A lot of people base their tiers by playing others online. Online isn’t a good representation. Online depending on lag or latency a combo you’ve done 1000 times will be dropped. People with instant startup moves, dash moves and teleport attacks have an advantage. A lot of moves and attack strings that can be punished offline (e.g. Lao’s spin) suddenly have their window reduced so much it might as well be frame advantage.
About Skarlet, I recently took a tournament with her. I can tell you straight up that even knowing how she plays it’s still a crap shoot. Playing a mirror match is my worst fear because if the opponent plays exactly like I do, even knowing how she plays, it still comes down to a 50/50 chance you’ll eat 40+% every time. Her juggle potential is pretty dumb. Her damage is pretty high. Her mixup is ridiculous. Her keep away shuts people like Sub Zero down with just dash cancelled daggers. I am confident that she is very high tier, albeit technical and requires more work and sharper execution and timing.
Just the simple fact that her EX slide absorbs EVERYTHING but keeps going gives both keep away and aggro a hard time, particularly because it will lead to about 40+% and a reset.
I think the top players could give us an official tier list, Tom brady, Art, Reo, Chris G, Perfect Legend, vVv wonder chef, Online tony, 16bit and Job, but like i said before it doesn’t matter about tiers especially in this game its so balanced.
Right now Skarlet is absolutely stupid vs everyone that loses to her, which is a lot of characters. If you had to rank her on matchup numbers, she’d probably be higher than even Kung Lao…that’s how many matchups she wins 7-3 and sometimes 8-2. Thankfully she’s getting changed…
Also, expect Smoke to rise over a bunch of characters.
Smoke is my main and is definitely in A-tier at least. Can’t jump at him because he can jump > insta Telepunch or EX Shake. Can’t throw FBs. Can’t zone him. Can’t let go of block, can’t duck anywhere near him, safe 50/50s, godlike Air Throw… did people really think he wasn’t that good? Sure, his midscreen offense isn’t anything special, but if he ever gets a knock down you’re getting mixup’d to death as long as he sniffs out your wakeups. It may be a little cheap but I’m thoroughly enjoying my XBL domination with MK2 Smoke and the good ol’ OTGs XD
I go neutral online with Sub-Zero myself. Of course most of my losses are from “Game session is no longer available” random disconnects. I really wish they would fix the online play already.
With all the inconsistencies, a tier list would be difficult due to the amount of variables to take into account. I mean, you can get a general idea of who is good/not as good, but i feel like they wont last long.
Seems to me there’s a big difference between the online with PSN and 360. I have almost no real problems with lag/disconnects on 360 but haven’t heard one good thing about online from PS3 users…
My revised tier list (more based on tools/potential than matchup data):
Same here on the first paragraph. I use xbox live as well.
I must be getting rusty with Sub…I’ve got 65 wins and 87 losses now. To be fair though, some of those losses are due to random disconnects that counted as losses. -_- I was only about 10 or so losses negative before. Maybe it’s due to my trueskill rising.
Also: Jax in S tier? Really? I haven’t even played anyone who uses him. o_0 That scares me.
Like he said, that’s not meant to take into consideration matchup numbers, just tools. Jax can combo into his overhead special move, then do an EX ground pound to immediately lift the opponent into an inescapable combo reset.
Whoops! Definitely forgot Sindel… which probably says a lot. I put her behind Noob tbh, she’s got some tools but no fucking damage… and honestly it’s pretty rare to find any Sindel players, let alone good ones so I’m pretty ignorant about her real potential. Overall though I think my list is pretty accurate. Most of the S-tier characters have a.) safe/abusable strategies b.) massive combo damage c.) high mix-up potential or a combination of all, with A-tiers having one or two big strengths and an achille’s heel, with B-tier being “middle of the road” with relatively equal strengths and drawbacks, and C-tier having a harder time in general while still having tools to win if played smart. I’ve been fucked UP by some Quans and Sheevas (largely due to my matchup inexperience) by characters who should have a free win vs. them. If anything that can be attributed to the general game design of many characters sharing basic normals like d+1, d+4, or d+3 - if your character has a solid 50-50, overhead, or frame trap off a d+4 (which gives almost universal frame adv. on hit), you’re already doing pretty good if you just apply basic mixups. Overall the game is really well balanced, as proven by people like REO who can play Quan Chi and toss fools no problem. I’ve seen at least one or two good players playing as virtually every character in the game and doing pretty well vs. supposedly “cheaper” characters, so if anything it’s down to individual skill in this game.
