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On March 07 2010 09:18 Antifate wrote: The consensus is that Sheik is an "easier" character to learn. Very safe, great combos, good gimping ability, good wavedash, silly dash attack, no real tech required, lol-grab (NTSC), etc.
That is not to say Sheik is like the best character, but she's definitely not one of the weaker characters. Solidly above Falcon/etc.
And Foxes have to learn really good timing to be able to escape shield grabs/nair OOS/shine OOS. I'm not 100% certain, but I'm pretty sure that even with perfect shine and aerial shield pressure, you can be punished if you don't space correctly.
pretty good certainty because nobody can keep doing constant perfect shine/shield pressure
Oh yeah i'm on pal so 90% of dthrow combos dont work (DI away)
btw the above video is a perfect example of what i mean when i say some foxes just get away with spamming tech like crazy..
He doesnt even have to THINK about what approach he wants, he just goes in and starts spamming away, barely any regard for combos or grabs. You can't possibly get away with anything like that as shiek
On March 07 2010 12:51 BrTarolg wrote: Oh yeah i'm on pal so 90% of dthrow combos dont work (DI away)
btw the above video is a perfect example of what i mean when i say some foxes just get away with spamming tech like crazy..
He doesnt even have to THINK about what approach he wants, he just goes in and starts spamming away, barely any regard for combos or grabs. You can't possibly get away with anything like that as shiek
On March 07 2010 12:51 BrTarolg wrote: wahhh wahhh sheikissohardyoudon'tevenknow
You can't possibly get away with anything like that as shiek
To address the overarching theme here, yes, Sheik players have to use a different set of tools from Fox players in order to win. It's almost as if they're playing a different character or something. D;
some foxes just get away with spamming tech like crazy..
What is this even supposed to mean? Fox is a technical character, a lot of his stuff needs good execution to pull off. A Fox player that doesn't spend a lot of his time doing technical shit is probably not using the best tools available to him. What exactly is it you have a problem with? Shield pressure? That's mostly safe and advantageous, why wouldn't a Fox do it and get away with it?
He doesnt even have to THINK about what approach he wants
Of course he does. Obviously he doesn't think about them in the same sense a Sheik player does(because again, they are different characters and it is not entirely unreasonable for them to require a different mindset and set of skills), but to imply that he's just doing random shit is straight-out ignorant. The only way you can possibly claim a player isn't thinking is if they keep doing something that doesn't work.
Sheik for sure is one of the easier characters to learn, but also one of the least fun to be. I think anyone who can stomach being Sheik is displaying a different type of skill than it takes to play a lower tier character.
What I meant by what I was saying is that playing Sheik at a low-mid level of competitive play (about as high as you can expect to play Melee without putting a solid amount of time into practice) is easier than playing anyone else. However, the learning curve for Sheik gets brutal once you start trying to breach the mid and mid-high levels of play, since many characters can simply improve by fixing large technical flaws in their play. Finding out what you're doing wrong with a spacey frequently boils down to "I miss too many l-cancels", "I don't always wavedash out of my shines", etc. Figuring out why you lose at the mid level with Sheik is usually considerably trickier and fixing it can also be a real pain in the ass.
If you have the time to develop technical consistency, Fox and Falco are easily the easiest characters to play at the mid-high levels of competitive play, and this is coming from a Falco player.
mogwai's right, sheik gets absolutely punished and you have to learn how to play against each high level character (totally different) and you basically have to be able to finish almost every combo with a kill.
Honestly, of all the current top/high tier characters (Fox, Marth, Sheik, Falco) I think Marth is probably one of the most difficult to play well. Marth at a non-competitive level is easymode but playing against anyone who knows the game is really tough as every top tier character can do really horrific things to Marth really easily. Like what was said about Sheik earlier, getting from mid-level to high level as Marth is really tough because even once you dont miss wavelandings or can consistantly double f-air etc, if your spacing is slightly off, with good DI from your opponent, you get completely skull****ed (particularly by space animals) before you can do anything. Spacing is one of the absolute hardest skills. If anything I think Marth is on paper the best character (with near perfect spacing no one can do anything to him) but not even M2K or Ken are flawless. Adding to the mix the fact that Marth is at very best 50-50 against all characters in top and high teir, I'd say he's probably the hardest to learn.
Marth? The best character? Please, not even close. At theoretical maximums, Magus hypothesizes that only Fox, Falco and Bowser would be viable because they all have moves with 1st frame invincibility and invincible ledge stalls.
