Talim is almost as bad as SC4 ver.

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You are. And apparently, so am I.

Lol, my personal tier list (which I still am struggling with placing a bunch of characters in) HEAVILY conflicts with like every one I've seen. It's been very weird seeing what people say in SCVI, because it's almost always some wack stuff.

People are still placing Xianghua and Raph low, even, and I'm here thinking they're in like the top ~5-6 and people are sleeping on them HEAVILY.

This game is really close, IMO. There's only 2 characters I consider stand-out right now in the tools they have (Nightmare's not one of em), and the upcoming patch could bring everything even closer for all I know. SCVI characters feel like they are super close in balance, and it really comes down to some matchups being hard to deal with.

As far as Talim, I think she's pretty OK when it comes to effectiveness right now. She certainly feels like she has the tools to compete, which is FAR more than I could say about her in SCIV. I don't think she's top tier, but she's certainly not bad.
 
if anything serious comes our way I imagine they'd nerf wind cannon a little, and buff her else where. Not that I think wind cannon needs a nerf, but if anyone is crying about anything on talim, it's that one time they got 3 wind cannons to the face.
 
from crouch you can buffer 236b which is nice.

I should do that more, but that is, as you said high crush mode, which she does a good job of. Punishing stuff on block however, she sucks at, I find.

I actually think Front turned is far more effective

Mmm... I was going to respond saying that it was a bit hyperbole on my part to just work in the top 5 bottom 5 thing, but... I dunno. If she didn't have any backturned moves beyond the cast standard, she might well be bottom 5. So I think that statement probably stands. THat's a silly statement, but I do think she is much stronger backturned than not -- at advantage mind you.

The way I look at it personally, is that Talim's gameplan and character type, is one I am actually very familiar with playing, which is the psuedo gimmick character. Sort of well-rounded, suffers in neutral, has decent pressure, but can be easily blocked if the opponent isn't frazzled, and has the potential to sequence you on successful launch.

She's Third Strike Ibuki, which was my main. Same sort of deal. Though I would say Ibuki had better fundamental options than Talim, but that's getting beside the point.

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Risk reward is something I tend to find is not greatly in Talim's favor when front-turned at advantage, as it is in her favor when backturned. She has an option for everything, and they all yield reward equal to or higher than the risk. She has a true mix-up game when backturned, and while it only lasts for one mix-up, it's still a good situation to be in.

AFTER SEEING SO MANY PEOPLE BASE THEIR TIER LISTS ON PERSONAL EXPERIENCE OR TOURNAMENT RESULTS, I FIGURED I WAS IN THE MINORITY FOR THINKING ABOUT IT IN TERMS OF PURE THEORY.

It's important to remember that there are multiple types of tier lists. I do agree people use their own biases too much in terms of suggesting tiers.

The one you're describing is generally the first one to be formed in a game, which is the evaluation of tools. The next one is the match-up tier list, which is made for each character, where you pit two sets of tools together to see how they interact with each other. What might seem great on paper, may play out differently in a real match. Some people (and there are lists like these) think match-up tier lists are just how likely you are to win based on how good the character is, but it's more about how many tools do you lose or gain in the match-up, versus the other character.

3S example: Just cause Sean is the worst character and Chun-li is the best, doesn't mean that match-up is 6:4 in Chun's favor, because neither character's tools operate differently due to the match-up. Conversely, as an Ibuki player, Chun-li IS a 6:4 matchup, because when Chun crouches, she avoids a good 50% of Ibuki's moveset. Thus, the tools operate differently by the matchup. Likewise, Ibuki gains tools when going against Urien and other tall characters.

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After all that, you generally get the overall tier list, which compares all the match-ups, tools, results and opinions, into an actual tier list. Sadly, due to the FGC being very disorganized, you don't see these lists with any good insight until quite a ways into a game's life cycle. I've actually been fairly impressed with the SC scene not putting out loads of lists. I have actually yet to see any, but I also haven't been looking.

