mk
diddy

what do all of them have in common
being fast
having good movement options
being small and annoying
ability to control space either by speed or by projectiles or both
(this also applies to 3.02 lucas lmao)

come to think of it, why isn't squirtle a top tier character yet

 

[Bazkip]

The "keeping up with" may also be MU unfamiliarity where we don't realize it affecting how the top Foxes play a set making it seem much closer.

Edit:

@Strong Bad , I posted my above thing about stale moves before you stated multihits stale differently. How do they stale exactly?

In Melee multihit moves would stale as they hit you, in PM it only stales after it finishes.

 

[Warzenschwein]

come to think of it, why isn't squirtle a top tier character yet

have you tried playing him

 

[PMS | LEVEL 100 MAGIKARP]

have you tried playing him

yes he's like luigi on crack with more disjoint

 

[Espi]

holy flip, falcon is really good in this game

 

[didds]

because movement options, being small and annoying, and having the ability to control space and wall out make a good character

edit: look at the five characters that strong bad said were the best in the game
fox
falco
wolf
mk
diddy

what do all of them have in common
being fast
having good movement options
being small and annoying
ability to control space either by speed or by projectiles or both
(this also applies to 3.02 lucas lmao)

come to think of it, why isn't squirtle a top tier character yet

He's got tiny arms and stuff and you have to be precise and stuff and he gets hit hard when he's caught and stuff and he needs to think about his options since he doesn't have many spamable power tools like shine and stuff.

I think he's just hard to play or something who knows

 

[PlateProp]

yes he's like luigi on crack with more disjoint

No.

 

[PMS | LEVEL 100 MAGIKARP]

No.

lol what is bubble what are all of his smashes

and he also has armor don't forget about that

I mean luigi has small amounts of disjoint on a bunch of his moves except for ftilt and jab because those are godlike
but he's not as mobile as squirtle

He's got tiny arms and stuff and you have to be precise and stuff and he gets hit hard when he's caught and stuff and he needs to think about his options since he doesn't have many spamable power tools like shine and stuff.

I think he's just hard to play or something who knows

aside from the bolded section what other characters could this possibly describe hmmmm

oh I know spacies

also squirtle does have bubble which borders on spammable

I mean yeah I'd put squirtle at definitely harder to play than spacies but the skill ceiling is probably just as high if not higher

 

[didds]

lol what is bubble what are all of his smashes

and he also has armor don't forget about that

I mean luigi has small amounts of disjoint on a bunch of his moves except for ftilt and jab because those are godlike
but he's not as mobile as squirtle

aside from the bolded section what other characters could this possibly describe hmmmm

oh I know spacies

also squirtle does have bubble which borders on spammable

I mean yeah I'd put squirtle at definitely harder to play than spacies but the skill ceiling is probably just as high if not higher

Bubble is indeed pretty good, I'm still pretty split on squirtle in all honesty, the non bolder section was more of a criticism on how characters with poor range/disjoint (stubby characters) are often assumed to do poor against swords and long legs. Pikachu gets the same silly criticisms.

It's like how in early melee meta many people probably assumed fox did lose to marth.

Edit: precision requirement don't actually matter for tier list placement, but it is good to keep in mind when thinking about why people feel a certain way about a character. I was more answering the question "why people feel this way" rather than "why is he actually not top"

 

[PMS | LEVEL 100 MAGIKARP]

the issue with smash is how small characters with large amounts of techskill required for movement and spacing end up with really quick moves to compensate, end up with the highest skill ceiling and dps, and it gets called a "fun, skill-intensive character which gets punished hard but punishes just as hard"

and they end up being the best characters in the game

because melee

meanwhile when large slow characters get armor, any sort of burst movement, or disjoint, it gets called "braindead" "degenerate design" "broken" when in actuality they just don't fit the "smash mold" of what a Good Character should be
marth is an exception to this because melee

sigh this doesn't happen in other fighting games I mean yes grapplers have bad matchups but you still see them
(inb4 "marth is a grappler with a sword" because yes he is and it's actually the stupidest ****)

 

