Tier List Speculation

[Player -0]

Sonic is amazing. You're only getting 2 hits? It's not a problem of the character. Prob in a good spot right now.

Also Lucas is pretty cool. I feel like he has to be TOO precise for some of his stuff which is annoying (Up Tilt body flub box). Then the time you're in Mag feels suuuper long. Also D Tilt doesn't have a use at all right now.

He'll prob be hurt by the no quick/usable vertical launcher vs. Spacies for a while unless he's changed a bit. I mean I guess he has some but they're hard to utilize and stuff vs. The spacie speed etc.

 

[Binary Clone]

@ Player -0 and I were talking about Wario in the Social Thread but I figured it'd be more suited to being discussed here.

Side B (Shoulder Bash) not only gets stronger (more damage then more KB) but it also becomes more disjointed as the move stays out. This means a majority of the time the opponent is forced to respect the move or straight die. It can also be done off platforms to "cancel" on landing and jumped out to punish characters jumping. (then DJed out of). Also something that may not be a problem but I feel like it has to be noted is that it pushes people that are in shield quite a considerable amount (similar to Fox's Up Smash. Why does Fox's Up Smash do that. I really need to shield SDI) making it awkward to punish with Side B's endlag.

I just want it to not be disjointed/kill (sets up for edgeguarding instead). Also maybe be more punishable but I think that's just because I'm bad (don't get me wrong I can punish it it's just risk reward for Wario is somewhat skewed imo).

Also if I'm wrong correct me

I also don't really think shoulder bash needs to have a disjoint on it, but shielding it is an effective counter if you're any good at OoS stuff (I'm not...). Obviously I haven't tested this, but pretty much any character should be able to WD OoS after shoulder bash on shield and get a grab on Wario before he escapes his fairly massive endlag. The pushback there isn't really a problem anyway - regardless of how easy it is to punish him OoS, he has a mixup in that he can just jump the shoulder bash over your shield if he sees that you're going to do that, and most characters can't punish that unless they have a fast, disjointed usmash, since jumping OoS would probably get you hit by him as he passes over, WDing to get something probably isn't fast/far enough, and most characters don't have something that's fast and far-reaching enough to jump after he's passed and still hit him as he goes by.

It's punishable, but he gets mixups. The mixup is good, but still not unstoppable. I think shoulder bash is mostly fine because there's a good bit of interaction and available counterplay and mixups to fight the counterplay, which means it's still typically a good experience.

That said, Wario really should rarely be using shoulder bash at a time where there's a chance he'll hit your shield anyway - it works well as a read or a tech chase, or sometimes as a combo finisher, but it's not something he should rely on much in neutral in most circumstances, I think.

 

[KitchenCabinets]

The problem with Snake is that most of his bad matchups wreck him hard, but he forces his good matchups to play a grueling uphill battle. The result is that he's irrelevant in top level play, but he also makes the game miserable for low/mid-level players who are playing the wrong character.

So, he's doing nothing for anybody. His mains can't take the character to the highest level, and players who main one of Snake's good matchups just hope they avoid him pools/bracket.

Yes, you can learn the matchup, but why would you want to? The fact that you're winning does not change that the matchup is boring, campy, and uninteractive. Learning it in the first place is difficult because Snake is extremely weird and unintuitive to play against. Even when you're doing it right, it doesn't feel like Smash Bros. He's just a highly demoralizing character.

You can't just look at a character and say, "you can win against him, so he's in a good spot." You also need to ask yourself, "does this character's inclusion make the game healthier and more fun for everyone?" In Snake's case, I think that's a definite "no."

 

[Avro-Arrow]

I disagree with you about his recovery, grab range, D-Tilt, survivability, and not moving during Inhale.

Most of these things are where they are to fit within the realm of a 3.5-3.6 meta, and do a fine job at that. IMO the problem is his underwhelming offense. Due to slowness and limited approaches outside of Dash Attack and crouching, some MUs force him to play like an even more boring version of Puff. It's fine if some of you prefer him to be so intrinsically defensive, but I think he would be better to play as and against if he could do more to encourage interactions.

I don't see what you mean about grab range and dtilt not being significant problems. It's okay and necessary for a character to have inherent weaknesses like those he listed but having all of those weaknesses makes Kirby a pretty useless character. Basically his neutral game is back airs and non-interaction. You can't really force your opponent into shield; his dash is kinda slow, his aerial approach is slow, and he lacks good options. For example, all of Kirby's tilts kinda suck on shield - they're not even kinda safe like jab locking/ftilts with Samus or max range jab with Sheik.

