Character Difficutly Scale

[gorgon.]

You are not alone.

I didn't think so.

 

[Roller]

Bowzer is hard to be good with, cause he has like no good match ups.

 

[gorgon.]

Tell me about it.... (points at sig and avatar.)

 

[Roller]

Tell me about it.... (points at sig and avatar.)

Ya, i figured. Mad props to you man. I have a lot of respect for people who play low tier characters.

I play pika, I have used him since 64 (though in brawl he was my secondary to fox) I love him. I'm glad I happen to love a pretty good character. (though it was some tough times in melee)

 

[Rapid_Assassin]

The reasons I despise Olimar are as follows: I don't like the Pikmin series, but I can respect anyone who does. Even though I can ackowledge that the Pikmin series is popular, I still do not understand why the main character was moved to a fighting game. Moving Olimar to a fighting game was something Sakurai pulled straight out of his crack, Olimar should have been an assist trophy and that character slot should have been used for someone else, like Shadow or Isaac. Or anyone but Olimar, who is the most distant thing from a fighting game character I've ever seen. I find Olimar to represent Sakurai's extremely biased choices in making Brawl.

From what I'm seeing Olimar seems to be very hard to master and moderately easy to pick up. The whole Pikmin pluck thing is rather stupid, I'm not going to count that against casually playing him.

Yeah, but look at any of the characters in this game that aren't from the Mario, Zelda, Starfox, or Kirby series. Many of them had their one game or so and that's it, and some didn't even have a game. Pikmin series had their games, and only one character and one stage. How is that biased? A lot of the movesets seem to be pulled completely out of someone's *** anyway (like Ganondorf's, which didn't even resemble a moveset he had in his original game). And if it were up to me, I'd make all the assist trophy characters into playable characters (more movesets to pick from!). The only bias I see in Sakurai's decision is 3 kirby characters, who are all good.

 

[Ørion]

Lol of course pit has like the lowest XD. All you need for him is arrow, the stupid rotating sword thing, and shield and you're set for most scrubs.

 

[Roller]

Lol of course pit has like the lowest XD. All you need for him is arrow, the stupid rotating sword thing, and shield and you're set for most scrubs.

You don't even need the shield, rotating swords reflect. Retarted, I know.

 

[Kalm]

Okay, I hope we can finish the off topic roster discussion with this...

I'm not happy about ROB either, but I have more respect for his position on the roster because ROB literally saved the Nintendo franchise. Basically when the NES wasn't selling worth crap, ROB was the gimmik that kept it going.
Yes, honestly I'm just annoyed at the roster in general. I really truly expected to see at least 5 more characters what was chosen, I think we all did. The game demos are stupid and some of the stages (a lot of the stages) are a waste of space. Plus the online sucks. Anyways, I'll be willing to agree that the roster in general left a lot of us hanging, and not continue to push down Olimar.
Also, I'll have a score for Olimar by tommorow, when I refresh and reorganize the list.

I'd like to get opinions on people who play any of the characters that haven't been commented on yet. I'm not trying to chase off any of the off topic discussion though, as long as it doesn't get out of hand I'm happy to see the thread get publicity.

 

[Tenki]

Playing Ike is harder than Marth at maximum potential = Massive fail.

Marth's counter is quicker than Ike's so he can counter more attacks, which means Marth players need quicker reflexes to make the most out of the counter ability.

Wait, and that makes it harder to use Marth's counter than Ike's? With Ike, you have to be constantly predicting your opponent in order to use counter and have it work. IMO that's alot harder than being Marth and reflex-countering your opponent as soon as you see the move start. And since it comes out quickly, you aren't committed to doing the attack until you actually press it, whereas with Ike, you have to have decided or at least have some foresight to actually use counter effectively, or you miss and get punished hard.

Marth needs to sweet spot to spike which Ike and most other characters don't.

Does Ike need to sweet spot to get the most damage? Ike has a HUGE sword that if hit anyone in its large radius will do the same amount of damage whether at the tip or point blank. A perfect Marth would sweetspot 100% which not only would be awesome, but it would be near impossible in a real game. To use marth at his maximum potential one needs to sweet spot very well or if we take maximum potential literally 100% of the time, which can be hard as most people won't just walk into your sweet spot.

Ike has slow attacks that are easily dodged for most of his moveset which Marth and most other characters don't have to worry about.

