Who Is Melee's Hardest Character

Who Is Melee's Hardest Character? Super Smash Bros Melee players are always debating who character is harder is puff easy is fox actually hard who is valid and who isnt? well today I am going to use facts and logic to put some numbers to each characters difficulty so that we can settle this argument once and for all! (this is all in good fun)
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[@tilt9808]

I think falco is a weird case because at high level he's as big brained as you can get but you can't convince me the average slippi falco has any thoughts beyond circus music

[@Dan_PM]

Accurate

[@Yvs8962]

Facts

[@logansimoni4763]

I’m laughing to hard at this.😂

[@_Cloudbusting_]

Falco is just one of the coolest characters in the game. Ppl wanna pick him up cuz they think they're gonna turn into Mango or Magi after a waveshine... They're not like simple-minded or smth. They just focus on the FALCO STUFF and play kinda stupid.

[@tilt9808]

​@@_Cloudbusting_ Ye I think in fairness to the birds every top tier character has their own aspects of the game they just don't have to worry about because their character is so good at it, and most people don't really notice it. I play fox so I don't even know all the aspects of melee I suck at but my broken character carries me through. that said I do think at low mid level stopping a falco from doing falco shit is considerably harder than it is for the falco to do those things

[@patrickoconnell9387]

An entire video about how hard a character is that completely ignores defense is such a falco main video to make

[@benjaminh7548]

I think that the individual aspects of Yoshi's tech are slept on here. Armor, parry, DJC. Armor in particular being one of the rare pieces of tech that you can't actually do alone. Even Amsa has trouble explaining its properties.

[@Meechell]

As a Yoshi main I agree. Yoshi might have the hardest tech in the game.

[@kevinhirschowitz8550]

lets not also forget learning yoshi is much weirder then all the other characters. hes a very singular character in that learning general tech very rarely transfers to him

[@sangan3202]

to me Yoshi and Peach are the hardest of all, they have so many things to remember

[@jamesprumos7775]

Yes, there's a reason why Amsa is the only Yoshi player in the top 50.

[@Meechell]

@@jamesprumos7775 in the top 100.

[@kwobbleguy9252]

Samus was too low on the “tech” chart imo. She’s got a lot of weirdly technical stuff specific to her

[@ameeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee]

samus underrated

[@bignards3]

agreed, same with luigi

[@_Cloudbusting_]

I agree

[@icegod4849]

Forreal. Lemme list a few - Super Wavedash (not practical but still tough) - Daughter Dash / Goomy Zoomy (is practical and hella hard) - Platform cancelled missiles (like wtf this is actually so difficult for me I can waveshine 10x easier than this) - NIL (if Marth is at a 3 cuz of his NILs then Samus is defo a 4) - Wavebomb (its like waveshine but without the reflexive muscle memory and instead with reactions and also like not even as good)

[@log-ana-sxs]

SAME

[@kieranm9340]

I was so confused about the choices you made until I heard that you were a falco main and it all started to make sense

[@t_._.]

word

[@Aycheffe]

Falco main's takes are really something special. I felt like I was huffing glue listening to this guys opinions

[@andrewferguson6901]

Not putting fox at a 5 on complexity. As if he doesn't have infinite options in every situation. Being that overpowered takes a lot of brainpower

[@KneeL4D2]

@@andrewferguson6901 felt like the scope of this video was a little bit strange. a character should be rated on how hard they are to play mechanically, just because bowser has terrible matchups against every character doesnt mean hes as hard to play as fox

[@PlagueDrHK]

​@@KneeL4D2not at all. Technicality is not the only scope to judge a character at and id argue it's irrelevant compared to fundamental difficulty since the latter translates to, y'know real results.

[@lukeh5521]

Putting falco as one of the hardest and marth as one of the easiest is maybe the most falco main thing I've ever seen

[@dropandy1453]

the secret is they’re both easy

[@MaxedOutMaxt]

It's based

[@HyperMusicMatt]

Game is hard.

[@Elivoltek]

Me as a Ness main can confirm that hitting the yo yo Glitch Thunder Jacket consistently is hard

[@_Cloudbusting_]

Ur still a very good Ness 😂

[@beauhendershot7911]

How good is wavedash back up smash as Ness?

