Smash Mods

Lucario to me is A tier, where in A Tier I'm not exactly sure.

I have a very strong feeling that there are not many people really experimenting with lucario or his options. In regards to his projectile, no it is not as good as falco's or Pit's. I did not mean to come off that way by any means. However, his projectile is a pretty decent projectile in terms of Knockback which i believe kink said can be used into his combo game. That there is where I stop agreeing with him.

In General

Lucario very much so a approached based character, but by no means can he do nothing to you until you get to 50% at least, and none the less only or solely because of aura sphere. I don't believe people have been abusing his regular side b enough OR his down B enough. Every lucario I have watched seems bland and set into their own ways and just hopes the opponent falls in place to politely get smashed in the face. The only matches I have or see problems with is Floaty characters. I don't mean peach floaty, but jigs and Luigi type of floaty.

Common High percentage killing woes

Lucario's combo game at low percents is actually very good, it's not until high percents that he then starts to have a problem. At the same time, so does just about every character. Lucario players I have watched have not found a way to cope with this, still doing the same stupid things that they were trying to do at low percentages which clearly will not work. Something as simple as Fair>DownB>Pivot grab for an easy D throw to Nair (First initial hitbox which carries a lot of killing power) or Bair would work wonders for a lot of those guys I've been watching. Yea it took a lot of moves to get to that point but at the same time that was not, and is not his only option to put you in a situation to just flat out kill you.

Aura Stock Usage

I have not seen anyone abuse his aura stocks in a smart fashion. Most players still spamming his super ball or trying to Super Side B on the ground when he has some pretty awesome set ups for his Super Side B In the air which in itself is hard to avoid, and then once he has you, most people would be surprised if the opponent wasn't dead. Again, even on stage people just throw out their Aura stocks which to this day still dumbfounds me and I could see no logical reason as to why they did it. Simply keeping your aura stock for a well timed smash cancelled Down B is more often than not, a much smarter move.

Oh you messed up your spacing, or, oh you let me touch you for a set up i know works with this weight class of character, and I'm quick enough to adjust on the fly... I can down B to smash for a kill, if not a kill then more than likely an Easy edge guard. Even then I don't even have to do that. I could just keep it and make my opponent nervous and get them to make a pre-emtive move and use that moment to set up for something else. If your by the edge probably a Super Side B Spike.

Even using his Up B into a combo sometimes works when coming back to the stage just to take momentum away from your opponent. Even starting a combo before you use your giant aura ball of death would be a much better use of it than what I see most people do.

I could continue to rant about this but I'll move on.

Out of Shield options/Platform work

I have not seen a single lucario do this... not once. It is easily one of his, if not his best option out of shield. SHDair > Force Palm > Tech chase. I even bet most people aren't very aware of just how far Lucario can move with his Dair and with multiple hits (which you only need one) it's a pretty safe option against more than just half of the cast. Or SHBair > Down B for a retreat, or whatever you want to throw in there. Even SHNair or Fair to Down B chase or Side B. Even in that situation lucario has options that most other characters can only hope for. Even if you wanted to do nothing, you could empty SH to Down B for some space.

Quite a few people think Lucario's platform game is bad because of the nature of his combos. While platforms takes away some of what he can do, generally if you got put there when fighting a lucario it wasn't because of your choosing (Which could be said of a lot of characters). If he is under you you could be worried about being hit from below just for a simple OHC maneuver, which in my opinion anything above a SH'd attack that you know will connect should be Aura Sphere cancelled. That right there allows you can do another air attack into Side B, which then on a platform puts you in a position to tech chase. Or cancel that Attack into a down b away from your opponent just to poke at him.

Lucario's Projectile

Lucario's projectile is good for creating space. Even as a small ball it has enough kick to put you on your ass. So you either avoid it or block it. It has to much lag to be used very effectively as an approach. It can be thrown randomly into combos for an extra punch in the right situation. That's generally about it. Fully charging your aura sphere can be used as a mindgame to a degree but if I were playing against lucario I'd be happy he fully charged it. Now he can't ASC his air attacks. Which i still see most people doing, fully charging it and using it again in a very silly way. When you fully charge it, it should be a tall tell sign that you plan on killing your opponent very soon and that you are willing to give up one of your best tools in the air to do so. Even then, it's questionable, considering that at that point half a charge is probably enough to do the trick.

