The only “objective” way to consider someone a pro would be someone who gets far in tournaments, but there are some problems with this requirement.
Players like myself may not have a lot of traveling options /or a large scene to compete in plenty of tournaments or just even the big ones be it financial reasons, underage, etc.
For clarification, I don’t consider myself a pro, just someone who lacks a bunch of tournament opportunities.
There’s an obvious difference in popularity for all of the characters. Assuming that everyone was equally skilled with their character, you’d have more pros that all specialize in the same character because their character frequently makes top eight. There are plenty of Ryu and Chun players, but the amount of Fuerte and Hakan players is much smaller
In that case, KumaOso…there should be a compilation of top ranked online players thoughts for certain characters, (not bs cheating punks) with top ranked tournament scene pros. To be honest, i guess japanese online pro players should most be considered cuz they experience no lag almost…I just don’t know too many Japanese hakan players and typically, japanese players pick popular characters as well…(is wildcat japanese?). Anyways, a character’s popularity has a major influence on its representation at high level play, that’s why characters like Hakan/Makoto/Sakura/Dan/Gen always end up low tier even in AE where they’re obviously stronger. (I would say Sakura is somehow always in D or lower tiers in Super, when she should be in low B, but most people rarely face her and there arent enough top pros who pick her to show her strengths/weaknesses.)
A character’s popularity does bias the matchup knowledge a bit, but that should wash out over time as people discover things. Tier lists change over time.
The problem is the game keeps getting updates before things settle down.
It was based off BP and Daigo’s Yun has the most BP along with Kindevu’s Yun not too far behind and like 2-3 other Yun’s in the top of the BP rankings.
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Yun
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Dictator
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Ken, C.Viper, Abel, Akuma, Fei Long
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Blanka, Guile, Dhalsim, Boxer, Sagat, Rufus, Gen, Cody, Ibuki, Yang
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Ryu, Chun-Li, E.Honda, Zangief, Claw, T.Hawk, Cammy, Sakura, Makoto, Dudley, Adon
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El Fuerte, Seth, Gouken, Dee Jay, Rose, Guy, Juri
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Dan, Hakan
Keep in mind these are BP rankings, results are from wins obviously. Surprised to see Gen and Cody winning. But then again, I have always underestimated them.
It’s a good showing of character capability when good players are using them I guess. But then there’s the factor of alien match ups for people who are getting into AE because they didn’t have console.
BP rankings in no way indicate character strength or effectiveness. Say Sakura was unequivocally the best character in the game for example, but if only a couple of people play her then she wouldn’t rank high on that list. Yun’s ranking is inflated because he’s a new character and everyone is trying him out.
Of course BP rankings indicate character strength of effectiveness. I’ve lost count of how many Sagat’s were in top 50-100 rankings back in vanilla. He sure wasn’t strong or effective back then.
I do feel the statistics turn bias on a lot of ends. But we’re talking about taking the top 10 from each rank here so theoretically ten really good or good enough specialists in those characters for now and just rolling them up. It’s a good sample size of data playing under the same conditions and in the same few locations.
Whereas you have IPW/Fchamp’s list, he’s stuck with his own data findings and other West Coast buddies. And here at the East Coast you have like the Spooky/Empire guys huddling with their own and coming up with some of their own findings. I don’t think both coast will agree on 100%, but maybe more like 80-90% of the stuff.
What if you had like thirty seven Daigo’s, and the ranks were only A and B split between thirty seven characters? You guys wouldn’t be able to agree on it because you HAVE to feel like there’s a super high and super low character.
If there’s players in Japan laying smackdown with low tier characters are we going to see the same results here in America? Or the skill gap really is still that far and they learn and adapt way better than America even with the initial console release?