[@Elivoltek]

Upsmash is not a good move unless you charge it exactly for the yo yo glitch then it becomes good @@beauhendershot7911

[@coco_rthritis6462]

I've been trying Ness but damn he feels so much better in 64/Remix to me lol

[@isuckatnames6033]

Stop smash attacking in neutral

[@Hpyktxd]

I'm not sure if the versatility point really holds ground. A fox has the most varied options in neutral, but I would argue that makes the opponents character harder. They are the ones who have to worry about all of those options. Fox just needs to think of the (usually) fewer options the opponent has and act accordingly.

[@DeertickDaniel]

I would say it’s more the other way around, a fox has to decide on so many options while the opponent focuses on key things instead of every little interaction. Like fox has 3 options but 2 of them get hit by peaches fair.

[@duskpede5146]

@@DeertickDaniel peach still has to be aware of all 3 options while fox just has to worry about fair

[@duskpede5146]

more good options just means more shit you can do without having to think about it and get away with it

[@mlalbaitero]

Both are true

[@TrevsTreehouse]

I would say it's a little both. Knowing you only have 3 good options gives you less to think about(like Ness for example) which makes it easier to learn but it does make it harder to utilize in gameplay. So ig once you have both characters down to muscle memory having more options is definitely easier. Learning Sheik felt harder to me than a lot of characters at first because she has so many good options in neutral it's hard to know which to use where sometimes and it can give me indecisiveness loll. Whereas puff it's just like I definitely need to back air 80 percent of the time. Marth it's like I should fair, nair, or grab in neutral and shark with up air etc.

[@Nikkerman]

My only problem is that there is no section for autopilot, which is HUGE for tourney and some characters like spacies can spam tech skill while a character like falcon can't autopilot because so much of your game is making the one right move or just being flat out wrong and being put in an imediate bad position, whereas if i'm fox I've already gone into the lab and gotten down my shine oos option if my nair is a bit early and hold up shield.

[@cloudyskyeful]

If you are auto piloting you should be losing your games. I would not define that for a characteristic to see how good they are in melee. You kinda just cherry picked a specific situation that you’ve probably dealt with but doesn’t define how you should be playing those matchups

[@kennethsmith317]

​@@cloudyskyefulidk, the point he made about foxes missing something and able to still have 5 more options to correct the mistake is valid. Most characters die instantly after making a mistake, where fox has so many "correct" options and his speed allows him to correct a mistake before opponent has a chance to react.

[@byrne1807]

Yeah I think this is where puff gets her 5 because she’s definitely not one of the 5 easiest characters imo. Definitely something like this because some characters are kinda privileged in that regard

[@mlalbaitero]

lol like falcon can't just spam aerials and grabs

[@mlalbaitero]

If ur nair is early u get shield grabbed

[@MarioSMG64]

This is a good video, though I don't think the results are super applicable to the actual game, because it's mostly based off of the character's peak. In reality, characters like Falco and Peach have a pretty low floor but extremely high ceiling, meaning that while they're complicated when played perfectly, they aren't always complicated.

[@spookyghost9653]

“I play a harder character and have to work harder to win” congrats bro you brought a knife to a gun fight

[@bb_lou]

the fact we just casually ignored that some characters have chaingrabs is insane to me

[@jareit]

I think a case could’ve been made for icy’s to be somewhere in top 5 since the desync stuff you can do is wildly difficult

[@duskpede5146]

he incorporated that into the thing already

[@andrewferguson6901]

Desync is ACTUALLY 20xx levels of impossible but powerful

[@ziwuri]

and they would possibly be a tier down nowadays because the early 2021 tier list assumes wobbling is allowed, netting them another point in matchups

[@XerosenGFX]

Been watching you for a while now and man, I gotta say your editing is getting so good! Definitely find myself chuckling when you put yourself on the platforms in stages and the little jokes you put here there (like the Cyberpunk meme early in the video). Keep up the awesome content!

[@zeo_o6395]

I think in the complexiy category yoshi should also be a 5 because of taking hits woth doublejump armor and him needing to be more careful with using his shield because of his lack of a jump oos.

[@jiaan100]

As a marth who does dash back pivot smash instead of dash back grab, hes extremely technical and you have a frame perfect input every neutral interaction.

[@VoidPlugger]

Not to mention the tangible hitboxes that are only optimal at certain frames? I find it unbelievably hard to grasp Marth being “easy” in any capacity

[@r3aperrising984]

Excellent video, been watching you for a while and your content has only gone up in quality over the months. Keep it up! Also a super original idea with solid effort put in to understand the concepts and even conceptualize what "hard" means in the first place. Brilliant stuff.

