Tier List Speculation

[Binary Clone]

But I have weapon triangle advantage D:

All Ike costumes are treated in-game as armored Ike due to engine limitations, and D3 always has Hammer equipped.

Gannon destroyed Bowser in 3.5

GANNON BANNED

That sounds a lot like Wario shoulder charge to me. Idk, I've never been a fan of moveset changes that are so similar to other characters' stuff. That's part of the reason why the Jigglypuff Hyper Voice-sleep projectile thing never sounded appealing to me.

Well, I mean, it also kind of sounds like Ike's Quickdraw. Having similarities isn't always bad, as long as they have enough of a differentiation, I think.

Overall I'm with @ JOE! in thinking that a slow projectile would be best for Bowser in giving him some more options and control in neutral.

 

[TheoryofSmaug]

All Ike costumes are treated in-game as armored Ike due to engine limitations, and D3 always has Hammer equipped.

GANNON BANNED

Well, I mean, it also kind of sounds like Ike's Quickdraw. Having similarities isn't always bad, as long as they have enough of a differentiation, I think.

Overall I'm with @ JOE! in thinking that a slow projectile would be best for Bowser in giving him some more options and control in neutral.

I swear to god it was spellcheck.

I really think a slow moving projectile would help him, a boost movement command grab could help to, but people aren't gonna like that.
I feel like Bowser can win neutral occasionally, and he feels like he should hit like a truck, so I think just a minor buff to his neutral like a projectile and then just make his punishgame disgusting would be cool.

 

[JOE!]

A big fireball that he could outrun (but barely) I think would be great as it'd give him a means of spacing as well as a form of approach where he can punish the opponent's reaction to the fireball.

 

[tasteless gentleman]

A big fireball that he could outrun (but barely) I think would be great as it'd give him a means of spacing as well as a form of approach where he can punish the opponent's reaction to the fireball.

Make it consume projectiles and give it a way to coexist with flame breath (secondary moveset) and you would have my blessing.

Also i think a burst movement would be nice on klaw also to spide his recovery up. ( a better grab range wouldnt hurt either)

Like why doesnt marth reach 6ft in front of himself and bowser reaches out 1ft with a dopey grabbing at a fish animation?

 

[JOE!]

Well, what purpose would Firebreath serve if he had this projectile?

 

[mimgrim]

Just make Bowser the Sagat With a command grab of Smash already PMDT. :L

 

[AuraMaudeGone]

IMO, Bowser's still not respected enough up close. That should be range where most people should be cautious being in, but what do I know? I'm the Sheik player who'll toss him around anyway.

 

[tasteless gentleman]

Well, what purpose would Firebreath serve if he had this projectile?

Shield pressure and commanding space i guess, I dont know really because i never had such a tool and always relied on breath to be my pressure or my get away from me tool or my spacing tool.

 

[TheoryofSmaug]

Bowser flame is stupid, it gives him some shield pressure but doesn't do much if you land it, it deals a little damage and then resets to neutral which isn't really what Bowser wants.
It was only really good (read broken af) when it had no start up, then Bowser could mixup every landing between landing with claw, landing with breath, landing with aerial, or landing with perfect waveland.

 

[JOE!]

IMO, Bowser's still not respected enough up close. That should be range where most people should be cautious being in, but what do I know? I'm the Sheik player who'll toss him around anyway.

I recall an idea a while back about giving the fatties faster grabs, like frame 5. How do you think that would fare for the meta?

 

[Binary Clone]

Shield pressure and commanding space i guess, I dont know really because i never had such a tool and always relied on breath to be my pressure or my get away from me tool or my spacing tool.

It's not even good at those, though. It you hit someone's shield they can either try to shield DI out and/or wait and then punish your endlag with a WD OoS, and if you're trying to use it to command space, you're probably not hitting them with it initially, and it's so slow and low-coverage that they can either jump over the flames and hit you, or wait 'till you stop spewing them and punish.

 

[AuraMaudeGone]

I recall an idea a while back about giving the fatties faster grabs, like frame 5. How do you think that would fare for the meta?

