I understand that the game has only been out for a couple of weeks and that tier lists evolve in a rapid manner (Whether it be the discovery of new tech, or patches respectively) and that eventhubs has had it’s fair share of good and bad reviews when it comes to tier lists, but I was just wondering what your opinions are on the current tier list placement.
I also understand that a lot of us here are either R.Mika mains, secondaries, or just have a general interest in the character, but let’s try to put our bias aside and stick with hard evidence.
eventhubs tier list reflects how easily/how much trouble ppl are having with the character.
What we see at the top is characters who have really solid fundamentals, and many agree Bison is REALLY good.
Mika’s definitely underrated.
As we know, gootecks recently placed well with mika. I don’t think its a situation where’s she’s irredeemably bad, but she has some issues. As always, a good player can make a character work, and Mika is a pretty mental character.
I think if anyone’s gonna use her, they’re gonna have to dedicate ALOT of time and hopefully, she’ll receive some compensation for the beta nerfs she got. Cuz she got DUNKED from beta to release.
LOL, Mika is easily the best grappler in the game and in my opinion Top 10. If anything to make the list a little better I would switch Rashid and Mika around, but it would still be false. Shitty list.
As others have said, early tier lists tend to be a reflection of how easy it is to be successful with a character, not even about their match ups and deeper gameplay. Many players are still new, and I bet this list will change quite a bit before any patches come out.
That said I do feel Mika is likely to fall on the lower end of the spectrum. It’s nothing against Mika, as much as it’s how her type of character fits into the world. I wouldn’t change much about her though, as being a lower tier character is part of her flavor (at least in my mind)
The only change I’d like is for her v-skill to be a bit more useful. Right now I think it takes too long from a tap of the button to her throwing the mic and recovering. Her v-skill can’t be one of those that are used mid combo, but maybe if it just had a bit quicker of a pump for a tap, and maybe a bit quicker of a tier 2 so you can threaten more serious damage to someone who still refuses to engage with her. Even if they changed the damage amounts so it was like 0 charge is 80% of current charge bonus, and 1 charge is 80% of current 1 charge*… Because as it sits now it’s very risky to use in many match ups, and it is very unrealistic to even consider 1 charge unless the opponent COMPLETELY disrespects you (or wants to hear the full speech)
A different buff I could consider for her v-skill is to restore her armor when it hits a charge point, so repeat fireballs might be nullified.
I don’t think I’d change much about her moves / damage at all. Her moves, damage, and other interactions seem pretty on point for her persona. The only room I see for improvement is her v-skill.
I’m not saying this math is perfect, but you get my point.
R.Mika’s big weakness is the neutral game, her s.HK can be seen miles away. Her only tools in footsies are s.mk c.mk, c.hk is very risky. But is she’s able to corner the opponent she’s top tier for sure.
Just saying, I don’t think Fuudo would pick up a low tier character. Of course it is unknown if he still mains her in a few months from now, but it was interesting to see on Daigo’s stream that 2 strong players chose Mika. Well, we shall see.
There’s also the fact that Fuudo is very smart player. We will have to wait and see unless someone can find some pro conversation(THe last pro Ive seen talk about Mika was Viscant) on R. Mika. Only thing I can say is Mika is winning online, shes winning at tourneys, its not like she just isn’t being played or losing etc.
V-skill is very weak, honestly, only reason to do it anymore is BECAUSE it gets you V-Meter(V-Bar? V-trigger?). She’s one of the (only?) characters to get V-trig w/o hitting. It’s an amazing concept for an ability and theres numerous things they can do to improve it. Maybe make it work like Squigly’s center stage? lolz
If we look at what her nerfs were in the beta, we see obvious paths she can be improved. But since capcom nerfed her, they’re unlikely to unnerf.
Personally I’m hoping for a balance patch since we didn’t get one for beta 4/Launch. Games usually have that
I will iterate what I have said in the past. Tier lists will always reflect ‘who has the best buttons’ since that lets people win EASIER with them. That doesn’t really talk about emergent properties of the game, full potential, nothing. Mika is low tier, because low tier means better buttons, not potential. Those on the top tier have better buttons and more obvious strategies on how to win, but that doesn’t make their potential higher either. Especially on eventhub where the tier list is generated by OPINION, it is likely to skew HEAVILY towards speculative fighting especially on this stage of the game.
