User “Jodim”'s Zangief play on GGPO already shook up Zangiefs ranking for ONLINE ST play.
Anybody who played GGPO care to disagree with Jodim’s Zangief being the most dominant player/character there?
Zangief players are seeded high in the Remix leaderboard rankings: #6 UberCyberBeast #9 x kuroppi x (yes, kuroppi is normally a Honda player, but so far he’s been using Zangief on ranked matches)
If you want to see where the tiers for Remix are, then you should look at the leaderboards and what characters the top players are winning with: #1 haru tejyo - Ryu?Ken? #2 Bruce Askew - ? #3 Sirlin Prime - Vega? #4 atonalism - ? #5 mad possum - Honda #6 UberCyberBeast - Zangief #7 KJ out the 17th - Sagat #8 HotBishop - ? #9 x kuroppi x - Zangief #10 Playa F - ? #11 Scrubtacular - ? #12 xx paulee xx - ? #13 Godmana123187 - ? #14 FrankDux DimMak #15 Zass30 - ? #16 MonGoloRoboKop - ? #17 ravall - ? #18 xrolento - #19 xbl brain - ? #20 o TrAcK sTaR o - ?
Okay, so there are a number of problems with going off Remix ranked for the tiering:
Problem #1) top players (ShootingD, Daigo, Aniken, Kusumondo, Shougatsu, Otochun, Komoda, Pony, “Jodim”, Muteki, Hakase, Mayakon, Toutanki, Noguchi, Oota, Afrolegends, Tsuji, Yaya, YuuVega) are not playing Remix ranked matches that I know of, and without their participation we’re looking at a tiering system for (top) amateur players.
Problem #2) the ranking system seems seems fishy. I know I personally beat xrolento 3 times without a loss to him AND he seems to have a LOT of lost, and yet I see him at #18. Anyone know the rules for the ranking system? Do they give out points for #games played as well as performance vs. opponent’s rank?
Problem #3) if a top player who got their high rank off their main then switches to an alt, then that alt (even though of lower ability) will still grant their opponent the win/loss impact relative to that players main characters rank level.
So, at the end of the day, the Remix rank leaderboard is kinda an iffy way to rank characters… but it’s better than non-top players just guessing based on what they’ve seen/heard.
Tournaments are generally one of the best ways to assess rankings.
And the data Backbone could be collecting from remix matches COULD give us a ranking if they seperate and use the proper data… but I don’t think they have the sophistication/drive to do it.
Players could run the data themselves, but they don’t have access to that quality of data at this time. (and I don’t think they will going forward; the proposed website with data will likely not have the select, pure data we need to run a ranking system)
I have been jab headbutted out of j.MK very consistently…maybe my spacing is way wrong? Also headbutts hurt and either beat (often) or trade (rare/correct me if Im wrong) with Balls so it’s still scary to try and use them.
I use j.LK against headbutts most of the time now. j.MK does work but your timing has to be good and if Honda hits you during the inactive part of the j.MK you’re getting hit. j.LK is active way longer and j.LK does good damage for a light attack. If you hit him with enough of those while you’re in a health lead it’ll force him to try something different which seemed to open up more opportunities for me to get in. Majority of time in the Honda matchup I’m being an asshat turtling towards the other end of the screen with j.LK and hoping for an opportunity hit a whiffed headbutt or just hit with j.LK or j.MK (if I time it right) enough times that they’ll get flustered and do something dumb. I’ve seen s.LK also beat headbutt clean in old ST matchup vids so I may try to incorporate that as well.
I never use Blanka balls as a manner of trying to beat a headbutt. It does seem much tougher if not impossible to punish blocked or hit Blanka balls with headbutt anymore so I usually end poke strings with Blanka balls against Honda. I’m assuming hands may be able to hit Blanka after blocked ball but not sure. Headbutt not flying in my face after a hit Blanka ball is a godsend though.
Jumping short, standing short, and standing jab are your friends v Honda, they all beat headbutt and hands, and jumping short and jumping jab beat buttslam in the air. Electricity also beats headbutt, but not hands or buttslam. Also, meaty max-range slide beats or trades with headbutts on wakeup.
First off, the info on Zangief I listed I think IS good with regards to the question on Zangief.
