I think it's hard to say until there are Luffy players that can really optimize his punishes, but I think Luffy will definitely struggle in matchups where the threat of grabs from a long way away is pretty easy to deal with. Characters that have lots of projectiles or characters that can create lots of hitboxes seem from my limited experience to be difficult opponents: Isaac's vines, Mario's fireballs, etc. I think even with that high-mid is possible, but mid is more likely.

Yea and rushdowns like fox and falco may give luffy trouble due to luffy lacking a way to shrug them off. I did happen to find a top level Luffy player on discord, or well he said he was. But there were no results of it yet iirc, I believe it was someone in KingPawn's crew. But speculating Luffy's mu spread seems like Luffy really struggles against a lot of characters which is why I originally placed him in mid-low and such. You could also debate that D tier also means Mid Tier due to the large gap between E and D tier as well. So Mid-Low/Mid is kind of what represents D Tier due to the well balance of SSF2.

I actually think Luffy will do fine against spacies: he has a pretty sick punish game from what I've seen, good edgeguarding tools, and most importantly he can actually threaten their hitboxes because command grabs beat even Shine. I just worry that once Isaacs figure out that if you dtilt you have no chance of losing neutral without trading, or Pac-Man players figure how to always keep projectiles between you and Luffy, that Luffy will have a hard time breaking those walls. Also, I'm not sure about his recovery: the Luffy players I've faced made it look pretty bad, but recoveries like that require a lot of specific knowledge to use properly, so maybe it's just a time thing. The fact that Sorabotics seems to be using Luffy speaks well to his future meta development: the man knows his SSF2.

But given Luffy's playstyle, it will be hard for him to go for a good punish due to Fox and Falco having ridiculously safe frame data, all of the cast pretty much can edgeguard the spacies, and falco can easily just laser luffy making it hard for him to command grab and fox can have you bait out a command grab where he can dodge it then go for a free U-Smash because of the free hurtbox Luffy gives to fox. And given Luffy's poor frame data, it will be a lot easier for fox and falco to punish it. But again, this is early in the meta.

's recovery is actually really good, and it's at-least better than imo.

But yeah, people have to practice/getting used to his recovery.

Luffy is forced to recover on stage if you grab the ledge, so he's pretty dead unless he gets hit high. If you don't have invinvibility against ZSS, she just ledge trumps ypu like it's Smash 4. And she has infinite jumps. Something like shorthop aerial off stage, double jump to ledge, makes it very hard for Luffy to recover horizontally, while ZSS can only be guarded by going out there and hitting her.

Luffy has down-B, though, so if he's within range of the ledge he can force you to get off with a move and then grab ledge. He also has command grabs that can hit people trying to edgeguard him and give him a boost, kinda like Haste last version.

Alrighty, so let's get us some tier discussion going...

My latest tier list takes the form of tiers and groups, so there'll be things like "Top 1, Top 2, Top 3 etc."

I believe almost every character is good.

This is ordered. I might make a topic where I detail my reasoning for all of the characters

Let's start:


Discuss.

I take issue with the following: (times a million) beyond just some shuffling towards the top. Each one of them should be waaaaay higher than where you've placed them (most of them for reasons already discussed)

I don't consider myself a great player (more casual than competitive at this point), but I will say I can't see how people are rating and so low. In my experience both are much better than people are giving them credit. What I would say is both are a bit quirky and unusual in play-style, which means that it will take longer for people to start seeing them be commonly played. Still, they aren't just mid-grade. They are both at least high-tier.

Also, IMO is being a bit overrated. He's always been a great char, and didn't change much now, but IMO he feels like his recovery from far off-stage has suffered just a bit. The main thing, though, is that comparatively everything has improved enough to make the differences between him and other chars decrease.

Yea^, his losing height makes it harder to recovery after spikes or really far away where as can easily get back if he has a double jump (maybe not from being spiked though).

But I maybe wrong, but can anyone who's been using and lately tell me if they have better range moves than ? (not including bair for this, just compare it to his other moves). Asking this because even though it was kind of a laggy match, a was 1-2 feet away from me, and his dash attack STILL HIT ME!!