[Akhenderson]

the issue with smash is how small characters with large amounts of techskill required for movement and spacing end up with really quick moves to compensate, end up with the highest skill ceiling and dps, and it gets called a "fun, skill-intensive character which gets punished hard but punishes just as hard"

and they end up being the best characters in the game

because melee

meanwhile when large slow characters get armor, any sort of burst movement, or disjoint, it gets called "braindead" "degenerate design" "broken" when in actuality they just don't fit the "smash mold" of what a Good Character should be
marth is an exception to this because melee

sigh this doesn't happen in other fighting games I mean yes grapplers have bad matchups but you still see them
(inb4 "marth is a grappler with a sword" because yes he is and it's actually the stupidest ****)

These players should look at something like UNIEL and look at Waldstein yo. All you need is burst movement and giant hitboxes and suddenly you're a scary grappler that can put on the damage and pressure!... too bad they still suck against zoning and safe play. Yay counterplay!

 

[Boiko]

Yes, but there are a lot of good characters that you're not considering, such as Ike, Wario and Samus. Or highly mobile, small characters that are good, but not top tier like Pikachu, Lucas, or Tink. Or small, technically demanding characters with fast moves and high skill ceilings that aren't very good like Ness.

 

[PMS | LEVEL 100 MAGIKARP]

These players should look at something like UNIEL and look at Waldstein yo. All you need is burst movement and giant hitboxes and suddenly you're a scary grappler that can put on the damage and pressure!... too bad they still suck against zoning and safe play. Yay counterplay!

zoning doesn't exist in smash
well it does but it's not nearly as strong or relevant

well it did

and then dr. mario's pills got called "toxic"

Yes, but there are a lot of good characters that you're not considering, such as Ike, Wario and Samus. Or highly mobile, small characters that are good, but not top tier like Pikachu, Lucas, or Tink. Or small, technically demanding characters with fast moves and high skill ceilings that aren't very good like Ness.

what frame does magnet come out

this isn't meant to be an argument I'm just wondering
what's ness's fastest move

also I would say that in 3.02 ness was one of the top 10 characters in the game because of his ability to zone and control the stage because of pk fire activating on shield

 

[InfinityCollision]

dashdancing spaceswords cannot be overcome

Marth has a lot more trouble doing stuff in PM than people realize, which is amusing because he can also do stuff that people don't really understand/utilize yet.

the issue with smash is how small characters with large amounts of techskill required for movement and spacing end up with really quick moves to compensate, end up with the highest skill ceiling and dps, and it gets called a "fun, skill-intensive character which gets punished hard but punishes just as hard"

Sounds vaguely like Pikachu. Precise play, crazy skill ceiling, tricky hit-and run punishes.

Character is mad good.

The more I play with QAC the more I think HAHA THIS MOVE WAS DUMB AS **** IN 3.0.

Or highly mobile, small characters that are good, but not top tier like Pikachu, Lucas, or Tink.

All of these characters are mad good.

 

[Boiko]

zoning doesn't exist in smash
well it does but it's not nearly as strong or relevant

well it did

and then dr. mario's pills got called "toxic"

what frame does magnet come out

this isn't meant to be an argument I'm just wondering
what's ness's fastest move

also I would say that in 3.02 ness was one of the top 10 characters in the game because of his ability to zone and control the stage because of pk fire activating on shield

Magnet is active on frame eight.
Some of his faster moves are nair and dair (four and five), and his normal, like jab and dtilt.

I agree. In 3.02 I think that he was very good just by the simple virtue of the opponent never being safe.

@ InfinityCollision For sure. I'm not denying that. They're not Fox level though, but they still fit the same archetype of "fast, small, fast moves." The point I'm making is that it's hard to say that a single type of character dominates the meta as there will always be exceptions. It's true that faster characters are generally better, of course, but that's never all there is to it.

 

[Ripple]

Man, I can't wait until people understand the counterplay to DDD's game if people think he's a high tier.

I could see mid tier if this game was finished right now and we were like 3 years in the future simply because of his good MUs with top tiers except falco. but right now, people are still playing his rough MUs that are the "lower tiers" and if he runs into 1 during bracket he should get straight bodied.