Would be interesting to try out at least. Maybe a faster pummel rate would be scary too. Does Bowser benefit from his throws at all?

 

[JOE!]

Would be interesting to try out at least. Maybe a faster pummel rate would be scary too. Does Bowser benefit from his throws at all?

In my limited experience:

Dthrow and Uthrow are combo throws in different ways, Bthrow can KO, and Fthrow is just sorta for positioning.

 

[Binary Clone]

Would be interesting to try out at least. Maybe a faster pummel rate would be scary too. Does Bowser benefit from his throws at all?

Bowser's throws are pretty important for him. His uthrow nets him a lot in a lot of matchups, and at higher percents a grab can often convert into an edgeguard, which is invaluable for him.

 

[nimigoha]

Give Bowser Quickdraw KK. Like full on. Give him a charge Side B that you can jump cancel, or do nothing with, or press A for Klaw.

Because I want to see Bowser slide across a stage while charging Usmash.

Maybe give him light armour on the KK charge to absorb some projectiles.

I'm definitely crazy.

 

[Soft Serve]

Nah just give him 3.02 wolf blaster but with a fireball. You all know you want to see sh fireball waveland stacking into a KK grab because they shielded or got hit by it.

Yoshi is rediculously underrated, he has so much and gets out of so many combos for free. I refuse to believe he is anything lower than top 20.

 

[Life]

People complaining about Bowser flamethrower when Charizard flamethrower exists.

A lot of the time if you flamethrower a shield and just hold it they'll be too far from Bowser to get a real punish or else they'll get shield poked. Remember the flames have travel time, so a good chunk of the "endlag" of flame breath is spent with the last flame hitbox still traveling in front of Bowser.

 

[nimigoha]

I'm just thinking about Quick Koopa Klaw into Flame, into Fair, RAR Bair, and Usmash... So fun.

 

[FreeGamer]

I feel that Kirby mains have a tendency to underrate Kirby's mobility somewhat.

As Kirby actually has some good ground mobility going for him with a fast DD that can cover a good distance (think like Ike DD fast but trades a little bit of the speed for a little bit more distance from it, is pretty good imo) along with a good Wavedash and fast jumpsquat to WD easy. And on some stage he can full jump onto a platform and instant land kind of which allows for easy wavelands.

Obviously we aren't talking MK fast on the ground but Kirby can get pretty mobile (on the ground) when he wants to be.

Air is a bit of a different story, though multiple jumps and being to position himself decently from the ground to air makes up for it ever so slightly. Wouldn't mind seeing an increase of air mobility for him.

Also make Cutter Dash Air Dodge cancelable. :L

As much as I loved wavelanding out of Cutter Dash, that has no place in current design lol.

The air traction of .04 is the biggest red flag in my mind, as it makes being in the air more of a commitment than it needs to be, and considerably hinders his neutral. Using the ground to make up for bad air movement sounds great on paper, but the only character who really gets any mileage out of that is Luigi. Shouldn't a character designed around baiting/spacing with amazing aerials be able to fulfill that role? If you buff that number from .04 to say .085 or .09, I bet he could actually weave a bit. Also, he'd still be well over .2 away from Puff and Wario. Fear of Kirby becoming a Puff clone is a deplorable excuse to let his air movement be such trash. >_>

 

[TheGravyTrain]

I think its just pessimistic mains as the source of why Yoshi is viewed as bad. Same with Ness, DK, and others. Not that those listed can't actually be bad, but I think its why they are near universally seen as separated from other potential equal characters. I find myself assuming characters like dk in their own "bad" tier because everyone is so pessimistic about them. It is very hard to co.pare peoples opinions when some are in a pessimistic tone and others are in an optimistic tone.

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

We could just give everyone Quick Draw.

... You know you want to.

 

[mimgrim]

As much as I loved wavelanding out of Cutter Dash, that has no place in current design lol.

Only if no attempt is made to make it reasonable.

Only making it airdodge cancelable when it reaches about half distance traveled alone should be able to make it a reasonable option for Kirby without it being overbearing. Cutter Dash has a bit of start-up to it plus making it only usable once it has traveled half-distance (especially with the current travel speed it has) should make it punishable if used poorly and gives Kirby a good option when used smartly.