Does Marth have to commit to attacks even before he's actually in range of his opponent? Marth has quick attacks that at least do damage if he 'misses' the sweet spot, and doesn't leave himself open when he misses the attack completely. A perfect Ike can still get dodged and punished, regardless of his skill, and hitting 100% of the time, heck, 80% of the time would be near impossible in a real game. To use ike at his maximum potential one needs to mindgame and be able to predict their opponents' attacks very well or if we take maximum potential literally 100% of the time, which can be hard as most people will just dodge your moves, so you don't do damage or knockback at all.

>_> seriously, that post sounded like you've never experienced opponents dodging your attacks when you play Ike.

 

[SummerObsession]

Wait, and that makes it harder to use Marth's counter than Ike's? With Ike, you have to be constantly predicting your opponent in order to use counter and have it work. IMO that's alot harder than being Marth and reflex-countering your opponent as soon as you see the move start. And since it comes out quickly, you aren't committed to doing the attack until you actually press it, whereas with Ike, you have to have decided or at least have some foresight to actually use counter effectively, or you miss and get punished hard.

Is this thread about which characters are harder to use and win with OR harder to master and use at their max potential? Of course its going to be hard to use Ike and Bowser to win because they are just terrible compared to other characters.

But how hard it is to use a character to win is different from how hard it is using them at their max potential. I don't see Ike as a very deep character as his potential is terribly limited due to his slow speed. It's easy to reach his maximum potential because he doesn't have that much potential. A good example is his counter

For the most part Ike's counter is consider USELESS and people rarely use it, and if they do use it they usually get punished for it. The only time Ike can only use his counter efficiently is by using it aggressively( which Marth can do as well) by putting himself in harms way to force an attack by the opponent or when someone falcon punches right in front of him. So you might as well remove that move from his repertoire except for those above mentioned case.

On the other hand Marth's counter is near instant so can be used much more often. This means Marth players will have more opportunities foresee attacks and react. Twitch reflex counter also comes into play to use it effectively against every different characters and all there different move set. Ike's counter is too slow to twitch counter so Ike has less Maxinum potential in his counter. Yes Ike's counter is hard to use efficiently because its a mostly useless move and therefore it doesn't have too high of a maximum potential.

so you don't do damage or knockback at all[/i].

>_> seriously, that post sounded like you've never experienced opponents dodging your attacks when you play Ike.

From what you posted all I can see is Ike's short coming. This just shows how difficult it is to win with Ike because his lack of potential. It's hard to win with IKE but It's not hard to use Ike at his max potential, because his max potential is horrendeously low. .

 

[Kalm]

Part of using a character at their full potential is being able to recognize when to use what attack. For Ike, learning how to use him very well requires you to learn reverse short hopping. You have to do this with many characters, but Ike has a Bair that is extremely important because of it's speed. This makes it 100% necessary to completely MASTER to use Ike well. Not only that, but his Bair doesn't have very much of a lower vertical hitbox at all, which means you have to time his Bair a lot better in some cases than many other attacks.
Another thing advanced Ike's have to know is how to defend against edge guarding and recovery gimping. Ike has probably the easiest to gimp recovery in the game, and its very hard for him to mindgame an opponent into backing away from the ledge or getting an oppurtunity to move to the stage. Therefore, you have to know Ike's moves so well that you have to actually think ahead, predict the opponent, and time your attacks starting and ending lag so well that you can't leave yourself open while using him either in approach, guarding, or defense.
Quickdraw is hard to master because you have to learn how much charge covers how much distance, rather short hopped or not. You have to know the best time to use Aether when recovering to avoid being gimped. Counter is WAY harder to use well than Marth's. Eruption will do nothing but make you look stupid if you try to use it for anything more than edge guarding.
The list goes on. Marth needs to learn much much less techniques than Ike to be played well. Sweetspotting is NOT that hard on his shorter sword.

I'm honestly not buying the argument that mastering Marth is as hard to do as Ike.

 

[talkingbeatles]

Really? Olimar, the most distant thing from a fighting game character you've seen? Have you by any chance seen ROB?

If a piece of plastic can fight, Olimar can fight. Although Olimar isn't a regular fighting game character, Brawl isn't a regular fighting game. In Brawl, even the stupidest piece of crap can have a moveset (*cough*ROB*cough*) At least Olimar has a franchise, whereas other characters do not. (*cough*ROB*cough*)

I guess I just hate ROB.

