Tier List Speculation

[Strong Badam]

Soo... you responded to some of my post, leaving out huge chunks that remain unanswered no matter how many times they're brought up. Then you insult me. Then you insult Project M.

IT KEEPS HAPPENING

 

[Ningildo]

I really like how 99% of people advocating "Fox isn't even that good, he dies whenever he gets touched by everyone" never mention how this happens. AKA list combos that lead to death on Fox for ALL characters. Make overreaching statements if you want but at least back it up a bit.

Also, why does character xyz beat Fox? Still waiting for that from various people.

People really do ***** about Fox a lot here and I, for one, am in favor of developing metas at least a bit more before saying Fox is OP af and needs to be nerfed (despite playing a character with only one good approach and whose neutral (and said approach) get **** on by lasers). However, not being OP =/= not having questionable traits. Not just applying for Fox, also some other characters, but the main point here is that even if Fox isn't the "omg unbeatable broken piece of jank" we supposedly think he is, he still has questionable traits that need to be looked at.

Friendly reminder that being hypocritical (AKA nagging that Fox has stupid things, but conveniently ignoring other stuff (G&W recovery 9.9)) does not, in fact, remove good points brought up by the hypocrite.

 

[eideeiit]

Soo... you responded to some of my post, leaving out huge chunks that remain unanswered no matter how many times they're brought up. Then you insult me. Then you insult Project M.

IT KEEPS HAPPENING

The social thread is that way--->

 

[Shadow Light Master]

What was the last page a tier list was posted on? I'd like to look at it. Thanks.

 

[tasteless gentleman]

Fun fact, if you grab someone with olimar and they throw out a hit box. You will grab them (and the hit box) and get hit by the attack thrown out and get knocked out of the grab. So when exactly is olimars grab armour and why can people mash out at 0% before olimar can throw? Olimar grab in general is kinda bugged out.

Also if what your saying about grabs is true, bowser would have amazing grab and throw follow ups and thats just not the case. I would like to see balance in throw (normalized range in comparison to actual size of the character, seriously marth reaching out and fast is crazy compared to the inches in front of bowsers nose at the pace of a snail.

And more balanced (nerfed if needed) recoveries, i can only see a few recoveries that are not insanely safe, gain crazy distance or just do weird things that shouldnt be and im not even talking much about fox, although it is pretty good.

I really like how 99% of people advocating "Fox isn't even that good, he gets dies whenever he gets touched by everyone" never mention how this happens. AKA list combos that lead to death on Fox for ALL characters. Make overreaching statements if you want but at least back it up a bit.

Also, why does character xyz beat Fox? Still waiting for that from various people.

People really do ***** about Fox a lot here and I, for one, am in favor of developing metas at least a bit more before saying Fox is OP af and needs to be nerfed (despite playing a character with only one good approach and whose neutral (and said approach) get **** on by lasers). However, not being OP =/= not having questionable traits. Not just applying for Fox, also some other characters, but the main point here is that even if Fox isn't the "omg unbeatable broken piece of jank" we supposedly think he is, he still has questionable traits that need to be looked at.

Friendly reminder that being hypocritical (AKA nagging that Fox has stupid things, but conveniently ignoring other stuff (G&W recovery 9.9)) does not, in fact, remove good points brought up by the hypocrite.

Yes please list 0 to death combos for olimar, rob, diddy, and bowser. I'm not trolling, im legit curious.

Also please list how to win neutral with olimar and bowser again fox.

 

[MLGF]

Let me just throw out this counter argument to the "Armada deserved the win over Ally" junk

Ally, even if not primarily, plays pm. Ally knows the Fox mu, Ally is a really smart player.
I'm not trying to undermine Armada, but he doesn't know the Ike matchup at all, and with limited knowledge and basic fox stuff was able to beat ally easily. That's not to undermine that armada is likely the better player, but god damn how can anyone say that ally getting so close proves Ike gives fox problems when it's clear that armada is making bs up as it goes.

I'm on the side that this Ike ******** is stupid, but why not consider how he got away with beating ike not by knowing anything about Ike, but by using his character right.

 

[steelguttey]

Fun fact, if you grab someone with olimar and they throw out a hit box. You will grab them (and the hit box) and get hit by the attack thrown out and get knocked out of the grab. So when exactly is olimars grab armour and why can people mash out at 0% before olimar can throw? Olimar grab in general is kinda bugged out.

Also if what your saying about grabs is true, bowser would have amazing grab and throw follow ups and thats just not the case. I would like to see balance in throw (normalized range in comparison to actual size of the character, seriously marth reaching out and fast is crazy compared to the inches in front of bowsers nose at the pace of a snail.

And more balanced (nerfed if needed) recoveries, i can only see a few recoveries that are not insanely safe, gain crazy distance or just do weird things that shouldnt be and im not even talking much about fox, although it is pretty good.





