SCV Tier List

As a casual player, I never put any stock into tier lists personally. They just aren't really relevant to most players, and I don't particularly find theorycraft "fun."

That said I always like to see what characters/players perform well in competitive play. If anything, I'm very "anti-tier list" because I want to see underrated characters do well. God I love videos of Kura playing Talim on SC4, for example.

Only time will tell how SC5 turns out.

FYI I've been a Mitsurugi player since SC2, and his SC5 version is growing on me despite initially being very sore at the loss of Relic and other favorite moves. I'll keep playing him even if other people think he's low tier on some technical basis.

Natsu's and Cervy's damages should both get nerfed. a Pat's shouldnt because he is SO much harder to play than the other 2

That's the logic that break the game balance. You can't award people for that, because if you design the game like that, everyone ay higher level would play the "hard to play but OP" characters.

"Yeah man, you can't reward people for putting in work to do well with characters that aren't braindead!"
What kind of logic is that.

Some people are a little dense, if some character are more powerful but harder to play, you really think top player who are trying to win Evo or SBO will play others?

How about reward player for playing well.... with any char???

Yes, I do. Because it's been proven time and again that people see difficulty in playing a character as a detriment to that character's ability.

Cite:
-Marvel 3: Crimson Viper vs. Phoenix and Wolverine. Viper has always been better, just much harder to play. How many Viper teams did you see at Evo vs. the number of Phoenix and Wolverine teams?
-Tekken 6: Bob vs. Bryan. If you watched Evo, and know anything about what Bryan is capable of, I don't need to explain that.
-Street Fighter IV: Yun vs. Yang or Viper. Some argued that Yang and Viper were way better than Yun, just harder to use. Again, how many Vipers and Yangs did you see at Evo as opposed to Yuns?

The answer to all of these questions: The easier to use characters, though worse than the more technical, were used SIGNIFICANTLY more than the harder characters. And this is at the highest levels of play.

No character should be able to cruise around on fundamentals and easy mode nonsense, only to achieve higher ratios of risk/reward because their ceiling of skill is so damn low. Rewarding laziness is an asinine method of balancing a game.

MVC3: I don't know nor do I care about MvC, so I have no idea.

Tekken 6: don't play, no idea.

SFIV AE, First of, Yun and Feilong were the best of the best pre 2012, even when people ask Diago after he lost with Yun, he still said Yun is the strongest in game, it's him not the character for not winning. the viper thing is just a minority's voice, so you don't have any point there at all.
Note: didn't some guy who most play play VF5 won EVO's SF4 title with a Feilong? How is Yang and Viper being better is beyond me.

Let's also take VF for example, Akria is the hardest character to play, and this is closer to aPat than any other example because both of them are hard due to execution difficulty, and AM2 just keep rewarding him for it and he's been top tier in most versions and the best in many since vanilla VF4 and is hugely popular.

I'll take those "Don't play, don't care" sentiments as a sign of your ignorance as to what the hell you're actually arguing here.

So a minority can't be right about a character being good? The main reasons for Yun and Fei Long supposedly being the best was because they had lower ceilings of execution. Viper became a force because of players like Wolfkrone and Latif, who were willing to put in the time and explore all the crazy stuff that character is capable of, and Yang was only a force in Japan because no one in America put in the work with him. It's only more apparent that she's better because Fei and Yun's braindead stuff got taken away. Side note: Yang got nerfed harder than Yun in 2012, which is stupid as hell.

VF is also a community of players that aren't lazy. They're the hardest of the hardcore. Out of every other community, they are the only example of players that play the hardest characters and excel at it. Of course, if you're in Japan that is. If you attended any VF5 tournament outside of Japan, you'd find that the characters being played the most, and therefore winning the most, were characters like Jacky, Sarah, and maybe even Brad. Why? Because again, they're much easier to use.

I have no problem with hard characters being top tier, because you have to be solid as hell and on point with your execution all the time in order to abuse the broken stuff.