People will deny a lot of flaws in other characters or over exaggerate flaws on other characters 'just because thats how it looks like on paper. Chun Li, Laura, Mika, hell even Necalli apparently, really are where they are due to speculation and shallow thinking. SFV has really good design save a few really stupid fuck ups in a few characters. The tiers don’t really mean unplayable like they did in sfiv or even sf third strike.
That all being said I’d be /very/ interested in a conversation that talked about actual design problems and design successes. Seems like a much more useful conversation to me. What do you all think?
There is a ton to talk about, but lets just take a singular example and go with the classic Ryu. Ryu is currently really low on the list. Ryu is /also/ the most popularly played. Why is this? Well a few reasons.
Why the perception he is weak?:
One there seems to be a fairly unanimous consensus that ‘fireballs are weak’. This is true, yet that really seems to ignore how strong Ryu’s zoning tool reall is.
His ranges and damage output also tend to be lower than most, not having many attack vectors in between his zoning and his close combat.
His ranges are /technically/ weak (will discuss more later.)
Traditionally he has not had combo’s and that means his burst damage has been lower than some others (this perception will probably change once they get used to the new ryu.)
People got really used to fully invincible Shoryuken. Dp’s with invincibility are a signature of Street Fighter. Due to this being weakened and others not being as touched probably has caused some shift in opinion about our mascot. Shoryuken is still a damn good reversal, and a scary wake up. It is unarguably a nerf to him overall but I’ll discuss this more later.
Why might Ryu be strong? What makes him so popular?:
Ryu is the best defensive fighter in the game, maybe slightly lower, but he is unquestionably at the top of the list. This defensive style makes him excellent for less technically oriented people. Defensive is also technically safer and given his tool set his defensive stance is hard to break.
Zoning, it’s easy and effective. Good for beginners who want to keep pressure to a minimum. Hadoken also allows you to learn how to
Shoryuken, invincible reversal and wake up. This makes Ryu one of the hardest characters in the game to deal with on wake up. A skilled player can make your life hell trying to guess the right call. It’s invincibility also makes it safe enough to throw out and it solves a lot of problems given at lower levels its a reliable anti air, reliable wake up, and reliable reversal.
Target combos. Easy easy damage. Less effective at higher levels, and riskier at higher levels, but at lower levels it can take out a good majority of your opponents life if they aren’t careful. This also gives people good easy ways to output damage.
Ryu has hella footsies. His normals put him in good positions and have a good variance of ranges and situations where multiple threats can happen at once. He isn’t as good as Cammy at teaching footsies, but he is a damn good second choice, especially if you’d rather play defensively.
Obviously Ryu isn’t top tier. He lacks ‘the best’ in anything other than defensive options, but honestly, I believe he deserves to be grouped in the middle. His defensive style gives him an edge that almost no one else in the game has. He is capable of taking out those who rely on rush down and offensive without much effort more than blocking and defense and keeping them off him. His popularity is largely in how easy it is to win with him at lower levels. This has almost always been true about Ryu. He is designed to BE that go to character, to help you l earn the game and to be a comfortable option. His popularity is easy to see, and I think that over time people will start getting over their preconceptions of Ryu. He definitely is different from IV. He has a lot more target combos, and has better defensive tools in both his normals and his V-Skill.
