8381

i havent seen a sakura in damn near forever. shes extremely underated in this game. people think shes bad because her light tatsu is -3 or -4. she has other things to make up for it, (and im not talking about air tatsu). the only other good sakuras ive met are luffy165 and her0 of tim3. i think i can safely say that sakura is nearly dead lol.

idk about other sakura players, but i play her anchor and my cody deals with the bull**** and sets her up to get a hard knockdown… then i get in dat *** with sakura. - ANBU_DeadLocked

8382

i guess im using two of the shittiest characters in the game (sakura and cody)… LOL!!

8383

Well, given that I posted that, I disagree with this. Law’s neutral game isn’t as good as any of the characters above him, he does less damage than half of them, and his best corner carry combos can’t be followed up with a switch cancel. For most characters, I think their theoretical optimal partners end up being Nina or Bob, or else one of the other characters in the top row. Kazuya is up there because he has a very solid neutral game where he can safely confirm into some of the highest damage in the game and build a good chunk of meter while doing so. He does the same thing with his tag-in combos. His mix-up and pressure options are solid as well.

I don’t see anything weird about the placement of those other characters. Ibuki has very safe hit-confirms into respectable damage, whereas the other characters have to take risks in most of their gameplay. Sakura’s strengths are very specific and not all that substantial in the grand scheme of things.

There are plenty of characters with better normals than her, her damage is only around average in most cases, her mix-ups are nothing to write home about, and her divekick is horribly slow and punishable. Her DP is good, but it’s just not all that valuable in this game.

[details=Spoiler]Official tier list:
S: Characters I main
A: Characters I just picked up
B: Characters I fight against regularly
C: Characters I haven’t tried
D: Characters I tried for 10 minutes[/details]

In all seriousness, though, I acknowledge that I may be biased. However, there was logic in how I settled on my characters to begin with. I really spent time trying to figure out many of these characters, especially during the last few months. I’ve mained Ibuki and Julia in the past. I’ve figured stuff out with characters like King and Asuka and also discussed these characters with people who play them. As for how I get the knowledge… I pull up the frame data, look up the combos, sit in training mode, try things out, discuss things on IRC, and then go to a friend’s place and try things out some more. The process gets easier over time, as the trends of ‘how things work’ become apparent.

I also want to point out that there are things that a basic tier list like this doesn’t show, like how some characters get a lot better when they have meter (e.g. Ken), or when they have the opponent cornered (e.g. Zangief), or when they have the opponent knocked down (e.g. Asuka). I’ve put more emphasis on how well characters set up these good situations than how much they benefit from them. As this is a tag game, these things can be highly variable. I’m thinking about trying different formats in the future, like the separate charts for point and sub characters that some people have suggested.

8384

Lol I don’t rate the characters very high, but I think SFxT is definitely a game where any character can succeed. They don’t stand out for me, but they still have neat stuff only they can do.

8385

No wonder I lose so much, my point character is on the same level as Ibuki. T.T

8386

Yep, your characters’ tier placements directly determine your win rate, unless you use Kuma, in which case you can win any match with fraudulent gimmicks.

8387

Regarding “support Value”

I’ll grant you Bob and Nina are excellent partners for a number of reasons I’m sure we all know, but one other aspect that I think is important in a good partner, is how well they can tag themselves out, even if they aren’t comboing the opponent. Examples, are simple stuff like Juri blockstring into pinwheel>Tag, Hwo HH>Tag, Law Spin Kick>Tag, or Yoshi Windmill>tag. Obviously, alpha counter is an options, but I think the ability to get yourself out is also very important.

Also, regarding another format. I had toyed with doing a matchup chart, and on said chart, I had a column for “Support Value” I weighted the support value column x5. I’m not sure if that’s the right or wrong weight, but its a less subjective way of trying to account for the “team factor”.

8388

What determines a character’s gameplan as gimmicky? In bob’s case what would be his plan at the highest level of competition assuming everyone has the MU experience?

8389

Ah, ANOTHER tier list! Thoughts:

  1. Juri is HOW high? She has nothing that really warrants that placement. Decent dashes, a decent dive kick, and a horrible overhead you can just DP her for attempting to apply pressure with (unless it’s a counter hit). Why is Juri of all people this high?

