What's special about her IS the death combo. EVERYTHING for her revolves around landing it. She NEEDS it. Suppose they nerf that combo...would u still consider her top? Very doubtful, far from it. The combo is just too strong hence the reason she's top. That's all i'm saying.
Hilde against bad matchups like Astaroth, death combo will spell doom for Hilde... Against character who has really good close mixups like Cervante, and Mitsu.... Hilde on the defensive trying to punish is not really a good idea in my opinion. Everytime I play Hilde "normally" against Asta, Mitsu, and Cervy, I always lose... I just have to start dropping the combo idea, and go for more of the conventional stuff, since after I block I could never pull out a safe charge... Could be just me...
Hilde's grab is awesome, Hilde's 2A+B + whatever is extremly tricky. 7K is infinitely better than 1B in my opinion.. it has a small radial hit box so it can prevent some steps, seems to come out a lot faster... And I am pretty sure it tech lows...
I don't like BB, honestly, I prefer 6A+B or 6BBB... BB just seems slow, but tracking I am not sure... 6A+B has some tracking if I remember correctly.
As for my tierlist... I'd say something like this:
(I excluded Starwars and Algol)
S
Hilde, Voldo
A
Mitsurugi, Cervantes, Setsuka, Amy, Cass, Ivy
B
Sophie, Lizardman, Yoshimitsu, Astaroth, Kilik
C
Siegfried, Nightmare, Xianghua, Taki, Talim
D
Maxi, Raphael, Tira, Yun,
E
Zasalamel, Rock, Seong Mina
My tier list is based on my experience playing Hilde over the months since launch... The higher the other characters are the harder time I have beating them with Hilde... and Voldo being my worst matchup follow by Cervantes and Mitsurugi... They have crazy mixups, good stepper control, solid damage on basic hits, it just makes me nuts playing Hilde against them...
It's not saying other characters dont' have good mix ups or something, but playing Hilde so long, against most close-up character, Hilde's step works wonder, and her basic evasive kicks and jabs can get her to safety, but against mitsu and cerv, I feel like I am left with not much option with Hilde... maybe someone can shed me some light :x
Another one is Asta's 6K, that knee-cap probably hit me more than any other moves, but most of the time it's just me stupid not blocking it lol... but yea, I have easier time against asta.
As for Kilik, I don't know why people put him so high, I never had any trouble against him, and a lot of moves seem to have huge flaws and easily dodged... he is also one of the most used opponent char too, maybe it's just that actual Kilik master are very few in number...