I can't change your opinion on the matter, but I can tell you that many fans wanted Olimar in. I did. And really, he didn't steal a character slot that another, perhaps more fitting, character could've taken (like Ridley) as the developers could've easily expanded the roster size. Nobody told them it had to be no more than 35 charcters.

He's allowed to be biased.
He's the directer of the game.

 

[Yuna]

So it's just another kind of tierlist, only a quasi-homophobic one since you use the term "gay" to signify something very bad?

 

[Edds]

captain falcon: hardcore/ultra manly

 

[SummerObsession]

Part of using a character at their full potential is being able to recognize when to use what attack. For Ike, learning how to use him very well requires you to learn reverse short hopping. You have to do this with many characters, but Ike has a Bair that is extremely important because of it's speed. This makes it 100% necessary to completely MASTER to use Ike well. Not only that, but his Bair doesn't have very much of a lower vertical hitbox at all, which means you have to time his Bair a lot better in some cases than many other attacks.
Another thing advanced Ike's have to know is how to defend against edge guarding and recovery gimping. Ike has probably the easiest to gimp recovery in the game, and its very hard for him to mindgame an opponent into backing away from the ledge or getting an oppurtunity to move to the stage. Therefore, you have to know Ike's moves so well that you have to actually think ahead, predict the opponent, and time your attacks starting and ending lag so well that you can't leave yourself open while using him either in approach, guarding, or defense.
Quickdraw is hard to master because you have to learn how much charge covers how much distance, rather short hopped or not. You have to know the best time to use Aether when recovering to avoid being gimped. Counter is WAY harder to use well than Marth's. Eruption will do nothing but make you look stupid if you try to use it for anything more than edge guarding.
The list goes on. Marth needs to learn much much less techniques than Ike to be played well. Sweetspotting is NOT that hard on his shorter sword.

I'm honestly not buying the argument that mastering Marth is as hard to do as Ike.

Reverse short hop is easy to do. Just dash, turn around, jump foward and attack. It's basically a short hop attack with a backwards key put into it. Its not even that useful against a quick eyed player as he can see you turn around.

Ike's recovery is a joke, you can spend all your time "mastering" Ike's recovery but all the enemy has to do is jump in front of quickdraw to send Ike down. Aether is easily gimped, and theres no real other way for Ike to recover. Ike counter is useless as I mentioned in my previous post, so don't even use it. No matter how good you get with Ike you'll be limited by the character'slow speed and low max potential.

Sweet spotting for Marth isn't easy. As most people won't stand still or run into your sweet spot. Most characters will try to get inside your range to even do damage and you wont be able to walk backwards to space your F-smash.

Ike is a lot like his Foward Smash. Input a command and hope the enemy screws up and walk into it. When Ike quick draws has to hope the enemy stands still. When he Aethers he hopes someone will walk into it's descent. Ike isn't hard to master, as he dosen't have much to master.

 

[Kalm]

So it's just another kind of tierlist, only a quasi-homophobic one since you use the term "gay" to signify something very bad?

Read more than the OP. I'm giving Olimar a real score.



You're telling me that Ike is a bad character and has no potential. Thats not what this thread is about. You can't say that Ike is easy to use because theres nothing good about him. For other characters I'm a lot more willing to give in to other peoples comments and opinions, but I use Ike enough to be confident in what I'm talking about. I don't intend to change his score at the time.

 

[fridayslobster]

Although I hate Olimar more then hate itself. I think that its hard to master him just because of his tether recovery thing

 

[Crizthakidd]

i like the OPs sig lolzz


snake is fairly easy to use if you played melee. olimar and ice climbers have a hard learning curve to use at max

 

[Kalm]

Yeah its been decided that I'm going to have Olimar as an advanced character to master. I need to hear more about Snake though, and I don't know if I want to count the melee factor. Thanks for the sig comment.

 

[Kalm]

Finally got around to updating this, sorry it took so long. Work and the sort you know the deal.

The following is what has been changed.

So fair the only debate toward the numbers is from the "maximum potential" scale. So, all numbers listed below are from the right Column.

Mario increased from 5 to 6.
Sonic increased from 7 to 8.
Pit increased from 4 to 5.
Ike has been decreased from 8 to 7.
Ice Climbers has been increased from 8 to 10.

End of List.

Olimar has been given a score, it is 3/8.
Pokemon Trainer has been given his own individual score, it is 4/8.


Discuss.

