Tier List Speculation

[Player -0]

Bring back the fun or riot ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ

 

[Shadic]

This isn't the social thread.

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

Wait those guys were talking about dropping Ike down from S tier, not from A tier

Oh yeah for sure Ike isn't S tier lmao

 

[TheoryofSmaug]

No more nerfs. At all. Characters are going to have bull**** that won't ever be removed or altered further and people know it a LA quick draw, spacies neutral, G&W up-b, Rob stuff; just ****ing buff bad characters so we can have a good and fun game again

I really hope pmdt isn't just ignoring top players quiting this game because their characters are getting the bat. And I really hope people aren't just attributing it to salt.

Me, sethlon, umbreon, hamyojo, oro, and probably more.

I've lost Lucas from 3.02 to 3.5
Yes I'm aware that he is still good but the changing to his timings threw off my muscle memory and I have no desire to relearn him.

I lost Bowser, probably my favorite character ever from 3.5 to 3.6

If they ****ing nerf meta knight now, I would quit the game too.

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

Meat Knight seems like he's safe and where he should be. He's got this jack-of-all thing going for him where he's good in a lot of places that count, but there's a thorny part of it that holds him back. He's made of recovery moves, but they all burn his jumps and put him into special. Good mixup potential, below-average distance, commitment on each move, and air mobility/fall speed hold him back.

He's got a good juggle game with Uairs, but no throw launcher and good but not great launching options [DTilt Roy Hit for the most part, maybe USmash?]

Good grab and tech chase game, I'd say this is his strongest point, but tough to confirm kills out of a grab unless you get a read or force bad DI [Uthrow -> DC is particularly swag.] Great at forcing positional disadvantage. Usually easier to send them offstage than up, though I see that MK can be Marth-like with DTilt frame traps close to the edge.

Good edgeguarding with his jumps and aerial loadout [Nair, Bair and Dair are all crazy and if you're good at predicting mix-ups you'll always rock. Or just spam ledgehop nair, that also works.] No real carry capacity, below average get-back-to-ledge options from offstage and so vulnerable to reversals. Can go pretty deep though it's always a risk.

Feels like he just has enough risk baked into his loadout to let him be stellar without being obnoxious.

EDIT: Oh yeah, defensively he's a good punish weight, finds it hard to get out of juggles with his air mobility and high-commitment jump-burning specials, still pretty light on the whole and pretty meteor-susceptible.

 

[Ace55]

Man the last few pages have been depressing.

 

[Binary Clone]

Honest question and I really want opinions here but where does wolf need nerfing at besides maybe shield pressure? His aproach options asides from running shine are easily stuffed since they lack priority or appreciable disjoint (Trying to cover them with laser doesn't really work against anyone who has a sex kick) which forces him him into a captain falcon-esque bait and punish game which I feel is fine and he should be good at.

His punish game is great which I think is good for a character who relies on winning neutral and can't just brute force it and I don't think that needs toning down. If you took away laser and let him keep his dash dance and CC ability, I think he'd still be a good to great character just by those 2 virtues alone. I personally don't feel like he is extremely dominating any meta's (except for maybe AZ's) right now and every melee player I talk too finds fighting him much easier than the other two spacies but not many wolves, not even talking about good wolves, exist so that may just be bias. Just my two cents but if people think he needs nerfing, go for it.

I don't really think Wolf is particularly overwhelming. Out of all the spacies, he has the least polarizing tools in general, but still a very good kit.

One of the things that he lacks that makes him less frustrating to play against is a rapid equalizer. By that, I mean a method that he can use to just burn through an opponent's stock at very low percent, with decent consistency. Falco has his dair spike, Fox has his shine (yes, it's still a very good edgeguarding tool, just not super stupid). Wolf does have a dair, but it's just a meteor, meaning it really shouldn't kill you at those low percents, and I don't believe it's super strong of a meteor either.

His neutral is good, but not nearly as overwhelming as Falco/Fox's - he can't spam lasers as easily, his lasers are slow and aren't transcendent, and he doesn't have the ground speed that gives Fox his dominance. He still has a very good neutral, but it's much less oppressive than the other spacies.

His shine is also the least silly - he doesn't have as many guarantees as the other spacies, and his shine is CCable and easier to DI, providing much more interactability and counterplay. His nair pressure isn't actually super safe, especially when stale, and most Wolf players seem to rely more on SH dair than SH nair because it tends to be more rewarding.

I think the only thing that really has potential to be broken is Flash. Nobody has really mastered it yet, because it's very hard. But it's an incredible killmove with a ton of things that can combo into it. If a Wolf shows up with good fundamentals and actually becomes very consistent with Flash sweetspots, I think it'll be pretty scary. But we haven't seen it yet.