I don't see why if QD is seen as acceptable (and I'm in no way trying to imply it isn't) why this couldn't be seen as acceptable either.

The air traction of .04 is the biggest red flag in my mind, as it makes being in the air more of a commitment than it needs to be, and considerably hinders his neutral. Using the ground to make up for bad air movement sounds great on paper, but the only characters who really get any mileage out of that are Luigi and Squirtle. Shouldn't a character designed around baiting/spacing with amazing aerials be able to fulfill that role? If you buff that number from .04 to say .085 or .09, I bet he could actually weave a bit. Also, he'd still be well over .2 away from Puff and Wario. Fear of Kirby becoming a Puff clone is a deplorable excuse to let his air movement be such trash. >_>

I did already say he did suffer in the air a bit (which admittedly doesn't make that much sense for his design) and I did say the multiples jumps and ground to air mobility only covered it a little bit and that I would not mind seeing a boost to his air mobility as a result. His low air mobility does clash with his design somewhat.

I was just mostly going over general mobility because I find Kirby mains to underrate it a bit because he does have some good grounded mobility on him.

 

[KinGly]

We could just give everyone Quick Draw.

... You know you want to.

I'm imagining Fox waveshining people with QuickDraw

Let's do it

 

[Kushina43]

I'm imagining Fox waveshining people with QuickDraw

Let's do it

That is a very bad reason good sir

 

[Steel Kangaroo]

I'm just curious how people feel about Ivysaur currently in 3.6 full. Most tier lists I see put her in lower middle tier, which I tend to agree with. My two biggest issues with Ivysaur have to do with matchups and crouch canceling susceptibility (although those two are related, and I'll tell you why)

Currently Ivysaur has losing matchups (generally agreed upon) against the majority of the top tiers. Speed, shield pressure, and strong projectiles are all aspects of these characters that give Ivysaur a hard time. At the same token, Ivysaur has some matchups (especially against the "lower tier" characters) that are pretty damn oppressive. In my opinion, both of these factors are not really that fun. Generally Ivysaur wins matchups where she can force an approach and outrange the opponent. The most oppressive matchups IMO against Ivysaur are DK and Bowser (D3 is something I've heard but I don't have enough MU experience to say for sure). But the issue I see is that Ivysaur has very few 50-50 matchups, making her spread extremely polarizing. So with that said, I will attempt to leverage any changes that would buff Ivy vs fast, pressure heavy characters with the goal of not making any matchups she already wins more oppressive.

The biggest thing I can think of is crouch cancel. Personally I think crouch cancel (ASDI down) as a whole is too strong and makes fast fallers with good grabs even better, but this issue is even more pervasive as Ivy. Very few (if any) of Ivysaur's moves break CC. The 3 that I can think of is grab (no duh), dash attack (committal), and f-tilt (although f-tilt is not a true anti-CC move as it doesn't break CC, it just multihits such that if the opponent is CCing, they will eat every hit). I think I understand the PMDT's philosophy of making Ivy weak to CC in order to encourage defensive play and to not make her bair in particular so irritating. But against characters who can force Ivysaur to approach (most projectile characters tbh, razor leaf is not a very good projectile compared to most others), they can simply crouch and shield Ivysaur's approaches on reaction. The Fox matchup is a perfect example of this and it's something I wanted to bring up. Played at a top level with proper matchup knowledge, the Fox player really shouldn't lose. The Fox can laser spam to force Ivysaur to approach (unsafely; because Ivysaur has no true safe approaches), crouch cancel or shield any move Ivy throws out, and then when Ivy tries to grab to beat the shield/CC, he can punish her insanely slow and laggy tether grab. I understand that Ivysaur's grab and tether grabs in general should be slower, and Ivysaur does get a lot off of grab on most characters, however against a fast, dash dance heavy character, Ivysaur really should never get a grab. This in my opinion is the biggest potential buff to Ivysaur...a few frames faster grab. I don't know of another character who is as weak to CC and has such a slow grab. I've had my grab beaten on reaction by other character's grabs. I've had my grab beaten ON REACTION by jabs. Personally, I would trade some of the followups from grab for a faster grab, as having good followups (note: followups on fast fallers are not as great as on mid weights) from a grab doesn't mean **** if you can't ever grab. And especially when you're a character who gets beaten by simply holding down, grabbing is pretty important.

