I agree with you 1000%. I always thought S tier were meant for just a very select few characters (maybe even one) who with their options/damage/whatever put them on a scale that in the right hands should not be beat. From what I’ve seen in MK9, pre-patch I would agree that Kung Lao was pretty close to S tier, but now I don’t think any character in this game is that far ahead of cast to fall in the S tier.
Has the Kano upball been nerfed yet on the 360?
Kano upball nerf is coming in a hotfix that was rumored to come out very soon after the 360 patch. So, not yet but supposedly soon.
im not trying to bash you and i dont want you to take this offensively but i think this/these lists are bullshit. just my opinion.
isnt s tier supposed to have limmited chars ?
again maybe thats just my opnion
You can bash them all you want, I don’t care. Anyway they’re not even mine lmao. Those were the tier lists of Tom Brady and REO who are both top MK9 players and have both won / placed top 8 at tourneys numerous times already. They know what they’re talking about. But like all tier list, they are opionated for sure. So take them with a grain of salt.
But why do you say those lists are bullshit? You can’t just say they’re dumb but don’t provide any arguments to back you up.
btw there’s like 10 characters considered godtier in SSF4 so no, S tier isn’t only reserved for a few. If you only had 3-4 characters in S tier then it would mean the game is unbalanced and some characters are broken. But MK9 is balanced. There are no C and D tier so everyone is viable.
Anyway, this is my list: (after all patches and hot fixes are done and when DLC characters hit)
S Tier:
Nightwolf, Raiden, Johnny Cage, Reptile, Sub-Zero, Shang Tsung, Kung Lao, Kabal
A+ Tier:
Cyber Sub, Scarlet, Kano, Jade, Ermac, Cyrax, Liu Kang, Kitana, Mileena, Noob, Stryker, Scorpion
A Tier:
Sektor, Sonya, Sindel, Baraka, Smoke, Jax, Sheeva, Quan Chi
I can defend this list with pretty solid arguments. So just try me. :3
il be here for days bitching >_<
effort of this :B
S-Tier Kabal and Reptile, why?
Kabal has a crazy zone game with his ground saw and air fireball antics and also a high pressure rushdown game. He especially dominates over non-teleporters. But to be honest, I have never played an advanced Kabal user online. There’s not too many of them at the moment.
Reptile has all the tools to win any match-up. Great zoner, one of the best x-ray’s in the game, really useful EX moves, lots of good mixups, and one helluva quick elbow dash.
**Reptile: **Strong zoner, force ball is tough to get around (can’t crouch under or jump, you have to block or waste a meter), extremely fast, good combos, safe blockstrings, best punish in game, one of the best x-rays in the game, some nice wake up shens with dash and ex force ball. What else do you want?
Kabal: Spin cancel, crazy mixups, juggle reset with advantage that leads into the mixups, otg fireballs + fast ground saw makes him a pretty fearsome zoner, builds crazy meter with his blockstrings, ex spin goes through projectiles.
Plus you can’t really ignore tournament results…
Arturo placed 1st at MAT and 3rd at CEO with Reptile. Chris G won CEO 2011 using Reptile, beating “broken” pre-patch characters like Kano, Kabal, Cyrax and Kung Lao. Michaelangelo and Online Tony have been beasting and dominating with Kabal at Revelations, WNFs etc.
Haven’t you been watching the streams? Reptile and Kabal are 2 of the best characters in the game hands down. Without block infinite Kabal is still pretty good but not broken like before.
edit: Here watch these vids and then tell me Kabal and Reptile aren’t/weren’t top tier:
[media=youtube]8UALJWTCnW4[/media]
starting from 57 min: Kabal fever
[media=youtube]88mQugBQC9E[/media]
iv never seen the block infinite before. could you link me to it plz 
only chars i have problems with is raiden + cyrax.
I’m honestly struggling to figure out why the community/Tom Brady think Raiden is that good. This is a common sentiment over in the Raiden TYM forums as well.