[@Piggles64099]

Just want to say this, but the editing on this video is next level. You are so underrated and I love your content Chaler. Keep it up ❤!

[@zakm3511]

Love the videos man, keep it up. Love from, That one guy who beat you in pools at New Wave that one time in Marth dittos

[@TheTechnopider]

Samus being a 2 for tech blows my mind... ledge AI is a REQUIREMENT at higher levels. As well as missile cancels, having phenomenal wavedashes OoS, and the fact that aiming your tether is actually pretty damn tough, and involves a lot of pseudo RNG manipulation (yes, you read that properly. The grapple has RNG. and the timing and spacing of your reel-in effects that RNG. TRUE RNG). malding...

[@TheTechnopider]

I could go on for hours... wavebomb shield pressure, shorthop fastfall missile (an incredibly tight timing that takes a LONG time and a good OEM or well tuned phob to do... or u can just be on box and do it for free hehehehhh), being forced to edge cancel your up b, which is, mind you, our only good out of shield option. Our other good OoS option is nair, but it's actually pretty hard, because if we don't release shield in time, we get a zair, which is tough on a 3f jumpsquat character. once you get to higher levels, she also starts incoporating advanced platform options like FHAISD aerials and missiles (Fullhop, aerial interrupt, shield drop, pronounced 'phased'), grapple refresh becomes another useful tool, which is the fastest ledge regrab option IN THE GAME. one of only 2 fully invincible ledge refreshes I know of that doesn't require a frame perfect ledge release (the other being shino stalls). I can go into more on all the funky stuff to do with bombs and daughter dashes. bomb cancel zair. so on and so forth... There's just no way she isn't at least in 3, but if you ask me, she deserves to be in 4. signed, a slippi grandmaster samus

[@ciarzyx]

Your channel is so good can't believe you're not more popular

[@battle188883]

I think the criteria could benefit with some weighting. I think for example that difficulty based on how good the character is would have a significant weight over punish capability. Bowser versus Jigglypuff is especially the most egregious showing of this, but I do very much agree with the criteria and the rankings within the criteria. Very good video!

[@kneo12]

Thing about puff is the hard doesnt from the character itself. The hard part come from having the patience and knowledge of knowing when and when to not engage. Like as a puff there are periods of time in a match where, for minutes at a time, i have to just disengage from the match due to how high of a percent im at and how any stray hit would kill.

[@willemgranzin2719]

So true

[@mlalbaitero]

It's so hard to not play the game

[@kneo12]

@@mlalbaitero disengaging =/= not playing

[@TrevsTreehouse]

I agree with that. Having to have more patience and discipline for some characters is heavily slept on. If you're ADHD or impatient it will be way easier to play Fox than Puff but then again thats just a personality thing so it could be a somewhat irrelevant or biased criteria.

[@ArthDragon14]

You put some serious effort in your vids, great stuff my dude! (Also, yeah, falco's punish game is very nuanced at high level, it's just that many ppl dislike the character so they say it's braindead)

[@TTVRainyMelee]

foxes will swear their character is hard when every move combos into every move, and then combos into his kill moves, which all kill at 70

[@SMALLSandJOE]

No one is ever going to agree with everything said in a video like this but that being said I thought it was a very fun and well put together video! Loving this channel! Keep it up :)

[@smallestzilla]

Yk what I WILL subscribe because happy chaler =amazing content

[@smokedem]

To break away from all of the discussion on the ratings you proposed - how did you do the little cutout animations for the characters? I’ve been wanting to do that for a side project. I can’t imagine you roto’d it manually, did you just create a stage that was a solid color then chroma key it?

[@splnter648]

Honestly link has a pretty insane selection of bomb techs that he can do, such as goron rolling, rocket jumping and the recovery bomb trick to name a few. (I didn’t mention acid dropping because it’s really hard, but I think that it would go up by one point regardless because from 36% onwards, link’s jank arsenal gives him a bit more to think about and to set up)

[@claytonroberts1622]

I was waiting for some fire

[@user-hm2wl7dp9h]

I think it is great that you added some dimensionality to the question of "How hard is XYZ character?" question - something that is rarely done. Even if personally I disagree with pretty much all of your rankings.

[@JustinBA007]

Pikachu here: so when you say you don't know how necessary up-b shenanigans are, it depends which ones you mean. Stuff like ledge cancels are not super necessary at all, and are more just to catch your opponent off guard. I use the dreamland edge cancel from ledge quite a bit, but that's mainly because it's actually easier than ledgedashing, but not super necessary if you are good at that. However, you also showed up-b from stage to ledge in the B roll, which in my opinion is one of Pikachu's most necessary techs. However, it's not actually that difficult to do, as you really just up-b straight out, then back in and down at any basically angle between 45 and 0 and it will grab ledge. Unless you are really close to ledge, in which case you can either dash away from ledge, or even jump for a few frames to make it easier. So not sure if that really warrants pikachu moving from a 3 to a 4. I have never really found Pikachu's tech skill to be all that difficult, however I know some people who have tried and found it super difficult, just like I find Captain Falcon's tech skill to be much harder than Pikachu's. Also, Pichu's techskill is easier than Pikachu's, and Up B shenanigans and ledge dashing are less necessary since Pichu's Up B has less landing lag and more angles, so more often than not you can just up b to stage and your opponent would have to make a read to punish you for it. So if you consider Pikachu a 4 on techskill, pichu is a 3, and if Pikachu is a 3, Pichu is a 2. Also, pleasantly surprised you rated Pikachu so high on complexity. A lot of people see Axe doing crossup nairs all the time and think it's simple, but his timing mixups are insane. Nair's hitbox loses to basically everything that any top tier can do. Every spacie arial, every Shiek tilt... the only thing it beats is Captain Falcon side B. A big reason why players like Swift are trying to use Pikachu's other arials isn't just to push the character forward, it's partly because we can't win neutral with nair like he can. And edgeguarding fox is hard.

[@ElectricWindGirlFriend]

I’m a bowser player, and while I agree that he isn’t super hard technically (should be a 2 on the punish though due to difficult koopa klaw tech) the mental strength he takes to play is much higher than lots of other characters due to his high jumpsquat forcing you to commit where other chars don’t. I do wish that there was a mental component here, because chars like puff would go up.

[@dropandy1453]

the problem with adding a mental component is that it’s completely subjective. like how are you gonna take “you have to consider bowser’s slow jump squat” and compare it to say, “you have to consider sheiks awful aerial drift.” you can’t really fairly give either one of those a number ranking that isn’t just plainly biased imo

[@bot_matt]

1:09 is me at night playing on my Box Controller crying as I lose yet another game to Joey Batt's Ness

[@paulcochran7007]

As a kind of Ness main, I really enjoyed the validation from the video thanks Chaler

[@trillaggaming2404]

each video I see the closer I am to trying out Melee, keep up the great work!

[@Aycheffe]

#1 tip is play the character that you're attracted to, not the one you think is the best. If your good with a bad character its actually an advantage unless you plan to go pro, because people are less familiar with the matchup against less popular characters. On top of that, you'll get better faster with a character you love/enjoy because your having fun. For me it's dr mario and DK. Just love them, don't care that they are low tier. And I beat top tier characters all the time. Every character is good in the right hands, just have fun

[@lunarumbreon7699]

My only problem with this is it kinda seems to leave out Link tech, assuming that he’s basically the same character as Young Link when Link has tech like acid dropping (which is a sort of pseudo multi shine) or Goron Rolling (using the bomb to do something like Samus’ super wavedash) that only Link has access to. Link has some really cool tech you just rarely see it due to nobody playing Link. That and Samus seems way too low for a character almost entirely built around tech

[@awogbob]

I also think there could have been a further separation between possible tech and nessessary tech. Fox has a high theoretical tech limit but how many mid foxes only know how to dash dance, grab, upsmash and shake with up air. What I mean is how much a character has to utilize tech to create an effective gameplan is more important than the actual tech needed to get going. As a falcon main your technical fundamentals have to be near perfect with L cancelling and frame 1 dashing out of end lag and throw follow ups or you will simply not hit your combos. Yoshi comes to mind as a difficult character that MUST utilize maximum tech at all times. But peach and fox, there gameplan is so strong with minimal tech

[@digineet8421]