  2. Vega…really? I mean, he’s not bad at all…but I think this is ridiculous. He’s too Plain Jane to merit a spot like that. Sagat’s a better zoner than he’d ever be. Besides, if his mask falls off, he takes even more damage. >_>

  3. Cammy is…kind of the same as Vega.

  4. Raven and Ogre aren’t that low. They’re much too tricky for that.

  5. You like Blanka’s stuff that much? Interesting placement. I can see him getting that good if people were around to put that type of work into him.

I have no major qualms with the rest of it.

8390

okay. what makes them bottom in your opinion? i dont seem to have so much trouble playing with sakura. i have many traps with sakura that never fail. cody is is a combo monster in the corner, and can link so much its rediculous. amazing frame traps. sakura has frame traps too.

8391

I wouldn’t call Raven tricky really. He’s poor at opening people up, can’t really mix you up unless you’re already knocked down, and has a pretty linear gameplan. His lack of a good reversal or AC also hurt him. His AC’s hitbox is tiny(it frequently completely whiffs at times that make no sense like vs. Shaolin Kicks), slow, and incredibly negative if blocked. This creates situations in the corner where you don’t have the luxury that other characters have of being able to burn bar for an escape. He hits like a truck and can zone a lot of characters very effectively and his counterzoning game is monstrous though.

Don’t know how good Blanka in actual play but theory Blanka with his infinite on lock is sick. Theory incoming Blanka with the right character on point literally ends the round from so many situations. His execution threshold is what I think is going to keep him back though. Good footsies, good incoming damage in the corner, great at blowing up rolls, best cross art in the game?(anti airs a jump forward from full screen), self comboable overhead that he can fake, and a strong chip game add up though.

8392

At least we have an excuse every time we lose. :smiley:

8393

I hope we will get there at some point. It will probably be very tedious to cover all these situations, but this could end up becoming a great team building guide as well.

8394

Fair point because Bob used to have the invincible Spiral Rocky for this, but now that’s been nerfed I’ve started using the 3-hit d+kick followup to spinner ball which sucks. I put neither Bob nor Nina at the top of a team-player tier list because of shit like this.

On a side note, what exactly are Kazuya’s mixups?

8395

I rate Juri quite highly because of her excellent mobility, good jumping approach, excellent and high-damage anti-air game, and great ability to convert specific normals into good damage. She’s definitely flawed in some important ways, and has some bad matchups, but she can threaten in ways a lot of other characters can’t. She’s a borderline character for me, though, I’m happy to have my mind changed on her.

Vega is a monster, mostly due to his incredible and safe footsies normals, which are confirmable into launch. Besides that, he has a good approach with strong jump-arcs and jumping normals, a fantastic walkspeed leading to a strong throw game, and can good damage in certain situations. His difficult anti-air game is the only reason he’s not top-tier.

Ogre and Raven don’t really strike me as tricky characters. Both have good overheads, but they’re easily learned (or easy to react to, in the case of Ogre’s Owl Hunt). In the long term, their game plan seems more built around solid offence, good defensive options, and good team synergy.

Blanka is upper-mid tier in my opinion because of his fantastic ability to whiff-punish and block-punish with st.LP, blowing a lot of playstyles out of the water; specifically, those which are geared around speculative footsies normals and unsafe but confusing pressure. He has a fantastic approach with fast walkspeed, great jump-arcs, good jumping normals, a powerful and fast slide, and the ability to whiff LP Horiball to make ground. He has the ability to set up good frame pressure with cl.MP and Thunder, and has a great suite of medium-range normals with a variety of uses (cl.MP, Rock Crusher, cr.MK and cr.MP are all notable). His defensive game with meter is excellent, as is his run-away game.

He’s not in the top two tiers because his damage output is low across the board (outside of some very specific situations), his defensive game is weak without meter, and he doesn’t have the ability to create safe pressure at footsies range, an ability shared by much of the top tier (Kazuya, Jin, Hwoarang, Alisa).

TBH I haven’t really explored Blanka’s chip infinite that much yet, and it didn’t factor in to my rating of the character. I feel quite sure that if even a couple of top players start doing this regularly at tournaments, then the use of that infinite will be banned or limited to two or three reps. It would otherwise pretty much break the whole game, as I understand that it’s not too difficult to set up. You may then have to deal with some people doing it online on Ranked, but A) that’s just points, whatever, man, and B) you can ban them if they do it.

