Well, since the game is out, we might as well have this thread.
That said, it is way too early for any proper balance/tier list talk. We won’t really have a clear picture of how the first season’s balance stacks up until sometime before Evo at best. To paraphrase from Mike Z, you can’t really make good balance impressions from 1 day, 1 week, or even 1 month of play, even if that’s when everyone is in the lab.
That said, I’ve decided that we might as well get this discussion rolling. As part of this, I’ve created an automated match up chart that calculates match up values and overall advantage. The chart is obviously empty for now, I’ll be giving access to this to select members as the game’s meta develops and we get more data.
Now for some ground rules for this thread:
[list=1]
[] NO TIER LISTS. At least not until we have enough data.
[] If you want to say that so-and-so character is strong or weak, be sure to do so in terms of match ups, i.e. X character beats Y character easily, or Y character loses out to Z character, and so on and so forth.
[/list]
SFV Tier Estimates 1.01
A+ - Chun-Li, Nash
A - Vega, Karin, Bison, FANG
B+ - Necalli, Cammy, Birdie, Ken
B - Laura, Ryu, Dhalsim
C - Rashid, Zangief, Mika
My top 5 would be
Chun
Nash
Vega
Bison
Karin
with Necalli and Cammy in 6th and 7th spots.
I think the top 5 consensus tends to have Vega/Chun/Nash present in most lists, I think Bison is ridiculously strong and Karin…well, I think she might fall off after the game has breathed a little. FANG is just sitting wherever I though was “fair” because I’m still clueless on how FANG works. He seems like he could be good but, well…time will tell on that one.[/s]
Does Mika have any match-up in her favor? It feels like she at a disadvantage with almost everybody. Laura and Necalli are the only ones I general have no issues against. Laura is like a crapper Mika. Too defendant on hard reads and mix-up to make anything happen. Necalli got t-rex arms like her but she has the better buttons of the two. Also better tick throws.
With her V-Skill being IMO probably the worst, her reliance on the corner and the weird set of normals she has with minimal range she seems…weird? I don’t understand how she plays, it seems like a TON of throw mix-ups, like a fast paced Zangief. It just seems like a weird design, I’m sure somebody will crack her eventually. Her “long range” jumpy normals are also super easy to just stuff, and they’re not difficult to react to like Cammy’s spin knuckle.
Give someone who is known as a nut a controller, see what they can do with Mika. I’d like Kazunoko to try her honestly, he’d just go nuts.
I wouldn’t even necessarily say she lacks damage outside of the corner, she just can’t “keep it up” without losing momentum due to all of her hit confirms creating a gap between her and the opponent. I haven’t played her too much so these are just first glance thoughts, but when I did play her she felt fairly weak. I don’t understand the purpose of the V-Skill either, it just seems bad.
Which is why the match up chart template I made already lists the 6 characters for season 1. No point in thinking about other seasons for now since we know we likely getting a balance patch in December.
Part of me got bored of Chun, think it was because she did actually become #1 and I wanted to branch out a little, play someone different as my secondary. I’m on the fence still but it’s between Nash and Bison, really loving new Bison in SFV. I’ve actually had some cool things happen vs. fireballs with Bison’s teleport dash, he can dash right through certain fireballs…it’s neat.
I don’t get where Chun is necessarily weak though, she still seems to have completely everything including that cr.lp st.mp link, which I find insane that she kept jab confirms on none CH and everybody else lost them, it’s so strong.
I guess I’ll talk about who I think Ken does the best against really quickly…at moment I feel his best match is maybe a 6-4 but even then who the hell knows, like people have said the game is pretty fair. I feel he does well against Bison and Nash, it’s just very easy to lock Bison down as Ken, his bad walkspeed and poor anti-air game make it a bit of a nightmare to deal with Ken’s rushdown, and no true reversal gives Ken free game for meaty pressure. I haven’t yet played a good Bison who utilized his godlike v-reversal though, so there’s that. Nash is weird, his “week one” gameplan is fireball > moonsault and then do stuff, but Ken can counter it pretty easily by just cr.hp’ing the moonsault, jumping back and pressing hp, mp dp the moonsault…and if you knock Nash down he has to respect you on wake-up or v-reversal out. Nash is a weird match, I wanna see someone who advances his gameplan a little.
EX SBK is a good enough reversal. Not as telegraphed to punish as a DP so less likely to take crush counters than other reversals. Covers both sides of her also so does better against cross ups than other reversals that may go flying in the wrong direction for a punish.
Her overhead is slow, but it’s the only one that’s completely safe on block and travels an extremely far range very fast. It moves her very fast even though its slow for mix up. If they’re sleeping you hit them, if not you’re still safe. Fair trade.
Close game is more about white chip and counter hits so cracking people open all the time like in IV or anime games isn’t as necessary. Play the neutral and it adds up. V Skill works for jumping in and giving her V Gauge if you read a jump early or catch an empty jump.
She isn’t really like Akuma. She’s just Chun. Her only real issue that I can find is a bit of a struggle vs fireballs and short throw range. Which isn’t that big of a deal since her walk speed is really good, c.MP can go under them, she can move in against them with EX fireball and her V Trigger gives her full screen fireballs and fireball absorbing b+HP. You’ll be forcing white chip so often with her that a short throw range for her is probably just. When you get them really afraid of counter hits and white chip the throws become more viable.
I rushdown with Mika. Her normals are terrible to try to play a footsie game. I see a whiff I’m dashing my way in. She’s difficult to deal with once she’s in. Her ticks are great and most of her normals are safe when done at the max ranges.
Weird. Coulda sworn all version of air LL’s was + on block. Seems only the M version is + on block. Which is weird because in VT the M version is -. Well…I do have time. Might as well do more training.
Played a good bit of the chun matchup against my brother. Using Ken, it’s absolutely brutal. Her standing fierce obliterates every normal he has. It’s incredibly hard to even whiff punish. It’s also really hard to keep your distance with her walk speed and godly normals. She can just walk you into the corner.
I had way more success with Bison and I barely know how to use the character.
She kinda struggles against fireballs. But her neutral jump is the bestest way ever for dealing with them unless the opponent follows the fireball in.
Chuns biggest problem to me is lack of damage and lack of mixup game.
Neither is super huge, her average damage is on par with some characters, it’s just that her HIGH DAMAGE is generally smaller than what other characters have.
Her overhead is clearly a joke though. It won’t even hit sleepers most of the time, can’t be v trigger canceled, and gives up your turn if it is blocked close range. It’s best use is to move in from far where even on block Chun will be spaced a bit.
People that get hit by it, clearly are already mindfucked.