Sonic, Ivy, Pika, squirtle, Diddy, Falco, ZSS, and puff are just quick examples that completely man handle DDD

 

[Nausicaa]

@ Diego Brando stuff was kiiiind of answered.
On a very vague and basic level, using another analogy...
Jigglypuff survives because she's very hard to catch. If she were NOT hard to hit, she would be absolutely trash in Project M.
BUT
She's very much still really hard to hit. That is the very distinct difference maker between being her being in a really rough spot, and being simply on the not-overly-strong side of the game.
Squirtle is really hard to hit.
Both of them can do good things when they get hits.
They might not be good at many other things, but if they're really hard to hit than they don't really need much else to function.
Add in whatever else might happen to be decent about Squirtle, and it adds up FROM this base of not getting hit.

have you tried playing him

Tru this.
There's a reason it took the better part of a millennium for Lucas to get a proper combo started that didn't involve more than flailing. lol

Dedede is Ooze
Not high tier.
Get this tier stuff out of here, the Ooze doesn't need it.

Just going address the part of your statement in relations to marth when you said why are the melee tops still considered better than the buffed upper melee tier. The characters you listed, (mario, luigi, pikachu, toon link, and samus) had their core melee mechanics buffed to improve their punish and overall interaction in neutral among against the entire cast.

Using mario as an example, pm took all of his core melee skillset, and generally buffed his moves universally, but his core flaws also stayed the same when looking at the matchup.
Due to mario's comparatively lacking range, he has just as hard of a time getting in to start his amazing punish on Marth as he did in melee. Even if his punish game was made to do 15% more damage on relevant exchanges, it doesn't have a large impact on the matchup itself when he loses neutral almost 4/5 times. In order for mario to compete against marth in the matchup (while holding his general flaws the same), mario ' buffs would have to be to the degenerate toxic levels of his 3.02 self or better.

The reason mario isn't considered better than marth is because fox sheik and marth are very common pm characters, and using a character that can not at least check these three has a greater influence of where they fall on a relevance tier list. ( also why ddd should be higher than where people put him, since currently he does ok against many tops, and his counters aren't very common.)

So faster fireballs and a wall-jump available from any Up-B distance is what made Mario BETTER than Marth/Sheik in Project M? Or before that even, are you saying Mario was indeed better in 3.02 and isn't now, or that he wasn't in 3.02 but was leaning that way?

On the other side of that note, I'd say he went nearly even with Sheik in Melee, beats both her and Marth in all versions of PM, and is more universally fit for dealing with the diversified cast when it comes to the rest of the characters in the game. Including Fox.
Not because of fireballs or wall-jumps, but because he can't safely be hit through direct approaches or zoned with walls or camped with projectiles or platforms or speed because he's too solid of a rock on the ground to be effected by it as much as those opponents need to effect people in their match-ups.

If he wasn't better than 3.02, what would make him better without making things 'jank'? If not projectile spam (which I'll leave out of the discussion now but completely disagree with that being a game-changer lol)

Would it be even more improvement to his better Dash-Dance? More range on his already fast F-Tilt/D-Tilt/B-Air to match range on others? More speed on his already strong D-Smash/F-Smash/F-Air?

One thing if you're talking about specifically 'losing neutrals'
Mario is built to lose neutral a LOT more, and a LOT better, than them, but a lot more of a proportional spread than the amount of times they need to win it. A human-element sways that even more in this kinds of favors.
There's a reason Dedede can win games at ALL.

I understand what you're pointing out (I'm sure everyone does really, as that seems pretty common) but this angle has never been the angle I would ever suggest coming at when it comes to whether one character is better than another, especially concerning characters that came from somewhere else to leave us a bit of context while they were at it.

Essentially, I'm probably more familiar with what you're describing than you might even be, as I am more than anyone else I've discussed this with, because it REALLY IS worth looking at it that way in depth.
-Both for tier list discussion, as well as when learning to play Smash. So that's solid.
But it's short-sighted and doesn't actually answer the question of WHY Mario is worse than Marth and Sheik in this game, or WHAT would make Mario better than them both. If the answer is giving him more of what they have, then that's exactly why this has to be looked at from a VERY different angle. Otherwise, we'd be giving Samus a ZSS Grab already.

Hope that makes sense to why that is. If that's confusing, I could try explaining a simple version.
The initial question is still unanswered, but this topic leans that way at least.

Sonic, Ivy, Pika, squirtle, Diddy, Falco, ZSS, and puff are just quick examples that completely man handle DDD

Charizard is my bane with this guy.
It's like 'ugh' all over my face.