Yes please list 0 to death combos for olimar, rob, diddy, and bowser. I'm not trolling, im legit curious.

Also please list how to win neutral with olimar and bowser again fox.

watching a new oli player discover he doesnt have grab armor at all is so sad

and oli legit beats fox if he has 2 purples and a blue or something, purple side b beats fox hard. so i guess just pluck purples

 

[frankxthexbunny]

How much Melee do you even play lol
People talk about Fox like he is in a state where you can perfectly flowchart the game a la Phoenix/Wesker/Haggar in MvC3.
People talk like having a gun automatically gives you godlike capabilities in neutral.

And yet, in this game, there are characters with unDIable combos with really ambiguous mix ups in between, all with low execution.
I see less commotion about dumb **** like Tink Dthrow > follow up, DK things or Ganon things than things about Fox.



ROB, Samus, Ike, Snake, Wario.
And sincerely, the rest is a debatable 5-5 if the Fox plays the matchup correctly and has knowledge, otherwise it's just a one-touch-death matchup lmao.

_______________________________________________


I seriously should start a survey asking how often people play Melee here or how much experience they have with the game. Suddenly, they play someone that has like... 10 years in the game playing Fox with good techskill and they feel entitled to win because PM is their main game, when their DI is ****, they don't know how to SDI **** and they ****ing forward smash the ledge every time instead of holding it or edgeguarding.

Yes, Fox is a good character. Yes, there are ways to tone him down without changing the core things about the character (things that the PMDT probably never tried, even though they are slowly fanservicing the community to kill Fox in a slow death). Yes, he is OU in Melee and has a lot of useful moves.

But can you please not participate in this discussion if your first Smash game was PM ? Thanks

I...umm....wow... when you talk like that sir I get a fluttery feeling inside. The part where you explained to Project M players that they are just as terrible at the game if not more so than melee players I...oh my i need to lie down

 

[tasteless gentleman]

watching a new oli player discover he doesnt have grab armor at all is so sad

and oli legit beats fox if he has 2 purples and a blue or something, purple side b beats fox hard. so i guess just pluck purples

Not new and i always knew that but i was making a point that olimars grab is a little bugged.
Side b can be reflected on reaction and immediately jump cancelled so i dont really know why you are refering to side b.
Also RNG probably wont allow you to just farm purples while fox is punching you with lasers.

 

[steelguttey]

Not new and i always knew that but i was making a point that olimars grab is a little bugged.
Side b can be reflected on reaction and immediately jump cancelled so i dont really know why you are refering to side b.
Also RNG probably wont allow you to just farm purples while fox is punching you with lasers.

shine has much more lag when it reflects, thats the worst part of the move

an thats the point, oli loses hard to fox unless rnjesus blesses u hard

 

[Kneato]

I'm going to do some research, talk to some people i trust, and then make a thread in PM General discussion about slowly but surely making all star mode the default tournament setup, the rules and such that it would entail, and the slight balancing decisions that would come with that in mind.

*Grabs Popcorn*

Oh and

if anything the fact that Ally could take games at all is indication that it's an imba matchup lol...

No one 's going to mention that Armada doesn't even practice PM and was probably learning the Ike matchup during the set?

 

[TheoryofSmaug]

What was the last page a tier list was posted on? I'd like to look at it. Thanks.

I believe I posted my most recent one on 54.

 

[Life]

I'd just like to point out that while "Fox gets TOD'd by everyone" may have been true back in the 2.X days, or even the 3.02 days, almost everybody in the cast has gotten weaker since then thanks to the PMDT aiming to remove, among other things, autocombos of more than like two hits. Guess who's the most vulnerable in the cast to autocombos? Yep, spacies.

A much better argument for Fox not being a major issue is the recently-released SoCal PR, where, of the top 20 players, only one of them plays Fox: Lucky, sitting at #1. (My weekly is lucky enough when we get 20 *entrants*...)

 

[didds]

Well I suppose we could actually try to analyze the character that we think may go even or beat fox on a more a detailed level, look for common trends or tools that are effective and then figure out why these tools work in relation to how fox plays the game.

For a really bare bones example I'll use pika. One of his major assets is the ability to close a large portion of space quickly. With tools like shffl nair/fair and qac to dsmash/anything really, pika limits the effectiveness of fox's laser game. Essentially, fox's zone of where he can safely laser is much smaller and far out. Without the constant threat of lasers, pikachu isn't like other characters who are constantly fighting from behind, so to speak. (Not to say lasers don't matter, it's still annoying percentage).

Beyond that, pikachu also has the tools to stuff fox's change of pace through ftilt, dsmash, and even usmash(there's more, defensive uairs and even retreating bairs now). Now not only does fox have to be careful with laser use at almost all times throughout the match, but he also has the threat of a character who can either overshoot approaches or play the patient game and punish fox's premature approaches.