There are other factors that Ivysaur players will complain about; tether recoveries as a whole being not so great, having issues dealing with dash dance and projectile camping...but this is the biggest issue. Obviously Ivysaur is a very odd character to balance, as you don't want to make her winning matchups any more intense. But the fact that a lot of characters can force Ivysaur to approach, and then laugh at any approach she has, strikes me as unbalanced.

 

[FreeGamer]

I did already say he did suffer in the air a bit (which admittedly doesn't make that much sense for his design) and I did say the multiples jumps and ground to air mobility only covered it a little bit and that I would not mind seeing a boost to his air mobility as a result. His low air mobility does clash with his design somewhat.

I was just mostly going over general mobility because I find Kirby mains to underrate it a bit because he does have some good grounded mobility on him.

Oh, I don't disagree with you there. I just wish his air game was similarly good in neutral. ^_^

 

[mimgrim]

I'm just curious how people feel about Ivysaur currently in 3.6 full.

I think Ivy is bottom five.

 

[FreeGamer]

Ivy seems like she's missing something. Not sure what it is. :x

 

[Chevy]

I've had my grab beaten on reaction by other character's grabs. I've had my grab beaten ON REACTION by jabs.

Not humanly possible. They're just inputting their option slightly after yours so it looks like it's on reaction.

 

[Avro-Arrow]

I know I am not the most knowledgeable(I am quite the Stream monster though >.>), but I was making a tier list just to get myself thinking about it and I came across something I wanted to ask here. Mainly about the format of it and comparison of the 2.

I started out and made this with the characters on the left generally being better. (little to no difference between Luigi and Wario, but Luigi being considered a bit better then Squirtle with not a lot of difference in the bottom of one tier to the top of the next)

In my head that is the better way, just because of how close all the characters really seem to be to me. Then I split it up into more tiers which looks like a more traditional list. Same Character placements, same left to right format, just split up more.

Even though is the exact same list per say, it can be perceived in a different manner. I guess I was wondering which format seems to display the state of the game better to you all?

If you want feel free to proclaim how this is the greatest list ever made, but that's not really the point here (I know we were all thinking how good it is though)

Just saying, Bowser shouldn't be in the same tier as Sonic.

 

[Steel Kangaroo]

Not humanly possible. They're just inputting their option slightly after yours so it looks like it's on reaction.

Ah okay I'll give you that. But my point still stands. Most other tether grab characters have insane pressure (lucas) or can actually zone/force opponents to approach (link, samus). Samus and Link both also have strong oos options to use instead of shield grab, whereas Ivysaur has...nair oos which is both on the slower side and really not a great option to beat pressure.

 

[TheGravyTrain]

@ Steel Kangaroo

Can we discuss asdi down/crouch cancel. A lot of people throw around here say their characters get beaten by it. In this specific case, I dont see it.

First, what does beating asdi down/cc entail? Is it popping up for a combo? Or is it them being unable to asdi into the ground? Maybe its just knocking them down. It can depend on the situation too.

Second, you need to consider the ramifications when they asdi down/cc. Do they punish you (cc dtilt/dsmash/grab/etc) and how severe is it. Do they asdi down + tech an still punish you? Do they shield a multi hit and avoid the strong hit by shielding?

Now for ivy specific. Why isn't dtilt good vs cc? Even at percents where it doesn't knock down, the end lag + spacing should prevent any punishment. They wont get popped for a combo, but that just means neutral is slow and boring till
it pops up. She still is weak to it, but its much more manageable than Ivy mains make it. Idk how ftilt fits into this. If ivy is struggling still, I would say speed up jab 2 so its effective v cc. Its kb is good, so this is a good place to start. Maybe some strides to make it reasonable on shield (idk where its at now). I hear ftilt got nerfed, where ivy used to deal with cc, something there as well could be changed.

tl;dr I dont think grab needs to be buffed for this reason. (an aside, I think it could be better, but that's a different conversation for another time).

