Tier List Speculation

[Narelex]

On that note, did you know that Bowser can now run offstage and reverse side-B to grab ledge?

Also @Nausicaa is completely insane, but mostly right, as usual. I want cool toys pls

Also, I've been strongly considering beginning a podcast that's all about the niche cool stuff, and in-depth matchup analysis and demonstration via netplay/screencap. Not just for Bowser. I want to do my best to advance the meta basically, and help people do more cool stuff in general.

@anyone: If that sounds like your bag, please get in touch.

I'm local and always wanting to advance my own game (the grind never stops) and the MK community in general. If you need me give me a holler.

 

[Xykness]

One of my favorite parts of this game is discovering new tech, strategies, combos, punishes, mix-ups, etc... I never want to be in a position where I just show up to tournaments and auto-pilot based on what I already know. I never want to become comfortable with where I am at as a player. I want to challenge myself to learn more and grow! It amazes me that a lot of players have stopped "labbing" with their characters. I have grown as a player the more and more I discover things about my own characters and the characters I have to fight against.

One thing I love is that character discussion groups have grown on Skype. I have seen for myself the ways that this can challenge players to learn more about their characters, develop their own play-style, and challenge themselves to think outside of the box and to not have a one-tracked mind.

It is also cool when you can watch just the game-play and know exactly who the player is behind the character based off of how they are playing that character. People have been discovering new ways to use characters and I can't see there ever being an "optimal" strategy or play-style when it comes to characters. It will be the one's who think outside of the box that have the upper-hand on their opponent and challenge them to think differently.

GET CREATIVE

 

[Shokio]

People forget that this game is not complete.

 

[MagnesD3]

People forget that this game is not complete.

Its going to take years before this thing is perfect....

 

[InfinityCollision]

It will never be perfect, but that's part of the fun.

 

[MagnesD3]

It will never be perfect, but that's part of the fun.

Well as close as one can get to perfection at least. AKA every character can win a high level tournament. The only game that I know of that is relatively close to this goal is USF4.

 

[NW_Gump]

Well as close as one can get to perfection at least. AKA every character can win a high level tournament. The only game that I know of that is relatively close to this goal is USF4.

Definitely not, Virtua Fighter 5: FS, Tekken Tag 2, even other 2D games like Guilty Gear, KOF, and Skullgirls are all better balanced than USF4. Potemkin is more likely to win a major than a Deejay in USF4.

 

[Boiko]

Not only is that wrong, it's wrong IN HIGH DEFINITION™

Ow, my heart.

 

[Juushichi]

Plz don't take that advice from nausicaa and try new things. Having fun in Super Smash Brothers is for nerds.

Don't expand your mind. Expand your dong. Thank you for reading my important PSA.

Meanwhile, in Captain Falcon land, I get to do the same stuff while you jabronis gotta evolve some new meta or something blah blah lot of work. Damn I'm glad this character is good

Edit: Uthrow nerf on Falcon won't save your character, where is your god now?!?

To be fair, expanding your mind is more or less expanding your dong when it comes to Falcon.

His improvements are more or less finding more ways to be less interactive with you in every part of the game. Better ways to dance out of your range, better ways to cover options on your techs, more streamlined ways for you to eat knee, stomp or upair until you die.

 

[Frost | Odds]

Not only is that wrong, it's wrong IN HIGH DEFINITION™

Oops, I forgot that you could do it with that 1 frame window, or miss it and die. My B :x

EDIT: that would accidentally happen sometimes when I was trying to boost my B-reverse klaw by the ledge, but it wasn't a reliable tool to use intentionally. Now it is. You're technically correct, but I stand by my statement that it wasn't a reasonable thing to use in 3.5.

 

[NWRL]

Definitely not, Virtua Fighter 5: FS, Tekken Tag 2, even other 2D games like Guilty Gear, KOF, and Skullgirls are all better balanced than USF4. Potemkin is more likely to win a major than a Deejay in USF4.

Tag 2 is not more balanced than USFIV LMAO

Rest of the games are pretty accurate though

 

[didds]

discussion is time consuming

Good players who are able to develop characters independently are in less need of discussion

It makes sense that the boards may seem a little dead

I know plenty of local players who are making developments with relatively rare characters, doing things I haven't seen on any stream, heck we've got an icy main even

It's not ideal, but I guess I can see why the boards aren't thriving for a lot of characters, most people who are there are looking to learn but all of the people who have learned are more interested in just playing the game.