Sorry but this is SC forum, so what if I don't give a fuck about some other games??? Do you play every game in the world?

I did not say you were wrong, I wouldn't know, so what's your problem?

So minority can be right but has been proven wrong by results, so there. Also, Diago is not from Japan, not the best SF player overall in the world for past 8-10 years? When did viper dominate Japanese SF 4 AE? (2012 hasn't been out long enough and I am not ruling out anything for it just yet)

VF players in Japan are super HC and can dominate everyone outside of Japan, so what you said exactly proves my point, when you put in hard to use but super powerful character, the best of the best will take advantage of it and overuse him.

I personally have a problem with the whole idea of high execution justifying how strong something is. Part of this is that high level players have repeatedly proven that if something is good enough to justify its difficulty, players will learn how to do it and abuse it. The second part is that there is such a thing as going too far with it. This might be because I am originally a GG player, and characters like Eddie, for example, are simply too powerful, even given how technically gifted you have to be to play him. I really don't like characters who can just shut your options down completely, regardless of how hard they are to play, because someone WILL figure out how to do it and at that point what you have is a training mode character who can just auto pilot strategy, which makes games much less interesting. No matter how hard it is, no character should be able to play by a formula. You should still have to outplay the other guy before you get to run your auto pilot strats.

As far as specific examples, Viper being better than the given top characters in Marvel has always generally been theory. There's a lot of busted looking stuff that she can do, sure, but even high execution players who play her have yet to really demonstrate dominance with her. As much as people might want to say that you can just Seismo everyone to death, I don't think it's as overpowered as people think. But anyway, that's a topic for another time and place.

But yeah, saying stuff like it's okay for aPatroklos to have safe combo starters that lead to huge damage because you have to know a few Just Frames is not really kosher. People will learn that stuff if it means free wins.

@reader: I play enough games to know my way around multiple tier lists, and know the reasoning behind them. If you don't have competitive exposure to multiple games, you cannot logically argue how characters should be balanced.

Results alone do not prove someone wrong, by the way, especially when the demographic is skewed. When 50 people play Character A and 2 people play Character B, saying, "Oh look, Character A won more" is just stupid. Gee, I wonder why Character A won more? Because there were far more opportunities for Character A to produce results over Character B. When no one is willing to put in time to show how great a character is, that character goes by the wayside and their potential is never realized, so the minority is not proven wrong. Lack of results due to lack of effort is much different than lack of results due to a character not being better than what is perceived.

And I don't care what Daigo thinks. I've formed my own conclusions by putting in work at tournaments, sessions, and in the lab, in addition to reading what other people have to say. Taking what celebrity players say as gospel is the biggest mistake ever.

Japanese players are better than American at every game except for Marvel. What exactly is your point here? A better example, Korean Tekken players use whoever the hell they want and walk all over U.S. tournaments. I have never heard of time when a Korean did not win, or take top 3 in, a U.S. tournament. Their results are due to their culture and their dedication to the game, in addition to their stronger and more concentrated communities, not due to characters.

I only wanted to comment on this before I go to bed.

I've actually played Viper since the end of Marvel 3.0, and I have just Seismo'ed characters to death before. Multiple occasions, really. Her power isn't theory, it just takes time to learn.

actually patsuka IS braindead


performing commands does not require "intelligence".....or skill in fighting games

Classic comparison:
Using patsuka is braindead because once you learn to press buttons you win even if you play really bad having the chance to win landing just 2 combos with easy enablers.
This in perfect scIV hilde style....note that any noob with the doom combo could win a lot even without having much knowledge of the game....



Raphael has easy commands, but you have to spit blood to actually land ANY attack at all.
You have to zone well, you have to make oppoenent think you have control over the situation and force him to do what you want because your damage comes just from few situational moves....
So you catually have to put a solid strategy (i am failing at :D) and not just push buttons after any inevitable (in scV it is) slightly unsafe move....or even better gambling with the absurd TC and range ignoring at all what opponent will do.



if you still think patsuka should be rewarded could i suggest you to drop this game for dance dance revolution?
That game rewards what you likedespite not being much interactive with other players.

