Tier List Speculation

[TheGravyTrain]

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

This. Lucas is good. The only thing I would be inclined to say isn't as true as the rest is his neutral. Its not bad by any means, but I wouldn't label it as amazing. That could just be the awkwardness of his grab thrqoing me off.

 

[Deleted member]

yeah but his hair is an ice cream cone

blah blah my name is strong bad

go to the social thread

blah blaaahhhhhhhh

 

[FreeGamer]

Going off of these Copy Ability ideas, what if Kirby got Monster Flame or Hypernova from inhaling Fox? Kappa

 

[Mr.Pickle]

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

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.

Wario main knowledge dump.

The size increase has a pattern between the phases as it stays out, it's size starts out at 2.5, increases to 3.5, and then jumps to 5. For anyone who doesn't know psa, that's about as big as sheik's fair, about 0.47 shy of it. Another thing to note is because of the size and how interpolation works, he can sometimes catch people's spot dodge as he runs past them. As for how punishable it is, it's true that it induces quite a bit of lag on shield, but it also has a lot of pushback, so depending on stage positioning you can push your opponent off the stage or platform, and in that case you've reduced a large amount of risk to being punished. Also it'll go through moves like g&w's jab or dtilt, if you space it to hit with the last hitbox.

So yeah take it from me, wario's side b is horrendously stupid. Using it too much can cost you big time, but that argument could work with any move honestly. It's just got too many good/questionable qualities to keep it from being an amazing tool, and could probably stand a couple adjustments.

 

[JesteRace]

So, would it be unreasonable to give Link 3.02 normals, 3.5 projectiles, and 3.6 mobility? Would that even be enough to make him a good character? How about that grab? Any chance that BS will get fixed BEFORE 4.0? 3.61 anyone?

 

[FreeGamer]

So, would it be unreasonable to give Link 3.02 normals, 3.5 projectiles, and 3.6 mobility? Would that even be enough to make him a good character? How about that grab? Any chance that BS will get fixed BEFORE 4.0? 3.61 anyone?

It would also help if they made his Bomb Jump not astronomically strict to perform. @_@

 

[KiteAF]

So, would it be unreasonable to give Link 3.02 normals, 3.5 projectiles, and 3.6 mobility? Would that even be enough to make him a good character? How about that grab? Any chance that BS will get fixed BEFORE 4.0? 3.61 anyone?

Be nice if they fixed his and Pit's upsmashes too. People falling out with no sdi is really annoying.

 

[JOE!]

Make links bombs have like 2% hp

 

[Deleted member]

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."

i think i love you

that said most chars have issues in a bracket due to bad MUs. im starting to think our tournament structure is bad for PM more than that all of the character designs are bad.

 

[Life]

It would also help if they made his Bomb Jump not astronomically strict to perform. @_@

Didn't Link players discover other bomb jump setups that don't involve upB?

 

[Ogopogo]

im starting to think our tournament structure is bad for PM more than that all of the character designs are bad.

I'm interested, can you elaborate?

 

[Deleted member]

I'm interested, can you elaborate?

i made a rant on skype earlier about how like 10+ people could have won paragon, and how anyone in the room could have lost to 5+ people. with the game being designed to be user friendly and all of the characters balanced, the main decider of sets seems to be matchups. but then like theres 41 characters and no one can learn every matchup, even our best players, so brackets are hugely volatile. so then brackets dont really tell us who our best players are, like the people that win are clearly good, but winning now means you have to be good and get a lucky bracket too. so the bracket, and by extension the tournament, no longer does its job at telling us who the best players are. so its basically defunct. we can either go about resolving this problem by balancing our characters to have rounded matchups, or we can change our tournament structure to not punish bad matchups so harshly. since the prior is basically impossible for a lot of reasons, i would strongly advocate the latter. i also think only paying out to the top 3 or 4 players is absurd given how close all of our top players are.

 

[Ya Boy GP]

i made a rant on skype earlier about how like 10+ people could have won paragon, and how anyone in the room could have lost to 5+ people. with the game being designed to be user friendly and all of the characters balanced, the main decider of sets seems to be matchups. but then like theres 41 characters and no one can learn every matchup, even our best players, so brackets are hugely volatile. so then brackets dont really tell us who our best players are, like the people that win are clearly good, but winning now means you have to be good and get a lucky bracket too. so the bracket, and by extension the tournament, no longer does its job at telling us who the best players are. so its basically defunct. we can either go about resolving this problem by balancing our characters to have rounded matchups, or we can change our tournament structure to not punish bad matchups so harshly. since the prior is basically impossible for a lot of reasons, i would strongly advocate the latter. i also think only paying out to the top 3 or 4 players is absurd given how close all of our top players are.