I'm guilty of it myself, I just don't like taking the time to type stuff I already know and incorporate.

Most discussion is irl and more natural... Maybe Skype groups are the real answer.

 

[steelguttey]

skype groups are da troof

im starting to join skype groups for characters i dont even play just to learn ****

 

[MLGF]

Yeah... Honestly I never care much for these guides and stuff

Is it weird I've gone through all of pm fine just playing characters and thinking "this feels good, i should play around to see how good it is" I rarely follow guides and I rarely post anything resembling advice outside of "this is good, so do that"

The game gets boring when you just play optimal or follow the top players style, pm is so new that you can follow your own gameplan once you understand the basics of the character. So just going with what feels like it works is the most fun part,and so me not posting advice for other players on character boards is because I don't really care for it.

And posting advice would take away from the time in my schedule for ****posting

 

[didds]

Yeah... Honestly I never care much for these guides and stuff

Is it weird I've gone through all of pm fine just playing characters and thinking "this feels good, i should play around to see how good it is" I rarely follow guides and I rarely post anything resembling advice outside of "this is good, so do that"

The game gets boring when you just play optimal or follow the top players style, pm is so new that you can follow your own gameplan once you understand the basics of the character. So just going with what feels like it works is the most fun part,and so me not posting advice for other players on character boards is because I don't really care for it.

And posting advice would take away from the time in my schedule for ****posting

Not weird at all, smash started up with people playing like this, not by starting guides and talking on forums. It could be argued that it makes more sense to explore this way with a game that has such a young meta

 

[steelguttey]

so pika has the qac infinite on d3
@Ripple

 

[InfinityCollision]

It certainly makes more sense. I tend to avoid getting too specific with my information for more or less that reason. The information retains value longer because I'm not limiting its scope to specific details, and it encourages other people to think about it and find applications for themselves. Maybe even stuff I hadn't thought of, who knows?

Skype groups can be both good and bad. I'm in one now that's pretty good, but I used to be in the Mewtwo group and it was awful. Either way, lack of documentation becomes an issue; they're good for discussing things but at some point the distilled information should find its way to more permanent and publicly available locations. Reddit has similar issues with how transient its content is. I've always thought of documenting and sharing knowledge as something of a responsibility... besides, teaching presents its own sort of learning opportunity. Both in the sense of what I mentioned above and because it leads you to critically re-evaluate what you've found.

Oh, I was going to say a thing:

Also just would like to point out that the ones that produce content are the ones that are passionate. These guys usually also want to win real hard. So I wonder what characters offer the greatest chances of success... (Or at least perceived such.)

There's a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy at work here.

The ones to break it are the ones that prove the awesomeness and effectiveness of their characters to the people. Like I guess Sethlon and Junebug. Ripple too. Others too. It was the same in Melee to some degree too, wasn't it? How many years did it take for jiggs to get promoted to top tier?

While true, PM's dedication to balance and diversity caters to the character specialist. There's more incentive to play a "cool" character than you might find elsewhere, and more long-term reward for doing so. I don't play Mewtwo because he's good, I play him because he's fascinating and full of cool tricks. I didn't switch off ZSS because of tier placement, but because I find her vastly less interesting/flavorful and fun post-3.5. My pocket characters are all fun, I'm just not at a point where I want to dedicate more time to them right now.

 

[didds]

Perfect, I was just wondering how to beat all of those dedede mains

 

[TimeMuffinPhD]

@ InfinityCollision Yer dead to me. You just made me feel more terrible than I already did about the state of wolf and the wolf forums. They were pretty much dead when I first got here and still dead now, especially the match up thread. I created it to revive a thread that seemed dead and some people came out the woodwork but ultimately not enough was done and it's mainly my fault.

@ TimeMuffinPhD was already a leader there and I don't know where he is now but other than him and chef2, anyone who came to the thread either didn't frequent it or was just visiting one of our few character specific match up threads. No real activity or real development. To be honest the best thing that we have on that thread is the shield pressure guide chef2 made for wolf. Otherwise not much info is being spread outside the skype group, and most players who don't know wolf just flock to chillin who barely plays it anyway.