 

[AuraMaudeGone]

I feel the main buff Ivy would need is that her effective zone should be better established. I like watching what @Machiavelli.CF can do with her and it seems like a reasonable quality of life buff imo.

Also

Spoiler

This question might cause a bit of a stir, but what's the point of keeping ASDI/CC around if it causes a nuisance to a chunk of the cast?
I also could imagine removing the feature would be a great hassle (esp for balance) and could very well topple the current meta.

 

[Saproling]

Just speeding her up her airiels except Nair by a few frames and making her air mobility a tiny bit better could do a lot for her

 

[Kneato]

I feel the main buff Ivy would need is that her effective zone should be better established. I like watching what @Machiavelli.CF can do with her and it seems like a reasonable quality of life buff imo.

Also

Spoiler

This question might cause a bit of a stir, but what's the point of keeping ASDI/CC around if it causes a nuisance to a chunk of the cast?
I also could imagine removing the feature would be a great hassle (esp for balance) and could very well topple the current meta.

I could agree that it could be at least weakened so that it takes less powerful knockback or lower % to break it. It is a good defensive option that adds more depth to a lot of character interactions so I don't know if removing it is the best idea, but it's current implementation makes certain characters' defensive play braindead (ie samus just CC's everything into DSmash)

 

[AuraMaudeGone]

I could agree that it could be at least weakened so that it takes less powerful knockback or lower % to break it. It is a good defensive option that adds more depth to a lot of character interactions so I don't know if removing it is the best idea, but it's current implementation makes certain characters' defensive play braindead (ie samus just CC's everything into DSmash)

To the bold: A part of me is saying why can't people just block/roll/dodge like a responsible player (in a scenario where we didn't have the option to cc/asdi down), but I see where you're coming from.

 

[mimgrim]

Also

Spoiler

This question might cause a bit of a stir, but what's the point of keeping ASDI/CC around if it causes a nuisance to a chunk of the cast?
I also could imagine removing the feature would be a great hassle (esp for balance) and could very well topple the current meta.

As the meta develops CC should become less and less of issue in the long run as players get better dealing with it and as a result use it less and less.

Just look at Melee where CC really isn't that relevant at high/top level play all that much despite the mechanic being identical.

 

[DrinkingFood]

I find that usually when somebody says CC beats their character, what they really mean is "I'm bad at stopping my autopilot approaches"

 

[TreK]

Just look at Melee where CC really isn't that relevant at high/top level play all that much despite the mechanic being identical.

Are the relevant characters in Melee weak to CC ? No.
-Spacies have un-CCable shines and dairs,
-Fox, Marth, Sheik, CF and ICs have extremely strong grab combos, you could even say grab is their main combo starter and people wouldn't laugh too much at you.
-Peach has dsmash,
-CF has Stomp,
-and all of them have standard grabs.

Are there characters which are weak to CC in Melee ? You tell me, I don't play Melee. But if the answer is yes, those are not relevant characters, those PM is balanced around. Is the fact that they are weak to CC the reason they are not relevant characters ? You tell me

And, sure, Ivy's game plan is not nearly as advanced as any of those characters I've mentionned above. CC is the kind of mechanic that invalidates moves, so you just get kinda used to never inputting the moves that are weak to it after 10+ years, and rely on the rest of the character's toolkit instead.

However, CC has been one of Ivysaur's main weaknesses ever since her release in 2.5, so it has been a strong point of focus for us to push the character. It invalidates so many of her moves that it was either "let's become razor leaf - the character" or "let's try to find answers to it, dammit".
We've tried our damnest to push her past this because it was one of the most obvious things we'd have to do to do anything with the character. There's this thread I started working on in 3.02 but never got to finish before quitting PM, and countless skype discussions on the topic.
And the opposite could be said. I can't count on my hands the amount of sets I've seen Machiavelli win against top players who didn't CC any of the relevant moves. It's even worse for JZ, every single Ivy main I've talked to is like "what he's doing should not work, wtf" (we've found some of the reasons his playstyle works since then, but the him never getting CC'd part is still up for grabs)