How could you realistically change a tournament to not punish bad matchups so harshly when given time constraints?

 

[FreeGamer]

How many people should be in the money, then? Top 8?

 

[Life]

i made a rant on skype earlier about how like 10+ people could have won paragon, and how anyone in the room could have lost to 5+ people. with the game being designed to be user friendly and all of the characters balanced, the main decider of sets seems to be matchups. but then like theres 41 characters and no one can learn every matchup, even our best players, so brackets are hugely volatile. so then brackets dont really tell us who our best players are, like the people that win are clearly good, but winning now means you have to be good and get a lucky bracket too. so the bracket, and by extension the tournament, no longer does its job at telling us who the best players are. so its basically defunct. we can either go about resolving this problem by balancing our characters to have rounded matchups, or we can change our tournament structure to not punish bad matchups so harshly. since the prior is basically impossible for a lot of reasons, i would strongly advocate the latter. i also think only paying out to the top 3 or 4 players is absurd given how close all of our top players are.

Are we talking some kind of pools-only tournament?

Say you have a 128 person tournament. Run pools of 8 (16 pools total) and top 2 get out -> 32 remaining players. On day 2, run pools of 8 again (4 pools total) where top 2 get out again and you're at top 8. Run one more pool of those players to determine top 8 standings.

If you have enough setups to run 4 pools concurrently, this is effectively 6 waves of pools.

Question is, how does this affect the viewers' experience? The players'? This would be hard to stream. Most importantly, does it actually solve the problem? Bracket luck still applies, but now it's a matter of hoping the top seeds in your pool aren't also your hardest character matchups.

This might not even be what you had in mind. I'm just spitballing here.

 

[Soft Serve]

i made a rant on skype earlier about how like 10+ people could have won paragon, and how anyone in the room could have lost to 5+ people. with the game being designed to be user friendly and all of the characters balanced, the main decider of sets seems to be matchups. but then like theres 41 characters and no one can learn every matchup, even our best players, so brackets are hugely volatile. so then brackets dont really tell us who our best players are, like the people that win are clearly good, but winning now means you have to be good and get a lucky bracket too. so the bracket, and by extension the tournament, no longer does its job at telling us who the best players are. so its basically defunct. we can either go about resolving this problem by balancing our characters to have rounded matchups, or we can change our tournament structure to not punish bad matchups so harshly. since the prior is basically impossible for a lot of reasons, i would strongly advocate the latter. i also think only paying out to the top 3 or 4 players is absurd given how close all of our top players are.

Swiss all day every day

 

[steelguttey]

bad matchups are part of fighting games and have been since the beginning and they are something you have to deal with and make the game interesting and exciting. contrary to popular belief, theres no un winnable matchups in pm. if leffen can four stock m2k on final ****ing destination then you can beat fox

 

[Ripple]

contrary to popular belief, theres no un winnable matchups in pm.

actually wrong and your analogy doesn't help your case at all.

 

[Tarul]

i made a rant on skype earlier about how like 10+ people could have won paragon, and how anyone in the room could have lost to 5+ people. with the game being designed to be user friendly and all of the characters balanced, the main decider of sets seems to be matchups. but then like theres 41 characters and no one can learn every matchup, even our best players, so brackets are hugely volatile. so then brackets dont really tell us who our best players are, like the people that win are clearly good, but winning now means you have to be good and get a lucky bracket too. so the bracket, and by extension the tournament, no longer does its job at telling us who the best players are. so its basically defunct. we can either go about resolving this problem by balancing our characters to have rounded matchups, or we can change our tournament structure to not punish bad matchups so harshly. since the prior is basically impossible for a lot of reasons, i would strongly advocate the latter. i also think only paying out to the top 3 or 4 players is absurd given how close all of our top players are.

Honestly, you can say this about any competitive game.