As such, I feel like all the beginner or new wolf players don't play him because to be completely honest, it's stupid hard to try and develop characters and the fact that the most known player is actually just a fox player, there is no reason to develop or discover the character over fox and falco. And at the heart of this, I think this is mostly my fault. Sure I can make the excuse of that I have no time no, I ****ing hate the spoiler system in smashboards, etc, but when it comes down to it, me and the other wolf community leaders really don't do enough. And this is honestly true for all forums.

With melee top tiers, you either don't really do much development on the character, or you just go to the melee forums. With characters that are eclipsed by better similar characters(wolf) no one actually plays the character and so the forums dies because no one visits or wants to develop it. If your character is considered low tier garbage, true or not (Bowser, Icies), you've got **** for development since no one plays low tiers unless they are casuals (stereotype but there is a trend) and to be completely honest, no casual would visit the technical, theorycrafting part of the game. Only a few characters like squirtle have people actively devoping and advertising their character constantly but we still ***** aand moan about how our characters are getting no development.

We have to advertise. We have to promote. Instead of making 500 gfys of some cool combo with no DI or teching etc on places that people are more lkely to frequent, we need to post knowledge. We need to post tips. No one is willing to lab because melee players have done it for them and the thought of that is daunting. Who am I, one small person, to try and lab and discover the potential of this character? You are pone person, but there is more than you. Chef2 was one person. TimeMuffin is one person. Thane is one person. Infinity is one person. I'M ONE PERSON. But Mango is also one person. ZeRo is also one person. M2K IS ALSO ONE PERSON.

But the characters didn't develop by just one person. It was multiple, tens, twenties, hundreds. these forums are one of the best places to promote info. We need to make it clear that if ther is some weird, obscure, unknown glitch or technique you just discovered in your mothers basement, then you need to post it. You need to make it known, It might be ****ing useless. It might be pointless. But I guarantee you that it does so much more than one more gfycat of a combo or one more meme. Nausica is right. We play this game to do cool ****. But we need more guys like @odds to help discover the cool ****. The practical ****. The ****ty, disgusting **** so that we can use it, clean it, polish, and hang that **** up.


edit: also @Soft Serve is the homie in the wolf forums as well. Sorry for not crediting you earlier

edit 2: line breaks edition

I probably could do more, but tbh I'd rather help myself than others right now. I've done a fair bit, and I've shown that people do need to step up in lots of ways. I've only been playing for a little over a year now, I'm still learning the game and wanting to do well in tournaments; meanwhile I'm helping other people. What I'm saying is I'm not prepared to write everything about Wolf to people, I will always answer questions, but as far as I'm concerned this isn't my problem; to put it bluntly. Also Melee is hard too lol.

 

[NW_Gump]

Tag 2 is not more balanced than USFIV LMAO

Rest of the games are pretty accurate though

With the exception of Doctor B. who's supposed to be a joke character, every character is viable. Bronson Tran got second place at evo last year using True Ogre, there's a high level korean player who plays with Roger Jr., the best player in the world doesn't use mishimas or Armor king, he uses Ganryu. For a game with a gigantic cast and having a notable player for almost every character, I definitely think it's more balanced than USF4. USF4 has far more skewed matchups as well (e.g. Dhalsim vs. Hakan).

 

[1FD]

http://smashboards.com/threads/contact-balls-all-pm-related-contact-info-help-fill-it.350666/

 

[TheGravyTrain]

The Squirtle slack is pretty decent, haven't joined anything other then the Meta Knight slack, so I dont have too much comparison. And as for saving stuff, you can save stuff from slack to the 20SS reddit or pin it in slack (thank you based daftatt). Works pretty well, but I guess it would be better to ask a newer player in there and see how much past convos they would have liked to read.

As an aside, debug mode is an incredibly useful tool. If you are anywhere between prepping for first tourney to master senpai of your character, this tool is incredible. Yall should use this more...

 

[Juushichi]

tbh, i think that PM rewards the character generalist more than the specialist. but that is just me. you can do either if you or your character is good enough, i guess.

 

[InfinityCollision]

The character generalist is only rewarded in the sense that they're less behind the curve in PM right now since even the specialists are still freestyling for the most part and haven't fully tapped into their options yet. I don't think that will bear out long term. Dual maining will likely be a different story but we're a ways off from that I think.

 

[Frost | Odds]

tbh, i think that PM rewards the character generalist more than the specialist. but that is just me. you can do either if you or your character is good enough, i guess.