No one is saying he’s bad, but honestly Raiden lives and dies by the TP. So he can’t be zoned, that makes him at least a high B/low A, but to be put in S tier given now his BnB’s are neg on BLK, all his combo starters have really REALLY slow start-up (with wonky ass hit boxes) and none of his strings end or include a low, so its pretty safe to just keep blocking high since his sweep is slow…just seems very “day 1-ish”
He is a punish character, so if you aren’t just doing random shit across the screen and jumping like an idiot, its difficult for him to start any kind of offense.
Don’t forget most of the “top” characters in this game are zoners, so having a major advantage/low-risk anti-zoning option is very very strong. Also beating zoning strategies puts him in a position where other characters who typically have worse strings them him are forced to fight up close, not only that he has amazing anti-airs.
I actually think quite a few matches are imba because of this, but whatever. Most of the matches in the game come down to “Is my zoning better than yours and/or do you have easy options to my zoning? No? Bad matchup. Yes? Good matchup” Not exactly 100% true but it is way more true than it should be. Personally I think certain characters especially the female ninjas should have slightly better mixup strings or more strings that leave them at advantage.
Also annoys me that almost all the strings that are good in the game are simply the one’s that leave you at advantage rather than have mixup potential. But for some reason that’s what NR thinks is good.
Hey, what are everyone’s initial thoughts on Skarlet in the tiers? From what I’ve seen from better players than me online, she’s got:
-Daggers, a great projectile that hits low (meaning no slides Sub), twice, and can be dash cancelled!?!
-That 4 kick
-Slide that transitions into a low attack, overhead, grab, etc.
-Air daggers
-Fast uppercut + sweep
-Teleport
Only complaint so far is her combo starters seem a bit slow. I’ve been using F+3 and B+2 so far, haven’t given B+1 too much a shot but I’ll look into it in more testing.
Honestly, so many instances in this game piss me the fuck off. Don’t they have a “method of design”? because it’s retarded. Scorpion, both Sub Zeros, Cyrax, Stryker, Sonya, Smoke, Johnny Cage and Sheeva are well done IMO.
Then you have Kung Lao(best example) who will rape you up close and can sit on the other side of the map throwing hats. Dash block and he will teleport, just spin and you probably eat 10% worth of chip trying to get in… Why? Screw up the recovery on that crap and it’d probably be all dandy.
In other genres (MMORPGs being a good example) you have a warrior class that can deal good/decent damage and take damage, but as a result for that he is slow and has low health.
Now Johnny Cage will rape you up close as Brady has said multiple times, so his “gimp” is trying to get in on you. Reptile, Kung Lao and Kano aren’t like that all.
Ermac can keep you out pretty well and fair enough you can block low on him all day, but his damage output is silly.
Basically what I’m saying is if a character can rape you up close and stay on you then they should not have a fucking spammable ass projectile. And if a character can zone out well his damage input should be FAIR for when/if that character gets a upfront combo.
I get beaten by certain shit online sometimes and it just leaves me sitting there like "If he is so good in “this area” then why on earth can he be so prominent in “this” area too? It makes no sense. Oh right, what’s my way out? That EX move with armour or eat 2% damage on every hit while I try to make my way in or out.
It feels like they didn’t think about limits just for the sake of trying to be “open”. /rant
@Vulcan, I wasn’t really disagreeing, just wanted to know why. I’d say they are A tier though.
I serious think that Johnny Cage is the best. He’s got reset combos mid screen, air to air and in the corner. He’s got great combo strings. He does solid damage and he’s normals are great. I don’t think he’s great just because of his flash kick. He also got armor on ex shadow kick. He has trouble with zoners of course but if he gets in or has armor he can really put a hurt on the opponent. Also, Chris G got murdered by Reo’s JC on a stream after CEO.
Kung lao is not as good as he once was. He’s getting predictable. He got nerfed damage wise and he’s easier to punish. He’s got lots of tools. I think he’s close to the highest tier but misses it.
Raiden is just a guessing character. He’s solid but he does have any good reset combos. He’s about damage but in this game, knocking someone down is somewhat advantageous for the character knocked down. He’s a reacting character as in u want to read ur opponent movements to be efficient. U can’t keep pressure on ur opponent consistently
Kabal is great. he’s up next to JC. He has multiple instant air fire balls into full screen dash. Even though his nomad dash loop was removed, u can still use it as a mix up tool. He has a high low mix up during his forward 3,2 string and high low mix up on knockdown. He has good reset combos. He can cancel his nomad dash into a special attack. He’s got good wake up options. He’s got every tool.