Approaching

Lucario's approach is not the greatest, we all know this. His rewards however are not bad by any means. Fair, Nair, Dair are good approaches other than dash attack cancelled into Down B, Side B, Nuetral b (For LOLz). From that moment you should not be getting away from lucario without some heavy lumps unless your are an extreme floaty. Even just DA to Down B just to mess with your opponent. Which can lead into other things.

None of the stuff with lucario is overly hard, just requires quick thinking (I think, some of it pre-meditated) and some sharp execution skills. Oh, and his gimp game is pretty good too, his fair for nudging you or a lead for regular Side B gimp. Even his dair, if he hits the correct side will send you out away from the stage. Lucario is stupid deep that I can't even cover half of what i want to say because I'm tired of typing.

I am not comparing him to fox, I still think fox is the best character in the game because of the things he can do one second, and different the next. However I think lucario is to good to be below A Tier but that is just me. What people see is what they see, I can't control that. All I can say is, I have been practicing day in and day out with this character to know every single one of his ins and outs and I know I'm still not close to being done. Still testing movement options, "combo" strings, retreating options (quickly turned to offense). I think people are truly sleeping on lucario.

The problem isn't that Lucario lacks approach /options/, just that he doesn't have air-tight pressure strings unless he has meter for Down-S. Lucario, Ike, and Ness are what I call "Scare tactic" characters in that they have great reward and work really well if they can get the opponent afraid of doing things. These kind of tactics fall out with experience in the matchup (My friend has started baiting and outprioritising PKT2, abusing the negative priority on it once the power, speed, meatiness, and low end lag are looked past), and force the characters to rely on more traditional spacing, patience, and reads. If the characters lack in those areas, or lack the ability to continually make up for it, they fall down in perceptive strength.

Lucario, however, has what I feel safe in calling definitive "decent" fundamentals and that should make itself apparent with time.

(07/26/2012 09:19 PM)Kink-Link5 Wrote: [ -> ]The problem isn't that Lucario lacks approach /options/, just that he doesn't have air-tight pressure strings unless he has meter for Down-S. Lucario, Ike, and Ness are what I call "Scare tactic" characters in that they have great reward and work really well if they can get the opponent afraid of doing things. These kind of tactics fall out with experience in the matchup (My friend has started baiting and outprioritising PKT2, abusing the negative priority on it once the power, speed, meatiness, and low end lag are looked past), and force the characters to rely on more traditional spacing, patience, and reads. If the characters lack in those areas, or lack the ability to continually make up for it, they fall down in perceptive strength.

Lucario, however, has what I feel safe in calling definitive "decent" fundamentals and that should make itself apparent with time.

Lucario doesn't need his meter for down S, he just needs his meter and manage it well. He doesn't have to use it and if he was going to use it more often than not I would prefer to grab to Fair>Super Side B off the stage than waste it on a situation you have a better chance of avoiding. However if i know I have two supers I don't mind using one to set up the other. Lucario is what I would call a character with not any real middle ground. You're either great with him, or you're not so great. Where most other characters to me can be a lot more lenient.

Though I will say this... Lucario's pressure comes from him having his Super and how he uses it it.

You can't do supers without meter >_>

Let me rephrase that, what i meant to say is he didn't need his meter to make Down B viable, he just wants his meter and to manage it well. Meter management is going to be key for lucario (You already know this though.)

Dat icon. <3


Anyways, I'm not trying to come off as a jerk or anything, but I'm having issues trying to understand your posts. Please understand, we're not trying to say Lucario's a bad character. He has an easy time stringing attacks against certain weight-classes once he gets in and can dish out serious damage. We just see some things that stand in Lucario's way that prevent him from attaining S-tier status.

I'm not saying he's S tier, but I believe he's A tier. Would it be wrong of me to think that not many characters even fit in the S tier category to me? Fox and sheik (maybe). I don't even think Falco is S tier in this game, personally.

Edit: Btw, I love falco. He is easily my best character in melee and still my crutch in P:M.

I think Falco is less hindered by tough matchups in this game compared to Fox, myself.

I believe slight tweaks to SFTP's list will make it a good representation of the current state of PM. That tier list only includes Fox, Falco, and Sheik+Zelda in S-tier.

I'm with Kink once more. I believe it's fairly likely that the spacies play a large role in how the PMBR balances the cast (e.g., Pit up-B OoS). Several characters seemed to have received tools specifically designed to combat the furries. Fox seems to have been hit harder than Falco in this transition. This effectively shortens the gap between melee S- and A-tiers.