Taking it to a less severe extreme, Fox is still the best, no question. Falco is probably second best, and then most likely Sheik. Marth suffers from the horrible inability to actually create anything for himself. He relies solely on his opponent making mistakes and punishing them, and it shows through at the top level of play where players aren't making many mistakes any more.
It's really telling to his potential that he has only been placing worse as the metagame has progressed over the last two years. At this point, Marth is just a Jigglypuff who can actually be comboed, which means he's still pretty good, but he's just not top tier any more.
On March 17 2010 05:15 Mogwai wrote: Marth? The best character? Please, not even close. At theoretical maximums, Magus hypothesizes that only Fox, Falco and Bowser would be viable because they all have moves with 1st frame invincibility and invincible ledge stalls.
Taking it to a less severe extreme, Fox is still the best, no question. Falco is probably second best, and then most likely Sheik. Marth suffers from the horrible inability to actually create anything for himself. He relies solely on his opponent making mistakes and punishing them, and it shows through at the top level of play where players aren't making many mistakes any more.
It's really telling to his potential that he has only been placing worse as the metagame has progressed over the last two years. At this point, Marth is just a Jigglypuff who can actually be comboed, which means he's still pretty good, but he's just not top tier any more.
On March 17 2010 05:15 Mogwai wrote: Marth? The best character? Please, not even close. At theoretical maximums, Magus hypothesizes that only Fox, Falco and Bowser would be viable because they all have moves with 1st frame invincibility and invincible ledge stalls.
Taking it to a less severe extreme, Fox is still the best, no question. Falco is probably second best, and then most likely Sheik. Marth suffers from the horrible inability to actually create anything for himself. He relies solely on his opponent making mistakes and punishing them, and it shows through at the top level of play where players aren't making many mistakes any more.
It's really telling to his potential that he has only been placing worse as the metagame has progressed over the last two years. At this point, Marth is just a Jigglypuff who can actually be comboed, which means he's still pretty good, but he's just not top tier any more.
so do you not think Jiggs is debatably 2nd or 3rd best? She doesn't seem to have bad matchups, stemming from the huge disparity between her ability to punish and other characters' ability to punish her. I always hear that Fox can just laser camp her or something but it doesn't seem very safe from how high-level matches actually play out.
On March 17 2010 05:15 Mogwai wrote: Marth? The best character? Please, not even close. At theoretical maximums, Magus hypothesizes that only Fox, Falco and Bowser would be viable because they all have moves with 1st frame invincibility and invincible ledge stalls.
Taking it to a less severe extreme, Fox is still the best, no question. Falco is probably second best, and then most likely Sheik. Marth suffers from the horrible inability to actually create anything for himself. He relies solely on his opponent making mistakes and punishing them, and it shows through at the top level of play where players aren't making many mistakes any more.
It's really telling to his potential that he has only been placing worse as the metagame has progressed over the last two years. At this point, Marth is just a Jigglypuff who can actually be comboed, which means he's still pretty good, but he's just not top tier any more.
so do you not think Jiggs is debatably 2nd or 3rd best? She doesn't seem to have bad matchups, stemming from the huge disparity between her ability to punish and other characters' ability to punish her. I always hear that Fox can just laser camp her or something but it doesn't seem very safe from how high-level matches actually play out.
The problem I have with tiering Jiggs above Fox and Falco is that as her opponents play gets better, her game gets worse. She doesn't create opportunities for herself very well, and is very reliant on her opponents screwing up in order to win matches. I still put her at 3rd because she's the best at what she does and is defensively sound because of how difficult she is to combo, but I think Fox and Falco are both better characters. The tier list I push for on smashboards is:
On March 19 2010 05:38 Mogwai wrote: The tier list I push for on smashboards is:
Falco Fox Jiggs Sheik
Marth Peach Falcon
ICs Ganon Doc Samus
Mario Luigi DK Pikachu
Link Y. Link Roy Zelda
Game and Watch Yoshi Mewtwo
Pichu Bowser Ness Kirby
There is absolutely no way Marth can possibly go below 2nd place. Maybe with inhuman tech skill/reflexes the game exists with a different meta. But in reality as it is now Marth is the best character by miles, if not tied for 1st with Sheik. Especially compared to spacies.
On March 19 2010 08:48 Jazriel wrote: There is absolutely no way Marth can possibly go below 2nd place. Maybe with inhuman tech skill/reflexes the game exists with a different meta. But in reality as it is now Marth is the best character by miles, if not tied for 1st with Sheik. Especially compared to spacies.
I don't know about in-practice best. The problem with Marth mainly is that his meta-game has not developed much over the years. He was one of the best for a long time but at high levels people simply know how to play against him at this point and apart from introducing M2K style beast tech-skill there's not much Marth innovation going on.
@Mogwai, yes but you're theory-crafting poorly. Yes they have one frames but if we're talking in-a-perfect-world, that means the Marth player is perfect too which means that he can always be outside the spacies/bowser (lol)'s range while having them in his.
Edit: Also, your tier list is definitely off below mid-low. And your top tier is based too much off of recent players. We're in the middle of a paradigm shift where good falco and jiggs players are coming out of the woodwork. People just aren't sure how to react to them yet. You're jumping on the bandwagon too much and overrating both Jiggs and Falco.
On March 19 2010 08:48 Jazriel wrote: There is absolutely no way Marth can possibly go below 2nd place. Maybe with inhuman tech skill/reflexes the game exists with a different meta. But in reality as it is now Marth is the best character by miles, if not tied for 1st with Sheik. Especially compared to spacies.
buwahahahaha, get with the times plz.
When was the last time a Marth player even won a regional? How many marth players made bracket at Pound 4 and what was the best place any of them got using Marth? Marth was a great character when the game was slower and people fucked up more, but in this day and age, he's not making much of anyone shake in their boots.
On March 19 2010 23:17 See.Blue wrote: I don't know about in-practice best. The problem with Marth mainly is that his meta-game has not developed much over the years. He was one of the best for a long time but at high levels people simply know how to play against him at this point and apart from introducing M2K style beast tech-skill there's not much Marth innovation going on.
@Mogwai, yes but you're theory-crafting poorly. Yes they have one frames but if we're talking in-a-perfect-world, that means the Marth player is perfect too which means that he can always be outside the spacies/bowser (lol)'s range while having them in his.
Edit: Also, your tier list is definitely off below mid-low. And your top tier is based too much off of recent players. We're in the middle of a paradigm shift where good falco and jiggs players are coming out of the woodwork. People just aren't sure how to react to them yet. You're jumping on the bandwagon too much and overrating both Jiggs and Falco.
It's not my theorycraft, it's Magus's (one of our frame data gurus on smashboards). And I don't really care to get that involved with it, but the idea of frame perfect play is that when you're in Marth's range, if he tries to hit you, you perfectly react and powershield and then punish because you have no shield stun and all his moves have too much lag. Again, I really don't care to have this argument, but people seem to assume that since Marth has the ability to attack at a farther range than most of the cast that he's the one screwing up whenever someone gets in on him. This is simply not the case because all of his attacks are laggy enough that they can't really qualify as safe vs. a running shield.
Good Falcos and Jiggs started coming out of the woodwork 2 years ago and they're still here and they're still dominating the metagame along with Fox and to a lesser extent Sheik. It's not that people aren't sure how to react to them yet, it's that they're difficult to react to because they're really fucking good characters. Your argument was valid after Pound 3, and maybe even RoM 1, but it's been literally years and people still don't have an answer for those characters. They're good and they're here to stay.
I'm really not jumping on any bandwagons here. I play this game very seriously and I know what I'm talking about. I've had the opinion that we just weren't playing patient enough and that's why Jiggs was winning stuff, but you can only see HBox and Mango molest the rest of the field for so long before you start to realize that Puff is an exceptional character.
My Falco > Fox opinion is the most biased decision on my tier list and probably stems from the fact that I play him and have devoted tons of time to the development of the character. But I still maintain that the most important ability in the current metagame is to beat spacies (especially Fox) and I think he does it better than anyone else. He also doesn't have any bad matchups aside from possibly Jiggs, but the jury's still out on that matchup for me. All the good Falcos just go Fox in the matchup and have done it for so long that I think our way of approaching that matchup is just wrong. Now that Jiggs is routinely beating inexperienced Foxes by getting out of uthrow uair and never eating usmashes, I'm hoping that we'll see some smart Falcos spacing Jiggs out and platform camping their way to victory.
oh and for my list below Pikachu, I'm not really hung up on misorderings beneath Pikachu. Pikachu and above, I'm confident of all my placements (in the current metagame), give or take a single spot on anyone. I'm also very confident in my tiering and have justifications for all of them.
EPT