 

[PCHU]

Why is Lucas easier than Ness?
He's actually difficult to use EFFECTIVELY.
I mean, PK Spam is easy, but correctly utilizing his moveset is hard.
For example, dair spiking and bair spiking.
You have to start dair at the right time, and bair...
I have only spiked with that twice.
Once was today in a competitive match. (We do our best to destroy each other)
Also, the PK Lag on his grab.
You have to know his range.
And then there's recovery.
Sure, Lucas' PK Thunder can't be absorbed, but there is knowing when to snake rope the ledge and when to Pk Blast.
I'd say they are equal.
Ness is awkward, but he's the same as Lucas.
Lucas has his awkward usmash while Ness has his yoyo.

 

[Mr.Victory07]

Casual rate for Ike is like -12

 

[Kalm]

Yeah the more I think about it the more it sounds right. I think less that Ness is a 9 too, I think I may put them both at an 8. I at first thought that Lucas was easier simply because I prefered Lucas but it makes sense what you're saying, I made a note on it.

And as for Ike, I'm beginning to feel rating him at a 2, because I do remember the **** he was when we were all new to Brawl. But a lot of that came from FFAs, so I don't know if a 1 can work for him...

 

[Leprechaun_Drunk]

i think donkey kong and luigi should have high effectivity rates, and metaknight's should be lower.

 

[Kalm]

I'm going to be biased with DK and Luigi I think because I main DK and used to main Luigi on melee.

I really don't consider DK as terrible hard to use, I mean I picked up almost everything he has by accident. Luigi however, is much harder to use in Brawl now, I was considering increasing his score for a while now. For some reason though, I keep wanting to compare Mario to Luigi. At any rate, expect a change in Luigi on my next update.

As for Meta Knight, I already have him being the easiest to use character in Brawl at a 4. I think it could be possible to bring him to a 3 buy his 4 score is already unrivaled. I'm going to leave it as it is for now and think more on changing it if I start decreasing more effectivity scores.

 

[~rh]

I think DDD needs an 8. I'm trying to learn him and it's really cracking my brain. Been on the DDD boards a lot too... studying the **** and applying it in battle are pretty separate things for this guy, lol.

 

[Browny]

yep, dedede is very difficult

if you dont use the chaingrab, it makes him so much worse... and against anyone who knows how to abuse his recovery lag... you just can never make it back on the stage before you get kicked off again

lol, i just noticed sonic is the same as olimar

LOL

yeah, because running away and only using side b, before mashing cstick is hard to do... id put olimar as THE easiest, way easier than MK. with MK, you actually have to hit your opponent to do damage. sonic should be 10. no one can master his ASC 5-hit combo, dair semi spiking is very difficult, dash-cancel upsmash is leagues harder than snakes (although same as shieks) and spacing his approaches absolutely perfectly so that you cant be punished is harder than anything any other character has to deal with, except maybe CF

 

[UltiMario]

I'm not suprised at Meta Knights Ranking. At all. I doubt anyone here is.

 

[Bevo]

This is the most pointless and probably the most bias thing I've ever seen. I'm not even going to waste my time on it -.-

 

[~rh]

yep, dedede is very difficult

if you dont use the chaingrab, it makes him so much worse... and against anyone who knows how to abuse his recovery lag... you just can never make it back on the stage before you get kicked off again

Yeah. I practice against a camping Lucas so getting near for chaingrabs don't work in my case xD.

This is the most pointless and probably the most bias thing I've ever seen. I'm not even going to waste my time on it -.-

Don't post.

 

[Ekaru]

....*looks at Yoshi*

*Sees it's at a 5 for casual and 7 for effectively*

*Looks at other characters with higher ratings of difficulty that are a lot easier to use at maximum potential than Yoshi*

*Walks out*

 

[Kalm]

This is the most pointless and probably the most bias thing I've ever seen. I'm not even going to waste my time on it -.-

Congratulations increasing your post count by one, if it weren't for that I'd tell you that you truly did waste your time. But instead you just wasted ours with what is the most pointless and probably most bias post I've ever seen. So go be stupid elsewhere Mr "Glass Case of Emotion" AKA Emo cutting his wrists and flaming everyone he can before he dies from too much failure.



That was fun, and in my next post I intend to respond to the intelligent with respect and points/counter points. I think I'm even going to tell them where they're right because I'm so bias.

But first, I must watch Indiana Jones, see you soon and thanks for the comments so far guys!

 

[Johnthegalactic]

OOPS Double post sorry!