Sub zero is just annoying and scary. Has traps. he hates teleport characters. Like dalsim in ssf4 but doesn’t fear the offensive as much.
Sonya I would believe that she is much better than low tier. She’s underated. Kind of like morrigan in mvc3. She lost the block infinite but she’s got a dive kick and air throws. She’s also fast mobilitly. I think its bc ppl don’t use her.
I think Shang tsung isn’t very high. He has problems with wake up or gtfo situations. Problem with teleporters. He’s solid great. Morph is great but takes learning everyone and being better than ur opponent.
Idk why Quan Chi is rated low but he’s like my worst match up.
Ermac I’m not that familiar with him but I don’t think hes at the top. with good defense all he can do is chip. He’s got bad match ups as well. He’s still great.
I can only rate the characters I played or played against but I think highest tier chars would be first: JC, kabal, raiden, sub, nightwolf,
Skarlet is A+ for sure.
Kung Lao is still top despite all his nerfs. The character was just poorly designed to begin with. I mean look at all the other characters:
Shang Tsung, Sindel, Stryker and Noob have great zoning but don’t have a great rushdown or good wake up options.
Johnny Cage, Sonya, CSZ, Baraka and Jax have great offense but have subpar zoning to balance it out.
But Kung Lao has everything: mobility, good rushdown, good zoning, good mid-range (pokes, roll, anti-air), good wake up. And a teleport + dive kick on top of it all. I’m not saying he’s completely broken. But the way he was designed makes it so he has natural advantage vs the majority of characters. No matter how weak his combos are or how punishable his spin is, he’s just great overall.
Same with Kabal and Reptile. Two other characters that both excel in offense and defense. No wonder those 3 characters are winning all the tourneys so far…
My guess is you don’t block enough and don’t like to rush? 
Who’s your main?
Quan Chi’s wake up is garbage and he’s so helpless vs rushdown. He’s all about gimmicks and shenanigans but doesn’t have much else.
Without meter he’s bottom tier, with meter he’s high mid I guess… Problem is he can’t build meter nearly as good as Johnny Cage or Kabal.
Well Vulcan Hades this was early on before some of the patches. I’m not sure how he is now but his combo strings are just confusing. Isn’t his teleport a good wake up option. I’m just saying he’s my worst match up. Idk if its the match up or its because the character. At that time I was using raiden, smoke, shang, and sub. I basically use almost everyone i think is cool. No one is hard to use. I now use JC and kabal. I don’t tier whore btw. Even though Kabal’s loop is gone I think its still useful as a mix up tool. Johnny cage I think will get more time in the spotlight as time goes on. Idk bout nightwolf though. JC doesn’t have zoning tools but he can get in if ur smart about it. Sub might be his worst match up. He’s just the best. He’s got the shadow kick to get in. His offense builds meter for him to use ex fireball and ex shadow kick. I’m a defensive and rushdown player. Kung lao is risky to use even more so. Raiden’s normals nerfs kind of hurt his pressure game.
I seriously think JC is the best. Its probably because I had the most success with him. Also, all his combos can lead to the nutpunch. That’s great because they can only block. Knocking down an opponent using limits ur options even for kabal. Once JC has meter, he can go through everything full screen bc of the shadow kick. I think that is a new tool? When he has x-ray, ur opponent just has to respect cage.
At 10:30 is when ChrisG pulls out his reptile against Reo’s Cage. I know this is just causals but its good to see the power of Cage’s rushdown. I’m not basing JC tier on other players. Its just hard to find videos of JC beasting with good players.
So, what’s the consensus with Skarlet/Kenshi right now? Some people have said Skarlet’s matchups are all 7-3 on average and I’m just not seeing it, she’s totally beatable. Kenshi seems to be purely zoning-based AND susceptible to smart rushdown… but then again, GDLK BnB damage, a stupid-good XRay, awesome keepaway… I’d put both in A tier at least, possibly S-tier at high-level.