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In the end, you have to evaluate all of the data. One list usually doesn't tell the whole tale. Tools in isolation can only mean so much. Match-up lists are the same thing. Just because Ibuki is mid-tier in 3S, you would think she would see better tournament results than the characters below her, but she doesn't, because the characters she has a 6:4 match-up against are the top tier characters: Yun, Yang, Chun, Ken...

Tier lists are pretty nuanced, and while some people hate them, I actually quite like them. Believe it or not, some characters are in-fact, better than others. And some have missed potential. People still debate if 3S Oro is high tier or not, because he's got a lot of broken ass shit, but also some bad stuff.

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Also play me... you remain to be the person who has bodied me the most. I want Sophie experience. I also feel embarrassed for how bad I did. New to SC or not, I am ashamed.

To me it seems like people are looking for reasons why talim is bad as opposed to why she is viable. I guess I probably should just stay off this thread but it's not really constructive it feels more like people just drowning in their salt because Talim doesn't have Ivy's level of viability.

Nothing wrong with talking about a character's flaws. It has to be done in one thread or another. This is just the most negative thread so I put it here. Even if the title is a little... off for me, since I never played SC4.

The developers were smart enough to take notes from Arcsys and design this game with a high power balance, so every character is strong. Potemkin is the worst character in Guilty Gear, but he can still touch of death you. So yeah, every character is good. Still, someone has to be the worst, and this thread (for me), is just an exploration of that discussion. As I've said, I doubt it's Talim, but ya never know what tech may come out that could hurt her.

I think the upcoming patch will wreck a lot of things. I'm not optimistic at all.

Did they even confirm doing any big balance changes? I just heard stuff about range, which is weird, since I've yet to see too much phantom range. If anything, I've seen the opposite. How do you even reduce range in this game without it looking weird? Shrink the weapon size? Hahaha.
 
The range reference probably is reference to character with strong pushback. You can literally spam mid-long range moves with pushout against Talim/Taki and they literally can't do anything except walk/guard and repeat. Try fighting an Ivy/Azwel with Talim. It's literally lose half your life in long range moves and then try to get momentum as they land one combo and push you out again.
 
I should do that more, but that is, as you said high crush mode, which she does a good job of. Punishing stuff on block however, she sucks at, I find.



Mmm... I was going to respond saying that it was a bit hyperbole on my part to just work in the top 5 bottom 5 thing, but... I dunno. If she didn't have any backturned moves beyond the cast standard, she might well be bottom 5. So I think that statement probably stands. THat's a silly statement, but I do think she is much stronger backturned than not -- at advantage mind you.

The way I look at it personally, is that Talim's gameplan and character type, is one I am actually very familiar with playing, which is the psuedo gimmick character. Sort of well-rounded, suffers in neutral, has decent pressure, but can be easily blocked if the opponent isn't frazzled, and has the potential to sequence you on successful launch.

She's Third Strike Ibuki, which was my main. Same sort of deal. Though I would say Ibuki had better fundamental options than Talim, but that's getting beside the point.

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Risk reward is something I tend to find is not greatly in Talim's favor when front-turned at advantage, as it is in her favor when backturned. She has an option for everything, and they all yield reward equal to or higher than the risk. She has a true mix-up game when backturned, and while it only lasts for one mix-up, it's still a good situation to be in.



It's important to remember that there are multiple types of tier lists. I do agree people use their own biases too much in terms of suggesting tiers.

The one you're describing is generally the first one to be formed in a game, which is the evaluation of tools. The next one is the match-up tier list, which is made for each character, where you pit two sets of tools together to see how they interact with each other. What might seem great on paper, may play out differently in a real match. Some people (and there are lists like these) think match-up tier lists are just how likely you are to win based on how good the character is, but it's more about how many tools do you lose or gain in the match-up, versus the other character.