 

[DMG]

I think Wolf Flash potential is a bit overrated. The assumption is that in the future, Wolf players will have figured out these unstoppable Flash setups or that they will find ways to ignore DI/SDI variables. I'm not so sure, partly because Wolf's main kill choices and combo choices tend to send horizontal/diagonal. I think players may be able to find DI inside/DI Up/DI Up + Inside (along with SDI possibly) in a variety of situations that avoids the guaranteed Flash setup, even at the cost of say eating another Uair for free or another X move instead. Going above Wolf is way less scary than being at a 45 degree angle to him or slightly higher than that but further out. Having this kind of DI also usually is not a bad idea against his brute force kill choices of Dsmash or Fsmash if you guessed wrong.

It likely depends on the character, but I think accepting more damage or accepting the juggle trap being above Wolf may be a legit and strong trade off vs the Flash setups which are more prone to occur if you DI away or fly away to the sides of Wolf

 

[Soupchicken]

Since the first week of 3.5 I have been waiting for people to realize the following:

- How broken G&W is
- How broken Luigi is
- How broken Ganon is

2/3 so far - Just a matter of time before a Ganon main who doesn't suck makes me 3/3.

On a related note, I think we should break down the roster by "fun/not-fun to play as" & "fun/not-fun to play against". Much better than these terrible tier-lists people keep throwing out that are:

A) Heavily influenced by how the matchup is for their main ("I main Marth and G&W is mid-tier")
B) Based on limited experience with the majority of the cast; literally no one has enough experience to rank the entire cast accurately at this point.

Also one last thing that's been bugging me forever; Fox has never been and still is not the best character in PM. There's truth to the "fox's meta is more developed" argument; it's not fair to label it as melee-snobbery and dismiss it entirely.

 

[Frost | Odds]

Junebug really, really does not suck dude. He's not optimal, but that Ganon is still the fist of God.

Fox's meta is somewhat more developed, but his matchups are basically not developed at all, because fox players don't even have to bother.

 

[Rizner]

Since the first week of 3.5 I have been waiting for people to realize the following:

- How broken G&W is
- How broken Luigi is
- How broken Ganon is

2/3 so far - Just a matter of time before a Ganon main who doesn't suck makes me 3/3.

On a related note, I think we should break down the roster by "fun/not-fun to play as" & "fun/not-fun to play against". Much better than these terrible tier-lists people keep throwing out that are:

A) Heavily influenced by how the matchup is for their main ("I main Marth and G&W is mid-tier")
B) Based on limited experience with the majority of the cast; literally no one has enough experience to rank the entire cast accurately at this point.

Also one last thing that's been bugging me forever; Fox has never been and still is not the best character in PM. There's truth to the "fox's meta is more developed" argument; it's not fair to label it as melee-snobbery and dismiss it entirely.

I recently realized Ganon isn't bad - after being knocked out by one at my past two tournaments (kokingpin and another person's pocket Ganon game 3 based on stage counterpick) I still wouldn't say he's broken. Just no longer a free win, which prior to 3.5 I think he was.

 

[Life]

There aren't any really low-tier characters in 3.6b, in the sense that low tiers in other games like Melee can be really awful. Just about everyone in PM has the tools they need to win in most matchups (i.e. they might have one hard counter at most but everything else rough for them is just mild-to-moderately disadvantaged).

There are just a bunch of high and mid-tier characters, by those standards.

 

[Downdraft]

I dunno what to do with ROB, because many different areas of play (how you recover, how you approach, how you edgeguard/juggle) are almost all at least partially tied to his boosts. If you made his boosts really laggy on startup, in direct response to his edgeguarding for example, you hurt his recovery and approaching. One core design problem is that Upb and Side B (Side B in particular) are involved in way too many areas of his gameplay. Upb not as much


It may be easier and fairer to completely redesign the boost idea for Side B (or noticeably change the mechanics for operating during/after Side B): how can you craft fair usage of a move for both parties (against literally 40+ chars) when it's intended and capable of being used in like 3-4 different but absolutely fundamental areas of Smash? That's practically an impossible task, and it clearly has been showing signs of that for awhile now. You won't have a well designed ROB IMO until Side B is not simultaneously:

1. Recovery
2. Combo Escaper / Juggle Escaper / Landing Assister
3. Approach Tool
3.1 Juggle / Platform Trapping Assister (Side B Uair under platforms or Side B to reposition underneath opponent during Juggle, kind of falls under approach catagory but a bit different)
4. Edgeguard Tool


Better design would likely stem from changing how ROB's Side B currently has a hand in the Proverbial Cookie Jar. Maybe you can bypass changing the move by making his other moves sucky (Fair no range, Nair no kill power, etc) but all that will do is pidgeon-hole players into even further going down the "mobile-ROB" route if he can't function well as a stand-alone character without the boosting. If Fair sucks and *needs* boosting to effectively be good, you're just telling the player to only use Fair in boosting ways etc.


