Howard Arena (parent site to those vids http://www.h5.dion.ne.jp/~h.arena/) site lists rankings as
1.Jenet
2.Gato
3.Dong Hwan, Grant
5.Jae Hoon
6.Marco
7.Kevin
8.Kain
9.Terry
10.Hotaru
11.Freeman
12.Hokutomaru
13.Rock
14.Griffon
Updated 4/9/05
Holy crap, now I feel like a shmuck. They have all the frame data there.
Edit: hey Kouga, remember when I said I thing we were 2 frames off on the execution time? We werent. We were four frames off. 
oops
Wow, someone needs to help get these pages translated. Not just the frame data, but they have a page detailing that exact unblockable situation Giby (?) was talking about above, not just for Rock. translate.google is helpful, but its not easy.
Something else found there, about option select throw escapes. Since there is a set order of button priority, one of them is B has priority over C. So if you hit B+C, a B attack will come out, but you’ll break the throw if you’re thrown during that time.
Wow those rankings are just slightly grossly wrong. Thats just a horrible ranking list.
Wow, kevin and terry so low O_o
ArC_man - yes, d+AB has probably been mentioned before, but let me go ahead and clean it up a bit for you. In this game there is a kind of side step attack (fairly similar to that found in KOF 95). There are 2 kinds (BOTH can be kara cancelled):
Low Dodge Attack (LDA) : LP+LK (aka universal overhead attack)
High Dodge Attack (HDA) : d + LP+LK (semi-typical side step attack)
LDA has invulnerability against low attacks while HDA has invulnerability against high attacks. I can’t think of an instance where you can combo off of a LDA, but most if not all instances of HDA CAN be comboed off of. One additional use for LDA that leave the ground is cancelling into aerial moves close to the ground. BOTH are essential to use.
And yeah, those are some FUNKY rankings ESPECIALLY coming from that site.
Keep Play’n. Peace
Originally Posted by Mu Shiki
Howard Arena (www.h5.dion.ne.jp/~h.arena/mowrank.htm) site lists rankings as
1.Jenet
2.Gato
3.Dong Hwan, Grant
5.Jae Hoon
6.Marco
7.Kevin
8.Kain
9.Terry
10.Hotaru
11.Freeman
12.Hokutomaru
13.Rock
14.Griffon
That’s a bit off. Jae Hoon is way better then Dong Hwan and Kevin is way too low. I mean, just watch those vids and see all that sick Kevin full super bar combos man. I mean, 70~80% off of NON-CORNER combos for full bar… that’s sick man.
http://howardarena.sakura.ne.jp/
Anyway, I like that site except that the Jae Hoon player sucks. I mean, they got other chars pretty well done… but that one Jae Hoon player matches are all horrible…
They have in-depth character guides there too. They’re missing ones for Kain, Kevin, Hokutomaru, and Jenet though. Freeman’s linked on the main page.
Instead of rejecting the japanese rankings because they contradict your personal view of the game, you guys should try to understand why they made those choices. Come on be honest, those guys probably know the game a hundered times better than anyone here. Still, some people are ignorant enough to think their ideas are absolute and they won’t change them no matter what… sad.
I wouldn’t necessarily call it rejecting as opposed to having a difference of option. I’m sure many of these guys would be OPEN to new tier lists as new things are discovered in this game. Yes, the japanese probably do know more than most (if not all) of us (the guys in the US), which is part of the reason why the list that some of us here go by IS JAPANESE. So even they have a difference of OPINION among themselves (no one ANYWHERE can really call themselves an authority and that their list is absolute). Seeing a tier list is one thing, but seeing awesome players in action is another. After seeing Kev in action, it is UNDERSTANDABLE to see why so many feel he is under ranked in the “howard” list.
I gotta agree. The game is pretty balanced… so the teirs can go anyway depending on your experiences. Amongst the howard arena group… I’m sure they feel Jenet is the best (and I can’t blame’em). Some others on this board feel Marco should be higher. Depending on how you play, you may feel one of the Kim brothers is better than the other. Heck… if I never saw any clips online, I’d say Grant and Terry were the best. The teirs people use don’t mean a whole lot. As festival said, if you’re good… you can win w/ anyone in this game.
Each region has a different style and level of play, so of course the tiers are different from region to region. Tier listings aren’t absolute rankings either, just general opinions, and most people know that anyway.
Actually, because we don’t play like they do, we really should come up with our own tier lists. A Western tier list should reflect Western style of play, not Japanese style of play, which is true for most games.
A good example of what I mean would be to compare the Korean tier listings for several games with the Japanese tier listings of the same games. I’ll bet they differ in quite a few aspects (particularly in a game like #R), but that doesn’t make either list “wrong”.
