The First Real Tier List Discussion Thread - Your Input Matters

Classic Fighting Games Skullgirls
1

Hey guys, what’s going on. So if you didn’t know already I will be streaming the Skullgirls side tournaments at Evo this year. The stream it will be on is www.twitch.tv/toptiergaming/. I have been planning some big things for the stream for the viewers enjoyment. One thing I wanted to do is finally get an official tier list done for the game. I don’t want it to be like most tier lists where they just post the order of chars and what rank they are and leave it at that. This one will be very in-depth. This was one reason I stated there should not be a tier list thread before hand. If there is to be a tier list, it has to be done right. First off THIS IS A SERIOUS THREAD, no posting about dumb stuff or anything. Please try and keep this thread on track. REMEMBER, this game takes a lot in to account. There are not only teams in this game, but also the factor of single characters. Also, all these characters have assists which should be rated as well. Here is the format you should try to submit your data in:

SINGLES:

Character:
Rank:
Reasoning:

TEAMS:

Character:
Rank:
Reasoning:

ASSISTS:

Character:
Rank:
Reasoning:

So you will basically be stating singles chars, teams chars, and which char you think has assist potential and why. Remember, the grades for characters are S, A, B, C, D. S is only to be used in very special situations, basically characters that are game breaking. One example was Arakune in the first BB. At one point the Japanese said that Arakune was so good that they made him an S tier character. They said he belonged more in a shmup than the fighting game.

All data will be reviewed and accounted for. The final tier list will be compiled on site at Evo with some of the top players. We will go over the feedback from the players and take it all in to account. Then we will make our final decision and present it live on our stream during Evo.

-Tha Hindu

2

My thoughts on movement from the old thread.

ASSISTS:

Character: Parasoul
Rank: A
**Reasoning: **Napalm Pillar is among the best defensive assists, being invincible, hit-confirmable, and with a large hitbox. Egret Charge goes through projectiles, leaves Parasoul out of harms way, is hit-confirmable, is not reflectable, and beats armor. Napalm Shot is a typical projectile assist that also leaves a hazard on top of the opponent on block, making blockstrings safe and allowing further mixups.

Character: Cerebella
Rank: A
**Reasoning: **Diamond Drop has potential for punishing push blocks, mixups and as stunt double. Excellabella is a combined mixup and defensive assist with no invincibility, but large range that will beat out most jump ins, it can also be easily hit-confirmed by most characters. Cerecopter allows for heavy midscreen lockdown and chip, or can be used knock opponents away.

Character: Double
Rank: A
Reasoning: Hornet Bomber is arguably the strongest assist overall (for now). It serves as an anti-air, though without the vertical hit box of other AA assists. It opens up the ground for approaches to keep away characters. It knocks opponents away on block, or locks them down for mixups and chip. On hit it causes a ground bounce, meaning an otg combo can be used.

Character: Filia (I don’t play this character)
Rank: B
**Reasoning: **Updo is a faster invincible AA assist that leaves Filia vulnerable for longer than Napalm Pillar. Hairball is a decent lockdown/approach assist with a small hitbox that goes under most projectiles.

**Character: Peacock **(I don’t play this character)
Rank: B
**Reasoning: **George’s Day Out is a very slow moving projectile that can be easily jumped, because it is active for so long it can improve pressure and mixups, because it is a single hit it will not cause much damage scaling. Shadow of Impending Doom is tracking vertical hit with short hitstun, can be useful for keeping people grounded.

3

If we’re not talking HK midscreen, yes. I would think some characters might even have trouble with even the MK version, but I’m not sure.

TEAMS
Character: Valentine
Rank: B, maybe low A
Reasoning: Good mobility and damage(possibly best, assuming removal of Para/Fortune glitches), decent mixups, a fast overhead that can cross up(IAD j.HP), Vial A can be used to deal damage while giving no meter, Vial B can be used for damaging combos that are hard to drop, and Vial C can further her mixups. I’d say her main flaw is a weak air game and just not having an easy time converting an air hit into a full combo like other characters. While assists help with this, snapping her out can be a problem. And while she does get good damage, the opponent ends up building a TON of meter in her longer combos, especially in Vial B combos. Not relevant if it’s the last/only character and you get the kill, but still worth mentioning.