Making moves noticeably worse, to balance out the incredible mobility or versatility of a character, usually is not a great path or enjoyable for the character's players. I'd like to avoid that, but I see no genuine alternative if his boosts will not get changed or get baby changes. Mewtwo changes were not aimed at making his moves total suckage and leaving the "zip-zap-bloop-bloop" all the same for example. Something similar for ROB, where maybe he can still boost, but how he acts AFTER/DURING boosting are way different and much more limited would work. Otherwise, hail ROB as ur new overlord

This problem essentially describes 3.02 Nayru's. The difference is that one mid tier character got their move trashed while the high tier character got to retain their options. The inconsistency and bizarre changes are the worst.

Since the first week of 3.5 I have been waiting for people to realize the following:

- How broken G&W is
- How broken Luigi is
- How broken Ganon is

2/3 so far - Just a matter of time before a Ganon main who doesn't suck makes me 3/3.

On a related note, I think we should break down the roster by "fun/not-fun to play as" & "fun/not-fun to play against". Much better than these terrible tier-lists people keep throwing out that are:

A) Heavily influenced by how the matchup is for their main ("I main Marth and G&W is mid-tier")
B) Based on limited experience with the majority of the cast; literally no one has enough experience to rank the entire cast accurately at this point.

Also one last thing that's been bugging me forever; Fox has never been and still is not the best character in PM. There's truth to the "fox's meta is more developed" argument; it's not fair to label it as melee-snobbery and dismiss it entirely.

None of those characters are broken. Ganon is fine. G&W and Luigi are just terribly designed.

http://smashboards.com/threads/i-see-every-pixel-the-hitbox-frame-data-thread.387100/
G&W should put away all items when their hitboxes end, so punishes can be more intuitive. Without G&W matchup and frame data knowledge, how would a player know how to counter D-tilt, F-air, B-air, D-air, and his smash attacks with the misleading animations? Also, why is he allowed to escape from false combos frame 3 then counterattack with an aerial before landing? He's a semi-floaty, so does he really need such an absurd escape option? Why is the IASA frame for F-tilt one frame after the late hitbox ends? Why is the IASA for U-tilt 3 frames after the hitboxes end? According to the frame data thread, he has IASA of (10, 10, 10, 6) on F-throw, B-throw, U-throw, and D-throw, which seems moderately fast. However, don't all of his throws have the same animation up until the throw? Good players can react within 10 frames of being thrown, but it seems a little silly. Also U-throw and D-throw have invincibility on frames 1-8, yet none is listed for F-throw and B-throw? Why that inconsistency? G&W has to be one of if not the most nonnintuitive characters to play against with lingering hitboxes, quick and difficult to punish escape, misleading animations, questionable IASA frames, a guessing game on throws, and more. How has this been allowed to go on so long? He epitomizes jankiness. I wouldn't advocate for drastic nerfs or a playstyle change, but he needs to be cleaned up big time.

http://smashboards.com/threads/luigi-frame-data-thread-3-6β.402482/
Luigi has low startup on most of his attacks (aside from his throws), high damage output, multiple kill options, great recovery, and multiple escape options on top of being floaty. Check out the frame data if you haven't seen the character in action, but the previous sentence captures much of his silliness.

There aren't any really low-tier characters in 3.6b. Low tiers in other games like Melee can be really awful; everyone in PM has the tools they need to win in most matchups (i.e. they might have one hard counter at most but everything else is just mild-to-moderately disadvantaged).

For Zelda, the Squirtle and Toon Link matchups are unwinnable at a top level. Fox, Marth, Captain Falcon, and G&W are -2. She is at least at a slight disadvantage versus Falco, Ivysaur, Kirby, Link, Lucas, Mario, Meta Knight, Mewtwo, Pit, ROB, Samus, Sheik, Sonic, Wolf, and ZSS. Matchups against Charizard, Diddy, Lucario, Luigi, and Roy are even at best. She alone invalidates nobody and doesn't hard counter any good character.

edit: Corrected info about Zelda's levels of disadvantage upon clarification of the meaning of 60:40.

 

[Life]

I was actually expecting to get chewed out over Bowser, not Zelda LOL.