Sheik and Zelda, when played as one, possess considerable match-up coverage. They most definitely don't deserve S-tier status on their own (especially since Sheik's d-throw effectively received a nerf), but the pair work well to compliment each other. The transform mechanic is also the single best defense against the CP system. All these elements make a player proficient at both Zelda and Sheik a tricky opponent.

(07/26/2012 07:03 PM)TheDevicer Wrote: [ -> ]jons

The problem with citing tourney results is that developing a solid meta for characters takes time. The more established characters can be picked up faster if you fall on their established game. Similarly, the tricks certain newcomers possess aren't properly documented or known. There's a million things that affect match outcomes right now that shouldn't be included in weighing the potential of a character in the present. PM tourneys are mostly taken to be a joke. You need an invested group of players and years to develop a proper scene. Until then, this "data" is only useful for giving us some kind of notion as to where characters fall in a metagame likely to change in the near future.

The thing is, if Ike is winning every P:M tourney for example, then we can say "oh, it seems as of right now that Ike has proven himself to be a very good character, despite what his detractors say".

(07/26/2012 01:30 PM)Kink-Link5 Wrote: [ -> ]I blame the character idea subforum.

Like I don't even want to go to that subforum because it is less discussion based than the old thread, but it drew traffic away from discussing the characters actually in the game anyway.

Well, the thing is, there's a greater chance that the PMBR will consider what is said in that sub-forum than what is said here or was said in the old thread.

Why not have both?

They'll probably skim through it.

(07/26/2012 02:11 PM)TheDevicer Wrote: [ -> ]I've spent loads of time contemplating Pit since someone brought up he was considered a bit too low by the community. I'm not convinced he should move up to A-tier. I do, however, feel he may have potential to do well against many of the other B-tier characters.

This is referring to SFTP's tier list, BTW.

Could you please elaborate on this? Why don't you think Pit is able to compete for a spot in A-tier?

Well...

If we're going off SFTP's list, the A-tier contains:

Sheik
Mario
Jigglypuff
Peach
Marth
Zelda

The characters above have incredible strengths to offset their weaknesses as well as an established meta to fall back on (with the exception of Zelda). I won't argue as to why those characters deserve A-tier placement, but I will explain why I feel Pit doesn't live up to their standards.

Pit doesn't have the neutral game possessed by the A-tier. His arrows aren't an effective means of spacing. When Pit is firing one, he can't follow safely behind one due to the endlag of the attack and the velocity of the projectile. This makes them a rather poor option for approaching. His only safe option is to spam them from afar or as a combo extender. Against a patient opponent, they'll fail to force careless approaches.

Simply having disjointed attacks doesn't push him over the edge either. Roy and Pit both have similar range as far as their blades are concerned. Aside from nAir (uAir doesn't count because you'd never use it to space), Pit lacks those crucial lingering hitboxes useful for spacing and approaching. Just like Lucario, Pit's neutral game is heavily dependent on mixups and the proper use of a special (glide/double team). Simply put, Zelda, Peach, and Marth have vastly superior spacing games.

Though Pit's grab-game is rather good, it doesn't compare to the ones possessed by Sheik, Marth, or Mario. He simply doesn't have the amazing options out of grabs that the aforementioned characters do. He is limited to stringing them together and swatting his opponents away.

As far as WoP goes, Pit does a good job at extending far offstage, gimping, and recovering. Regardless, Jiggz remains far more proficient at the task because of how vast her options are the entire time she is offstage. Aside from his up-B, Pit also lacks launchers. His only reliable way of killing comes through gimps. As a final nail to the coffin, Pit depends heavily on mixups in his recovery and can only recover horizontally.

Don't get me wrong, Pit is far from a bad character. My point is simply that I feel reluctant in including him among the members of the A-tier after I weight in these points.

Wow. I agree with all of TheDevicer's posts from the last 3 or 4 pages. Good stuff.

Just thought I'd say that. I was gonna quote one but it's easier to just say that TheDevicers pretty much sums up everything I want to say when a certain topic arises.

-Tournament results don't really reflect how good characters are yet because the game is too new, therefore it's impossible to create a legitimate tierlist. SFTP's is probably the closest thing to accurate we're going to have for awhile.

-Lucario isn't bad. Just not very flexible in terms of playstyle. Straightforward.

-Fox, Falco, and Shielda are S tier atm. Sheilda rapes the CP system.

-Pit isn't bad either, just other characters do his job better.