His aerials aren't that great either for forcing opponents into shield, and he has very few mix-ups to keep the opponent guessing. And his follow-ups off of throws suck. Inhale drift was stupid. Yes, it made Kirby really good because it could threaten space, but once he lost that he basically lost all of the space he could threaten. Increasing Kirby's grab range and possibly dash speed with better follow-ups would pretty much solve his neutral game problem, and enable Kirbies (Kirbys?) to actually approach. So you were right about his underwhelming offense being the problem, but it doesn't really fit in the realm of the 3.6 meta. Kirby is just very underwhelming.

As of right now I basically just use Kirby to troll my friends when I'm too tired to play properly or when I'm playing one of my friends who really sucks. And sorry if I came off as either incoherent or a ****; I got up too early and coffee crashes make me grumpy <

 

[Avro-Arrow]

What does Kirby do which doesn't encourage interactions? All of his moves are close, his follow ups are chases and not guaranteed, and he has to approach to do anything, even if it is at a slower pace than a spacie

At a higher level, Kirby can't safely approach, nor does he have enough mobility to bait an opponent into whiffing a move. Plus the reward of approaching sucks too. Kirby would rather just camp until opponents approach unsafely, and then he can punish. It's kinda unfortunate. His design sucks. Making him faster with a more grab centric game would be cool in my opinion. And make his normals better or something; at least that'd give him his own unique design as a fast, ground-based in-your-face floaty that isn't the d-rated movie version of Puff (exaggerating here).

I don't really have any problem playing against Kirby (but I don't mind defensive characters all that much).

You play toon link though lol. Toon Link vs Kirby is pretty free, and since Toon Link can force Kirby to deal with his projectiles, Kirby has to do something or eat damage. And sorry for the triple post. Trying to catch up on this thread...

 

[mimgrim]

Isn't Kirby's grab range actually pretty big? IIRC there was a chart made somewhere by like SOJ or something that showed off the biggest/longest grab ranges for characters (it didn't go through every character though) and IIRC Kirby (and Puff for that matter) was on the list and was pretty high up. But I guess I could be remembering wrong.

You play toon link though lol. Toon Link vs Kirby is pretty free, and since Toon Link can force Kirby to deal with his projectiles, Kirby has to do something or eat damage

I'm bad though. I lose often against MUs that are suppose to be in my favor.

Not that I've played against a Kirby that much to begin with, anyway.

 

[Avro-Arrow]

Kirby's grab range is pretty bad. As a character design element for him though, I think it'd be cool if they buffed his grab game because some of his throws are already based off of Suplex Kirby.

I threw together a tier list so we can actually "speculate"

I'm 100% certain DK is in the wrong spot but I'm too tired to know where I should put him. C tier and A tier feel messy. Ordered left to right but what do any of us know about what an actual list looks like at this point in time.

We're kind of High tiers, Giant Middle tier soup and Low tiers atm. Discuss.

I'd change a few things here personally. Granted, I don't have experience with every MU, but I feel like Sheik is certainly S tier level for one. She's probably the best secondary right now in my opinion because of her neutral -> positive MU spread against the majority of the cast and lower technical skill required, making a switch to her in the middle of a set pretty easy.

Second, I think Lucas could fall down a tier; I'm no expert on him but in my limited experience with him I found his small hitboxes and amount of space he covers with his aerials, dash dance, and normals disappointing. I could be very wrong about him.

Zelda is probably a low tier in my opinion. Her neutral relies generally on the opponent approaching unsafely. Zelda's mobility isn't that great so to play defence you basically have dsmash, wavedash back fsmash, farore's wind, and fairs, with other stuff coming in handy in certain situations, like her neutral b (forget the name right now).

I'm pretty sure DK is better than Kirby but I might be missing something. Zard has a lot of problems; I could go into it further but I think he should be maybe a little bit more to the right of that tier. I probably shouldn't fuss about that too much though.

EDIT: I'd also consider moving Sonic up a tier. His Matchups against the upper tiers are pretty good. Loses slightly to MK, Diddy he wins slightly (no experience here, just recalling this one), pretty even against Wolf, loses slightly to Fox, even with Sheik. Pretty even with Samus, Falco, Mario, Falcon is a slight win, loses to Marth, Roy isn't bad. Lucario isn't bad either in my experience.

 

[Binary Clone]

I'm pretty sure DK is better than Kirby but I might be missing something.

He's fat.


Also, please please please use the Edit button to reply to multiple posts instead of double and triple-posting.