The real problem is there’s very few killers with Jax, but the ones that are out there are fucking scary. The minute he gets you in a corner you’re pretty much screwed unless you’ve got a teleport or parry (most of which get stuffed since his good strings start predominantly low). As of right now, he has a guaranteed block stun infinite (1,2 xx d,f+1, repeat), 100% damage corner resets, Ground Pound bullshit, gross frame traps… Brady and a couple of others have attested to Jax’s hidden cheapness. S may be a little high but I don’t think we’ve seen or will see all that a great Jax can do, just because he’s not a popular pick (partially stigmatized due to him legitimately being ass pre-patch).
Hey everyone, I’m a newb here and to fighting games in general, but my friend and I are trying hard to get better at MK9 and took a look around here. Anyway I have a question as to how the tier list applies to players like us.
We are both pretty beginner, can only execute basic moves and only probably the 2-3 most basic combos for any given character. We got into an argument tonight regarding the import of the tier list at our level of play.
My opinion was that the tier lists you guys design are generally geared toward high level players, based on being able to do things like execute combos and punish slow opponents etc. and that the tier list would be different for players like us, making characters like Sheeva and Smoke with one or two easily abusable moves much higher tier based on our skill level.
His opinion was that the tier list would hold up no matter what and that anyone playing an S tier character, no matter their skill level, should beat someone of equal skill level playing a B or C tier character 70-80% of the time.
Maybe I am arguing from a sense of pride because I don’t win more than 60% or so when playing S/A Tier characters like Reptile and Ermac, against his B/C Tier Characters like Mileena and Sheeva. But realistically I still think that characters like Smoke, Sheeva, Mileena, and other characters with easily abusable teleport moves should be considered higher in the “noob tier” that we would be in.
Anyway I’d like to thank anyone ahead of time for their responses, and for the wealth of information on this amazing site!
But that’s exactly it though - tier lists are made with the idea that both players are of the highest-caliber skill. They don’t matter at lower levels for exactly those reasons (spammable/“cheap” tactics) because they lack the knowledge to counter things that any decent player can punish. If you’re not using the character at full potential then you’re not using the whole character, and any rankings are moot.
Thanks a lot for the reply that’s what I was thinking but it’s very nice to have reassurance, especially from the person who made the particular tier list that I was looking at.
Now I just need to get good enough so that the tier list actually matters!
Ironically, those same high caliber players that design these tier lists have absolutely no clue about 2/3 of the characters they are judging because they don’t main those characters and/or haven’t even faced same skilled players using those characters at their fullest potential. (not to mention a lot of characters haven’t even reached their fullest potential yet)
A guy like Tom Brady can judge that Jax is shit and unviable, while CD jr and Tyrant will prove him wrong by placing with Jax at tournaments. etc. So any way you look at it, tier lists will always be opinionated and biased even if they are admittedly based on proven matchup advantage/disadvantage theories and tournament results. It’s still very hypothetical and assuming a player plays a character a particular way.
Example: Stryker vs Smoke. People assume it’s a 4-6 or 3-7 matchup because “Smoke can shake”. But what happens if the Stryker player doesn’t zone in that match but rather centers his gameplan on footsies and rushes Smoke down? What happens is that Smoke loses his only advantage (counter zoning) and Stryker outpokes him at mid-range and up close so then the matchup becomes much closer to 5-5 or even 6-4 in Stryker’s advantage.
In my opinion only the top 5-10 of this game are set in stone (will always remain the best unless nerfed). But every other tier below is very debatable.
So in the end people should just play the character they like most and that fits their own playstyle.
Stryker’s zoning abilities far outweigh Smoke’s, in my own opinion. He’s kind of underrated simply because most people just play cheese with him and shoot/throw grenades constantly, but his mid-range specials close distance pretty well and his combos aren’t too bad.
Then again, like you mentioned above, I have a certain degree of bias because he’s a main of mine. X_X