ASSIST
Character: Valentine
Rank: C, maybe D
Reasoning: I’d say her only really usable assist is Mortuary Drop. It can be used to set up resets/force a jump into air-grab resets/other shenanigans. s.MK has lockdown, but on top of it being slow, other assists do it better. Normal grab is faster but has bad range. Since she relies on assists more than other characters and builds so much meter it wouldn’t make sense to play her as an anchor. She does have her level 5 revival, but it’s too situational to be a factor.

4

Just to get the ball rolling for the characters tier list themselves.
I’ll just throw-out a graph for an example and for people to use for later purposes i suppose.

http://www.mmcafe.com/tiermaker/skullgirls/index.html#ya0-trdc9ng69pan9nj05bdpdjiydkga59gadj-bkg-naScar Crow

Though, i personally have been away from the game for a bit now, i think how it is is still relevant.
I’ll edit this post later with the preferred format above ^^, for exact reasoning’s behind my opinions. A little busy at the moment.
Glad to see the tier thread is up though! :slight_smile:

5

A different list for each ratio isn’t the way to go about it imo.

I’m considering post-patch
http://tinyurl.com/cymkl9y

Princess: Best assist, fantastic point character

Filia: Easy character, easy damage, great mobility.

Val: May have to play a more reset heavy game with the new IPS, Filla does it better
Carol: You’re being hit High/Low Left/Right and getting grabbed at the same time, how do you block that? But with great power comes high execution.
Cerebella: No longer getting ToD’d, finally has a chance to fight. Actually has a decent assists which you can change depending on the matchup.

Nadia: Damage drastically cut, leaving the head out there is no longer low risk/high reward. High execution for measly damage.
Cock: No assist to backup the full screen fight, not sure if Parasoul is enough to be as lame as Double/Cock.

Double: FUCKING ASS TIER. Severely limited point capabilities, offers no assist, and still relatively high execution. Gimmick character.

6

Well, this is supposed to be for the information on what the game is providing to date. If the patch does come out before Evo then it will be taken in to account.

-Tha Hindu

7

Ugh…I’m tempted to do this now because I saw silly things.

Anyway:

ASSISTS:

**Character: **Double
**Rank: **A
**Reasoning: **HK ass provides full screen lockdown for multiple characters providing them a way to get in on zoning they otherwise wouuldn’t be able to handle, and a way to get people to sit still long enough to set up zoning/anything. MK ass does near the same job except it is harder to get around if you don’t have aerial mobility, thus stomping Peacock and Parasoul if they have to get around it. LK ass is interesting in that it provides a close range horizontal invincible box like Peacock’s QCF+LP but good and causes knockdown. Best used for characters who need a quick get off me and convert it into a mixup right in their face. Not as much blockstun though.

Cilia Slide is a great midscreen low that bounces, giving an OTG to any character in the game. It’s hard to react to since I’m pretty sure just about everybody uses Double Ass. Just neutral jump and call that assist and oh my god, a low from near full screen that I couldn’t see because she crouches super low to the ground.

s.HP is actually useful as an assist too. It provides a much needed PAUNCH hitbox across 60% of the screen. No it’s not great for combos but what it does is better than combos. It wins neutral game clean. And with no proxy guard on it, if they up back even a little bit, Ceredouble slugs them in the face for a nifty 1000~ damage and corner pushes. I want to see this assist used more because it has amazing uses with command throw characters.

Character: Valentine
**Rank: **A
**Reasoning: **She has an assist for every situation. Do you need a midscreen heavy hitstun move? Dead Cross H is not only safe, and keeps her extremely far away from the fight, it has enough hitstun you can actually restand with it just by itself if they jump. Free combos for days. Also great at extending combos without using a certain normal to restand. Do you need a far reaching pull? (GET OVER HERE) Fatal Bypass H does a great job by being incredibly low to the ground and on hit pulls the opponent about halfway to you while providing a ground bounce. Extremely useful against zoning and is a perfect countercall to HK Hornet Bomber since she’ll go right under and hit the opponent whether they try to zone or get in with it. Do you need a gimmick? Obligatory Mortuary Drop reference. It’s not great, but people get hit by a 30f command throw so I’ll just throw it in here for you guys to realize it’s the slowest move in the game. I want her j.MK as an assist D:

Character: Cerebella
**Rank: **A
**Reasoning: **Her assists are versatile in that, they are very very hard to deal with. Diamond Drop is a sub 5f command throw that hurts a metric shitton and you get a free non otg combo off of it just by standing behind her and launching with enough practice. Not only is it amazing for that alone, you can time a c.LK along with it to force an unblockable situation. Did they jump? c.LK trip guards. Did they try and block? DIAMOND DROP. It takes ridiculous practice to pull this off and probably needs ridiculously specific setups, but there are ways to make this too good. Merry-Go-Rilla is almost better because you can call it in a string and then pushblock your opponent into range of it, and then quickly dash forward and hit the OTG afterwards. The only problem is, it uses up OTG. Cerecopter is excellent for providing lockdown and does work as a get off me assist since it sends them fullscreen on hit. It has about 80f of blockstun overall and catches up back thanks to no proxy block. A very strong assist for any character.

And then the reasoning I think her assists warrant A tier. Excellebella. This move in itself makes her A-Tier. Easily combo’d into for a nice 1000 damage onto any combo, any setup time is perfectly viable, doesn’t use up OTG. And the best part. It’s air unblockable if they are jumping up back from you. You can run in and hit this assist and then mash throw. Did you throw them? Great, combo. Did they tech? Fine. Did they backjump/backdash? Excellebella gets them. Free combo. And that’s just one strategy you can use. When you use it as a stunt double it turns into an OS if you have 1 bar behind it. Oh hey, Excellebella is super cancelable. Did my Stunt Double Excellebella whiff? Ultimate Showstopper time. You cannot jump it on reaction thanks to Excellebella catching anything up back, and if they don’t jump, super cancel into throw. A good 2 bar punish on just about any string. Just be sure to use it when they are close by and are aware that you can Stunt Double Super Cancel. Then it turns into an excellent OS with near guaranteed damage.****

8

I’ll try this out.

Singles

Character: Cerebella

Rank: B+

Reasons: Cerebella is really strong. Damage wise, she does so much damage. With two resets, a character is dead (And that’s without anything near maximized damage output or supers). 8 hit combo, reset, 7 hit combo, reset, 8 hit combo, Cerebella wins. I’m only talking singles, so 1.00 damage. The main way that she gets all of these resets is c.mk. With something I’ve just found today, there is never a safe way to get out of this situation when fighting bella. However, c.mk has bad range, and almost never works unless directly in front of the enemy. It takes work to get it, and even then it’s hard to use.

Cerebella has a hard time countering Zoning. Mainly Peacock, but this accounts for projectiles in general. Her reflector can give you a second to breathe, but she can almost never follow up from it unless in Titan Knuckle Range. While reflector helps, it is not enough and projectiles are, for the most part, dangerous to risk getting hit, especially at that range since they all either lead into super, or poison you in some way.

Cerebella’s Armored Run gets less useful by the day, unless you are using run-stop loops. The ease of using a low attack to break her armor really hurts her, since most of the cast have strong low hitting moves. The attacks that can be done from it are too limited, there’s the front attack, back attack, and the long-startup overhead (that misses some characters unless specifically spaced). All of her run attacks will eventually become useless for the most part, as simply jumping back can protect you from all of her attacks (unless Kanchou’s hitbox gets adjusted) except Battle Toads, which can easily be blocked and punished.

Cerebella’s mobility is good. j.hp is an excellent movement as well as an attack. It can hover her above most things, but is dangerous against those with distance air attacks/supers since she cannot defend until the movement has completed. Lock n’ Load moves quite a fair distance, but never seems to be useful outside of combos. Armored run has great mobility, and when used from a distance can bait out supers or absorb lone projectiles before stopping.

Cerebella’s Supers are limited. Diamond Dynamo is an excellent tool for dragging them to the corner, but unless you are already well spaced than it’s pointless (outside of the damage). Her 360 can only be done as a punish, anything else is dangerous. Her level 3 is difficult to preform, and should only be done when enemies execute dangerous and committing moves.