3S example: Just cause Sean is the worst character and Chun-li is the best, doesn't mean that match-up is 6:4 in Chun's favor, because neither character's tools operate differently due to the match-up. Conversely, as an Ibuki player, Chun-li IS a 6:4 matchup, because when Chun crouches, she avoids a good 50% of Ibuki's moveset. Thus, the tools operate differently by the matchup. Likewise, Ibuki gains tools when going against Urien and other tall characters.

--

After all that, you generally get the overall tier list, which compares all the match-ups, tools, results and opinions, into an actual tier list. Sadly, due to the FGC being very disorganized, you don't see these lists with any good insight until quite a ways into a game's life cycle. I've actually been fairly impressed with the SC scene not putting out loads of lists. I have actually yet to see any, but I also haven't been looking.

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In the end, you have to evaluate all of the data. One list usually doesn't tell the whole tale. Tools in isolation can only mean so much. Match-up lists are the same thing. Just because Ibuki is mid-tier in 3S, you would think she would see better tournament results than the characters below her, but she doesn't, because the characters she has a 6:4 match-up against are the top tier characters: Yun, Yang, Chun, Ken...

Tier lists are pretty nuanced, and while some people hate them, I actually quite like them. Believe it or not, some characters are in-fact, better than others. And some have missed potential. People still debate if 3S Oro is high tier or not, because he's got a lot of broken ass shit, but also some bad stuff.

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Also play me... you remain to be the person who has bodied me the most. I want Sophie experience. I also feel embarrassed for how bad I did. New to SC or not, I am ashamed.



Nothing wrong with talking about a character's flaws. It has to be done in one thread or another. This is just the most negative thread so I put it here. Even if the title is a little... off for me, since I never played SC4.

The developers were smart enough to take notes from Arcsys and design this game with a high power balance, so every character is strong. Potemkin is the worst character in Guilty Gear, but he can still touch of death you. So yeah, every character is good. Still, someone has to be the worst, and this thread (for me), is just an exploration of that discussion. As I've said, I doubt it's Talim, but ya never know what tech may come out that could hurt her.



Did they even confirm doing any big balance changes? I just heard stuff about range, which is weird, since I've yet to see too much phantom range. If anything, I've seen the opposite. How do you even reduce range in this game without it looking weird? Shrink the weapon size? Hahaha.
REGARDING TIER LISTS, IT'S EASIER TO COMPARE WITH THE SPEED RUNNING COMMUNITY AND HOW TOOL ASSISTED SPEED RUNS ARE USED AS A TEMPLATE FOR FULL POTENTIAL. YOU CAN'T EXPECT REAL PEOPLE TO PLAY PERFECTLY EVERY STEP OF THE WAY, BUT THE PROOF IS THERE. WITH THIS MENTALITY, IT'S IRRELEVANT WHAT ANY TOURNAMENT RESULTS SHOW. I THINK PEOPLE SPREAD MISLEADING AND CONFUSING INFORMATION BY BASING TIER LISTS ON PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.

AND YEAH, WE CAN PLAY AGAIN. MY RESULTS ARE INCONSISTENT BUT PLAYERS TEND TO STRUGGLE WITH ME FOR A WHILE. NO POINT IN BEING ASHAMED.
 
REGARDING TIER LISTS, IT'S EASIER TO COMPARE WITH THE SPEED RUNNING COMMUNITY AND HOW TOOL ASSISTED SPEED RUNS ARE USED AS A TEMPLATE FOR FULL POTENTIAL. YOU CAN'T EXPECT REAL PEOPLE TO PLAY PERFECTLY EVERY STEP OF THE WAY, BUT THE PROOF IS THERE. WITH THIS MENTALITY, IT'S IRRELEVANT WHAT ANY TOURNAMENT RESULTS SHOW. I THINK PEOPLE SPREAD MISLEADING AND CONFUSING INFORMATION BY BASING TIER LISTS ON PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.

AND YEAH, WE CAN PLAY AGAIN. MY RESULTS ARE INCONSISTENT BUT PLAYERS TEND TO STRUGGLE WITH ME FOR A WHILE. NO POINT IN BEING ASHAMED.

Mmm... I agree completely, but I also disagree, hahaha.