I’ll agree falcon is easier it a lot of ways but there are also some tough things about him not really represented by the way this was measured. For one he has arguably the worst recovery in the game and is perfect weight and size for doing combos on. If you mess up a bit vs a lot of character you can just be juggled to the ledge and ever get back. This means that he has to make up for that by having really consistent and heavy punishes or else you just lose. His ledge game is super important to finish off stocks vs a lot of the cast(and each character has its own method of ledge guarding). This along with hax dashing (which if you mess up you just die) makes his punish and tech more difficult. Also he has the best moonwalk so you have to use it and a lot of people just can’t do it fast enough. He has some wall jump stuff that’s tricky too. Instant up airs are tough. Edge cancels are hard to consistently do. His neutral is kinda wack. He sucks oos so you have to move around constantly keeping perfect spacing while also being the fastest character in the game so spacing is pretty easy to mess up. Vs a lot of characters their moves just beat falcon if they start at the same time and distance so you have to always bend around your opponent’s play where as with fox, falco, marth and others people have to play around you. That makes neutral a constantly changing rps that needs perfect spacing and timing. Tech chasing requires you to study the frame data of every single character to act within a few frames or you just can’t play at a higher level. Falcon has DI trouble too. If you don’t believe me look at s2j versus any good falco and tell me falcon is easy.

[@RobinKaggl]

does anyone know the song name at 11:17?

[@matteopacelli9001]

This is honestly a great question to really dive into. Even if a character is fast, that doesn’t make them that much harder, it just means you need a little more practice to get the muscle memory down. That doesn’t necessarily mean you will need to spend more time studying the game

[@philswift5340]

On top of that, if you’re characters fast that means you have more time to react and less for your opponent

[@lucaskincanyon7393]

WHat's the music at punish section?

[@Ruye2]

does someone know the song at 8:12 i cant find it lol

[@susparia4724]

This is a really bad list lmaoooo

[@oliverrainer5771]

I love the methodology, great video! imo it's Yoshi #1 or tied w Mewtwo but I respect it overall

[@arvidbergman]

to think i was thinking this exact question to myself while outside like six hours ago

[@fatyoshi696]

in traditional fighters, we usually use 2 criteria for how difficult a character is: - The physical aspect: how hard is it to do stuff with this character compared to others? Do they have to be more precise in their inputs than other characters to do the same damage or run their gameplan with the same effectiveness? - The mental aspect: how much stuff do you need to pay attention to to play effectively? Can you get away with autopiloting or do you have to play more consciously? Do you have stances or extra resources to worry about? There are notable characters who are super hard in one aspect but easy in the other (naoto in blazblue has a very simple toolkit but is still an execution monster, while asuka in guilty gear doesn't have any hard inputs but he requires you to play Yu-Gi-Oh and guilty gear at the same time), but there are also many that fall in the middle by having both (zato in guilty gear is two characters in one who are controlled independently, which is executionally and mentally hard to do)

[@rubysauce]

its also hard to give all 4 categories the same weight. Tier list probably also matters more than we let on, in both low and high tier. At the end, low level falco's can get pillar combos and f-smashes in neutral up intil mid level, which is still a lot of melee. Same for peach, you get very far by just spacing arials, downsmashing and chucking turnips.

[@zachariemelanson485]

Entertaining vid as always, but as much as I appreciate your effort, I think there are categories missing. For example how easy it is to make a mistake that gets you punished (or SD), and how hard you get punished for mistakes. That's one of some things that could be added and change results. Melee is too complex, making a list like this is one hell of a task lol

[@lonron5018]

Wasn’t thinking about subbing but I can sympathize with number go up

[@consistentsuffering2542]

I agree with most of the video, but I would argue with how you ranked matchups. Just using the tierlist Doesnt really do justice to the difficulty some characters face against other characters. For example, sheik has a large advantage over most mid and low tier characters in the game, but is at a disadvantage to a lot of the higher tiers . Due to the popularity and depth of certain characters, you will see a lot more fox’s then you will see bowsers. Same goes for puff. She may be high on the tierlist, but the tierlist isn’t taking into fact her individual matchups against othercharacters, and how often she will have to see them. Other than that gripe, I agree on pretty much everything, great vid 👍

[@simanolastname2399]

Complexity is a really weird metric. In fact, I think that in majority of cases, Complexity makes a character far easier. Also, I disagree with the fact that all of these categories are weighted equally. Tech is hard, but it's only hard when you're learning it. From there you can autopilot it most of the time. Punish is also a strange category - What level are you considering? At low level, Ganon's punish is pretty easy, but at high level, N0ne is basically the only guy who can do it IMHO. Falco at 5 is also kinda of a crazy choice, even at top level. I do think you're not giving Bowser enough credit but that's just a nitpick Edit: Also Yoshi at a 4 for tech? What in the world??????????