Now this isn't unheard of either. We have characters like squirtle and sonic who probably can keep the pace with fox's neutral too. Not saying anything as fact, just want to raise the point that it doesn't all boil down to mobility.

But now we have pikachu, who also has the punish game to go with a neutral game that can go on par with fox's. And I don't mean a theoretical everyone can zero to death fox type punish, I mean an easy and feasible, not having to rely on tech chases or hard reads, type of punish game. People talk about how easy it is to kill fox but man it's the truth with pikachu. Can convert into grabs from one uair, an option that is fast and safe and can be used out of shield. And I don't think I need to elaborate on what pika earns out of a grab on fox.

Then we have the recovery aspect which is often downplayed for theory, but very important at human level. Pika isn't some falcon or sheik who is strong onstage and then dead off stage. Pikachu should pretty much get back if he's not killed outright. Every time. So now fox also loses his incredibly potent edge guarding.

So what do we have? Ability to mitigate laser game and approach. Ability to stuff fox's approach game. A powerful yet reasonable(yea we're human, this matters to us) punish game. Great survivability. Good character has good tools.

People also say m2 does well in the mu and ya know what? He seems to have a lot of the same assets.

Edit: one of fox's big strengths is his pace control between his laser game and solid approach/pressure game. Any character who can take away this total control will do well against fox, albeit in a more difficult way. Squirtle can close space for example but doesn't have as strong of pressure tools or the same punish (in today's meta) where fox has to respect it as much. I guarantee a fox will respect Pikas approach after getting zero to deathed once.

Edit2: and obviously this is a simplified version of how smash works. Fox has tools to counter some situations I brought up too. Utilt and bair walls will still stuff nair approaches and such but it is still a good thought exercise

Edit3: it may also be important to note that pikas ability to close space is stronger in a lot of ways then say Ike, who relies on burst movement. Many have mentioned the commitment Ike has with that maneuver. Since pika can act immediately out of his typical dd game, he can preserve some ambiguity and have a more potent mixup in general. For the same reasons, pika handles this aspect of the mu better than a character like m2. squirtle also excels at this aspect of the game through a combination of sling jumps, wd, and turnaround movement. Although squirtles requires much more mixup to avoid becoming predictable. DD just happened to be a great tool and this mixed with preserving aerial momentum will always be potent. It's one of the reasons Falcons and pikas can still find success in melee where characters like spacies and sheik exist, they will always have the option to cover a huge amount of space at the drop of a hat

Edit4: editssssss!!!

 

[TheoryofSmaug]

Well I suppose we could actually try to analyze the character that we think may go even or beat fox on a more a detailed level, look for common trends or tools that are effective and then figure out why these tools work in relation to how fox plays the game.

For a really bare bones example I'll use pika. One of his major assets is the ability to close a large portion of space quickly. With tools like shffl nair/fair and qac to dsmash/anything really, pika limits the effectiveness of fox's laser game. Essentially, fox's zone of where he can safely laser is much smaller and far out. Without the constant threat of lasers, pikachu isn't like other characters who are constantly fighting from behind, so to speak. (Not to say lasers don't matter, it's still annoying percentage).

Beyond that, pikachu also has the tools to stuff fox's change of pace through ftilt, dsmash, and even usmash(there's more, defensive uairs and even retreating bairs now). Now not only does fox have to be careful with laser use at almost all times throughout the match, but he also has the threat of a character who can either overshoot approaches or play the patient game and punish fox's premature approaches.

Now this isn't unheard of either. We have characters like squirtle and sonic who probably can keep the pace with fox's neutral too. Not saying anything as fact, just want to raise the point that it doesn't all boil down to mobility.

But now we have pikachu, who also has the punish game to go with a neutral game that can go on par with fox's. And I don't mean a theoretical everyone can zero to death fox type punish, I mean an easy and feasible, not having to rely on tech chases or hard reads, type of punish game. People talk about how easy it is to kill fox but man it's the truth with pikachu. Can convert into grabs from one uair, an option that is fast and safe and can be used out of shield. And I don't think I need to elaborate on what pika earns out of a grab on fox.

Then we have the recovery aspect which is often downplayed for theory, but very important at human level. Pika isn't some falcon or sheik who is strong onstage and then dead off stage. Pikachu should pretty much get back if he's not killed outright. Every time. So now fox also loses his incredibly potent edge guarding.

So what do we have? Ability to mitigate laser game and approach. Ability to stuff fox's approach game. A powerful yet reasonable(yea we're human, this matters to us) punish game. Great survivability. Good character has good tools.

People also say m2 does well in the mu and ya know what? He seems to have a lot of the same assets.