I think fighting games, and most games where you are going against other players, are all too good at showcasing how basing utility on ideals is not the greatest standard. The ideal machine way of playing a fighting game, and it often IS viewed as the ideal way of playing in fighting games, is to play a hugely defensive game, because hitting a button is risky by nature. Yet we know as a people, we can't react to these things with such consistency. This all boils back to the "boring lame footsie style" which is consistent, and the rushdown player who just goes nuts, but sometimes gets blown up. As fighting game players, we tend to value both playstyles, but respect the one which is more akin to what would be the machine-operated ideal playstyle.

You have to base tiers on human limitations, and everyone's limitations are different. So inherently, you have to discuss what is and is not possible to do consistently. Which involves opinion, hearsay, tournament players/results, speculation, and the long-loved art of theory crafting.

Now, you're welcome to argue until the end of time that such-and-such character is secretly the best character, but if years go by and no one sees success with that character, you can double down, and just say that the best player for the character just never came along, and you'd certainly have... some amount of argument, for sure. There have certainly been games which have had under utilized characters.

A character like Urien from 3S comes to mind, as a character who, if he had not had seen someone like RX as his pilot, would not have seen anywhere near the success he did. RX WAS Urien, and only he could utilize him to his maximum potential, even if there were other great Uriens. And I would agree, that sometimes a character just never gets it's true user.


I do hate how quick people are to judge characters, but I do think discussing it is required to come to a general consensus on a tier list, because humans have limitations, and everyone's is different. Sometimes the true player for a character never comes along for a game, and you're welcome to argue that that is why that character never saw results, but you'd be hard-pressed to get back-up for that claim. Results do always matter, but they have to be multi-player results. A good player for a character, does not a broken character make. The whole grappler archetype in fighting games is essentially built on a player clicking with the character and doing things with it that others can't.

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But yeah, I get what you're trying to say. And I agree biases should be kept to a minimum, but taking in all of the data is required for making a tier list based upon human limitations. As someone who used to speedrun, I can tell ya, if a human was controlling the enemies of every stage -- would have been way harder to be consistent, hahaha.

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I am ashamed. This is game with three rounds, I almost got triple perfected! I can't imagine being triple perfected in any game, that's so many spots where you could at least get one hit in. But yeah, I absolutely want to play. I loooove facing people who are better than me, and with so much to learn -- too fun for me. I also think Sophie is Talim's hardest match-up so far, so I want more experience. All things considered, I've only faced like 10 sophies since I started. Most of them tend to uh... not understand what blocking is, which I found weird. She has a shield!

Can't tonight, but I'll hit you up sometime this week.
 
A character like Urien from 3S comes to mind, as a character who, if he had not had seen someone like RX as his pilot, would not have seen anywhere near the success he did. RX WAS Urien, and only he could utilize him to his maximum potential, even if there were other great Uriens. And I would agree, that sometimes a character just never gets it's true user.

I do hate how quick people are to judge characters, but I do think discussing it is required to come to a general consensus on a tier list, because humans have limitations, and everyone's is different. Sometimes the true player for a character never comes along for a game, and you're welcome to argue that that is why that character never saw results, but you'd be hard-pressed to get back-up for that claim. Results do always matter, but they have to be multi-player results. A good player for a character, does not a broken character make. The whole grappler archetype in fighting games is essentially built on a player clicking with the character and doing things with it that others can't.
Nah, I call bullshit on this. Simply because, even if a character finds their, "true user", it doesn't change the options one character has vs another's options. If you base tiers on human limitations, then you're no longer talking characters; you're now talking players. I've seen players use lower tier characters and overcome some of the worst matchups in the game. Hell, I've even been that player myself at times over the years. But when you watch those matches back, you wonder, "how did this happen?". "What was this player doing that other ____ mains weren't?" And most of the time it comes down to just making better mid-match decisions, or capitalizing on more mistakes, or even character ignorance to a smaller degree.