Also, you have an incredibly loose definition of a counter compared to mine.

 

[Soupchicken]

Junebug really, really does not suck dude. He's not optimal, but that Ganon is still the fist of God.

Good Ganon main - Junebug only plays Ganon on Warioware (as far as I've seen). You just said it yourself, it's not optimal and it's still terrifying; I'm sure that has a lot to do with Junebug being as good as he is, but there's still room to push the character for sure.

In any case, I have no way of really justifying my gut feeling but I'm pretty sure Ganon is better than people think.

 

[Journal]

This problem essentially describes 3.02 Nayru's. The difference is that one mid tier character got their move trashed while the high tier character got to retain their options. The inconsistency and bizarre changes are the worst.

None of those characters are broken. Ganon is fine. G&W and Luigi are just terribly designed.

http://smashboards.com/threads/i-see-every-pixel-the-hitbox-frame-data-thread.387100/
G&W should put away all items when their hitboxes end, so punishes can be more intuitive. Without G&W matchup and frame data knowledge, how would a player know how to counter D-tilt, F-air, B-air, D-air, and his smash attacks with the misleading animations? Also, why is he allowed to escape from false combos frame 3 then counterattack with an aerial before landing? He's a semi-floaty, so does he really need such an absurd escape option? Why is the IASA frame for F-tilt one frame after the late hitbox ends? Why is the IASA for U-tilt 3 frames after the hitboxes end? According to the frame data thread, he has IASA of (10, 10, 10, 6) on F-throw, B-throw, U-throw, and D-throw, which seems moderately fast. However, don't all of his throws have the same animation up until the throw? Good players can react within 10 frames of being thrown, but it seems a little silly. Also U-throw and D-throw have invincibility on frames 1-8, yet none is listed for F-throw and B-throw? Why that inconsistency? G&W has to be one of if not the most nonnintuitive characters to play against with lingering hitboxes, quick and difficult to punish escape, misleading animations, questionable IASA frames, a guessing game on throws, and more. How has this been allowed to go on so long? He epitomizes jankiness. I wouldn't advocate for drastic nerfs or a playstyle change, but he needs to be cleaned up big time.

http://smashboards.com/threads/luigi-frame-data-thread-3-6β.402482/
Luigi has low startup on most of his attacks (aside from his throws), high damage output, multiple kill options, great recovery, and multiple escape options on top of being floaty. Check out the frame data if you haven't seen the character in action, but the previous sentence captures much of his silliness.


That is completely false. I'll let other low tier character mains speak for themselves, but I can speak for Zelda. Hard counter means 60:40. The Squirtle and Toon Link matchups are unwinnable at a top level. Fox, Marth, Captain Falcon, and G&W definitely hard counter her. She is soft or hard countered by many other characters such as Falco, Ivysaur, Kirby, Link, Lucas, Mario, Meta Knight, Mewtwo, Pit, ROB, Samus, Sheik, Sonic, Wolf, and ZSS. Matchups against Charizard, Diddy, Lucario, Luigi, and Roy are even at best. She alone invalidates nobody and doesn't hard counter any good character.

Just use Zelda's down b.

 

[Frost | Odds]

I was actually expecting to get chewed out over Bowser, not Zelda LOL.

Also, you have an incredibly loose definition of a counter compared to mine.

I mean, if anyone thinks bowser is actually playable right now, he's welcome to try making him work. He has literally 0 winning matchups, most are 6-4 or worse, and a substantial amount are straight up unplayable. In terms of overall spread (ie. Not weighted by relevance) he's probably worse than melee Ness right now.

No Johns because most of his mus are still sort of winnable, but Jesus christ it's exhausting when EVERY matchup is this huge uphill struggle and commentators across the board are still like "I think Bowser was slightly buffed overall from 3.5".

 

[Downdraft]

Just use Zelda's down b.

It was just pointed out to me that 60:40 isn't hard counter and 70:30 isn't considered unwinnable. In light of those revelations, I will edit out the part about being hard countered but the sentiment prevails. Zelda is disadvantaged versus over half the roster and doesn't beat relevant characters. This is Tier List Speculation. I agree with the people that have her Bottom 15 or lower. For those that think she's good, I'd be interested in a list of 16 or more characters that are worse off than her in the PM 3.6 meta.