 

[Johnthegalactic]

It is very messed up, Bowser is not the hardest character to use, lolololololol, it has to be Olimar!
lol, Snake is easier to pick up and play with than Bowser, lol, Snake has some freaky weird moves for Smash, he takes time to ease into, Bowser is pretty simple comparatively.
I doubt you played all these characters to their full potential, you probably saw these numbers in your soup and decided people might buy them.

And Indiana jones Crystal Skull is not very good.

 

[~rh]

It is very messed up, Bowser is not the hardest character to use, lolololololol, it has to be Olimar!
lol, Snake is easier to pick up and play with than Bowser, lol, Snake has some freaky weird moves for Smash, he takes time to ease into, Bowser is pretty simple comparatively.
I doubt you played all these characters to their full potential, you probably saw these numbers in your soup and decided people might buy them.

And Indiana jones Crystal Skull is not very good.

I agree. I was messing around with Bowser in a couple competitive matches last night. He does seem difficult to get down and win with consistently, but he's by far not the hardest to use in the game.

 

[91780]

pit should be 1/10
and i think Sonic should be 5/8

 

[Morrigan]

o i main bowzers and i think he should be 10/10 cuz hes great!!11

 

[ShaolinAce]

Sonic is the hardest to master. Ike is the easiest.

 

[Kalm]

Ok, let me get a couple of things out of the way before I adress characters suggestions.

First off, the word "effectively" was misused here. This thread is not a tier list. All of the characters have their own potential, and I'm not here gauging how much their potential is. What this thread is about is how hard or easy it is to play a character near or at their maximum potential. And of course, how easy it is to pick up a character for the first time and not suck.

Secondly, I thought this would be easy to figure out, but I guess I need to say it here. I don't proclaim to know everything and I far from think I've got accurate scaling of these characters. I'm confident in my knowledge enough to present this idea to everyone and get feedback. I want to hear opinions and comments, and I want suggestions. I've already altered the scale once so far, and I plan to continue doing so based on every reasonable statement I see that says I do so. Don't come to this thread telling me im stupid and biased, if you think things are wrong then tell me why.

Now then, on to those with comments and suggestions.

yep, dedede is very difficult

if you dont use the chaingrab, it makes him so much worse... and against anyone who knows how to abuse his recovery lag... you just can never make it back on the stage before you get kicked off again

lol, i just noticed sonic is the same as olimar

LOL

yeah, because running away and only using side b, before mashing cstick is hard to do... id put olimar as THE easiest, way easier than MK. with MK, you actually have to hit your opponent to do damage. sonic should be 10. no one can master his ASC 5-hit combo, dair semi spiking is very difficult, dash-cancel upsmash is leagues harder than snakes (although same as shieks) and spacing his approaches absolutely perfectly so that you cant be punished is harder than anything any other character has to deal with, except maybe CF

I'm happy to see you agree with the D3 score. As for Olimar, I stated in the OP that Olimar is the one character I know absolutely nothing about, I'm doing what I can based on what people tell me. Thanks for your opinion on him. I've also taken note on your comments about Sonic, I just finished increasing his mastery score to 8, which I feel says a lot for his difficulty. Of course I took note though, I want to do him justice if people feel he really deserves a higher spot.

It is very messed up, Bowser is not the hardest character to use, lolololololol, it has to be Olimar!
lol, Snake is easier to pick up and play with than Bowser, lol, Snake has some freaky weird moves for Smash, he takes time to ease into, Bowser is pretty simple comparatively.
I doubt you played all these characters to their full potential, you probably saw these numbers in your soup and decided people might buy them.

And Indiana jones Crystal Skull is not very good.

I agree. I was messing around with Bowser in a couple competitive matches last night. He does seem difficult to get down and win with consistently, but he's by far not the hardest to use in the game.

I watched Temple of Doom again, after I watch the third one I'll go see the 4th. Don't spoil anything please I'm a big fan of the series.

I spent some time thinking on it, and I am beginning to see that I could be wrong with Bowser. When thinking about the characters Its easy to mix up how hard it is to master them with how hard it is to when with them. You can expect to see Bowser's mastery score decreased on my next update.



Thanks for the good suggestions guys, I hope to see more of these so that I can get a more agreed upon scale. For most people, at least.

 

[Johnthegalactic]

Yeah, the old ones are great, CRystal Skull is good, but seems to be a little off the same boat the old movies were in.