Smash Bros. Melee General Discussion - Page 84

On May 09 2014 12:02 onlywonderboy wrote:
My problem with Capped's post is that people that are new to the game shouldn't be pleaded with to try fringe characters just for the sake of the viewer. The person playing should be able to play whoever the want for whatever reason they want. If that means they want to main Fox and try to be the best that's perfectly valid. No reason to shame someone for playing a strong character.

On May 09 2014 11:47 Xeofreestyler wrote:


Why? Not everyone who plays aims to be #1.

There's plenty of chars outside of the S tier who are viable enough.

On May 09 2014 13:21 Kyuukyuu wrote:


Starting off playing a non-top-tier is a good way to be a bad player. We aren't talking about #1 here, we're talking about your average guy who makes it out of pools in regionals sometimes. If you want to even be marginally decent at the game one day it's just not a good idea.

Look at the dedicated low-tier (which I will classify as below Falcon/Doc) mains today. Almost all of the good ones worth mentioning? Started off as top tier players. Why? Because learning a top tier helps you learn the competitive metagame. Top tiers are top tiers because of all their strengths. They all have combo/punish games, solid edgeguard options, recovery mixups, approaches/antiapproaches, decent neutral game options, etc. etc. etc. that the lower tiers do not have. When you play as a top tier, against a top tier, you are forced to consider all of these options, all of the time. This helps you to become a better smash player. You become able to recognize sequences and situations and adapt to them with the options you have.

Where is this different from being a dedicated low-tier main from the start? Low tiers don't have all these options. They are often gimped in one way or another, usually by having a terrible recovery or horrible neutral game. A new player starting out with one of them learns not to be a better player, but to rely on gimmicks and matchup unfamiliarity to win matches. In the short term this works out okay - plenty of terrible Foxes out there to beat up on with your glorious Ness djc uair combos. But your improvement will be much slower.

Look at Hungrybox's Ness. Armada's Young Link. Mango's Mario. M2K's... everything. Because they understand the game and their options so well, they're able to compete at a high level despite not being dedicated mains. If you watch their games, they don't go for silly gimmicks and overall weirdness to win. They just play a strong neutral game, punish well, edgeguard well. Axe began as a Falco player. So did Abate. Hell, Leffen began as a Yoshi main and switched because he knew he was winning solely on matchup jank, and wanted to be able to improve faster.

Get good. Then play your non-top-tier of choice. Don't go the hipster route right off the bat.

Disclaimer: This doesn't apply if you just don't want to be good, at all. Obviously.

On May 09 2014 16:31 hariooo wrote:
m2k's tier list is so salty.

On May 10 2014 01:52 TMG26 wrote:
How popular is PM?