That depends mostly on the viability of the character that the specialist chooses in the current meta, imo. If it can beat everyone in the cast: great! If not: you dun goof'd.

 

[G13_Flux]

the character generalist, imo, typically has a better understanding of MUs, character to character interaction, fundamentals, and boils their game down more towards "how can i beat this player?" as opposed to "how can i beat this character?" this is not a law of smash, so dont think that just because someone plays 10 different characters, means they fall into what ive described. But I think theres a high correlation. the more you can proficiently develop a playstlye (or playstyles) that allow you to use different tools effectively in many different situations, you are gaining a lot more experience than if you were just seeing those tools be used from the perspective of one or two characters.

you can spend a long time building one building that is meant to outshine the rest, but what are the chances that that building will cater to the needs of every single person? or you can build 5 buildings that collectively, cater to the needs of all, even if each individual building isnt as nice looking, useful, or efficient as the single, amazing one. its a loose analogy, but it gets the point across

if you can proficiently develop more characters, youre going to have more experience on what it takes to make a character proficient. maybe you havent quite gotten to the point of developping extreme, subtle nuances that make a single character masterful, but you have a much clearer vision of what nuances DO make characters masterful.

if a mountain has 10 paths up to the top, and you happen to pick a single path that leads to you straight to the summit the first time, how much did you actually learn about the mountain? if instead you've wandered 5 of the paths, maybe not quite reaching the summit in any of the ventures, you still have seen far more of the mountain and a good deal of the upper portion (and can make a good estimate of how the summit will look).

 

[Flippy Flippersen]

the character generalist, imo, typically has a better understanding of MUs, character to character interaction, fundamentals, and boils their game down more towards "how can i beat this player?" as opposed to "how can i beat this character?" this is not a law of smash, so dont think that just because someone plays 10 different characters, means they fall into what ive described. But I think theres a high correlation. the more you can proficiently develop a playstlye (or playstyles) that allow you to use different tools effectively in many different situations, you are gaining a lot more experience than if you were just seeing those tools be used from the perspective of one or two characters.

you can spend a long time building one building that is meant to outshine the rest, but what are the chances that that building will cater to the needs of every single person? or you can build 5 buildings that collectively, cater to the needs of all, even if each individual building isnt as nice looking, useful, or efficient as the single, amazing one. its a loose analogy, but it gets the point across

if you can proficiently develop more characters, youre going to have more experience on what it takes to make a character proficient. maybe you havent quite gotten to the point of developping extreme, subtle nuances that make a single character masterful, but you have a much clearer vision of what nuances DO make characters masterful.

if a mountain has 10 paths up to the top, and you happen to pick a single path that leads to you straight to the summit the first time, how much did you actually learn about the mountain? if instead you've wandered 5 of the paths, maybe not quite reaching the summit in any of the ventures, you still have seen far more of the mountain and a good deal of the upper portion (and can make a good estimate of how the summit will look).

I actuallly think the character generalist has a worse understanding of fundamentals. Afterall if you have a bad matchup against marth you can just pull out your pocket sheik. If you have a bad matchup against sheik you can bring out your pocket puff etc. You don't have to learn how to deal with things. You can just pick a character that doesn't deal with it.

edit additionally if your sheik has been figured out against a marth instead of adapting the next game you can just switch to falcon or something.

 

[Life]

I actuallly think the character generalist has a worse understanding of fundamentals. Afterall if you have a bad matchup against marth you can just pull out your pocket sheik. If you have a bad matchup against sheik you can bring out your pocket puff etc. You don't have to learn how to deal with things. You can just pick a character that doesn't deal with it.

That's if you use those multiple characters to counterpick matchups, as opposed to just playing whoever you feel like against whomever you wish. It's playing to win vs. playing to learn (which might be a bigger dichotomy than whatever character/s you play).

 

[Flippy Flippersen]

That's if you use those multiple characters to counterpick matchups, as opposed to just playing whoever you feel like against whomever you wish.

Iunno man I don't see a lot of people who are both likely to take a tournament and don't want every edge they can get in a tournament setting. (then again I also don't see people maining 15 characters winning anything major)
Playing a lot of characters is common. Playing a lot of characters in tournament is pretty much only for people who just want their favorite matchups.