Edit: one of fox's big strengths is his pace control between his laser game and solid approach/pressure game. Any character who can take away this total control will do well against fox, albeit in a more difficult way. Squirtle can close space for example but doesn't have as strong of pressure tools or the same punish (in today's meta) where fox has to respect it as much. I guarantee a fox will respect Pikas approach have getting zero to deathed once.

Edit2: and obviously this is a simplified version of how smash works. Fox has tools to counter some situations I brought up too. Utilt and bair walls will still stuff nair approaches and such but it is still a good thought exercise

One of the best posts I've seen in a while! This is the sort of stuff that gets us somewhere, I would say that MK has the tools to go even with Fox in neutral, but lacks a great punishgame on Fox, this keeps the matchup at what o would call fairly even. MK also has a less godlike recovery than Pika.

 

[frankxthexbunny]

*Grabs Popcorn*

I'm going to do some research, talk to some people i trust, and then make a thread in PM General discussion about slowly but surely making all star mode the default tournament setup, the rules and such that it would entail, and the slight balancing decisions that would come with that in mind.

Here it is: my proposed project M ruleset. All tournaments should be All Star Mode. Every single one.

http://smashboards.com/threads/all-...ancing-project-m-a-tournament-ruleset.419124/

 

[didds]

One of the best posts I've seen in a while! This is the sort of stuff that gets us somewhere, I would say that MK has the tools to go even with Fox in neutral, but lacks a great punishgame on Fox, this keeps the matchup at what o would call fairly even. MK also has a less godlike recovery than Pika.

I agree as far as neutral goes and as of now I also agree with punishing. Fox's punishes on mk are a lot more straightforward so I think he definitely gets more at the moment. With time though I don't think this will be the case. I picture mk's punish on fox to develop in a similar way to sheiks punish game. Tech chasing at low percent, tilt pop ups to expand combos, knock off stage repeatedly for edge guarding opportunities.

Mk recovery isn't as good as pikas but who's is right? Overall I think his recovery mixup still puts mk in a better place then a lot of other characters. Does he beat fox? Prolly more evenish like you said, but kind of on the same track as my original post, he is a character with a good mix of tools that can actually counter what fox has to throw at you.

In general I think a lot of characters who rely on tech chasing to build early percent will have delayed progression of punish meta. It simply takes longer to figure out the best ways to cover the most amount of tech options while also preserving your ability to expand the punish from that point.

We have sheiks that still lazy cover tech in place with dsmash when they have a read and have the opportunity to get more out of that read. Characters like mk and squirtle will get there eventually. Then they'll seem super broken. Then counter play will or won't become mainstream and people will shout or not and who knows which way the wind blows.

Crazy game is crazy and we have a lot to learn. A bunch of us have some smash concepts and ideas down really well while having huge holes in our thinking that we don't even realize. That's the cool thing about so many character, we're all forced to approach the game in different ways and discover and learn about different aspects because of this game.

I personally love when someone gives me a lightbulb moment, like to be discussing and suddenly realize you didn't even think about a huge aspect of the game that is relevant to the conversation in progress. "Like dang, I totally get why you see things this way now!"

Back and forth back and forth, it would work better if people were better at suppressing their urge to insult people because they can't fathom how they arrived to such an opinion. 9 times outta 10 people kind of agree about the same general concepts, but either it is articulated poorly or certain aspects of The discussion are subjectively more important to opposing parties. Then people quantify things differently without anyone communicating why these unspoken things are important in their opinion.

Then we get proud and argue just not to be wrong, rather than to open perspectives and learn off eachother like we should do.

Edit: went a bit off topic, Ive actually been going back and forth between if I think pika does better against fox or Falco and I'm inclined to think that Falco actually does better against the rat. I'll expand if someone wants but long story short, lasers shut down a lot of pikas movement is a huge part of my opinion. Fox's main advantage in the mu are his more reliable kill options through usmash and uair and that his upb can provide a little more recovery mixup. Neutral wise tho, I fear the Falco laser shut down more than fox's speed, which is amazing but isolated to fox's immediate vicinity. Falco can control pikas movement from anywhere excluding the sweet spot in front of him. Basically pikachu has to stay close enough where lasers are perfectly safe, but far enough that Falco can't easily begin aerial shine pressure. Tricky neutral game to maintain compared to fox where backing off isn't completely horrible for pika.

 

[JOE!]

Related to Pika chat, but doesn;t Thunderjolt do 10% a pop and travel in cool ways? How come I never see it mentioned as a cool projectile?

 

[didds]

Related to Pika chat, but doesn;t Thunderjolt do 10% a pop and travel in cool ways? How come I never see it mentioned as a cool projectile?