 

[Steak1ey]

A. Ness never has a super hard recovery to edgeguard. Just players who don't know how to edgeguard Ness. If Ness tries to recover close to the stage, you can hit him out of PKT1 presuming you act immediately. If Ness tried to recover far from the stage, you can easily hit him out of the 2nd half of pkt2 as it is not invulnerable and loses much of its hitbox (even someone like lucario can easily hit a pkt2 with a short ranged move like nair). If Ness is recovering low, as soon as he lands he will have 20 frames of lag NO MATTER HOW HIGH HE LANDS FROM. So basically, you can either predict where he'll land and charge a smash attack, or simply catch him on his way floating down. Alternatively, if you are a fatty, you can just go after him every time since your likely to run into the pkthunder as long as you stay on top of the boy once the pkt1 has started up. If you have a projectile, you can spam it and see if you net a free kill off of clanking iwth the pk thunder 1.

Basically, the only good recovery option Ness often has is double jump air dodge. If you prepare for that, you've tacitly edgeguarded the character.

The problem with this is how much it applies to most other characters as well. You could say "Squirtle has never had a super hard recovery to edgeguard, just players who don't know how to edgeguard him." You can apply that same logic to spacies, Lucas, Wario, whoooever. The invulnerability actually helps Ness's recovery a great deal, not to mention the distance he can recover from. It's frankly HUGE, and certainly one of the more clutch recoveries in the game. Just because he CAN be edgegaurded does not make him a bad recovery character. What defines the viability of one's recovery is how many options you have in different situations. Ness has a LOT. With PKT2 mixed with stalling mechanics, sweetspots, and ledge cancels
+ it's insane manuverablity and distance, it's a great option. Oh but you got Dair'd by Falcon? It's not Ness's fault, it's your fault. Ness has insane aerial mobility if you have your double jump handy and a quick dair as a counter attack. He also has magnet which is good for stalls and prevention. (It's a freaking giant hitbox lol) Put the tools together and figure it out and stop demeaning his recovery because it's fine.

B. Double jump cancel shenanigans look really good until you realize Ness HAS to commit to an aerial to do it. Unlike Rob's air boosting, Ness has to use an aerial to take advantage of DJC meaning if you put up a shield, you can often force a frame advantaged position for yourself. Just don't let Ness get close enough to start mag-pressuring you, as that is where all of his options open up.

Basically, the character does not excel at anything except for punish game, and is comprised of various middling traits (mobility), bad traits (recovery/neutral game), or tricky traits (wave bounce mag, mag stalling, DJC aerials/punish game). On the bright side, his punish game IS really good this patch.

Remember that you can just waveland out of a DJC. It's a great mechanic, and if you're not combining it with either an attack or waveland.. what's the point? Commitment is not the problem as long as your committing to it in the right scenario. I agree the Ness's neutral is not his strong point, but it's not as horrible as you make it sound. He doesn't have range. Is range what you need for a good neutral? Nope. Options out of shield is a good trait to have, and he has those. Speed is a good trait to have and he has that. Throw in a lot of defense and parries, and the neutral game is yours. His dash attack is still a viable spacing tool, as simple as it may same. He has aruagably the best platform game in combination with Double Jump cancel. If you think he's so bad I don't understand why you play with him. He's a very obviously viable character.

EDIT: also comparing djc to robs rocket boost? :s djc has much less commitement, whether you need to do an action to utilize it or not. I don't understand this comparison because they're two very different mechanics lol.

 

[Player -0]

I think it's funny how (not quite quoting but from Calabrel's ama) from 3.02 -> 3.6 changes have been made to "make the game more player vs. player instead of player vs. character" when G&W exists.

 

[Apollo Ali]

The problem with this is how much it applies to most other characters as well. You could say "Squirtle has never had a super hard recovery to edgeguard, just players who don't know how to edgeguard him." You can apply that same logic to spacies, Lucas, Wario, whoooever. The invulnerability actually helps Ness's recovery a great deal, not to mention the distance he can recover from. It's frankly HUGE, and certainly one of the more clutch recoveries in the game. Just because he CAN be edgegaurded does not make him a bad recovery character. What defines the viability of one's recovery is how many options you have in different situations. Ness has a LOT. With PKT2 mixed with stalling mechanics, sweetspots, and ledge cancels
+ it's insane manuverablity and distance, it's a great option. Oh but you got Dair'd by Falcon? It's not Ness's fault, it's your fault. Ness has insane aerial mobility if you have your double jump handy and a quick dair as a counter attack. He also has magnet which is good for stalls and prevention. (It's a freaking giant hitbox lol) Put the tools together and figure it out and stop demeaning his recovery because it's fine.