 

[DrinkingFood]

Oops, I forgot that you could do it with that 1 frame window, or miss it and die. My B :x

EDIT: that would accidentally happen sometimes when I was trying to boost my B-reverse klaw by the ledge, but it wasn't a reliable tool to use intentionally. Now it is. You're technically correct, but I stand by my statement that it wasn't a reasonable thing to use in 3.5.

I don't think it's a 1 frame window because I was able to do it about 50% of the time without ever having practiced it. But I don't actually feel like going back and testing exactly how frame specific it is so i'll leave it at that.

 

[Narelex]

Piggybacking off the earlier talk on Tethers thought this would be a good place to mention an "interesting" interaction

Lucas's Tether can be hit as in "Literally" hitting the rope snake. (Last time I checked in 3.5) This creates quite the boring edgeguard game and I don't feel like its a acceptable interaction between MK and Lucas in particular. MK is really good at edgeguarding in general but the fact I can beat literally all of his options without thinking at all feels really horrible for both sides IMO. (MK feels bored and Lucas feels cheated)
EDIT Talked to Jolteon was just a weird case of a tether failing and looking like something else But my points on how easy it is to stop and get him offstage due to his techroll still stand

Its one thing to be able to edgeguard a character like Fox who has an amazing onstage game so its your reward for winning Neutral and getting him offstage. Compared to Lucas who the moment you get a grab, you can start a tech chase that can easily lead to getting him offstage due to his abysmal techroll. Not to mention Lucas's recovery doesn't have the speed of something like Fox illusion so you don't even really need to hurry to the ledge.

Feels bad guys.

I feel like Tethers in general need some love. Not sure exactly how but the autopilot that goes on isn't really fun gameplay for either party.

 

[Scuba Steve]

Remove tethers since brawl gutted anything interesting from them

 

[G13_Flux]

I actuallly think the character generalist has a worse understanding of fundamentals. Afterall if you have a bad matchup against marth you can just pull out your pocket sheik. If you have a bad matchup against sheik you can bring out your pocket puff etc. You don't have to learn how to deal with things. You can just pick a character that doesn't deal with it.

edit additionally if your sheik has been figured out against a marth instead of adapting the next game you can just switch to falcon or something.

If u only use one character though, you tend to rely on crutches that the character can provide. That's the general argument I would make against the specialist that can hurt their understanding of MUs, the overall metagame, and game play in general.

However, you can't really pull out a pocket shiek , or a pocket puff if you're a specialist. Doing that requires you to proficiently develop those character, aka now you're looking more like a generalist. To me, a specialist would use one character, and sometimes maybe pull out a pocket secondary. 3 could be a gray area, but anything more than that is generalist territory to me.

I think it's a bad idea to attempt to rely on things that a certain character doesn't have to deal with. That suggests your fundamentals are worse, not better, even if you can get some ok results with it. I believe you will have a more in depth knowledge of the game as a whole if you try to learn and actually develop more than just one or two characters, even if your focus is only dedicated to one or two. I guess I tend to value versatility more than anything really, as you are better equipped to adapt

Just my opinion and personal experience really.

 

[Life]

I live in a region where we do all-star versus when not enough people show up for doubles, so I'm biased in favor of character generalism. Been trying to cull the weak lately, got it down to the folks under my avatar more or less.

 

[Frost | Odds]

I don't think it's a 1 frame window because I was able to do it about 50% of the time without ever having practiced it. But I don't actually feel like going back and testing exactly how frame specific it is so i'll leave it at that.

That's pretty reasonable for a 1 frame window with relatively easy reference points with a good player attempting it, I'd think. Even if it were 2, still not remotely worth risking death to grab ledge like that. The difference between 50% consistency and 99.9% consistency is unimaginably huge in terms of practice hours.

This is the same reason I have gripes with the current difficulty of fortresshogging: the risk (and the required practice hours) doesn't/don't remotely match the reward.

 

[suddenZenith]

I guess I tend to value versatility more than anything really, as you are better equipped to adapt

Adapting merely takes a different form when you're a specialist. Instead of switching characters, you adapt your play-style. More than anyone, a specialist is aware his strengths and weaknesses, and uses that knowledge to make the most out of the MU. In that sense, he is equipped to adapt.

Bruce Lee once said: "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times."

Counters cannot exist without your own limitations, which you can overcome with training.