It's very niche, but does have cool uses. Grounded characters are forced to navigate it's travel path but it's more of a pestering tool since the end lag is too long to really follow up on the trouble it creates. One exception is the occasional approaching full jump thunder jolt where pika basically follows the jolts trajectory. Can throw people off and force shield. Again though, if it's read the opponent just runs under and punishes the landing.

It's going to lose to almost all other projectiles though since it's probably one of the least spamable in the game.

If anything, it's best uses are off stage. It's one of the few projectiles the can hit below stage like sheiks needles and if recoveries are slow, it never hurts to have more hitboxes out to funnel recoveries. Above all though, I use it the most to cover my own recovery.

Anyone who is familiar with pika knows that they need to grab ledge. Without it, pikachu loses what makes his recovery godlike. So pikachu uses his double jump to throw a jolt at the edge and it forces one of 3 things.

1) if the opponent is super on point they refresh their ledge invincibility and pika is forced on stage and can be punished. (Colbol is great to watch in his melee sets against axe if you want to learn how to edgeguard pika.)

2) they're forced to roll up or let go of ledge however they feel and now pikas recovery is basically free.

3)they get clipped and drop below ledge due to the weak knock back, now they have to worry about being offstage with a pika who can literally grab ledge in a second from the widest range of positions in the entire game. Seriously, pikas sweet spot ability outclasses the entire cast.

The move is in a good place. It has clear and effective uses without being spamable and busted. As far as cool goes, I think it's super cool and has some of the most interesting projectile properties in the game. I mean the move is a ball one second and then it's ****in bouncing around and **** on the ground all of a sudden!

Edit: I think it's also worth mentioning that part of what makes pika's recovery extra amazing is how quickly he can utilize the ledge to reverse pressure. Reverse uair is great on its own, but then pikas ledge dash is also incredible.

I mean, he's a character who can grab ledge, ledge dash into an immediate shffl nair and regain center stage within such a short period of time. Combined with qac mixup and his ledge jump, it almost puts pika at an advantage while on ledge. And seriously his ledge jump is so good. One of the few ledge jumps that was even a staple in his melee kit. He's got his low mixup with the shffl nair I mentioned (not even bringing up all of his other ledge dash options, ftilt dtilt usmash dsmash grab pretty much anything), but then has the option to basically jump over any defensive hit box and then immediately come down with uair which is one of the best combo starters in the game.

This guy is seriously good, has a tool to use for every situation, just takes a very strong mixup game on a personal level, and the tech skill to actually utilize his entire kit.

Edit: alright I'm tapped out, join me next time in another exciting episode of, "hey look, a pika main talking about pika stuff" where I again discuss characters that I like and think are neat

 

[tasteless gentleman]

I want to play a game, lets post characters and see how they can win against s tiers?

I nominate bowser first.... go

 

[didds]

I want to play a game, lets post characters and see how they can win against s tiers?

I nominate bowser first.... go

Are you like asking how would a bowser have to play to win the mu? I'm a little unclear on what you mean

 

[frankxthexbunny]

What's his face says that falco is bowser's easiest matchup, but you'll have to ask him once he wakes up from his rage nap in the fallout of his argument with strongbad

 

[didds]

No need to rehash old arguments for the sole sake of taking a quick shot at someone, let's just proceed with productive discussion instead. Id rather avoid decending back into the same mosh pit that made up most of the last couple pages of this thread

 

[frankxthexbunny]

No need to rehash old arguments for the sole sake of taking a quick shot at someone, let's just proceed with productive discussion instead. Id rather avoid decending back into the same mosh pit that made up most of the last couple pages of this thread

i'm sure, I didn't expect pointing out that zigludo had an argument would be the same thing as rehashing that argument. It happened. Don't need to deny it, but we can be productive about what we do about it instead, because i''ll be damned if there won't be another heated "fox is S tier, fox hasn't been s tier since melee" debate in the future.

But yueah just ask him about falco

 

[didds]

i'm sure, I didn't expect pointing out that zigludo had an argument would be the same thing as rehashing that argument. It happened. Don't need to deny it, but we can be productive about what we do about it instead, because i''ll be damned if there won't be another heated "fox is S tier, fox hasn't been s tier since melee" debate in the future.

But yueah just ask him about falco

I actually worded that funny, my b. I didn't mean the root argument as much as the feelings of animosity that it resulted in. But I think we're on the same page regardless

 

[tasteless gentleman]

Are you like asking how would a bowser have to play to win the mu? I'm a little unclear on what you mean

My bad. Yes like play by play how would bowser deal with something that absolutely wrecks him. Like foxes neutral game, or falcos laser approaches, or metaknight reaction down throw tech chases, S tier stuff ya know?

 

[didds]

My bad. Yes like play by play how would bowser deal with something that absolutely wrecks him. Like foxes neutral game, or falcos laser approaches, or metaknight reaction down throw tech chases, S tier stuff ya know?