 

[PlateProp]

lol what is bubble what are all of his smashes

and he also has armor don't forget about that

I mean luigi has small amounts of disjoint on a bunch of his moves except for ftilt and jab because those are godlike
but he's not as mobile as squirtle

aside from the bolded section what other characters could this possibly describe hmmmm

oh I know spacies

also squirtle does have bubble which borders on spammable

I mean yeah I'd put squirtle at definitely harder to play than spacies but the skill ceiling is probably just as high if not higher

Bubble is 35 frames on the ground, can be punished by shielding, 49 frames in the air and the hitboxes stop on frame 22 making it even more punishable if blocked when spamming

Dsmash is frame 16 meaning you can shield it on reaction, and it's horrible now with the 3.6 changes meaning if you get hit with it it's cause you got caught out. It has very little disjoint, about the size of squirtle's shell on either side of him. Does 12% with all 3 hits and doesnt combo well at higher percents anymore. Lasts until frame 49.
Fsmash is frame 15, hits til 21 then has endlag until 52 (IASA). The only thing that doesnt make this move complete trash is that it always trades if possible now. Does 15% on the outer slightly bigger hitbox, 16% on the inner small hitbox.
Usmash hits frame 9 if the opponent is on the ground, but that's only a pop up hitbox which can be asdi'd down and teched to avoid the strong hit which comes out on frame 14. Lasts until frame 61, does 14% on the initial strong hitbox.

Compared to other characters, Squirtle's smashes are slow as all hell, and worse. Mario's dsmash hits frame 5 ends frame 37, and does 16% off of ONE hit. Fsmash hits frame 13, ends frame 49, and does 19% with the sweetspot. His usmash hits frame 9, ends frame 37, and does 15% early, 16% late while averaging more killpower through the entirety of the move.
(I used mario's frame data because the Luigi data in their thread seems to be innacurate in a couple places, and Sartron's data has always been spot on.)

People overrate armor way too much. It stops working against most moves unless they have really low KB at 50%.

Squirtle is the extreme in PM of having a ton of momentum but very little to actually back it up, a very fragile speedster. A majority of his damage output comes from people not knowing how to correctly DI his moves along with very hard reads into most kills (Looking at you usmash). And while having a ton of movement is good, it doesnt make up for the areas he lacks in his attacks. As PM progresses and people start getting better, all squirtle players will be able to do is go faster. His myriad of tech options (Hydroplaned smashes, hydroplaning in general) are really nothing more than things he can just throw out every now and again, because Wavedashing and RARs are just way better options, along with not being super telelgraphed since you dont have to do a turnaround before doing them.

 

[robosteven]

just a friendly reminder that how difficult a character may be to play doesn't affect their tier placement

 

[TheGravyTrain]

Worth noting spaced bubble is safe on shield (its -10), but why anyone but an extremely slow fat character is letting you hit their shield with that slow of a move in neutral is beyond me.

 

[DrinkingFood]

Worth noting spaced bubble is safe on shield (its -10), but why anyone but an extremely slow fat character is letting you hit their shield with that slow of a move in neutral is beyond me.

because he can fly across stage while throwing it out
and you can't CC it
his sling-whatever-whatchyamacallit's run turnaround jump moves faster than anyone can outrun

 

[Nausicaa]

Get rid of everything good about Squirtle and give him a better D-Throw that always sets up tech-chases.
And get rid of everything Snake-like about Snake and make his DD faster.
And get rid of all the MK-related MK stuff but leave his D-Throw and DD because they're already good.
If someone has a good DD and D-Throw that tech-chases then they'll be ok in this game anyway.

ALL HEIL ZSS
ALL HEIL ZSS

 

[PlateProp]

because he can fly across stage while throwing it out
and you can't CC it
his sling-whatever-whatchyamacallit's run turnaround jump moves faster than anyone can outrun

Cant cc banans either, there's a reason pmdt lets you tech trips now

You heavily overestimate rar bubble, aerial bubble is slow, and is not safe on shield ever, grounded tipper bubble is the only one that is safe.

 

[Nausicaa]

Samus has about 5 moves total that Jiggs can't Rest her for straight out of shield.

Somehow Samus still hits Jiggs without getting Rested.

She also sometimes gets Grabs.

Yet Jigglypuff is

really hard to hit.