If you somehow consistently guess right all the time, or even 70% of the time, you would be the best player in the world, and win any matchup with any character, regardless of tiers. Which would make any such tier list worthless by default. 3S Sean would beat Chun. SC5 ZWEI would beat Alpha Patroklos. A "true user" is just another way of saying someone who happens to guess right more than other users. Which by nature, is inconsistent.
 
You have to base a tier list on human limitations or it ceases to have any value to the competitive scene. The ideal playstyle in 3S would be to just stand still and parry everything on reaction -- not a possible human playstyle. I've stated that there are three main tier lists, but each one of them lies in their own way: The isolated theory-crafted one, where you view the character's tools on their own, the match-up one, based on pitting those tools against other tools (this is the most important tier list to me, personally, and is a fairly object tier list), and then the universal one, which is the most popular, which takes everything into consideration, but also keeps in mind results. At the end of a game's life, the latter will probably be the most accurate, even if it does lie about tool strength. Hugo in 3S is a standard grappler, has all the same flaws, yet is considered upper-mid, based solely on what is considered humanly possible to do with the parry system. Now you can very easily argue that that makes his tools stronger, but his tools are only stronger (2 start-up throws) against humans, an AI could jump them (and they do). Reward for those parries would be higher as other characters, but the mind game aspect of a grappler makes them stronger, as no one likes being in melee with a grappler.

Every tier list doesn't tell the whole tale. They all lie in their own way. The first one judges characters based mostly on theory, the match-up considers how those theories interact with others, but, doesn't keep in mind the meta of the game, because as I said with Ibuki, if you're a good character, but your tools don't matchup well against the top tier characters, it doesn't matter how good your tools are for the rest of the cast. Then the universal one.

Inherently, if you want to not judge a character entirely by what a machine could do with it, and what a player could do with it, you HAVE to talk about it. Even when viewing a character as "objectively" as possible in training, people are going to come to different conclusions upon what is and is not valuable. You have your biases, inherent to you no matter what, which means you HAVE to talk about it to gain more information, and thus build a more constructed and critical tier list. That is still subjective.

Anyone who takes a single study about something and believes it is silly. You need to do it multiple times, over and over again, to gain all of the information. These are the matches, the tournaments, the practice mode, the entire experience of playing fighting games, all just a big fountain of knowledge done solely to come to the conclusion about what is and is not possible within the game. The key ingredient and the only worthwhile one for a tier list is... is time. In the end, it's still going to be a human made list, based off of the results that we found.

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As a random aside, upon thinking about, I am pretty sure the objectively best character (not including Gill, cause he wins) for a match of two frame perfect CPUs in 3S, would only allow for characters who have 0 frame start-up throws and/or Gouki, for being the only character who has an unparryable move (non throw). Point remains that none of those characters are considered the best character in the game. Chun is not the best CPU tier list character and Chun actually has a lot of shitty-ass moves, she really only has a few good tools, they just happen to be ridiculous.

If you somehow consistently guess right all the time, or even 70% of the time, you would be the best player in the world, and win any matchup with any character, regardless of tiers. Which would make any such tier list worthless by default. 3S Sean would beat Chun. SC5 ZWEI would beat Alpha Patroklos. A "true user" is just another way of saying someone who happens to guess right more than other users. Which by nature, is inconsistent.

Yep. Read-based playstyles are what grapplers are all about. That's why they are habitually bottom tier.

I did reference RX though, who can utilize Urien in an execution-based fashion using charge partitioning in a real match in a way no other Urien can do. Which allows him access to things others thought best left for combo videos. Again, pushing human limitations to then shift a character's tier. When a CPU uses Urien, they can do some crazy ass shit. Not realistic to base Urien on those results though.
 