In Melee, Amsa made top 5 in Apex 2015, and hasn't shown similar results since.
In tennis, Murray just made an exit in the round of 16 of US Opens.
and I'm sure that you can think of more examples.

Tournaments aren't a really good indication of "best" player, because every player does not play against one another. Instead, tournaments are a great way to see consistency. Players that can consistently win tournaments are better players. That's why the Big 6 are so crazy- they keep repeating the same results tournament after tournament, while the rest of the top 20 seats shuffle back and forth. Same goes to Federer for tennis, TSM for League, etc etc.

Sure, we can could try to do round robins to determine the "best" players, but that takes a REALLY long time to finish, and isn't really viable in 100+ person tournaments (which we ideally want). Every now and then you're going to have a player play absolutely out of his mind or get an easy bracket, but if they keep getting the same results, then you know it's no longer luck.

The only player that has been this consistent in PM (so far) has been Junebug, M2K, IPK, Sethlon, and the gods. If Mr. Lz can keep repeating his results (which he has- he won EVO, ,so he's definitely no slouch), then we know he's a REALLY good player. Until then, he's just a good player.

Tl;dr Tournaments are a good way of separating the good players from the great players. However, they should be viewed over a grand-scale, instead of on an individual basis.

 

[steelguttey]

actually wrong and your analogy doesn't help your case at all.

ok, ripple, thanks for the advice. now i can become the champion of Project M!!!!!!!!

 

[Manaconda]

I don't mind the current double elimination format, but just to be clear, the viewer's experience should always come second to the tourneygoer's experience. The tourneygoer paid to be there and participate, and the viewer is just there to watch. If the experience can be made 'fairer' for them and healthier for the competition overall, then that's some tough **** and the viewer's gonna have to suck it up.

If such a change does happen, I'm sure they can watch out for high-level or anticipated matches they might find interesting and request the players to use a particular setup, and maybe there's a way to both have a 'fairer' tournament system and have that Top 8 and 'final battle' everybody cares about.

If Mr. Lz can keep repeating his results (which he has- he won EVO, ,so he's definitely no slouch), then we know he's a REALLY good player.

Lz didn't win EVO. He got punched into 3rd place by the winner, iPK.

 

[Tarul]

actually wrong and your analogy doesn't help your case at all.

Well, technically, he's not wrong. There's not a single matchup in PM that's 100-0. If it's 90-10, then it's still "winnable," as there's still a 10% chance you'll win.

While it sounds like pedantics, it's important to establish what we mean by "winnable." Even in melee, most characters still have a 20-30% of winning, so pointing out an instance of an odd matchup prevailing is more an example of the 20% instead of the 80% norm.

Instead, we should determine matchups on whether they're reasonable, as in whether the matchup is winnable without an extreme amount of perfection/greater skill exhibited by one side. I'm curious what people consider to be "reasonable." 70-30? 75-25?

 

[KakuCP9]

Honestly, anything past 65:35 should be considered un-winnable. It's fine and dandy to have a small shred of hope to win one match, but how on earth would someone manage to clinch an entire set against someone equal skill who knows the MU?

 

[steelguttey]

Honestly, anything past 65:35 should be considered un-winnable. It's fine and dandy to have a small shred of hope to win one match, but how on earth would someone manage to clinch an entire set against someone equal skill who knows the MU?

by realizing that you arent fighting a character, youre fighting a human and you can still outplay them. unless it is 100-0 you still have a pretty big chance

 

[AuraMaudeGone]

@Umbreon That doesn't solve your presented problem at all. You just packaged it differently :o
Bad MU are going to exist, unless everyone's playing the exact same character. You're also not stuck to one character either. You're free counter pick too. Why is this spoken like people are spiritually bound to one character?

 

[Kipcom]

This. Lucas is good. The only thing I would be inclined to say isn't as true as the rest is his neutral. Its not bad by any means, but I wouldn't label it as amazing. That could just be the awkwardness of his grab thrqoing me off.

His speed is good. His dash dance and wavedash are great. Grab's not really that good, though that's to be expected from a tether grab. Though to be honest he probably has the best or 2nd best tether grab in the game (Not sure if Olimar's pivot grab is considered better or not). His dash grab doesn't exist anymore.

PK Freeze is good and I think it's in a good spot right now. It doesn't go too far when shot from in the air, you can hit/clank it, and it's linear. It doesn't feel polarizing and while you can gain some stage control, it's not as cray as like Falco lasers.