It's like there's more to the game than

'losing neutrals'

tl;dr Ooze is OP
Pikachu needs to be more realistic and 1-shot people who touch him
Mario needs tanookiiiiii to fly over DDs and get passed the swords
Peach needs bigger boobs to carry more toads to counter all those lasers

 

[Espi]

DDD is bad tier. Terrible approach options/neutral in general, super slow, and a subpar punish game. Good recovery and good edge guarding is about all he has going for him...

 

[mimgrim]

Peach needs bigger boobs

That might make her a bit too OP.

 

[Nausicaa]

^Always wear protection when you're ****ing with Peach

DDD is trash tier when are ddd buffs coming?

When Captain Falcon gets nerfed.

 

[Espi]

^Always wear protection when you're ****ing with Peach

When Captain Falcon gets nerfed.

Yeah, I play that MU with Big D (one of the better DDD's, that's not saying much tho, no one plays DDD) all the time. It's gotten to the point where I can take sets off him because the MU is like 80-20.

 

[TheGravyTrain]

because he can fly across stage while throwing it out
and you can't CC it
his sling-whatever-whatchyamacallit's run turnaround jump moves faster than anyone can outrun

I was talking about grounded bubble. Air bubble is longer in length, making it around -20 or so. It is also angled down, meaning less horizontal spacing (which is what makes grounded bubble safe to everything bar diddy glide toss banana OoS). It is less advantageous on hit in the tech situation due to the longer duration. You can drift it back, I will give you that.

 

[Dakpo]

the crouch dashing/infinite dash thing has been known for a long time, and so have the "brawl pivots" aka tilt pivots in dakpo's vid. idk why he called it revolutionary tech or something when for most people it's either "I already have tilt pivots down" or "it's in the works" and usually also "that infinite DD seems overrated/inconvenient". Tilt pivots are a pretty standard thing for me at least, no need to bother with a finicky angle on the cstick when you could just use the control stick. Practiced them a long time ago when Magus came on the forums and pointed out how he made pivots reliable in PM.

Also, it honestly seems like nausicaa doesn't actually know that much and just covers it up with a pseudo crazy-intellectual tone of posting and excessive vagueness

Nah, I understand it must be hard to grasp what I'm talking about and why it's more useful than you think. Why don't I just show you in person with a $100 money match at the salty suite at paragon?

 

[TheGravyTrain]

Just to be clear, I think Squirtle is a really good character. I think its a bit absurd to put a character into top/high tier without the proper top tier representation though. He definitely has the potential with his movement, bubble (maybe I have been sleeping on aerial bubble a bit), his high kill power, and solid gimp game.

 

[JOE!]

In Melee multihit moves would stale as they hit you, in PM it only stales after it finishes.

Is it different for throws? PSA shows it should do 16 but it does 15

 

[PMS | LEVEL 100 MAGIKARP]

Get rid of everything good about Squirtle and give him a better D-Throw that always sets up tech-chases.
And get rid of everything Snake-like about Snake and make his DD faster.
And get rid of all the MK-related MK stuff but leave his D-Throw and DD because they're already good.
If someone has a good DD and D-Throw that tech-chases then they'll be ok in this game anyway.

ALL HEIL PIT
ALL HEIL PIT

fixed that for you

 

[Mc.Rad]

Hey Guys am I one of the cool Kids who totally knows something about the charicters in Project M and not just some lame scrub?

 

[DMG]

Ripple's post after somewhat recent D3 nerfs:

"PMDT achieved their long standing goal of making Dedede an actual low tier"

RIP in Penguins D3

D3 is not high tier plz understand

Edit: Little overboard today are we? This directly went to people talking about D3's tier position, and I used an opinion by THE D3 player to give rebuttal.

 

[Mc.Rad]

Ripple's post after somewhat recent D3 nerfs:

"PMDT achieved their long standing goal of making Dedede an actual low tier"

RIP in Penguins D3

D3 is not high tier plz understand

The King Is finally dethroned...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C20EAee23Bk
And Now famous Pizza Jahn Tran will sing a song in honor of him

 

[DrinkingFood]

Nah, I understand it must be hard to grasp what I'm talking about and why it's more useful than you think. Why don't I just show you in person with a $100 money match at the salty suite at paragon?

you do realize the second half of that post wasn't even related to you right
and the first half of the post was talking about how the stuff was already known, and everybody has excuses for not using it, not for saying it's not actually useful lmao