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You have to base a tier list on human limitations or it ceases to have any value to the competitive scene. The ideal playstyle in 3S would be to just stand still and parry everything on reaction -- not a possible human playstyle.
Exactly. SCV had the same situation as well, since a perfect player could JG any attack and duck any throw on reaction. (And SCIV with Just GI.) SCVI has a strategy, though a bit harder to prove, using GI in reaction to any non-break/unblockable attack and some fast interrupt otherwise. These are known in game theory as strictly dominant strategies — they're the best possible strategy a player can employ regardless of the opponent's strategy. If both players have a dominant strategy then the game has a unique Nash equilibrium. The equilibrium outcome isn't necessarily the best possible outcome for either player, as these examples demonstrate; it would always end in a draw for both players. (The Prisoner's Dilemma is the classic example of this property.)

In other words, if you assume perfect players, tiers don't exist, because the same outcome will occur regardless of the characters involved. Once human limitations are taken into account, the strictly dominant strategies will disappear (unless the game is truly broken), and you can start to make meaningful comparisons between characters.
 
Exactly. SCV had the same situation as well, since a perfect player could JG any attack and duck any throw on reaction. (And SCIV with Just GI.) SCVI has a strategy, though a bit harder to prove, using GI in reaction to any non-break/unblockable attack and some fast interrupt otherwise. These are known in game theory as strictly dominant strategies — they're the best possible strategy a player can employ regardless of the opponent's strategy. If both players have a dominant strategy then the game has a unique Nash equilibrium. The equilibrium outcome isn't necessarily the best possible outcome for either player, as these examples demonstrate; it would always end in a draw for both players. (The Prisoner's Dilemma is the classic example of this property.)

In other words, if you assume perfect players, tiers don't exist, because the same outcome will occur regardless of the characters involved. Once human limitations are taken into account, the strictly dominant strategies will disappear (unless the game is truly broken), and you can start to make meaningful comparisons between characters.
You are using a very extreme case as an example. A perfect player is still human so no, they can't simply JG or react to every move thrown. The "perfection" lies in decisions. The number of correct decisions required, the rewards of the decisions/tools, the consequences of them, execution, etc.

A common argument people made to justify characters like Setsuka and Alpha Pat was "no human can hit JFs all the time". This is where I call bullshit. True, no human player can physically react to i10 moves, but you CAN learn to execute JFs consistently. If the Setsuka player happens to have a bad day in tournament and drops their combos, that doesn't make the character any less capable. And even if they don't hit 100% of the JFs, surely at least 60 to 70% consistency is enough to demonstrate the strength of the tools in question.
 
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You are using a very extreme case as an example. A perfect player is still human so no, they can't simply JG or react to every move thrown. The "perfection" lies in decisions. The number of correct decisions required, the rewards of the decisions/tools, the consequences of them, execution, etc.
When I said “perfect player” it was in the context of using tool-assisted gameplay to determine characters’ full potential. In that situation the full potential for every character is the same for the reasons I described.
 
I think this has veered away from the orginal point/issue. Point is, many including myself, think of characters through their own personal experiences against them as opposed to what they can actually do.

For instance I may just be playing trash zas players, but i've never had a problem with him save a few unexpected ring outs, and yet people say he's pretty good.


an absolutely PERFECT player can with with bb alone. but that's not what we are or were talking about.
 
I agree basing a tier list on personal experience may not be accurate, but what else do you have to go off of if you don't play the character. If you constantly stomp a certain characters player base then what else would they seem to you?
 
I agree basing a tier list on personal experience may not be accurate, but what else do you have to go off of if you don't play the character. If you constantly stomp a certain characters player base then what else would they seem to you?
This is exactly why you can't base a tier list on that. Honestly, I don't think any tier list is to be trusted yet.
In a case like the one you described, that's when you just understand that you don't know enough yet to make those calls.
 
I agree basing a tier list on personal experience may not be accurate, but what else do you have to go off of
YOU GO OFF OF IMAGINATION. YOU DON'T NEED TO EXPERIENCE EVERYTHING FIRST-HAND TO MAKE EXTRAPOLATIONS. IT'S THE SAME REASON YOU DON'T JUMP OFF OF A BRIDGE FIRST-HAND TO DETERMINE IF IT'S REALLY SO DANGEROUS.
 
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