All in all, Cerebella can be extremely dangerous if she gains momentum. If she can drag you into the corner, you have probably already lost but don’t know it yet. However, she’s weak in most other areas.

9

Solo
Character: Ms. Fortune
Ranking: A

Many are panicking about how Nadia no longer has TODs, but then again the patch reduced everyone’s ability to do any TODs ever. Her damage, including post-patch, is still decent, albet not brain dead. She has tools to protect against both rushdown and zoning so she rarely needs an assist. As a solo, her ability to handle different matchups gives her an advantage in solo situations. She does have problems dealing with certain lockdown and assists, but so does every solo character. Her damage as a solo makes every hit deadly because the head can help increase that damage, along with making uo for damage and meter scaling of her long combos. She is easily the best solo character in the game, but it’s hard to rate her anything higher than A because the game does include teams.

10

CURRENT version

TEAM: Painwheel/Filia/Double

** Character: Painwheel**

** Rank: A+(only with a well composed team)**

Reasoning: Amazing point character, builds tons of meter, does lots of damage has lots of mobility. Her reset potential is high, because her combos have so many restands the opponent has to guess when your gonna reset. Her fly cancels on the ground make her 50/50 low throw game STILL keep on the pressure cause you can just fly after a blocked low

Her armor is an underrated but AMAZING ability, the low/throw game that is currently extreme safe and amazing. The armored jab puts a stick right into that, timing the armor to beat the low is a good answers to a common situation in skullgirls, while not being a complete answer, it does allow you to respond with a full combo if you guess right, and a full combo with painwheel is pretty damaging. Her ground game is really good because of armored moves and flight canceled normals.

Mobility in general with painwheel is really high as she can fly, espcially with her armored j.HP That can be flight canceled so that she can be safe against many options. Her j.mp is amazing at stuffing plenty of defensive options and is a safe way in. Her j.MK is fast, can be flight canceled multiple times to bring enemies down into a restand and combo. j.HK stuff lots of options is multi hitting, and has a large hitbox. Her j.HP armored flight cancels needs to be explored more to see what it is truly capable of. she also has good cross ups and mix up game in general.

even multi hitting moves like j.HK be converted to a corner carry into atleast 7k damage with one meter, optimized combos hit on 9k-10k with one meter before dhcs. And because she builds so much meter she allows for lots of really high damage DHCs. Painwheel needs a lot of exploring to see her full potential, but currently she seems like a top character. She does need an assist.

Specifically with my team she can convert off updo and hornet bomber WITHOUT using her OTG, so she can do like 7k-8k before DHCS without using an OTG

** Character: Filia**

** Rank: B+**

Reasoning: Her damage is low, and i also feel like reset game is exaggerated, its more like she has to reset to do decent damage so people focus on that as her good aspect, i just don’t feel like she has as many reset opportunities as painwheel, and that they are easier to read. her mixups and crossups are the best thing she has going for her. she can open people up really well but but only safely with an assist. She is also a meter hog for damage, don’t think she is the best character for coming out first because of that. What she DOES have going for her is her godlike DHC options, dhcs that pull people to the corner in the corner and you can dhc into level 3? that is amazing. Though she needs meter to do damage, but if she has meter, filia is one of the harder hitting characters. Grab, into HK hairball into DP super into level 3? yeah, a grab that does that much damage for 3 meter isn’t bad. Updo is also one of the best assist, personally believe it is better than napalm for keeping people off you and i believe its faster so its better to use it on reaction i believe its also harder to punish than pillar. Can convert hornet bomber hit into a full combo from anywhere with her roach super(saving OTG)

** Character: Double**

** Rank: A+**

Reasoning: Umm, where to start, in a team she is amazing, catelites in current form are godlike, she has good combos, and her assist are amazing, car is a good DHC and so is her level 3 so and so are cat heads. she can combo after her DHCs if you saved ground bounce. catelites + Car is a completely safe way on a character. I do feel like her mixup and pressure game is only good with meter, with meter i feel she is one of the best character in the game and putting her on your team is only gonna help the rest of your characters. Without meter, she is a sad sad thing. Basically best supporting character in the game if your team isn’t meter hungry.