[@ledav8894]

the only things im mad about is falco , in the complexity, unless your at top level you just lasers and doa bunch of fsmash and dair and its alr. On the other hand i think yoshi mewtwo and especially peach can be a 5 and are for me more complex than falco , i even think that as a pika main pikachu is a bit more complex so falco needs to be 4 but yeah its pretty hard to rank that and it depends on the main and the player so good job man and great video!

[@MuddyMoleMania]

Another Chaler classic!

[@crystalbeth420]

I am kinda confused with ics being at a 3 with complexity. Really expected them higher there but lower on most other rankings.

[@MegaStunfiskandHat]

How the hell did luigi end up with a 4 in punish? Half his moves send straight up, his wavedash makes covering techs super easy and most of his moves have so little start up that you can follow up even after messing something up

[@yonatanharris1539]

Icies being a 3 for complexity is crazy to me. Watching how slug switches between a ton different desyncs in neutral and also non desynced ground movement/walling looks very hard to me. Icies just have a whole extra layer to think about in neutral. You have to worry about protecting nana, variable wd lengths, and desyncs alongside all the normal stuff.

[@yonatanharris1539]

Also even though ness can djc besides that he is honestly pretty simple imo. Like id give him a 2 for tech and complexity and a 3 for punish. Im not trying to hate though it was a good video and a fun thought experiment

[@crystalbeth420]

for Ness I still dont think he's as high as in this video but he has a ton of niche tech on top of djc too that was probably counted like the yoyo glitch and all that comes with it. At least a 3 is honestly p fair due to that@@yonatanharris1539

[@nickq8093]

As an icies yeah, a 3 for complexity is absolutely obtuse. Having to change movement habits between with and without nana, decisionmaking based on sync'd/desync'd/seperated and nana positioning, saving/not saving nana, Punish decisions when nana is coming back to us (not only what we can do to preserve our punish till she come back but how the inputs we are holding when she does and the opponents position may affect her behaviour), even the niche thing of managing movement around slopes

[@ariesomega2487]

Think the most important aspect is the punish game against your main and the chances of getting hit randomly/ messing up. Big part why fox or falco are difficult to play as is that we as humans are going to fuck up some techskill and both characters get combod or gimped by the entire cast. Even a bowser can get a clip on a fox if they read a roll... puff on the other extreme is very consistent and doesn´t get combod. (yes she dies early but not many characters can actually exploit it)

[@PichuKnight.]

I'm a French Pichu main and Bowser secondary, who's doing some performances in tournaments and trying to master the moonwalk with Bowser. One thing I can say is that choosing an option to punish an opponent is very easy with Bowser, but actually placing that punish is an absolute purge (I prefer punish with F tilt or even Up Air rather than Up B) Still pretty okay with this list !

[@MisterNewYear]

anyone know the song at 1:58

[@HoorayForJay]

Bias aside, I think it's important to consider the floor and ceiling of characters' punishes. Falco has a high floor for punish, any 0-2er can pick up Falco and get some mad % they wouldn't get with another character, but I do think that Falco has a higher punish ceiling than anyone. Falco's punish is huge across most of the cast; all other characters essentially have to end their "punish" with less % given in exchange for a more advantageous position compared to Falco.

[@Eval999]

Fox versality doesn't equal difficulty because you don't even need to use all his options to play at a high level. That's why there are so many distinguishable fox playstyles. His whole everything is just so fucking good you can do whatever you want if you're smart.

[@kieranm9340]

Why do di mix ups affect falco more than other characters?

[@dropandy1453]

cause he doesn’t have free throw confirms and low-tiers don’t exist

[@Mar10Man94]

Hardest to learn vs hardest to execute vs hardest to win? At the highest level, the first two are not really a factor anymore so I'd give it to bowser.

[@duskpede5146]

the best way to avoid all that biases you have from being one guy who plays falco is to get a bunch of people together who all play different characters to then rate each of the characters separately as well as weighing each of the metric by importance, then combining all the cores at the end. oh and flip versatility around, more options just means more mindless shit you can do at any time and get away with it which your opponent still needs to keep track of

[@edyrivero7084]

That relno clip in the begging

[@monorail0]

Good video but you didn't really explain what the standings were tracking (the cumulative score of your ranks plus the tier list score?) so I found it pretty hard to follow your overall thought process the first time around

[@frogchip6484]

Your soul will be mine at exactly 6:32PM BST today

[@bananarnold1831]

Even before Ultimate, Pikachu was rocking the neighborhood.

[@Willow1662]

i wouldve done the tierlist part of the rating a bit different. maybe use tierlist and then adjust (subjectively yuck!) to account for additional factors. Although puff is top tier, her matchup against the most common tournament character (fox) is very hard and captain falcon has a similarly rough time with falco as well. I dont think this would alter the overall shape of the list but would probably keep puff from being bottom 2 maybe? otherwise i appreciate the nuance and care offered on an often reactionary topic in the community. keep up the good work!

[@13luken]

pichu getting squished at 7:53 made me jump i hated seeing that

[@AtlasSSBM]

5:35 kirby looked fucking pissed when you were talking about aerial drift

[@agamer3814]

Disclaimer: Bone to pick with mad unranked falco players. I think we need a bit more emphasis on how much skill is required to get to the top with any character, and I don't think Mango worked significantly harder than Zain did to get to the top, even if he plays a slightly harder character like falco. Because if marth and puff are two of the easiest characters in the game and marth the second best character in the game then why are there only 2 marth mains in the top 40 and only 4 jigglypuffs in the top 40? In the same way I think random unranked falcos can't be mad about how they play the hardest character (because they watch too much BBB), because even if they switched to puff they'd still not be in the top 40.

[@Creepyquiller]

We are definitely on board with the idea of being presented here but man there is a lot of bias being at Play. We would need like a boatload of other opinions from people across the platform who also care about Melee. Great concept though.

[@saxeladude]

4:20 I like the disclaimer let's me know that this is a thought experiment rather than a theory

[@ayoutubechannel7143]

As a Zelda main I say HOW DARE YOU be so accurate

[@x9x9x9x9x9]

Falco being in the top 5 hardest is hilarious. But I get it, you admit the list is biased. The reason I would put falco much much lower is his options are really good. I mean his laser is arguably the best projectile in the game, dair is one of the mot useful moves in the game and its a spike with a hit box that lasts years, every tilt attack is decent and 2 of the 3 smash attacks are really good. Only 'bad' moves are up smash, forward air, and up air.

[@shavierlastname]

ganandorf at a 2 for tech is such a snub

[@d.g4466]

All I can say chaler is that gosh darn it I clicked the button when u asked the straight up blatant number go I happy hit to hard.

[@Easypeck]

So with the punish, and falco being so high on the difficulty for punishing, but woudn't having a plethora of punish options make it...easier? I would think those with almost no punish options (Zelda's really only one being back air) be harder to play than the rest of the cast. I think less options = harder, not the other way around.

[@dropandy1453]

i think in the case of falco his argument was that sure there are many many options, but so many of them are DI dependent which is really hard at a lower level to get a grasp of. i don’t totally agree with this myself (also a falco main), but i can sorta see where he’s coming from.

[@mateomuro4647]

I mever understood this pride in thinking youre working the hardest. I play Falcon because his combos, imo, are simple and straightforward

[@WTH1music]

I think you missed out on how characters struggle to get out of a punish make them harder. As a falcon main escape a fox once im in the blender definitely doesnt feel easy. Same with rtc

[@DankestLankJOJO]

The problem with the argument at 8:30 is that this is true for every character should you wish to optimize your punish game.

[@TheDemonChara]

Mewtwo and Yoshi were the first 2 characters I thought of for this

[@saxeladude]

0:45 in rivals of aether every character is easy to learn difficult to master because every single one except clairen relies on at least two gimmicks for best results and so that game's meta relies on not speed of character or longest combo strings but archetype and strategy the ultimate goal is to get the enemy to fall into the trap of being in your most comfortable playstyle for your character. in essence games like smash and rivals on a competitive level is heavy handed on the mind games. so I think a difficult character would be the ones that are most reliant on their gimmicks or a set strategy or the ones that have very few options to begin with. it really depends if by difficult you mean to play well or to make the enemy to lose. Idk just interesting thought.

[@theonemeleeplayer2138]

I mained roy for 2 years and from my experience, the roy ranking is pretty inaccurate. Roy has to scrap a lot and play a patient playstyle and wait for a 14% conversion. in a sense, low tier players DO have to put in the work, we have to carry our character. He is at least a 3

[@SaltInYourEye_ICs]

I’m sorry, but I Don’t agree with the ICs placement. I feel that they are a five, but lower than Falco and mewtwo, but I still feel that having to know how to nobble(that thing ICs players do after a grab where they wobble them with f tilt and blizzard three times) as well of having to have knowledge of handoff timings on different character weights(yes it is different and hard on EVERYONE) and the addition that these timings are different on CRT vs PC bcs CRT has less lag. I do think the list is okay tho. Great job Chaler! Wait, another ICs thing to consider, the fact that you have to fundamentally move in in a way where nana doesn’t SD or just do random stuff. A few kinda secret facts are that when nana teeters the player can’t control her, it’s up to the AI. 2. Every time you grab the ledge you have to do a sliphog(just hold shield when grabbing the ledge, it’s a common tech). I really do think this is truly a hard list to do because of people like me who say, “Erm, actually Mario’s up b is able to be walljumped out of and it’s a one frame link!” I think it’s great that you made this vid, I like the marth placement.

[@sonicrose8430]

i feel like if Puff was so easy and also a top tier there would be more Puff players towards the top of the rankings let alone more highly competitive Puff players in general

[@jamesissadyo]

Haven't finished but uhh im gonna guess game and watch or ness from you criteria

[@alexbtoogood4u]

subbed to make you happy

[@pinguinothepenguin1999]

imo having more moves doesn’t make the character more complex it makes it more complex for the other person not you because the other person has to know what to do to combat that move overall making your job easier playing as for example a falco while a character with a more restricted move set has to find a way to make that restriction work for them and as i would say it “diff” the other person with better technique and knowledge

[@treebirdgames9200]

So constructive counter argument for one of the parameters, but I think how certain characters were rated in complexity was possibly a bit miss-judged. I think there should be a difference between potential complexity and useful complexity. Not to rag on the bird but take falco for instance. A ton of potential for him to do all sorts of complex things, but unless your at the uppermost level, i dont think its needed. Falco has such good normal that, although he has many options for many interaction, most of the time, a sh laser dair if going to be more than enough to do the job just fine. Sheik is possibly in a similar vain, where the potential is there, but why do much more than d-throw fair? Just because characters have potential for complexity, doesnt always mean they need to use it, possibly making their overall complex rating a bit lower? I dont know how much this would affect the rankings but just food for thought.

[@dropandy1453]

genuine question, what does “uppermost level” mean to you? i go 2-2 at locals with the bird and i can flat out guarantee if all i did in neutral was sh laser shffl dair i wouldn’t win a single game, let alone a full set

[@Hugo_Prolovski]

7:08 Driftveil City Theme. Lets goooooo

[@LEGENDSUNICORN]

I think amsa has put enough work to prove yoshi is one of the hardest characters.

[@Morhamms357]

Seeing Ness as the 2nd hardest character to play warms the cold, culls of my heart :) Now have an excuse to be bad!

[@d.g4466]

I feel like yoshi, ness and pika could have argument for 5 on tech. With how some of their tech feels like ur rewriting ur smash fundamentals cuz they so weird.

[@KaitlynBurnellMath]

So...there's a new data point on hardest vs easiest characters thanks to the Santa Paws tournament. Santa Paws did a "reverse main" tournament. None of the Falcos made top 8 (other people could play Falco just fine). But two Samuses made top 8 cause most people struggled to play as Samus. (The two Samus mains being Travioli and Weavans). I mean, to some degree good players just did good with any character--the top four was 1. Salt, 2. Jmook, 3. Travioli, 4. Cody (Cody lost to Samus twice). So like...the top players still mostly floated to the top. The rest of the top 8 was rounded out by the second Samus, an Ice Climbers main who got DQed out of top 8, a marth (Kalvar) and a fox (Preeminent). Not every character was represented, granted. It's not like someone showed up and claimed to be a Mewtwo main. There were no Yoshis, no Pikachus. At least one Peach but not a very well known one. But there were a couple of Jigglypuffs, Dawson and Panko (who got knocked out needing to play Samus Puff and Peach Puff). And a Luigi, Eddy Mexico, who got knocked out trying to play Shiek vs Luigi against Jmook, and by trying to play Samus vs Luigi against Weavans. And a couple of Falcos, Frenzy who got knocked out playing Falcon vs Falco versus Salt, and Marth vs Falco against Kalvar. And another Falco, Slowking, who ran into Salt and then Cody in losers.

[@Clarkbardoone]

falco is a case of ceiling and floor being really far from one another, yoshi is the hardest imo because he has the highest ceiling or at least the same as falco, but a WAY higher floor.

[@Cliffie505]

I think you undervalued shield grab as an easy option in neutral