So essentially what I did for pikachu but expanding to other characters

 

[nimigoha]

Crawl>lasers, DA>SHL. Then it's just up to you to get a bunch off of combos. I dunno.

Plus Bowser can edgeguard the crap out of Falco, like everyone else can but still. His crouch can override Falco's usually great neutral game so the matchup is pretty good I'd say.

Played the second best Melee player in Ottawa a few weeks ago in a PM tournament. He's an ICs main in Melee but had a very technical Falco. I counterpicked him to Warioland with Bowser, I three stocked him, then we went to FD and he narrowly clutched it out.

But compared to someone like Wolf or Fox the matchup seems decent.

 

[tasteless gentleman]

Crawl>lasers, DA>SHL. Then it's just up to you to get a bunch off of combos. I dunno.

Plus Bowser can edgeguard the crap out of Falco, like everyone else can but still. His crouch can override Falco's usually great neutral game so the matchup is pretty good I'd say.

Played the second best Melee player in Ottawa a few weeks ago in a PM tournament. He's an ICs main in Melee but had a very technical Falco. I counterpicked him to Warioland with Bowser, I three stocked him, then we went to FD and he narrowly clutched it out.

But compared to someone like Wolf or Fox the matchup seems decent.

Falco was a bad example as i dont fully beleive he is s-tier so that is my fault for giving that example.
Lets try something else because this is not quite taken the way i meant it. Bowser against...

Fox?
Meta knight?
Diddy?
Tink?
Ice climbers?

80-20 match ups basically.

 

[_Chrome]

Well I suppose we could actually try to analyze the character that we think may go even or beat fox on a more a detailed level, look for common trends or tools that are effective and then figure out why these tools work in relation to how fox plays the game.

For a really bare bones example I'll use pika. One of his major assets is the ability to close a large portion of space quickly. With tools like shffl nair/fair and qac to dsmash/anything really, pika limits the effectiveness of fox's laser game. Essentially, fox's zone of where he can safely laser is much smaller and far out. Without the constant threat of lasers, pikachu isn't like other characters who are constantly fighting from behind, so to speak. (Not to say lasers don't matter, it's still annoying percentage).

Beyond that, pikachu also has the tools to stuff fox's change of pace through ftilt, dsmash, and even usmash(there's more, defensive uairs and even retreating bairs now). Now not only does fox have to be careful with laser use at almost all times throughout the match, but he also has the threat of a character who can either overshoot approaches or play the patient game and punish fox's premature approaches.

Now this isn't unheard of either. We have characters like squirtle and sonic who probably can keep the pace with fox's neutral too. Not saying anything as fact, just want to raise the point that it doesn't all boil down to mobility.

But now we have pikachu, who also has the punish game to go with a neutral game that can go on par with fox's. And I don't mean a theoretical everyone can zero to death fox type punish, I mean an easy and feasible, not having to rely on tech chases or hard reads, type of punish game. People talk about how easy it is to kill fox but man it's the truth with pikachu. Can convert into grabs from one uair, an option that is fast and safe and can be used out of shield. And I don't think I need to elaborate on what pika earns out of a grab on fox.

Then we have the recovery aspect which is often downplayed for theory, but very important at human level. Pika isn't some falcon or sheik who is strong onstage and then dead off stage. Pikachu should pretty much get back if he's not killed outright. Every time. So now fox also loses his incredibly potent edge guarding.

So what do we have? Ability to mitigate laser game and approach. Ability to stuff fox's approach game. A powerful yet reasonable(yea we're human, this matters to us) punish game. Great survivability. Good character has good tools.

People also say m2 does well in the mu and ya know what? He seems to have a lot of the same assets.

Edit: one of fox's big strengths is his pace control between his laser game and solid approach/pressure game. Any character who can take away this total control will do well against fox, albeit in a more difficult way. Squirtle can close space for example but doesn't have as strong of pressure tools or the same punish (in today's meta) where fox has to respect it as much. I guarantee a fox will respect Pikas approach after getting zero to deathed once.

Edit2: and obviously this is a simplified version of how smash works. Fox has tools to counter some situations I brought up too. Utilt and bair walls will still stuff nair approaches and such but it is still a good thought exercise

Edit3: it may also be important to note that pikas ability to close space is stronger in a lot of ways then say Ike, who relies on burst movement. Many have mentioned the commitment Ike has with that maneuver. Since pika can act immediately out of his typical dd game, he can preserve some ambiguity and have a more potent mixup in general. For the same reasons, pika handles this aspect of the mu better than a character like m2. squirtle also excels at this aspect of the game through a combination of sling jumps, wd, and turnaround movement. Although squirtles requires much more mixup to avoid becoming predictable. DD just happened to be a great tool and this mixed with preserving aerial momentum will always be potent. It's one of the reasons Falcons and pikas can still find success in melee where characters like spacies and sheik exist, they will always have the option to cover a huge amount of space at the drop of a hat

Edit4: editssssss!!!