Remember that you can just waveland out of a DJC. It's a great mechanic, and if you're not combining it with either an attack or waveland.. what's the point? Commitment is not the problem as long as your committing to it in the right scenario. I agree the Ness's neutral is not his strong point, but it's not as horrible as you make it sound. He doesn't have range. Is range what you need for a good neutral? Nope. Options out of shield is a good trait to have, and he has those. Speed is a good trait to have and he has that. Throw in a lot of defense and parries, and the neutral game is yours. His dash attack is still a viable spacing tool, as simple as it may same. He has aruagably the best platform game in combination with Double Jump cancel. If you think he's so bad I don't understand why you play with him. He's a very obviously viable character.

EDIT: also comparing djc to robs rocket boost? :s djc has much less commitement, whether you need to do an action to utilize it or not. I don't understand this comparison because they're two very different mechanics lol.

Do you mean waveland out of a double jump? Cause a DJC, by definition, involves an aerial. Everyone can waveland out of a double jump. Not everyone can DJC.

EDIT: Also, you're oversimplifying with his recovery. Any character with a projectile can gimp ness at like 15% by taking out PKT1. DDD can just hit him once and then charge jet hammer (an entirely useless move otherwise) and kill you. I used to think it was good too. Then I learned how to edgeguard.

 

[Boiko]

I think it's funny how (not quite quoting but from Calabrel's ama) from 3.02 -> 3.6 changes have been made to "make the game more player vs. player instead of player vs. character" when G&W exists.

His AMA also said that Ness is in a really good place right now despite the fact that Calabrel doesn't compete.

Something that I would like is if every change log was accompanied by an explanation. What was the reasoning that PK Fire pillar length was reduced? Why is it 45 frames now instead of 100? What's the reasoning behind it? Just an example.

I understand that the PMDT is busy and may not have time to document particular changes. But it's just something I would like to see.

 

[Apollo Ali]

His AMA also said that Ness is in a really good place right now despite the fact that Calabrel doesn't compete.

Something that I would like is if every change log was accompanied by an explanation. What was the reasoning that PK Fire pillar length was reduced? Why is it 45 frames now instead of 100? What's the reasoning behind it? Just an example.

I understand that the PMDT is busy and may not have time to document particular changes. But it's just something I would like to see.

Yes agreed! Like Blizzard does for instance. It would reduce a lot of conflict on the back end.

 

[Steak1ey]

Do you mean waveland out of a double jump? Cause a DJC, by definition, involves an aerial. Everyone can waveland out of a double jump. Not everyone can DJC.

Sure. We'll go with that, but either way I don't understand the complaint. If you're worried about committing to an aerial, why commit to a jump? Ness has good footsies. He doesn't need djc for anything else lol

EDIT. Also it's ya'll simplifying his recovery. all you need to block projectiles is moving the tail towards the stage instead of outside. sounds hard, isn't hard.

 

[Boiko]

Sure. We'll go with that, but either way I don't understand the complaint. If you're worried about committing to an aerial, why commit to a jump? Ness has good footsies. He doesn't need djc for anything else lol

Huh?? What are you talking about? Ness doesn't have good footsies. He has a decent pivot f-tilt, that's about it.

I'm going to address your other points as well:

Regarding recovery: It's a very common misconception that just because a recovery goes a great distance, it's automatically good. That is not the case. Ness' recovery is extremely linear. He telegraphs which direction that he is going and is then accompanied by 20 frames of landing lag if he fails to sweet spot. His fastest angle (45 degrees) is still 15 frames slower than Fox's omnidirectional, non-telegraphed Firefox. His recovery has more degrees of counter play than most others with a greater reward. You can jump out and take his bolt, you can wait on stage and punish his 20 frames of landing lag (don't forget, even is he recovers high, his low aerial drift [which you incorrectly stated as strong, it's .04], and his 20 frames of landing lag mean easy punish. You can literally wait on stage and forward smash him and reset the situation.

You can argue that people may be inexperienced with his recovery or edge guarding his recovery, but it's obvious that other characters have a lot more tools, less counter play, better coverage, etc. Ness' recovery does not have these options. Perhaps you're simply experiencing it at a low level of play, where players have no dissected how to punish it yet. That's fine. But there is a reason that almost every high level Ness player has a gripe with his recovery.

Magnet is a decent stall, sure, that's true. However, a stall only puts him in progressively worse positions in order to try to bait your opponent to commit to an edge guard so you can more safely maneuver back to stage.