What is some good design in Ryu? (aka the stuff I’d love to talk about. I am not a full on game designer, but I love discussing game balance. I find its important to know this sort of stuff if we want to complain to Capcom effectively to keep the game good and balanced. It is also important for us as a community to discuss this sort of stuff so we as a group can figure out what to complain about the most. If we don’t complain the game stays broken and in the whims of what the creators feel are problems. This is sort of fine but Capcom has a history of being shitty at balancing.):
His V-Skill and V-Trigger are really well designed, especially for such a defense oriented warrior. His V-Skill could be extremely broken, but they made it so that it can only reach its peek during V-Trigger, giving him a mode, a way to come back in a very Ryu style that plays to his defensive flavor. Yet even out of V-Trigger his V-Skill isn’t useless. It is great for shaking up the enemy and making sure. Not only that but it makes his OFFENSIVE signature ability even stronger and scarier to deal with. It gives your fireballs two hits, making most armored moves irrelevant allowing you to trump a lot of the in game responses to fireballs while in V mode. This allows you to make good comebacks or keep your lead very effectively. But since its on a timer and relies on you doing more than just one thing, it doesn’t swing the game wildly in your favor like Ultras in SFIV did.
Shoryuken got nerfed. People belly-ache about this a lot that played Ryu in the past, but it was a much needed balancer to the game. SFV focuses a lot more on close quarter combat, and in its original form this meant that Shoryuken would have been even more over powered. Invincibility was taken away for lp and hp (the one that would be most design trouble on wake up, and the one that would be most trouble in terms of reversal damage) while mp keeps it in the beginning and Ex stays fully invincible.
This is good design in a few ways. First of all you still give Ryu and Ken an invincible way to wake up, both meterless and metered. One costs resources, making it over all fair, its a choice and a limited comeback tool. The medium punch version on the other hand has the right balance of wake up frames and damage out put to be fair to keep invincible at the beginning given the current design. Second of all it allows others to punish Shoryus at the top in all but the ex version and gives you better options on some characters on wiff. This makes you have to be a lot more careful with its use at higher levels and no longer makes it as overpowered of a reversal as it was in the past. In short it promotes good play while still keeping the original utility of the move. Without this correction Shoryu would have had to be taken away entirely, but this design choice allowed us to keep the Street Fighter stand by while making the game really smoothly balanced. Quite frankly its still a super threatening move, and while it may be weakened the utility of it makes it something to definitely be feared, especially in terms of damage out put.
What is some questionable design related to Ryu?
His defense gives some other characters a hard time, to the point I would question, maybe not Ryu’s design, but some of the other design choices. Naturally he is strong against characters that are built to poke. This mainly means Chun Li and R.Mika and to a much lesser extant Dhalsim. All of these characters have trouble with him to varying degrees. His zoning makes him hard to approach and his V-Trigger makes it even scarier to not only approach him, but to stay in the back as well. Its a lose lose that makes it extremely difficult to get in on him.
R.Mika’s V-Skill. Its high recovery makes it excrutiatingly difficult to handle a Ryu who mixes up their fireball game. This makes it way harder than it should be to defend against fireball spam. Her slide kick can help you get in as well, but yet again this is something that requires good timing and execution for something that requires qcf punch repeatedly. Is this balanced? I am not sure honestly. I’d like to hear you alls thoughts on this. I think it might be, given its also easy to just jump and at least R.Mika’s command grabs and throw range make it harder for him to turtle up as easily. His damage output is hella strong though, and a well placed parry can destroy Mika. Parry is fairly balanced and hard to use so I am not going to give it grief, but Mika has bad buttons to begin with.
Dhalsim has way more options to get in on Ryu and his teleport is a good solution to turtlers. He has to adapt a lot more than he does to any other opponent because of his good defenses and slow pokes, however. I’d say this is pretty balanced all and all. Dhalsim can keep up with Ryu’s zoning a lot easier.
Chun Li on the other hand has probably the hardest time with Ryu’s defensive stance. She can’t handle his zoning pressure very well and he has so many defensive tools poking him even with her GOOD pokes becomes laughable. Given she is the most rush down of the three pokers, she suffers the biggest penalty for not being able to get in. Not to mention her throw range is pitiful, so unlike Dhalsim and R. Mika she has to work unduly harder to get in on him. Combine all this with her horrible wake up game and you leave me perplexed as to why people think Chun Li is a good match up against Ryu. I’d love to hear y’all’s thoughts on this as well.
Tl;dr Wow that turned into a wall of text. Well thats what I get for ranting. But yeah the last part is the sort of stuff I’d love to discuss with people here. It’d be great to hear other peoples thoughts on this and other characters too.