How many times am I allowed to like this? This was a very well thought out post, on topic, and helped me learn a lot about pikachu I didn't already know. Kudos to you.

 

[didds]

How many times am I allowed to like this? This was a very well thought out lost, on topic, and helped me learn a lot about pikachu I didn't already know. Kudos to you.

I find the easiest way to end a slump on the thread is to just start ranting about what you know, which for me are hipster characters. It's also nice that pika gets very little exposure in general so it's refreshing for most

 

[mimgrim]

People who say Bowser beats Falco are too enthralled by Bowser crouching laser.

Falco has other **** to use on Bowser too (like Shine, which will break CC and still break crawl armor pretty early still), you know.

And Falco still doesn't have to approach because he still has a projectile that all Bowser can really do against is crawl. And if Falco use laser in range of Bowser's dash attack or w/e other move then that is the Falco's fault for making the bad play.

Bowser only wins the spacie MUs against low and mid level players and MU inexperience on mid-high players and above. He might go even with on small stages though, I'll say that at least.

 

[Avro-Arrow]

Yeah, Pika's totally in my top10 characters list now. And you were right about the allusion to Sonic, you gotta work for the punish game and their neutrals are comparable. Watching Axe is part of how I learned how to play as Sonic actually.

 

[Soft Serve]

please list 0 to death combos for olimar, rob, diddy, and bowser. I'm not trolling, im legit curious.

For diddy it's a lot easier when when you can start it where there are no platforms in the way. At zero you have to get a grab>dthrow (for the knock down at zero) or get a banana or other stray hit>grab, then you upthrow tech chase them till around 40, dthrowing at lower % if there's a platform (like up until 25ish you want to dthrow) because upthrow can be harder to platform tech chase with, diddy has a good amount of end lag animation on throws. At around 38ish if there's no platform above you, you can uptilt after upthrow, it will hit no di and you can still tech chase di in/out. Upthrow chaingrab starts at like, 44 % on no di or do in, closer to 50 if fox dis away. Then you chain grab and platform tech chase until you run out of stage or want to end it early to catch bad di. You ca upthrow fair until around I want to say 130%, upthrow pivot fsmash towards the closer ledge at around 80 can catch horrible DI and close out stocks, just be careful of the fox sdiing out and punishing it on hit.

There's other ways of getting the fox to higher %s other than upthrow tech chasing, you can get a trip or a raw side b, fast fall jab reset (if they tech you just go into normal tech chases) dair (sh instant dair let's you double jump dair/nair/hit them to a platform, shffl dair let's you do more grounded options) to combo. Banana does 8%, Side b attack is like, 12% iirc, jab 3/4, Strong hitbox of dair is 15, every aerial does at least 12 on strong hit, so that sequence if they miss the tech and do not asdi down the dair puts the fox into the % where upthrow chain grabs and platform tech chases to regrab are free. Uptilt is okay out of upthrow for good %s but most spaces I've played DI horribly when getting chainggrabbed and uptilt juggled. Fox should pretty much always DI away unless it's at zero (spacies can shine diddy out of upthrow at zero if they di slight in), and he should treat the uptilt like it is a marth uptilt, di in and diddy doesn't get much off of it. Diddy combos on fox are very sequenced and can either look impossible or free af depending on how you get those low % hits and convertions in. It's hard to get anything going off not grabs at %s where fox can asdi down/cc everything and it looks like garbage. But if you catch fox not doing proper counter play and you get like, sh double bair > glide toss>dtilt grab, bam he is at chaingrab %s and the punish game looks free af when it isnt. Won't talk about diddy edge guarding fox because that's really intricate lol.

But basically: dthrow/banana hit confirm into grab, 4 upthrow tech chases, upthrow chaingrab/platform tech chases till 75, upthrow pivot fsmash. Might have to cut it short and do upthrow nair>fair at the ledge.

 

[didds]

I actually used a lot of axe videos as inspiration for squirtles neutral too, there are a lot of similarities between the two as far as opening up your opponent goes and you don't need to necessarily watch videos of the character you're learning to find inspiration.

A lot of my biggest personal break throughs came about by playing one character, figuring out something effective and why it was effective, and then taking this new idea and working it into another characters game plan.

Like I messed around with dk and his bair walls and ended up using the same type of spacing tactics with squirtle. Turned out that it was one of my missing pieces in the spacie mu since I could approach and take space, but struggled with the rushdown from my opponent. Saw how effective dk could wall them out in this way, figured it should work for squirtle too, and it did.

Obviously this is a simplified version of progressing and everything still requires mixup to be effective, but point is that it could have taken much longer to make this break through if I never tried a character where the tactic was a necessity.