The most accurate tier rankings are made by the best players, that makes sense to me… because the best players have exploited each char to their fullest potential and that allows them to truly tell if they are good or not. It’s not a matter of style. Outside of japan, everybody thinks kevin is god tier but when I see that japanese players rank him lower, it makes me think that there must be a way to counter kevin or that there must be some characters that are deadlier than him. This is why it’s handy to see how the best players rank the characters.
In some of those Howard vids the Kevin guy had a double digit win streak going, yet they still rank him there…
And just who determines who these BEST players are? In order for there to be BEST players they would need to play EVERY player (at least in their own country). And I didn’t exactly get that this was the most popular game in Japan OR the US. Sure, it WOULD make sense that we’d get a fairly accurate tier list IF it was possible to even know who these best players were. If we got champs out of a Garou tourney that was like or in SBO, then maybe we would have a better idea (but I don’t think Garou will be in SBO).
Like I said before, the list that some of us use here is a JAPANESE list (which just about reflects our own views… not necessarily perfectly), which points out like many of us have that Kev is pretty up there… and therefor that NOT all Japanese feel that he is mid tier. I’d sure like to know why he was ranked so low at the howard site too, but from what I’ve seen, ESPECIALLY from the clips that were FROM the howard site, Kev did pretty damned good! Nothing I’ve seen so far would indicate that he’s mid tier. He even beat down on the so-called #1.
For now, the howard tier list can just be considered just another regional tier list from somewhere in Japan. As for having a regional tier list, that’s actually a pretty good idea. If nothing else, it would tell you what char (or person) seems to be beating down on everyone in that area.
The irony here is that the person who runs the Howard Arena site is the player Yoshimizu (???), who was the Kevin player in those videos (matches 28-47) – he also played: Hotaru (3-6), Griffon (8, 9, 13-16), Terry (20-24), Gato (54-57), and Dong Hwan (61). See: http://www.h5.dion.ne.jp/~h.arena/mowdouga3.htm
The video numbers correspond to the match numbers.
I assume he is the same player who created that ranking chart on the main page, since he runs the place. “???” (Curator: Yoshimizu – from the main page)
The ranking chart looks to be a chart of good/bad match-ups on a scale of 1 to 10 for each match-up. Oddly, he gave Kevin a high number against Hokutomaru, but a low number against Jenet, Grant, and Gato.
It’s too bad he didn’t post the Hotaru or Griffon matches.
Meh… If that’s what you want to believe, then go for it. To each his own.
Ry_Guy
236
Wow… Dong Hwan is high tier on their list, and Kevin is smack-dab in the middle. Almost nothing like the list i’ve been shown. The one I saw was more like this. I don’t remember the order within the tiers, though.
High
Kevin
Terry
Gato
Jae Hoon
Mid
Jenet
Marco
Hotaru
Dong Hwan
Low
Rock
Freeman
Tizoc
Hokutomaru
I wanna see more Dong Hwan matches now, >_>.
Dong is a beast, my favourite character stylistically. And is top tier until your opponent learns to block QCF+D on reaction. After that he moves down a good deal. QCF+D (air)QCFx2+A (air)QCFx2+A DP+D is like godly damage off a low.
Ry_Guy
238
If they block on reaction can’t you just fient a QCF+D and then pull a QCB+B instead? That, and you can cancel s.C or s.D into QCF+D and I think QCF+B to make things a bit trickier for them. This probably doesn’t have a very drastic effect on high-level players, but that kind of stuff works pretty well for me in casuals. If all else fails, he still has c.B into c.C into QCFx2+B as well.
That might work, the opponents I play learned that just tapping B (or whatever long range poke they have, or jumping whatever combo) works a lot better. I rarely ever use QCF+B/D in a match anymore if at all. It’s all about that j.A->j.C land J.A (air) QCFx2+A combos now. Another secret to beating Dong: basic A beats his QCB+B/D mixup everytime. He’s low tier, which is good, cause it makes every in your face ending taunt he has that much sweeter.
Ry_Guy
240
Dong may have some short comings, but i’ve never seen a tier-list where he was anything below middle mid-tier. I’m probably not a very good Garou player, but I think Hwan is still good.
Maybe to keep people from out-priorizing his QCB+B/D you can mix things up? Usually I poke with c.B 1 or 2 times before following it up with a QCB+B, that way they’re crouched in the first place, and probably don’t know exactly when to stand up to block or to poke him out of it. Of course I don’t try to pull it out as much as possible either, because that just would just make me a dead-giveaway.
You can do c.B -> c.C -> QCB+D as well, a bit riskier, but it’s usually unexpected. You could also just jump in, poke and quickly do a QCF+B as well. If it hits, you’ll have enough time for a c.B->c.C->QCFx2+B, QCFx3+C, or one of those funky QCFx2+A comboes you mentioned.
Hwan’s a rather risky character, but if he’s high-tier according to Howard Arena, maybe i’m missing something.