So let's look at Ivy :

In general, Ivy's moves are mostly multihits. There are a couple things you should know about multihits and Ivy in general :
-Firstly, look up the difference between CC and ASDI down if you haven't already. Long story short, CC is a stronger version of ASDI down, but it can only be done by actually crouching, so when you get whiff punished, the best you can do is ASDI down. Multihits break this flow. Depending on the move, either it always gets CC'd, or it always gets ASDI'd down. This conditions how dangerous the multihit's strong last hit really is (the one that matters most, the one that decides if you get punished on hit or get a follow up) : if the move can always get CC'd, then the last hit of the move is much less powerful, and can sometimes be punished on hit. It just so happens that Ivysaur has quite a few of those moves you can always CC. Even Ivysaur's notoriously "good" nair is one such move. Can't say about 3.6 ftilt since I have not played 3.6, but 3.5 ftilt and 3.6b ftilt worked that way too. Oddly enough, Ivy's jab and bair do not work that way : either you CC both hits (in which case why didn't you punish between the hits ?), or the best you can do is ASDI down the second hit.
-Secondly, there really are two kinds of multihit moves : the ones which allow you to move, and the ones which do not. If you can move, you can follow the opponent's SDI so there's a lot of interaction going on and it's pretty interesting : Ivy's nair is a good example of that, despite the "always CC" part. If you can't, those SDI multipliers better be low, because if they aren't you can probably get punished on hit by every character in the game, at every %. The only way to use the move properly and safely becomes "miss the first X hits on purpose so that the opponent doesn't have the time to SDI it". Again, Ivy's ftilt was notorious for this in 3.02 and 3.6b, can't say about 3.6 but it's probably the same.
-Finally, people CC for two main reasons : to punish, and to break combos. Generally speaking, if they're CCing in close quarters, it's the former, else it's the latter. Having your combo broken by CC is okay, mostly : you do not get hit back. You just get less bang for your buck than you otherwise would, but still get stage position, frame advantage, that sorta things. CC-punish is the thing you want to have tools against. Having no tools against this is like having no tools against shield grabs, in a sense. And being a "long range multihit" kind of character, Ivysaur happens to have a few moves that only break CC at a distance, and thus are not really useful against CC-punishes. Things that have tippers, such as dtilt and bair, have this property. Slow but powerful moves, such as fsmash and grab, also have this property. Fair would be in that category too, except it just sucks against CC in general, not being able to break it until 80% even with a proper tipper and all.

The old dash attack's strong hit was strong against CC. The new one not so much, it sends opponents backwards sometimes so that it doesn't combo, etc... The even older dash attack was even better because it could gatling combo CCers into a sweetspot usmash. But since Ivysaur's dash attack is frame 4, she's one of the very few characters who got super screwed over by 3.5's changes to DACUS mechanics. She can't gatling anymore. Any faster than that and you can still gatling, any slower than that and you never could in the first place : frame 4 dash attacks are the only ones which were able to gatling, and lost that ability.
So right now, Ivy's best tools against CC are probably nair-roll and a frame 8 dsmash that doesn't actually break CC-punishes so much as it pushes the victim too far so that their punish whiffs, lol.

Finally, there's razor leaf. I feel like people have gotten a much better understanding of this move than in the past, so it shouldn't be too surprising if I tell you this projectile sucks vs CC. Tell me if it is, but the explanation is going to be god damned long, razor leaf is many things but it is not shallow.

There's a LOT more to say about the topic of Ivy vs CC than I could possibly cover in a readable fashion. But that's the gist of it imo.

 

[mimgrim]

Are the relevant characters in Melee weak to CC ? No.

At one point some of them were weak to CC (Sheik and Marth being the main ones) in the meta until the meta finally developed more to what it is now to where CC isn't relevant because players found ways to play around it.

As a result asking "are they weak to CC currently in the meta" is the wrong question to ask, especially given the way I worded my sentence, and the answer to that is no because of how the meta has developed. The correct question would have been "were they ever weak to CC at one point in the meta" and the answer would be yes.