It's like some fox mains who never use utilt. They are able to find enough success through other means that they're never forced to incorporate new tools. Not realizing that this tool they never use may be just what they need to help out in a particularly difficult mu.

Bringing back the pika example, a fox trying to deal with shffl nairs with nothing but dashing away or his own nair is going to have a hard time with pikas approach. But if he's still managing to win or keep it close, he may never bother trying to figure out a better way to handle that specific situation, even if a tool like utilt, which is amazing at stuffing this approach, exists.

Maybe if they try Mario they'll be forced into using utilt since he doesn't quite have the same tools as fox where he can just outrun the approach or out prioritize it with his own nair. Figure out utilt is great, realizes that fox can actually do the same, returns to his main with one more tool on the table and a new understanding of why this new tool is effective

Edit: maybe I'm not tapped out

 

[Zigludo]

Soo... you responded to some of my post, leaving out huge chunks that remain unanswered no matter how many times they're brought up. Then you insult me. Then you insult Project M.

there weren't any insults in that post. I insinuated some things you may not have enjoyed hearing:

-you misquoted me,

-I believe that you're emotionally attached to the idea of Fox being OP/broken,

-you disingenuously implied that Armada's Fox was less practiced than Ally's Ike,

-you aren't as good at PM as Sosa is (especially Wario into Fox where Sosa has a winning record against Lucky),

-not every good player agrees with you concerning Fox

-Project M is nowhere near as popular as Melee or Smash 4 (although I personally enjoy playing PM more than Melee or 4)

-you were probably sleepy at the time

but none of those are insults or even close to being insults.

I didn't address all of your points because I went to sleep. Concerning the question of "why don't people complain about Marth/Falco/Falcon/Peach et al in PM" I would say that those characters have much less visible tournament placings since the top Melee players that actually bother with studying, practicing and learning PM in this patch (m2k, Lucky) just happen to lean mostly on Fox in tournament play, as opposed to those who treat PM as just a side version of Melee that can ocasionally yield some free cash at a major (Armada, Mango, Leffen, Hungrybox). The best Falco/Marth player hasn't even entered a single PM tournament in 2015. Who's the best Falco in PM.... Larry? Who's the best Marth.... who?

furthermore I would say that the fact that people (such as yourself) are complaining only about Fox and not the other Melee top-tiers does not mean that you're correct. it just means that there are a lot of you, which doesn't actually support your argument.

2. User putting forth argument is lazy.

you are correct in one regard though, I am not about to make an analysis video of Ally vs Armada and describe every single point where Armada outplayed Ally or where Ally used the options available to him incorrectly just to support my argument, because that would take a very long time and nobody that I'm aware of cares about this argument/this game enough to put that much effort into an argument about it - not you, and not me either. we're on equal footing in terms of laziness because despite all the arguing we've done, neither one of us has made an analysis of the set.

in fact I would say that there's probably nobody at all who is willing to go through that much effort to argue with you. if you're waiting for me to insult you, this is as close as I'll come: you have a very dismissive, sassy, presumptuous and annoying attitude about the balance and design of the game and you make discussion difficult for all parties involved. you tell off MTL Kyle for double posting and discouraging open discussion, but then at the bottom of the same page you ****post with a bigass SBaHJ gif and say that people who disagree with you make "good players (such as yourself) want to claw their eyes out", which is exactly the same as saying "You are bad at the game if you disagree with me".

I don't know if you were always this way or if it's a result of having three different special little badges and a red-colored name attached to every post you make, but either way it just makes people not want to deal with you, and the sycophantic anti-Fox brigade doesn't help. if that's your objective - to make people want to stop talking to you - then, congrats. you did it.

 

[frankxthexbunny]

so... how bout that jigglypuff? Do you think hbox only did so well because he's hbox?

 

[_Chrome]

0.o

Anyways, that pika-fox though, amiriteguiz? Or we can talk about MK-Fox, or the tier list or hipster characters...

No? Okay, imma go to class now.

 

[steelguttey]

tiers arent ordered, only the first and last characters of each tier are, the rest is interchangeable. yes, a tier has 17 characters. i guess i could split it in half into a+ a- but im lazy so this is what u get. if u want me to explain stuff just call me out on it i guess.

 

[nimigoha]

View attachment 75844
tiers arent ordered, only the first and last characters of each tier are, the rest is interchangeable. yes, a tier has 17 characters. i guess i could split it in half into a+ a- but im lazy so this is what u get. if u want me to explain stuff just call me out on it i guess.

Looks good, looks good...

DK worst character.

Come ooooooooooooooon. Bowser is so so so much worse than DK. Like I don't see any argument where Bowser is better, he has like no neutral game and his punish game is less flexible and his recovery is much worse.

Guys I wrote like 5000 words on this a few pages back.