Cody is bottom tier in my opinion because his footsies is mediocre – it’s neither safe nor fast nor particularly high damage. His mobility is poor – his walkspeed is mediocre, his jump is average and he has few great tools for the approach, even with meter. His damage output is quite poor, reaching average/above average in the corner, but only in specific situations. He has no “magic” normals, like Blanka’s st.LP, Law’s cr.MP, Ryu and Akuma’s sweep, etc.

His frame trap game isn’t as good as his frame data might suggest, because his traps only lead to mediocre damage, and without a fast walkspeed the threat of a throw isn’t that great.

His defence is also poor. His wake-up options are extremely limited without meter, and merely okay with meter. His anti-air game is solid but extremely low-stakes – all you get is 70 damage with the possibility of a minuscule combo on counter hit.

Sakura suffers from quite similar problems, actually. Her footsies normals are merely okay, and don’t lead to good damage. She doesn’t build frame advantage very well, and when she does, she can’t exploit it for a great deal of damage. Her defensive options are very weak overall, and in general she’s a low-damage character outside of some very specific situations (tag-cancelled EX Shouken, for example). Her fireball oki game hasn’t carried over from AE, so she has no real mixups or tricky stuff besides cross-up tatsu, which is good, but isn’t enough to put her above bottom tier (for me at least).

8396

@Darknid
Bob’s other Spinner Ball follow-up with K is really underrated in my opinion. It has a great hitbox on it and gives frame advantage when switch-canceled. It’s not on the level of Jin or Bison’s tag out options, but it’s useful.

Kazuya’s mix-ups are far from spectacular, but he has good frame advantage on his normals, and his frame traps are more dangerous than most because of the threat of EWGF combos. He can set up lv.2 super charges either by ending combos with his hell sweep and charging up or by doing his normal combos and burning a meter for it, after which his overheads can be followed up with full combos.

@MuayGio
Come on man, some of this stuff is crazy. For example:

  1. What’s the killer tech that puts King so high up there? All I see in this character is limited frame trap options, unsafe mix-ups that get beaten out by jabs, meter dependence for hit-confirms, mediocre neutral game, and situational/partner-specific high damage combos.

  2. You put Bob a full 2 tiers lower than Julia and Paul, when he has better footsies and anti-air than Julia, almost as consistent corner carry as Julia, comparable damage to Paul, and better switch cancels (on hit) than both of them. In fact, I dropped Julia from my main team because I thought Bob was better than her.

  3. Vega and Cammy shouldn’t be anywhere near Bison, considering he can do almost everything that they do better and lacks some of their weaknesses, like low health and Vega’s large hitbox. He has better footsies, better hit-confirms, better switch cancels, and comparable damage output. His anti-airs aren’t as strong as Cammy’s but are perfectly workable.

  4. We’re still overreacting to Ibuki nerfs? Take a look at some of the stuff she didn’t lose. She still converts footsies into damage or pressure more consistently than anyone else (even moreso now) and builds meter extremely well. She’s the only character who still has jump cancels on block (and I would argue that hers were the best anyway). The HK Tsumuji/st.LP pressure tactics still work like before; they just require you to do the 3rd kick to stay even on block.

8397

Whats Bisons good anti air options? To me he seems just as free to jump ins as he was back in SF4

And whats that Blanka chip infinite? Sounds sexy :smiley:

8398

I think with Bison you only got air to airs and maybe far hk

8399

So you cant even AC out of it? Also is it character specific?

8400

Can’t open people up, lackluster footsies (no reason to jump in on her anyway), mediocre defensive options even with the counter, midscreen damage sucks, and her only threatening aspect in my view is crossup bullshit. She doesn’t have much in the way of pressure without a fuhajin stored and she’s just generally lackluster IMO.

His footsies really aren’t that good in this game, in fact they seem to suck compared to the better footsie characters of the game. You’d assume they’re good, then again you’d assume that Vega was a character who thrives off of grab threats when in reality it contradicts his strengths to try to get up in close. Can’t open people up very well. Mediocre damage. His jump arc sucks, in fact it’s one of the easiest to AA and reminds me of Chun.

I agree. Their trickiness is just fluff on the surface that hides an underlying solid design.

Noob killer quality?

At hugging range; not sustainable or threatening.

cl.mp and rock crusher are incredibly close range. c.mk is stubby. c. mp is just plain irrelevant.

Yes, except those characters actually have substantial strengths instead of a handful of half-assed boons. In fact I find that your paragraph about Sakura also applies to Blanka: