Character Difficutly Scale

[Kalm]

WORK IN PROGRESS.

Okay, so this is what I decided to do with my free time. This is basically a scale of how difficult it is to LEARN how to use certain characters. Lower numbers mean easier, and higher numbers mean harder. I have two different categories, the first and one on the left is for those picking up the character for the first time to play casually. A low number there means that it is very easy to play this character with little knowledge about them. The second category, to the right, is for people trying to play a character at it's maxium potential. A higher number on the right side means that character has a tough learning curve that has to be handled to use them efficiently in Brawl.

This can be used for newcomers to the game just wanting to pick characters to play based on how skilled they think they are as an individual. I would also love to discuss the numbers I decided on based on my knowledge and I will be willing to change certain numbers if shown evidence and reason for my mistake. I haven't put a scale for Olimar because I don't know anything about him whatsoever, and also I hate him with a burning passion that could destroy the world if ignited. I'll take suggestions for his numbers.


Left row is for playing a character casually.
Right row is for playins a character it it's maximum potential.
Scale is 0-10, higher number means it the character is more difficult to play/master.

1- No Skill Needed...........................6- Moderate
2- Extremely Easy..........................7- Fairly Hard
3- Very Easy.....................................8- Considerably Hard
4- Considerably Easy.....................9- Very Hard
5-Fairly Easy...................................10- Extremely Hard


Mario .................... 3/6
Peach .................... 6/8
Yoshi ..................... 3/7
Luigi ...................... 4/6
Bowser .................. 7/7
Link ....................... 3/6
Zelda ..................... 3/6
Sheik ..................... 2/5
Toon Link .............. 4/6
Ganondorf .............. 6/8
Kirby ..................... 2/5
King DeDeDe ........ 5/7
Meta Knight ........... 1/4
Marth ..................... 1/6
Ike ......................... 2/7
Fox ........................ 1/6
Falco ...................... 4/7
Wolf ....................... 1/5
Donkey Kong ......... 4/6
Diddy Kong ............ 3/6
Pikachu ................... 3/5
Jigglypuff ................. 4/7
Lucario .................... 4/6
Pokemon Trainer...... 4/8
'Charizard ................ 5/6
'Squirtle .................. 3/5
'Ivysaur ................... 4/6
Ness ....................... 7/8
Lucas ...................... 6/7
Wario ..................... 4/6
Mr. G&W .............. 2/5
Samus ..................... 5/6
Z.Suit Samus ........... 3/7
Captain Falcon ........ 4/7
Ice Climbers ........... 4/10
ROB ........................ 5/7
Snake ...................... 5/7
Sonic ....................... 3/9
Pit ............................ 2/5
Olimar ...................... 3/7

 

[Judge Judy]

IMO it's really hard to learn how to play Mario at his maximum potential.

 

[Toast2152]

I didn't know Bowser was so hard.

 

[ROOOOY!]

Sonic probably has the largest learning curve in the game, IMO.
To play well, it should be a 9 or 10. He's not a bad character, you just need to be thinking about 12 moves ahead all the time.

 

[Judge Judy]

Mario is more like 3/9

 

[Kalm]

Now that you mention it I may have put mario a bit low. I'm going to keep a note on him and look into changing it into the future. I'm going to need to see a lot of evidence to make him a 9, its relatively easy to learn how to combo with him from what I've seen. I always expected the harder parts of him to involve approaching and getting kills.

As for Sonic, I have 7 as a pretty hard place to learn. I know hes a tough to master but I want to save 9 and 10 for extremely difficult characters. I'll put a note for him too though.


Edit: Thanks for the comments so far. =)

 

[Judge Judy]

I've seen some **** combos from exploiting that backwards slide with the Ftilt but it's still pretty hard to do. F.L.U.D.D.'s tipper is pretty awesome too. I don't know much about capedashing or cape gliding though.

 

[Steeler]

are you crazy

sure rate each individual poke but

pokemon trainer 10/10 for sure

you are forced to use three separate characters. .__.

 

[ShadowLink84]

Except that sonic is definitely one of the most difficult characters to use effectively.

 

[MK_own]

It is true that Meta is probably the easiest character to start with, but he is very difficult to master.

 

[Kalm]

With pokemon trainer you can get away with only focusing on 2 of the 3 characters in most cases. And I'm not just going to rate them as whole.