EDIT: also my 1,000th post wooo

 

[smashbro29]

Sonic is amazing. You're only getting 2 hits? It's not a problem of the character. Prob in a good spot right now.

So how do I get more? Right now I typically go for up throws and chase with up air or fair depending on what they do.

 

[PlateProp]

Overhaul kirby by making copy abilities not trash and giving him more of a focus on getting them by buffing inhale to make it easier to land, but make it way easier to break out and remove kirbycides outside of high percents (Kirbycide is dumb cheese and we all know it), like how he is in his games (having to actually rely on copy abilities to fight, though translating that to smash would be really hard and impossible code most likely). This would also make him a super interesting doubles character because he would have better access to certain tools

Examples being:

Getting Side B instead of nB from Roy and Ike. Even if he can only do one straight string out of Roy's variations, pretty confident this would be vastly more useful than Flare Blade. QD on kirby would allow him a burst movement option that's not dash attack to use against Ike, along with giving Kirby access to Ike's QD tech

PK Fire when he absorbs Ness (this should honestly be a given since it was already done with Lucas, and Kirby has way better edgeguard options than PK Flash)

Maybe even Koopa Klaw (grab and all if possible) from bowser instead of Flame Breath

Give him shine when he absorbs spacies for maximum kappage


It just makes me sad that Kirby's main trait is basically ground into the dirt because the copy abilities aren't worth it and the move itself is only worthwhile as a suicide tactic at the moment. The copy abilities arent tooled to really "work" with kirby either, they're just kind of there.

 

[steelguttey]

when kirby inhales powers in the games, his powers are insanely better than the ones of the person he swallowed (most of the time at least)

why has it been the other way around in smash forever

 

[eideeiit]

This sounds cool but also salt-inducing and tough to implement and balance af.

 

[Narelex]

when kirby inhales powers in the games, his powers are insanely better than the ones of the person he swallowed (most of the time at least)

why has it been the other way around in smash forever

He has Brawl Tornado last time I checked so that's one down.

 

[steelguttey]

iirc brawl kirby tornado wasnt even mk tornado, it was a nerfed version of it

if thats not true then its def 3.0 tornado i know he doesnt have brawl nado

 

[InfinityCollision]

So how do I get more? Right now I typically go for up throws and chase with up air or fair depending on what they do.

Cover options as they come down. Learn to tech chase on reaction. Try comboing towards the ledge instead of straight up. Explore alternative followups that don't knock the opponent so far away and see if that gets you anywhere. Branch out and do new stuff, keep what works and discard the rest.

You're playing the fastest character in the game. You may not have long, guaranteed combos (thank ****), but that doesn't mean you're **** out of luck after two hits.

 

[Player -0]

Sonic has carry off combos. After Up Throw you can weak Nair -> BA/Sourspot Fair Fast Fall/anything. Just depends on DI and character. You can also catch landings from anywhere.

 

[Cox Box]

Overhaul kirby by making copy abilities not trash and giving him more of a focus on getting them by buffing inhale to make it easier to land, but make it way easier to break out and remove kirbycides outside of high percents (Kirbycide is dumb cheese and we all know it), like how he is in his games (having to actually rely on copy abilities to fight, though translating that to smash would be really hard and impossible code most likely). This would also make him a super interesting doubles character because he would have better access to certain tools

Examples being:

Getting Side B instead of nB from Roy and Ike. Even if he can only do one straight string out of Roy's variations, pretty confident this would be vastly more useful than Flare Blade. QD on kirby would allow him a burst movement option that's not dash attack to use against Ike, along with giving Kirby access to Ike's QD tech

PK Fire when he absorbs Ness (this should honestly be a given since it was already done with Lucas, and Kirby has way better edgeguard options than PK Flash)

Maybe even Koopa Klaw (grab and all if possible) from bowser instead of Flame Breath

Give him shine when he absorbs spacies for maximum kappage


It just makes me sad that Kirby's main trait is basically ground into the dirt because the copy abilities aren't worth it and the move itself is only worthwhile as a suicide tactic at the moment. The copy abilities arent tooled to really "work" with kirby either, they're just kind of there.

It would be really cool if Kirby filled a Shang Tsung like niche in PM, focusing on copy abilities like you said. Maybe he wouldn't be top tier, who knows, but he would be infinitely more fun to play against (and probably more fun to play with) than he is now.

 

[Manaconda]

Inhale isn't always trash?

Kirby still has 3.02 things from characters who no longer have access to them. 3.02 Mario fireballs, dumb Zelda stuff, etc. He can also SHDL with Falco lasers, and last I checked, SHTL with Fox's lasers.