I wonder if this is why everyone I play online counter picks against me with lol.

Also, I kinda have a problem people being able to hit when he's in tornado (is it only smash attack that can do that, if so then nvm), and when he does his jab, he can hardly get away quick enough before the opponent can grab/attack him (I sometimes try to grab them right after the 3rd hit of the fast jab, but I think they are able to hit/grab before you do).

I'm not a top player in this game as a main (not yet ), but right now, i'm kinda feeling like he might drop a bit on tier list.

I could be wrong about most the things i've said, but most of my online matches lately were laggy and there's like probably 5% chance of you actually getting a good/really good connection match.

Edit: Actually, looking at the others after meta knight, he may not drop, but feels kinda meh to me atm. Even sometimes when I side b the ledge, I end up not grabbing it and falling to my death. Maybe I need some more practice. His flight height loss (after the 3rd jump I think) is still a problem tho imo.

#TargetSignBug/GlitchNeedsToGo.

I've played Mario a bit, and while I don't "like" him I have to agree he's done well against MK. Mario's moves seem to have better range than MK slightly.

Don't touch Goku, so I can't say about him.

I've also been having ledge-grabbing issues with MK. Against the AI I died a number of times because I expected to get ledge grabs and did not...not a pleasant experience.

Overall, yes, I think he's gonna drop as people notice his weaknesses and exploit them. Right now he's still strong and fast, but he's lacking the golden recovery and air dominance that is what makes him so good (IMO).

MK is a particular character that exposes lack of knowledge/MUs really hard (against both the opponent and the user). He requires finesse to perform at the highest level, otherwise you just shield his approaches and whack his light carcass around the room.

A great MK can abuse his great traction/dash dance which also makes for some very rapid approaches on ground and at short hop heights. Think of Fox but waaaay better offstage game. So characters that can abuse his weight, challenge his recovery, and slow down the rush will do well against him (also projectiles).

Since top tiers are primarily combo weights and fast characters, MK will thrive there and rise up, but a character like Zelda will always be a thorn in his side with neutral B, good recovery, and really strong kills off the top/sides at low percents. And Falco stomps him because short-hop laser covers MK's primary approach height, constraining options heavily.

Having Sm4sh Shuttle Loop will most likely improve his ability to kill high and early in certain situations, and honestly it helps his vertical recover out, too, since he has plenty of other tools to cover horizontal distance.

^It's somewhat funny, but while MK is a great char against top-tier opponents, his worst enemies are going to be many of the upper-mid tier opponents.
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>PAC-MAN: I've been running PAC-MAN through the Classic solos. Beat the Normal and Hard fine, right now on the insane. I'm surprised how well he's doing, TBH. I came into this thinking I would main Lloyd like I had before, might not go like that. PAC-MAN's best against melee based chars since he's remarkably strong but also has great mobility options and projectiles. Weakpoints I'm seeing are against "toolbox" style chars like MM.

>Lloyd: He's good, but his play style has changed a lot from what it was. I'm sure I'm just in the change-over phase and need to get used to him, but while he's still a great char I feel like he's still gimped by mediocre recovery and end-lag on his moves. Good combos and reach for his size on many of them, but still...he's mid-tier IMO.

I think has a rather justified spot on his tier list for reasons I've explained as well. And is fine where he is on the tier list, he can be easily counterplayed from his fruits and such. But maybe a little higher because of those fruit glitches and such. And why is the worst character in the game? He should be somewhere around Group 6 of High tier. And should be considered the worst character in the game or at least second worst. Sure he has a lot of cool setups, great kill power, and some edge guarding tools. But the fact that he can't grab a ledge means that he will be instantly punished whenever he goes offstage which is very contradicting when his biggest pro is his aerial game. And his ground game kind of sucks because of his poor but somewhat unique ground mobility even with his hopping techniques optimized. So one win in neutral from the opponent means certain or near death which is also an issue since 's neutral isn't particularly great