 

[Ogopogo]

by realizing that you arent fighting a character, youre fighting a human and you can still outplay them. unless it is 100-0 you still have a pretty big chance

Plus, does anyone really see PM having a 100-0 matchup? Those don't even exist in Melee, a game with sheik's down throw. I don't think a 100-0 matchup really exists. outside of like Giga Bowser v Sopo. maybe it's just exaggeration to prove a point, but it's hard to tell on smashboards, a place of many strange opinions.

 

[Manaconda]

Well, technically, he's not wrong. There's not a single matchup in PM that's 100-0. If it's 90-10, then it's still "winnable," as there's still a 10% chance you'll win.

Technically any MU is winnable. If you powershield everything and SDI/DI everything right and guess right every single time, then you're psychic and the MU ratio doesn't matter in the slightest. Get every 50/50 correct, and victory is yours regardless of how little you get out of an interaction and how much your opponent gets. For mere mortals, you can't guess right every time.

This is also why MU ratios are bull****. What's the actual difference between MUs as uneven as 70/30 and 75/25? If there is one, what are the guidelines that separate them? If there isn't, then what's the difference between 75/25 and 80/20, or even that and 90/10? Why make a distinction between 'extremely unreasonable' and 'impossible'?

And there's the issue with coming up with these numbers in the first place. You can't depend on a single top player to come up with a ratio because they might be full of ****, and there are anywhere between 0-2 top players of pretty much any given character in this game, and none of them have good MU experience with the entire cast to the extend that top Melee players have good MU experience with the smaller and better-understood Melee cast.

 

[Ripple]

melee absolutely has 100-0 MU.

Roy vs. Ics
Roy vs. Peach
Sheik vs. bowser

if people think that the low tier player has any % chance of winning a set or even a game at even high level, they are delusional.

ness vs. fox might not be 100-0 but is the best ness player ever going to take a game off someone low-high level fox like DJ nintendo? no. its unwinnable

 

[steelguttey]

how are you just gonna assume that? you can still outplay them no matter the character if di and powershielding still exists

thats an extremely ignorant and shallow minded way of thinking. you beat machiavelli (or jv i forget) in tournament, how are you gonna say theres unwinnable mu's

 

[KakuCP9]

by realizing that you arent fighting a character, youre fighting a human and you can still outplay them. unless it is 100-0 you still have a pretty big chance

The issue I have is that once you pass 60:40 ,human or not, that a huge handicap you are playing with because your character is flat out unsuited to fight your opponent. Yes people make mistakes, but your opponent has make SIGNIFICANTLY more than you while you can barely make one or two. How's such a thing possible if you are of equal skill and your opponent knows how to play the MU?
Heck you don't even need numbers. If there is an extreme difference between the effort two characters put where lower level players can back a higher level one into a corner, that is a sign that MU should be avoided because while you a "chance" to win a match, how would you take the whole set?

 

[Ripple]

because its realistic. The level you'd need to out play someone like that even if you were the best ness player would be inhuman and not possible.

I beat JV because he had never played the MU before and didn't even adapt correctly. I wouldn't consider it as if he wasn't even playing to win. MUs should always assume both players know the MU and are at the current top level

 

[Sabre]

melee absolutely has 100-0 MU.

Roy vs. Ics
Roy vs. Peach
Sheik vs. bowser

if people think that the low tier player has any % chance of winning a set or even a game at even high level, they are delusional.

ness vs. fox might not be 100-0 but is the best ness player ever going to take a game off someone low-high level fox like DJ nintendo? no. its unwinnable

I don't believe he's done it to DJ Nintendo, but Hungrybox did take a game from the Moon's marth at Shuffle V, and it was a pretty solid JV 2 stock, so it's actually possible to win that matchup for the record. I'm sure that there are other examples that would prove your point, but examples like that show that it's possible, if extremely difficult and unlikely.

 

[Soft Serve]

melee absolutely has 100-0 MU.

Roy vs. Top platform

Fixed


I wouldn't really consider a JV 2 stock a solid win tbh.

 

[Saproling]

JZ is aggressive and the way you win is by poking DDD out so I assume he just tried going ham on Ripples shield with nair and such and got grabbed a lot into proper tether punishes.