I see Ryu as much more of a dash in and mess your gear up kind of a design. Great dash speeds and a good jump duration; good walk speed (one of the fastest); good conversion options at most of the standard footsie ranges; f.hp and b.hk link really nicely into serious damage. His zoning game is serviceable and can still lead to his classic forced-error situations when played well. I actually wouldn’t recommend this character to a new SFV player and would instead look to simpler characters who can drive a basic gameplan well - like Cammy, for example.
I think Chun vs. Ryu is a normal match-up for both characters. She can match him for dash, so in pure ground-to-ground work, she has options to work with. Any Chun getting straight up out-poked in the ground game against Ryu is at the wrong range for her buttons to be effective against him, in my opinion. Her instant air legs is a great pressure tool and if played as poke-heavy as I think she should be played, she can build enough meter to opt for ex.bird when appropriate. I’ve never played Chun though (in any SF game), so my view of her is informed by match footage or versus rather than first-hand user experience.
Mika vs. Ryu feels to me like any traditional grappler vs. shoto match-up - the same match up we’ve been having for decades now. She has to worm her way in, possibly having to exchange some health for distance, but I feel like she can bully him for space if required. At Ryu’s maximum poke range, I really do feel like Mika has a better time of it. Her s.mk is really good against his pokes at that range. At point-blank range, her s.lp and c.lk are amazing. Where Mika feels the pain is converting pokes into damage and building VT. Because her V-Skill is so difficult to use mid-match, accessing Nadeshiko really relies on taking damage, which isn’t ideal. Her conversion rate mid-screen isn’t very good in my opinion, but then she is a grappler at her core, so that’s not really where she should be getting her output from. If her V-Skill was some kind of parry or armour ala Zangbeef or Ryu, she’d be a real powerhouse.
I dunno - it’s all opinion at this point. I remember the SF4 arcade days well and most of our early ideas on tiers and utility (apart from it being obvious that Sagat was broken) went on to become milestone markers on the road to Vortex City.
My main problem with Mika’s V-skill is you don’t get any serious damage from it cause charging takes too much time, so it doesn’t have any real use outside of tanking a hit and/or refilling V-trigger meter.
Yeah it definitely needs a tune up. The only time it seems to be useful is when your scaling is VERY low and combo into super with it.
If you stun the opponent off of the last hit of j.hp s.mp passion throw dash back c.hk ex shooting peach you are at an 8 hit combo with 47% damage scaling @ 327 damage
If you continue that into a super combo you have: damage value (same combo stand alone, no scaling)
j.hp s.mp s.hp super - 557 (460)
instant v.skill s.mp s.hp super - 578 (474)
1 charge v.skill s.mp s.hp super - 619 (536)
j.hp s.mp s.hp v.trigger s.hp super - 572 (486)
instant v.skill s.mp s.hp v.trigger s.hp super - 595 (482)
1 charge v.skill s.mp s.hp v.trigger s.hp super 636 (526)
So you can see that if you go to super with it raw it makes very little difference which way, and can even reduce your damage if you add a v.trigger for extra hits as it further reduces the scaling of the buffed move.
However if you’re already at extreme scaling the buff can come back for a moderate gain as the super raises the scaling back up to the 50% mark for it’s damage. If you can get 1 charge it brings a bit more punch, but you will never get a full charge in a competitive game. There is no character that can’t challenge that… Even if you daze your opponent you only have enough time to get to 1 charge just barely… If the opponent mashes buttons to get out sooner you aren’t going to get there.
well i can’t really contribute much to this discussion but if we’re really gonna have at it, I have to wonder what ppl think of Beta Mika vs Launch Mika, I mirror alot of Viscant’s thoughts from this article(2 parts):
He calls it straight up - the designers saw play style that didn’t mesh with how they wanted Mika to run and made adjustments. After having played for a little now, you have to admit that those nerfs were probably warranted; getting a passion press after ch.hk is nuts. I feel like her design goal is pretty clear - make your opponent fear the corner, but the rest of the time you’re gonna be sweating.