Uh....all this new blood is predicted to go 0-2 at the next fighting game major for SC5. Stay free rookies.

That's fine. I didn't say it wasn't possible, I've seen it done in matches as well. My point is, those guys aren't winning tournaments on a regular basis, which says to me that Viper most likely has other weaknesses that the players are exploiting. Hence why all the talk of Viper being top is theory, nobody really has yet to demonstrate tournament level dominance with her. You would think that if she was really this unbeatable monster, people would be all over her, because something being hard to do really is not a barrier to truly high level players.

Two things:

1) What is this doing in the casual forum?
2) Why are so many people interested in tier lists when Tierlists don't even apply to 99% of people who play the game?

It boggles the mind, and personally, I'd prefer tier lists got a subtitle: Excuse lists.
That said, yes, tiers DO exist. Inequality is a fact of games (and life), but again, it probably doesn't apply to you.

Well....it's not that that man. MVC players are lazy assholes who don't want to try and actually put effort into what they do. A lot of players say Viper is top and is still top. Hell, some even say she is broken. So, it's not weakness. It's just the lazyism in the MvC community. I mean why play Viper, if you can hit buttons with Wesker and beat people.

Edit: Idle...Casual players hate it when you tell them their character sucks and use this a chance to bash characters they can't beat.

I don't enter competitions but I chose my main from a tier list in SC4, Hilde... probably best that I dont enter competitions as I later found out she was banned. :) Anyway, point being that Hilde and Ivy were top tier characters that required a LOT of practice to become consistently effictive in fights. I ruined about 95% of Hildes i encountered but lost to good Ivy players often.

Whole reason I kept losing to her is I didn't understand her moveset and didn't try to learn it. In my eyes those players who beat me deserved it, shes required a lot of time and dedication so on that basis the player should be rewarded.

The players who were beating me with with the likes of Mitsu, well not to take anything away from them as they've put time in as well but the amount of effort thats gone into their game learning that character is going to be significantly lower than an Ivy player at the same level.

I guess what i'm trying to get at is that complex characters shouldn't really lose out to vanilla characters that you can compete with after practicing for a short period of time. Still, the mentality of most people online is 'I have a combo that can take 75% of your health, why spend time learning a complex character for lesser rewards' I can see the logic to that, but in my eyes it sucks.

I guess I just don't like the FG community of "armchair quarterbacking" and to me thats what Tier Lists are for people who don't really reach the level of play where they are relevant.

Also, a tool being complex or requiring steps to mastery doesn't mean the tool is any less overpowered. This is a flaw I find it people's thinking- especially given the old adage of "if it can be done, it will be done"... just like A2 VC, just like 3s super parries, just like CvS2 roll cancel, just like SC3 post GI VC, just like SC4 doom combo. Something being "difficult" or "complex" is not really something I consider a justification for better tools. Sure TTT Mishimas were "hard" but did that make the game any less shitty and monotone at tip top level for that barrier being there?

what you say is wrong...
Hilde was one of the few cases where the ability to perform a button sequence was a direct substitute for knowledge of the game.
The perfect example of no brain broken character.
She could even aGI to doom combo with luck.
Complete noobs could compete (not win but at least compete) using hilde and be totally destroyed using everyone else...

Ivy was just OP instead and so many mediocre players started using her in order to win more....that is actually proof of how wrong is putting execution above skill.

Exactly the opposite of what you are saying.
At mid and high levels execution, expecially in an easy game like sc, has less or no meaning whereas tiers have a deeper impact......


That aside the fact that there were also awesome ivy players.....



And i think people saying doom combo was difficult really have few or no soulcalibur knowledge...
Any scrub learned that combo to win easily.....it was all but difficult.
And yes in sc if it can be done it will.