Regarding neutral game: Ness does not have a strong neutral game. He especially does not have strong defensive or out of shield options. I'm not entirely sure where you're deriving that information from. His fastest OoS option is grab, considering nair's earliest possible frame is frame eight. His best defensive option is actually retreating pivot f/u tilt or pivot pk fire, which is extremely committal. His PK Fire, which is one of his best spacing tools, is created on frame 20, and is actionable 38 frames after that (the length the projectile travels its maximum distance). If your opponent runs up and shields, you still need to wait the duration it would take for the projectile to travel the entire distance before you're able to act, making it several negative on shield. What I'm saying is that if your opponent reacts to you 20 frame projectile that is initiated with a loud audio cue, and presses a trigger button, they can punish you very hard. This is especially true since Ness is one of the worst combo weights in the game. He has a greater weakness to crouch cancelling and shields than most other characters. His DA can be CC'd in and the third hit will not connect and you can punish the end lag of the third hit plus his very late IASA of 40, later than most other DAs.

To be honest, it sounds like you don't have a high level understanding level of Ness' game plan. That's fine, and you're still allowed to comment and share your opinions. But to be honest, I think you should do some more research first.

Didn't proofread, sorry for a lack of clarity.

 

[DMG]

Boiko said SIT DOWN LITTLE MAN

 

[Steak1ey]

Huh?? What are you talking about? Ness doesn't have good footsies. He has a decent pivot f-tilt, that's about it.

His Footsies are fine. Magnet is an excellent spacing tool, he has a nice wavedash to compliment it. I 100% consider it a tool in his footsies game based on how closely you can do a magdash to the ground. Am I ever directly attacking my opponent with mag? Never. It's a good bait tool, magging towards your opponent, pulling back, baiting. Ness is fast, effecient, and dangerous on the ground. If he catches you with magnet you're done. Magnet > waveland > shield is a nice movement option to always throw out. You have to constantly mix things up for his footsies to work but there is a plan and there are always ways to improving it. Again, good range does not mean good neutral

Regarding recovery: It's a very common misconception that just because a recovery goes a great distance, it's automatically good. That is not the case. Ness' recovery is extremely linear. He telegraphs which direction that he is going and is then accompanied by 20 frames of landing lag if he fails to sweet spot. His fastest angle (45 degrees) is still 15 frames slower than Fox's omnidirectional, non-telegraphed Firefox. His recovery has more degrees of counter play than most others with a greater reward. You can jump out and take his bolt, you can wait on stage and punish his 20 frames of landing lag (don't forget, even is he recovers high, his low aerial drift [which you incorrectly stated as strong, it's .04], and his 20 frames of landing lag mean easy punish. You can literally wait on stage and forward smash him and reset the situation.

The distance was not the only point I made about his recovery. It's just an added + that his pk thunder goes a long way. His double jump is the real star. If you hang on to his double jump, you have a lot of aerial manuverability to 1. Position yourself in an optimal recovery position (which depends on the situation and what options your opponent has and will likely use to edgeguard you) and 2. counter any early attempts of an offstage edgegard. If Marth is waiting on stage with a forward smash, I ALWAYS sweetspot. It's totally scenario based, and Double jump gives you enough resource to make a worthy decision. I do understand how edgeguarding works lol. if you want a real bad recovery let's talk about sheik.

You can argue that people may be inexperienced with his recovery or edge guarding his recovery, but it's obvious that other characters have a lot more tools, less counter play, better coverage, etc. Ness' recovery does not have these options. Perhaps you're simply experiencing it at a low level of play, where players have no dissected how to punish it yet. That's fine. But there is a reason that almost every high level Ness player has a gripe with his recovery.

You can judge my experience as much as you want. I'm not playing with neighborhood kids though lol. I play with one of the greater Toon Links in the country on the regular, and Tink in general has a lot of great tools against Ness's recovery. This includes arrow for PKT1, Fsmash for a missed sweetspot, and everything against me landing on stage. But I have a lot more options than just those 3 scenarios which you seem to be limiting it to. There's a lot of counterplay to be had that i don't think YOU'VE put much research or attention on lol. we're not going to turn this into "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM". I'm not looking to prove myself, just Ness and what I know can be possible. Nobody in the cast outright consistently overpowers Ness in this current meta, it's just players being better than other players.

Magnet is a decent stall, sure, that's true. However, a stall only puts him in progressively worse positions in order to try to bait your opponent to commit to an edge guard so you can more safely maneuver back to stage.

If a stall put you in a worse position you wouldn't stall

 

[Chevy]

All the Zelda players say they lose to Samus. All the Samus players say Zelda destroys us.

 

[DMG]

If you turn into Samus Crawl Ball, and Crawl Ball over to Zelda, she can't handle it and dies.

See: Olimar vs IC's


In Brawl

 

[Sardonyx]

All the Zelda players say they lose to Samus. All the Samus players say Zelda destroys us.

It's a weird MU, that's for sure. One of those ones that can become very heavily momentum based off of like 1-2 stray hits.