 

[Frost | Odds]

Adapting merely takes a different form when you're a specialist. Instead of switching characters, you adapt your play-style. More than anyone, a specialist is aware his strengths and weaknesses, and uses that knowledge to make the most out of the MU. In that sense, he is equipped to adapt.

Bruce Lee once said: "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times."

Counters cannot exist without your own limitations, which you can overcome with training.

Absolutely agreed in principle. There are exceptions, but I don't believe they apply to 99% of players.

 

[Lens]

But my points on how easy it is to stop and get him offstage due to his techroll still stand

This is a nice sentiment, and I don't entirely disagree. However, as long as Lucas has over-the-top things like OU usmash (and situationally OU dsmash) that kind of just spontaneously do really ridiculous things, it's probably safer to say he doesn't need to be any more resistant to having ridiculous things done to him.

 

[D e l t a]

This is a nice sentiment, and I don't entirely disagree. However, as long as Lucas has over-the-top things like OU usmash (and situationally OU dsmash) that kind of just spontaneously do really ridiculous things, it's probably safer to say he doesn't need to be any more resistant to having ridiculous things done to him.

You're suggesting nerf an already nerfed character with multiple weaknesses and tons of exploits? Yeah...ok.

Upsmash has 54 frames of endlag. It's -45-48 on shield. The only time it lands is from Lucas landing a 3rd hit Dair popup or from bad DI on Dthrow. The charge generally happens after you get killed off the top, which means Lucas has to take your stock before he can safely go for OU charge. On top of that, the move is overrated and doesn't accurately represent Lucas as a character.

His moves have low disjoint & range (thanks 3.5) while his projectile got stripped of an auto-cancel window and the extra distance when properly timed from air to ground. This means he can't very effectively camp you and his approach is similar to Luigi's fireballs with pressure like Ness. That results in the Lucas player zoning out his opponent until they try to approach or they decide to respect Lucas too much and potentially start shielding.

I'm not seeing any major issues or reasons to change a character who already has many flaws with decent strengths.

 

[Lens]

You're suggesting nerf an already nerfed character with multiple weaknesses and tons of exploits? Yeah...ok

You're making a lot of assumptions here. I'm suggesting that the existence of these things makes buffing the underlying defenses a risky move, not that they need to be straight nerfed.
Not to mention, it doesn't have to be as simple as straight nerfs/buffs. Smart redesign that keeps the flavor intact is always an option.

Upsmash has 54 frames of endlag. It's -45-48 on shield. The only time it lands is from Lucas landing a 3rd hit Dair popup or from bad DI on Dthrow. The charge generally happens after you get killed off the top, which means Lucas has to take your stock before he can safely go for OU charge. On top of that, the move is overrated and doesn't accurately represent Lucas as a character.

His moves have low disjoint & range (thanks 3.5) while his projectile got stripped of an auto-cancel window and the extra distance when properly timed from air to ground. This means he can't very effectively camp you and his approach is similar to Luigi's fireballs with pressure like Ness. That results in the Lucas player zoning out his opponent until they try to approach or they decide to respect Lucas too much and potentially start shielding.

I'm not seeing any major issues or reasons to change a character who already has many flaws with decent strengths.

tbh I don't think shield advantage is a relevant statistic for a move w/ anti-air coverage, and considering the enormous pushback off of OU smashes, it's even less relevant as far as actual weaknesses go.
Some setups aren't guaranteed, but they do happen off a good DI mixup on a lot more than dthrow and dair. It's still plenty usable, to the point that you can talk about KB, hitbox size, etc. without ever worrying that they won't actually matter in a set.
The second paragraph seems like you're just regurgitating information at me. Lucas absolutely has strengths, flaws, and counterplay, but that's not what I'm discussing. How do those weaknesses show that OU smashes are cohesive and well-designed enough to warrant keeping exactly as they are?
If the move doesn't represent Lucas as a character, then that begs the question, would you be opposed to having it become slightly less amazing if it gave Lucas less exploit-ability, or something new and interesting to work with in a more creative/interactive way?

OU on it's own is an interesting topic. I hear a lot of people defend the effects by pointing out how downright impractical or non-flexible it can be w/ respect to Lucas's overall toolkit or gameplan. I'd never really want it removed, because it feels great to use and gives Lucas an interesting archetype, even if it is mostly superficial. I just think there could be a better way to approach it than clinging to the current version without considering tradeoffs.