11

ASSISTS:

**Character: Valentine **(I don’t play this character)
Rank: B
**Reasoning: **I wasn’t sure which assists Val used, but if those are her best I would say she’s a B. Dead Cross has one advantage over Napalm Shot which is that is hits crouching characters more easily, but on the other hand, it doesn’t provide much pressure comparatively due to it being a single hit. Cilia Slide does a similar job to Fatal Bypass while also providing a low. I may be wrong but Fatal Bypass is projectile invincible isn’t it? Mortuary drop is a slower merry-gorilla that doesn’t use the otg, but it’s so slow you can jab her out of it. She doesn’t provide a get off me assist like the Parasoul, Cerebella and Double do. So she’s slightly less versatile than the other Rank A’s and she doesn’t have an assist that is unquestionably the best at what it does (that I know of).

12

I think Double’s Hornet Bomber assist and Parasol’s napalm pillar are probably the best assists in the game.

Good input guys. I’m new to the forum but not to fighting games. I’ve been playing seriously since 2006 or 2007.

13

SINGLES:

Character: Double
Rank: A+ to A -
**Reasoning: **In a one on one situation double has alot to offer she has splendid ground mobility, frightening long combos and even more frighteningly Dubious Resets. Her Barrel loop has plunged her higher solely based on the options in and out of it, the mix up options if dropped mid combo and the pressure from any air attack cancelled into avery damn near eliminates the benefits of pushblock.( Double can cancel avery and still have enough space to dash past the opponent)

Avery makes for a very good spacing tool and if able to react to the confirm can make for a conversion on barrel loop on an IADers. Luger is very solid in terms of zoning and can put a hamper on air offense. HK is also a great anti air on correct reaction and can lead into Cat head Super cancel which can rack up damage on the opponent and further still lead right back into barrel loop. I personally see no poor match ups against Double in an 1v1 environment. HOWEVER Solo versus team she struggles when the opponent is with a double assist, makes matches against characters like valentine much more difficult and further said, out of favor than when alone. Double truly makes for a great assist at this point. although it’s not without it’s faults really punishable after it’s done. If I wish to punish versus Double it’s best for me to use the meter to cat head. Back on the point of air game. her jump ins give her ample time to confirm into tea cup or start barrel loop but air to air needed to be properly spaced to keep in in the fight against air experts like Pain wheel. her air mobility is a bit limited out side of Hyper hop-> double jump-> air grab/ normal. but avery can keep ones double safe if they aren’t confident in the air spacing.

I guess all in all to counter double is to take advantage of her poor air mobility or her unsafe supers but without a buddy I fear that’s a little bit out of reach for most characters to pull off at least with the sooner.

14

Character: Double
Rank: S
**Reasoning: **She’s good solo and with a team with good assist she can destroy any team or character, Head super is like instant get in mix-up into alot of good dmg, alot of tricky resets and teleport cross-up kind of dash as well. I don’t think she struggles with anyone, no matter the assist they have.

Character: Peacock
Rank: F+
**Reasoning: **She is garbage i’m sorry no assist = instant bodybag, even with assist if you just play smart you won’t get hit by her random crap projectiles. Heavily dependent on a double or cerbella assist forcing you to play those characters to play a efficient peacock.

15

dont post the dumb stuff yall and get serious about the video game

16

Whats dumb? these are just opinions. Although i believe mine is very very accurate about those 2 characters.

17

sorry too tired to follow the format right now

S: Parasoul, Double
A: Painwheel, Valentine, Cerebella
B: Filia, Ms Fortune
C: Peacock

singles btw

18

Don’t you think it’s a bit early for tier discussions? I mean, at least let the game play out at ECTD and CEO – we’ve barely had any majors, and the few we’ve had were dominated by the likes of Severin, Dacidbro and Copperdabbid

19

I’s fine if you discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the character themselves, not how they compare to everyone else. With everything I’ve seen, I believe Bella as a solo is B+ (maybe an A-), without taking into account the other characters. This early with too few tournaments, that’s all we should really be doing.

20

Not like Tier discussion even if we had sufficient material would make much sense in the first place, given that everything changes massively within the next ~1.5 months.