In some cases, his special attack is trash because the original is trash, such as Warlock Punch, Falcon Punch, etc.

 

[CORY]

Give Kirby a float for ganon's copy? Sounds absurd, let's do it.

 

[smashbro29]

Give Kirby a float for ganon's copy? Sounds absurd, let's do it.

All you guys that have a million ideas for Kirby don't realize that copy abilities are probably the hardest thing to edit.

Cover options as they come down. Learn to tech chase on reaction. Try comboing towards the ledge instead of straight up. Explore alternative followups that don't knock the opponent so far away and see if that gets you anywhere. Branch out and do new stuff, keep what works and discard the rest.

You're playing the fastest character in the game. You may not have long, guaranteed combos (thank ****), but that doesn't mean you're **** out of luck after two hits.

Sonic has carry off combos. After Up Throw you can weak Nair -> BA/Sourspot Fair Fast Fall/anything. Just depends on DI and character. You can also catch landings from anywhere.

I find myself in doubles a lot with a Charizard against Ganon and DDD and I feel pretty helpless especially off stage vs DDD. Any advice?

 

[Binary Clone]

I find myself in doubles a lot with a Charizard against Ganon and DDD and I feel pretty helpless especially off stage vs DDD. Any advice?

Don't get hit.


Mix up your recovery. You're Sonic, you do have options. You can float in slowly, you can sideB towards stage, if he comes out towards you, you can homing attack to stall for a second and then burst towards him, you can fastfall below him if he tries to attack, you can sideB over stage, to ledge, or low, you can upB from super low after a fastfall, you can upB super high and then dair onto stage...

There are plenty of things you can do, and DDD can't cover all of them. Just make sure you mix things up and make him afraid to commit to any one thing. And he does have to commit to get that edgeguard, even if his edgeguarding is good.

 

[smashbro29]

Don't get hit.


Mix up your recovery. You're Sonic, you do have options. You can float in slowly, you can sideB towards stage, if he comes out towards you, you can homing attack to stall for a second and then burst towards him, you can fastfall below him if he tries to attack, you can sideB over stage, to ledge, or low, you can upB from super low after a fastfall, you can upB super high and then dair onto stage...

There are plenty of things you can do, and DDD can't cover all of them. Just make sure you mix things up and make him afraid to commit to any one thing. And he does have to commit to get that edgeguard, even if his edgeguarding is good.

Honestly all he really does is charge jet hammer. My options are snap to ledge from below with pinpoint precision or die.

Unless there's something else, I'm all ears. I need the help.

 

[Soft Serve]

Honestly all he really does is charge jet hammer. My options are snap to ledge from below with pinpoint precision or die.

Unless there's something else, I'm all ears. I need the help.

Learn to sweetspot

 

[smashbro29]

Learn to sweetspot

Ok, so I absolutely must sweetspot from below with the spring? There's no other way? I just have to learn to do this perfectly?

 

[Soft Serve]

Ok, so I absolutely must sweetspot from below with the spring? There's no other way? I just have to learn to do this perfectly?

Like most characters, yes, you have to recover properly to not get hit

 

[smashbro29]

Like most characters, yes, you have to recover properly to not get hit

Yeah but doing it with Sonic is tough. It's such a high recovery. Grrr....

Thanks though, good tough love.

 

[Narpas_sword]

Ok, so I absolutely must sweetspot from below with the spring? There's no other way? I just have to learn to do this perfectly?

http://smashboards.com/guides/endless-possibilities.587/

Scroll down to the recovery section.

 

[smashbro29]

http://smashboards.com/guides/endless-possibilities.587/
Scroll down to the recovery section.

Yeah, I just needed help with that one specific situation. It's killing me.

 

[Phan7om]

Kirby still has 3.02 things from characters who no longer have access to them. 3.02 Mario fireballs, dumb Zelda stuff, etc.

Those actually got changed fyi. But Kirby can still dash cancel ZSS' paralyzer ability.

 

[FreeGamer]

Copy Abilities would be nice to buff, too bad they're such a pain to edit.

 

[Sabre]

Those actually got changed fyi. But Kirby can still dash cancel ZSS' paralyzer ability.

And still has Ganon's warlock punch rather than the float/cape.

 

[Phan7om]

And still has Ganon's warlock punch rather than the float/cape.

Yeah thats a whole new ability not given due to the result of programming limiations. Almost every ability is the brawl version instead of the PM version. I mentioned ZSS' copy ability in particular because it still can dash cancel where as the others were changed along with the original characters.