I'll continue to consider changing Sonic as I hear more about him, and actually hear more reasons and advanced techniques required to master to use him. Like some of the vague things I heard about Mario

As for Meta Knight, the only advanced things I've seen around him so far revolve around his shuttle loop. The shuttle loop can be confusing and there are a few things you need to work around with it, but it just isn't as hard to work with as other characters.

 

[GofG]

Why are iceclimbers not 8/infinity?

 

[Kalm]

I'm expecting their infinite chain grabs to be banned, so I really don't want to include that as part of their learning curve. I have to admit its a tough one to debate though, I may have to just put the dreaded * next to them.

 

[Browny]

wolf, pikachu, kirby should all be very low, if they arent already. also id put olimar as 1/1

Diddy, sonic, lucario, PT, Zamus should all be very high

imo

 

[Outlaw Gryphon]

I find it difficult to play as Olimar D:

Captain Falcon should be 10/10 imo

 

[Morrigan]

If a character sucks it doesn't mean it's the hardest to learn or to master.

Every character should have a 0 to 10 scale, that way you can compare.
I really suggest you change that.

 

[Kalm]

All of the characters are set on a O to 10 scale. I don't think you understand how I set up the chart. Read the OP more carefully please.

I didn't however verify that they were on a 0 to 10 scale, I just thought it assumable, I'll add in an extra line to make it easier to understand.

 

[Browny]

If a character sucks it doesn't mean it's the hardest to learn or to master.

not neccesarily. you have characters like link, who are kind of bad, but hes got more AT's than majority of characters, and a half. you need to perfect many things to be good with him. MK on the otherhand is very good, if not the best. however he has practically 0 AT's. none of his moves require any special button inputs or careful timing, placement, even if you miss, the attack is so fast he generally cant be punished.

 

[Morrigan]

All of the characters are set on a O to 10 scale. I don't think you understand how I set up the chart. Read the OP more carefully please.

I didn't however verify that they were on a 0 to 10 scale, I just thought it assumable, I'll add in an extra line to make it easier to understand.

Oh, now I get it. Yeah I kinda rushed while reading it and went on to the chart.

 

[Pyroloserkid]

Lawl at Olimar.


Bowser should be much lower.
IC's should be higher. Their grabs won't be banned.

 

[Kalm]

Being someone who uses Bowser, I have to say he is extremely hard to use in many situations. None of his aerials can be used in any practical approach method, and though powerful all but 2 are easy to dodge in the air. In the end every single one of his attacks except his Jab, Fire Breath, Kclaw, and Dtilt leave him extremely open. Plus, he eats projectiles like nobody's business.

Like I said before the Climbers are something to think about, if we want to consider their grabs then they can easily be the hardest characters to use in the game. Even if they aren't banned(but they have in a couple locations already) I think we need to just leave the learning curve of the chain grabbing on its own and keep the scale to the rest of their strategies and techniques.

If this can be agreed on I can put a permanant note next to them stating their scale omits the grab techniques in order to keep it actually below 10 lol.

 

[Morrigan]

Being someone who uses Bowser, I have to say he is extremely hard to use in many situations.

So is this thread getting updated using people's feedback or is that the definite list?

Because you main Bowser, and he's the only one with a 10 score...that's why I ask

 

[biohazard930]

Why do you hate Olimar so much? I must know, because he'd be my favorite if Yoshi didn't exist.

 

[ArcPoint]

I think Pit deserves a 1, not a two. Side B and Arrow camping are VERY easy to do and pick up with Pit, Along with his great recovery, I just think Pit is very easy to pick up as a noob.

 

[Morrigan]

Olimar deserves a 10/10 for what I'm about to say...

A couple of months ago I played against someone online who picked him. He has never played Smash64 or Melee, Brawl is his first Smash. So...when he ran out of Pikmins I noticed that he wasn't plucking more of them, and started "attacking" me. Then he found out that Nair did damage and started spamming it. Basically, I won. He didn't know how to pluck more Pikmen until the end of the match

 

[Grunt]

Olimar deserves a 10/10 for what I'm about to say...

A couple of months ago I played against someone online who picked him. He has never played Smash64 or Melee, Brawl is his first Smash. So...when he ran out of Pikmins I noticed that he wasn't plucking more of them, and started "attacking" me. Then he found out that Nair did damage and started spamming it. Basically, I won. He didn't know how to pluck more Pikmen until the end of the match

real men dont need pikmin to win. only their GIANT HEAD!

 

[gorgon.]

I hate how many people think I (and others) use Olimar because of his so-called "gayness." I use Olimar because the Pikmin series is awesome, and just because Olimar has range and the Toss doesn't mean he's pick up and play. Geez, if anyone, Meta'd be easier to learn than Olimar.

 

[Rapid_Assassin]

wolf, pikachu, kirby should all be very low, if they arent already. also id put olimar as 1/1

Diddy, sonic, lucario, PT, Zamus should all be very high

imo

Money match?

There's a reason why people who haven't put any time into trying to learn Olimar usually stay clear away. And that's because he's fairly difficult to play well.

Let's see:

1. 5 different versions of almost every attack, with different damage, range, and knockback properties. This makes him difficult to space with, and requires paying attention to which moveset you're working with to decide which attack to do next. Not to mention the hitboxes on every attack which involves a pikmin are weird (as in, have different sweetspots and sour spots), which makes spacing harder.

2. Did I mention the need to pay attention? You have to pay attention not only to color but to the number of pikmin you have, and plan accordingly. Opponent kill all your pikmin? Good luck.

3. Recovery is 100% fail. If you get knocked off the edge even at low % there's a good probability that you're dead.

Now it's pretty easy to play a ****ty Olimar, seeing as it's easy to play a ****ty anything. But even on a noob level, Olimar can be hard compared with a lot of the cast unless your opponents don't move out of the way or ever attack you....

 

[Morrigan]

I always wondered, and since I don't play too many Olimars...do Oli's mainers use DownB often?


Emmy: did you drop Peach?

 

[Blackbelt]

With pokemon trainer you can get away with only focusing on 2 of the 3 characters in most cases. And I'm not just going to rate them as whole.

I must disagree with this statement.



Sure, on a matchup to match up basis, you might be focusing on only two (Or one, in certain cases) but on the whole, skill with all 3 is neccesary for victory (Especially when Stamina is factored in)

 

[NessUserAnton]

Ness' deserves to be lower. IMO, he should be for beginners. He's not that hard to use peoples, people just think that.

Snake should be higher, aswell. He is really awkward to use.

 

[Rapid_Assassin]

Somewhat, depends on the style of play and situation. I don't use it as often as most good Olimars because I powershield everything, and the reason most use it is for the super armor frames. I do use it a lot to reorder between stocks, and to call pikmin back if i'm about to die.

And yeah, I did. I'll still play her in friendlies, though. But my Peach is butt crap compared to my Olimar now.

 

[gorgon.]

I always wondered, and since I don't play too many Olimars...do Oli's mainers use DownB often?

I don't know about extremely good Olimar players, but I don't use it that often. I only use it to call back Pikmin broken off from the platoon. In the heat of battle, there's not much time for ordering Pikmin, and when you do, your plan usually fails and you end up using the Pikmin you wanted to grab with for smashing instead.

 

[SummerObsession]

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.

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.

 

[orintemple]

Snake, PT, Samus, Lucario, Sonic are all pretty hard to play imo. I don't play most of these characters, because I got fed up with them too easily. Except Samus who I love, but she is hard to play at max. Not so much at casual though. Missle spam missle spam.

 

[Fujiwara]

Pit is to low.
2/7 suits more.

Reason: You've to time your moves very well because 70% of them have no priority against another attacks. But people won't understand that until they play the character seriously. The Arrows are spammable, indeed, but fairly easy to get around...
and try to win against an competitive player... Pit isn't that easy as you all thought.

 

[Kalm]

I've read all of the posts up to now and hear are my non quoted responses.

First off, I never said I main Bowser, just that I use him.

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.

I'm not going to change Pit's casual scale right now, I think he is still extremely easy to use without really knowing how he works. However, I feel should ackowledge his advanced learning curve enough to at least increase the scale to a 6 or so, I made a note for it.

Pokemon Trainer is still a bit off for me. I can admit I haven't seen much PT advanced play so I could very easily be wrong about my scaling of him, but even still I really don't want to combine him as a whole. You need to take it upon yourself to make an average throughout the three pokemon I scaled individually. I'll continue to consider opinions on them though of course, as long as fresh evidence can be displayed for me.

I haven't changed anyones scale yet but I've noted all the relevant comments for each character and I plan to update the scale after just under a week has passed, depending on the popularity of this thread.

Once again I really appreciate the discussion so far, I haven't seen any real trolling yet and I'm grateful for all of your competent opinions.

 

[Mini Mic]

What an arbitrary and opinionated list.

 

[gorgon.]

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.

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.

 

[Roller]

I guess I just hate ROB.

You are not alone.