 

[Binary Clone]

You can judge my experience as much as you want. I'm not playing with neighborhood kids though lol. I play with one of the greater Toon Links in the country on the regular

...who plays that character besides Lunchables?

 

[Chevy]

If you turn into Samus Crawl Ball, and Crawl Ball over to Zelda, she can't handle it and dies.

See: Olimar vs IC's


In Brawl

Crawl is good, but it's doesn't just solve match-ups.

 

[eideeiit]

...who plays that character besides Lunchables?

DVD (tristate top contender?), Steak-house (beat Kage and Bidooof I think), Corpsecreate (apparently the king of PM in Australia, tho that may not be saying much), Tristan's rule, Aero (both make top 8 regularly in Socal Afaik).

 

[Soft Serve]

@ DMG I realized what the reasoning behinds ROB's weight nerf being considered enough had to me

We're not allowed to have good heavy characters, so the solution was to make ROB not a heavy so he can stay good

 

[Ripple]

feast your eyes. best tier list you ever dun seen.

characters obviously not in order

I needed more tiers to fully complete it in the future but close enough

 

[Life]

I've been wondering about the whole "no fatties are good" thing. Are we just forgetting about Samus? Or are we just referring to characters with big hitbox sizes?

(Of course Ripple's post where Samus is A-tier goes up as I'm typing this.)

EDIT: offtopic but I just realized this post came across like I'm calling Samus fat LOL

 

[Steak1ey]

(continued)

Regarding neutral game: Ness does not have a strong neutral game. He especially does not have strong defensive or out of shield options. I'm not entirely sure where you're deriving that information from. His fastest OoS option is grab, considering nair's earliest possible frame is frame eight. His best defensive option is actually retreating pivot f/u tilt or pivot pk fire, which is extremely committal. His PK Fire, which is one of his best spacing tools, is created on frame 20, and is actionable 38 frames after that (the length the projectile travels its maximum distance). If your opponent runs up and shields, you still need to wait the duration it would take for the projectile to travel the entire distance before you're able to act, making it several negative on shield. What I'm saying is that if your opponent reacts to you 20 frame projectile that is initiated with a loud audio cue, and presses a trigger button, they can punish you very hard. This is especially true since Ness is one of the worst combo weights in the game. He has a greater weakness to crouch cancelling and shields than most other characters. His DA can be CC'd in and the third hit will not connect and you can punish the end lag of the third hit plus his very late IASA of 40, later than most other DAs.

Yeah.. It doesn't sound like you believe in mixups, and that's what it takes to have a great neutral game with this character. His platform game is 100%, his magdash is supreme.. You bring up pk fire but if you're using it in a spot that would be incredibly disadvantageous to you you're doing it wrong. In neutral you're always making decisions that keep you at an advantage, if not making it hard for your opponent to approach you. Ness has the tools to do that. It's just harder with him. Wavedash and nair are fine OoS options, I'm not sure I see the problem there.

To be honest, it sounds like you don't have a high level understanding level of Ness' game plan. That's fine, and you're still allowed to comment and share your opinions. But to be honest, I think you should do some more research first.

and i could say the exact same about you lol. Doesn't seem like you totally understand how to take the reigns in neutral.

 

[eideeiit]

I thought Samus was in the Heavy-floaty category with Peach and Rob.

Also my inner nazi awakens: take the reins in neutral, as in what you use when you ride a horse, not reigns, as in reign over me.

 

[Oracle]

The idea behind the weight nerf was that it would give more characters the opportunity to combo him super hard, making it easier to play against him. however I correctly predicted that the weight change wouldn't change that and lo and behold, i was right as usual. in all the matches i've played with rob, there was only one instance where the weight change made a tangible difference, which was dakpo hitting me with an up b to nair that I would have been able to jump out of in 3.5. it really makes his existing bad matchups even worse but doesn't really affect his even/good matchups with the rest of the cast

honestly yall are overreacting to DF's performance, not to discredit him but he got a ton of mileage of people not understanding the matchup, not really playing around crouch cancelling, and most importantly, not knowing how to DI the down throw at kill percents. Pretty much all of his opponents besides junebug kept trying to DI the throw in or up, which actually gives rob BETTER followups than 3.5. Generally speaking if you DI away past 90% ish rob gets zero followups.

that's not to say I think rob is perfect, I have a few ideas with regards to changes. I'm just really tired of really dumb changes that aren't even nerfs or buffs, just forcing rob players to relearn timing/spacing for no good reason.

 

[JOE!]

Samus is heavy, same weight as Zard, but not big.