Overhaul kirby by making copy abilities not trash and giving him more of a focus on getting them by buffing inhale to make it easier to land, but make it way easier to break out and remove kirbycides outside of high percents (Kirbycide is dumb cheese and we all know it)

Idk what you have in mind to make the move easier to land, but there are plenty of setups into it (such as with Dair, Utilt, Uair, or Nair) that no relevant Kirby does because they probably dont know. They'd rather either hope the opponent runs into it or hope they stay in shield long enough to get grabbed by it. Any setups they would do is some kind of kirbycide setup. (which is ResidentSleeper, imo, no matter how clever it was).

Also, completely agree with you on the Kirbycides, which is why I would recommend they change that specific part about inhale by making the release angle vertical like D3s. Making the other two options, mostly copy, more viable would very likely make him more fun to play as and against, and to watch.

 

[InfinityCollision]

Those actually got changed fyi. But Kirby can still dash cancel ZSS' paralyzer ability.

Actually he can't. In a previous build (3.5 or 3.6beta, idr) he was only able to dash cancel the charged version, but in 3.6 final even that is no longer possible.

 

[FlashingFire]

grueling uphill battle.
irrelevant in top level play
he also makes the game miserable for low/mid-level players who are playing the wrong character.
he's doing nothing for anybody.
His mains can't take the character to the highest level
Yes, you can learn the matchup, but why would you want to?
the matchup is boring, campy, and uninteractive.
Snake is extremely weird and unintuitive to play against.
He's just a highly demoralizing character.

So... you wanna back up those claims with evidence?

I mean, the unintuitive thing I can understand, but right now all I see is a lot of emotionally loaded words and a higher salt concentration than the Dead Sea.

 

[KiteAF]

Overhaul kirby by making copy abilities not trash and giving him more of a focus on getting them by buffing inhale to make it easier to land, but make it way easier to break out and remove kirbycides outside of high percents (Kirbycide is dumb cheese and we all know it), like how he is in his games (having to actually rely on copy abilities to fight, though translating that to smash would be really hard and impossible code most likely). This would also make him a super interesting doubles character because he would have better access to certain tools

Examples being:

Getting Side B instead of nB from Roy and Ike. Even if he can only do one straight string out of Roy's variations, pretty confident this would be vastly more useful than Flare Blade. QD on kirby would allow him a burst movement option that's not dash attack to use against Ike, along with giving Kirby access to Ike's QD tech

PK Fire when he absorbs Ness (this should honestly be a given since it was already done with Lucas, and Kirby has way better edgeguard options than PK Flash)

Maybe even Koopa Klaw (grab and all if possible) from bowser instead of Flame Breath

Give him shine when he absorbs spacies for maximum kappage


It just makes me sad that Kirby's main trait is basically ground into the dirt because the copy abilities aren't worth it and the move itself is only worthwhile as a suicide tactic at the moment. The copy abilities arent tooled to really "work" with kirby either, they're just kind of there.

Copy Kirby? An impossible dream, but I'd main him in a heartbeat.

 

[Phan7om]

Actually he can't. In a previous build (3.5 or 3.6beta, idr) he was only able to dash cancel the charged version, but in 3.6 final even that is no longer possible.

Now that i think about it, ive never re-checked this after 3.6 full lol. But it was possible in the beta. It didnt say anything about it so I assumed they didnt change it. Thanks

 

[DrinkingFood]

Uhh Lucas is a top tier character lol. His top tier punish game leads out from his top tier pressure game consisting of magnet/DJCs OR from his safe top tier neutral game consisting of PKF, a safe disjointed shine-like poke that leads into punishment regardless of DI, and an excellent DD/WD game

 

[Sardonyx]

If we're talking about editing kirby's copy abilities, shouldn't they be equivalent to what the other character's have in 3.6?

Like Kirby can still Love Jump if he copies Zelda and I'm like pls stop love jumping, it's making me miss when it used to be in

 

[Oracle]

Uhh Lucas is a top tier character lol. His top tier punish game leads out from his top tier pressure game consisting of magnet/DJCs OR from his safe top tier neutral game consisting of PKF, a safe disjointed shine-like poke that leads into punishment regardless of DI, and an excellent DD/WD game

yeah but his hair is an ice cream cone

 

[Phan7om]

If we're talking about editing kirby's copy abilities, shouldn't they be equivalent to what the other character's have in 3.6?

Yes it should, but because of programming issues and other more important things, its very likely it wont happen in a long time, or even ever.