If you are going to throw established metagames into the mix then yes, without a doubt I can not argue the current S and A tier with the exceptions of Zelda and Captain Falcon (possibly). I don't think, with that factor included, other contenders for A tier have a solid game yet.

Personal opinion, and more than acceptable to me.

The day that Mario is right under Sheik and on top Jigglypuff... and better than Falcon.

It just rubs me the wrong way.

(07/26/2012 02:40 PM)SmashFromThePast Wrote: [ -> ]Also, I'm not too sure but I may have sold Luigi a bit short.

I actually don't think so. I largely agree on where you placed Luigi relative to most of the other characters; I just think your Low Tier is too large. I also placed him in a similar position on my list but that placement equated to the bottom of Mid Tier, not the top of Low Tier.

Anyway, reasons as to why I think Luigi is not that good:
OK, for all of you who remember Luigi in Melee, he had a very solid combo game on everyone except for maybe super-floaties. He also had incredible ground mobility with the longest and fastest WD/WL in the game. He also had a great jump height that allowed him to follow up his combos well in the air, especially when there were platforms around for him to WL on. However, Luigi had one glaring weakness. His aerial mobility was utter garbage. The moment his feet left the ground, he could barely move horizontally, and his best moves were aerials (leave it to Luigi to be such a paradox). As such, whenever Luigi wanted to approach, he had to keep trying to poke you with ftilt or WD > dsmash unless there were platforms around to help him move and throw out aerials a bit. Even with platforms though, Luigi's approaches were telegraphed and it was very easy to keep yourself out of the zone in which Luigi actually threatened you.

Another problem he had was his extremely linear recovery. A good Luigi always saved their jump until they were close to the stage so that they could very their recovery a bit and keep you off the ledge, but the fact still remained that, if Luigi ever wanted to make it back, he had to start recovering high just so he could reach the stage. His tornado helped, but it had a weird trait where it had to be done once onstage before it could be used to recover offstage.

Now, I keep saying "This is how Luigi was in Melee," but the truth is, this problem hasn't really changed at all for him in P:M. He still has trouble getting in. It is true that his ftilt got more range and his dtilt does loads of damage now, but let's face it; nobody's gonna get a combo off of ftilt and dtilt requires Luigi to be way too close for him to be safe. His recovery is also still problematic. Yes, his recovery got a great buff - making Luigi's misfires predictable and allowing one to store them is pure genius, his tornado is way more reliable now, and his upB no longer goes just straight up and down - but it is STILL linear and incredibly predictable.

Edit: Also, is it just me or is Luigi's WD really not that spectacular in P:M? I just feel like it's kinda.....lackluster in comparison to his old Melee WD. :/

(07/26/2012 03:09 PM)`daze Wrote: [ -> ]Let's just all agree that SFTP's tier list is the semi-"official" tier list for now.

Okay? Okay.

/thread

Actually, could someone plz repost SFTP's tier list in a spoiler? Makes it much easier to refer to it. Also, we all were pretty split on where Lucario should go. B.W. and I thought he should be top tier. Most of us thought he should be high tier. Many of us thought he should be mid tier. Thus, Lucario is the one character for which I will not accept anyone's placement (even my own) as "semi-official."

I'm going to take a shot again at this. Characters in the same tier are fairly close, within a tier the characters could be off by one or two either way.

Tier 1:
Fox
Falco
sheilda/zeik.

Tier 2:
Sheik
peach
mario
marth
jiggs
zelda

tier 3:
Captain Falcon
Pit
Lucas
Lucario
link
Pikachu
luigi

Tier 4:
Wolf
Ganon
tink
sonic
Snake
Ike
Wario (extremely hard to place, Have no experience with him other than getting 3 stocked by Kiraflax. I feel he is like sonic, once you understand him his tools and spacing don't work as well.)
---- (I would mark this line as about right around Ganon and Samus in the 2010 melee tier list)
Ness
Charzard
GnW.

I want to place Ness and Charzard higher, because they are both solid characters, but looking at all the tools every other character possesses, I still put them at the bottom. Both are very solid characters, who would be solid mid tier in melee, so I think a distinction needs to be made as to how viable a low tier in P:M verses a low tier in Melee.

Game and watch just lacks a solid safe approaching option. For a glass cannon character, he sure has serious trouble gaining momentum in the first place.

I also forgot to place Bowser. From what I understand he has many one-sided matchups, so I have no idea where to place him.