 

[steelguttey]

The issue I have is that once you pass 60:40 ,human or not, that a huge handicap you are playing with because your character is flat out unsuited to fight your opponent. Yes people make mistakes, but your opponent has make SIGNIFICANTLY more than you while you can barely make one or two. How's such a thing possible if you are of equal skill and your opponent knows how to play the MU?
Heck you don't even need numbers. If there is an extreme difference between the effort two characters put where lower level players can back a higher level one into a corner, that is a sign that MU should be avoided because while you a "chance" to win a match, how would you take the whole set?

this is the type of stuff fgc players laugh at smash players for. having more oppurtunities to win neutral is what good matchups are. but that doesnt mean all of the interactions in neutral are in one persons favor and its your job as a player to find ones that are. its how fighting games work and even though smash is far from a traditional fighting games, its still 1v1 and the last time i checked nobody has a move that ends the match with a big "PICK A BETTER CHARACTER LOL" screen afterwords

because its realistic. The level you'd need to out play someone like that even if you were the best ness player would be inhuman and not possible.

I beat JV because he had never played the MU before and didn't even adapt correctly. I wouldn't consider it as if he wasn't even playing to win. MUs should always assume both players know the MU and are at the current top level

boiko has wins off of cactuar, envy, and many more foxes i could name. i dont know about them compared to dj, but the mu certainly isnt unwinnable. and is winning a losing mu really that impossible? how about nintendude taking games off of macd or hbox killing foxes? you think leffen doesnt know the jiggs mu?

 

[Alfonzo Bagpipez]

I don't believe he's done it to DJ Nintendo, but Hungrybox did take a game from the Moon's marth at Shuffle V, and it was a pretty solid JV 2 stock, so it's actually possible to win that matchup for the record. I'm sure that there are other examples that would prove your point, but examples like that show that it's possible, if extremely difficult and unlikely.

That's not really Ness vs Marth, tho.

That's Hungrybox vs The Moon.

A Top 5 player vs ~A Top 40 player.

 

[Ripple]

it was also an exhibition match. which means it didn't matter.

also, boiko has wins off cactuar in melee? are you sure about that?

wobbles has called peach vs. ICs even if wobbling is allowed

and I don't think any puff has called the Fox MU unwinnable mainly because of rest. other characters don't have such an absurd punish when they would be similarly losing the neutral just as bad

 

[Searing_Sorrow]

For pm, there are a few unreasonable matchups, but as far as legit unwinnable matchups, I haven't had one since 3.02 diddy vs bowser. Any side b, or up throw to side b led to a free side b followup(like side b), that led to a moderate to execute 0-110% combo, and all small stages except ghz could be banned.

Even with all the blah blah dk so bad please buff whines, he doesn't have any truly "unwinnable" blazblue cs litchi vs tager bad m.u.
So to the people that casually throw the words unwinnable around, I encourage you to explore other fighting games, or go play truly bad 90-10 matchups like brawl lucas vs marth. Most of the unwinnable cries on this board comes from m.u ignorance and being too annoyed at losing to objectively analyze the holes in your game that led to the L vs that character.

 

[wonkdonkler]

i made a rant on skype earlier about how like 10+ people could have won paragon, and how anyone in the room could have lost to 5+ people. with the game being designed to be user friendly and all of the characters balanced, the main decider of sets seems to be matchups. but then like theres 41 characters and no one can learn every matchup, even our best players, so brackets are hugely volatile. so then brackets dont really tell us who our best players are, like the people that win are clearly good, but winning now means you have to be good and get a lucky bracket too. so the bracket, and by extension the tournament, no longer does its job at telling us who the best players are. so its basically defunct. we can either go about resolving this problem by balancing our characters to have rounded matchups, or we can change our tournament structure to not punish bad matchups so harshly. since the prior is basically impossible for a lot of reasons, i would strongly advocate the latter. i also think only paying out to the top 3 or 4 players is absurd given how close all of our top players are.

something i've noticed in all of the smash games is the stigma and reluctance of counterpicking. there's nothing wrong with it, and in my opinion it is important to have a backup character to fall back on that is as developed as your main. especially if you play a character that has horrible matchups against popular characters. ivysaur is my favorite character in the game, but sometimes you have to realize that sometimes having too much pride in your character is not a good thing when you could be playing a better matchup.