UberCyberBeast (who has posted on the topic) AND x kuroppi x (who has commented in email with me) are both doing welll with Zangief in Remix, and Jodim was a monster on GGPO with Zangief in ST already.
Both indicate Zangief is very arguably not bottom tier.
As for the rest of it, well, let’s get serious.
I already said the Remix Ranked Game Leaderboards are a VERY poor method of getting a character tiering system. (for NUMEROUS reasons)
AND, that although there IS good data to make a tiering system out there, it isn’t being used and WE don’t have access to it.
There are no high level tourneys yet to judge off of.
There are no high level pros playing each other in any publicly viewable area.
No high level pros playing each other have publically stated their observations.
So we have three options:
get what we can off the leaderboards (being careful and knowing much of the data is poor)
listen to the speculative guessing of a top level player’s
listen to the speculative guessing of a non-top level player WITHOUT access to top player matches
What we have in this thread is (1) amateur players, (2) watching amateur matches, (3) and jumping to conclusions about (1) non-present top players players, (2) playing non-existent top matches, and (3) getting to fantasy tiering of characters.
If you think a character is ranked high, list info that is reliable:
TOP PLAYER X using Zangief beat TOP PLAYER Y using Guile.
I am TOP PLAYER X and (based on play) I think Y change will help/hurt me in matches vs. Z character.
I have X data that supports Y conclusion.
As is, the only tiering we have from the feedback on here is for AMATEUR PLAYERS.
Which is fine.
I think you have to expect that HDR is balanced to the point that a “bottom tier” character can still compete very well against the rest of the cast and is still a viable tournament character. That was already the case in ST, and it seems so far that HDR is even more balanced than ST was (maybe Akuma aside) and that while matchups are still important, most of them are less advantageous or disadvantageous than they were before. The rankings on the leaderboard, even if they were accurate or worth paying attention to, probably won’t tell us that much.
I have just browsed through these and I am in total agreement that Guile is a force to be reckoned with. A lot of the points that people are making on here for him I actually just said most of them last night to a few friends of mine from the observations I saw. It also seems that out of all the matches I play a good Guile player gives me more crap then anybody else.
I’ve noticed that a lot of people listing full tier listings are still saying they think Dhalsim is top tier. My question to you folks is why? Have you been playing him? So far, he definitely seems worse to me.
His super seems to be a former shell of itself. It used to be an invincible shield that did big damage. Now, not only does it do less damage, but it seems way easier to get hit out of. I know the intention was for deep jump-ins and attacks from behind to hit it, but I’ve traded on the ground at a decent range away with random stuff. Also, it could be my imagination, but it doesn’t seem like it juggles quite as well as it used to. I also can’t seem to cancel into the super from any of his moves, which is a subtle but detrimental change. And finally it takes longer to build up meter for the super. So yeah, those things all hurt.
On the flip side, being able to reversal with his super is a big help. And his new up-flame seems like an OK addition against Vega and Chun. But all around, he feels weaker to me while almost everyone else got stronger. Don’t get me wrong, he still feels like a solid character, but I don’t know if I’d still put him in top tier. His one saving grace is that he may end up being a good counter to Akuma.
So, what do you guys think? Are you still listing him as tops for specific reasons? Or are you just assuming he’s still the same old Sim?
I’m not sure if he will at all. I haven’t played any really good Akumas yet, so it’s hard to say at this point, but here’s my thinking:
Sim can be really mobile. He can drill over ground fireballs, slide under them. He can also slide under air fireballs. That alone may shut down a lot of what Akuma is trying to setup.
Reversal Teleport. I’ve seen a lot of talk about inescapable raging demon setups. But I imagine that a reversal teleport might get you out of all or most of those.
Sims pokes. Akuma’s hitboxes are pretty crazy. A lot of characters might have a hard time hitting him out of things like j.RH. But I think Sim has a better chance of hitting him out of things that’d normally be safe against other characters.
Like I say, all complete speculation at this point. I have nothing to back it up. But in my head, I could see it going down this way.
I still think he’s top 5 in the game. The only matchup that got potentially worse is vs. Ryu since fake fb prevents mindless drillling on reaction. He still owns sagat, still beats Rog, still beats Guile even with cr. strong not being the end-all…Blanka is pretty much the same since he can still punish balls blocked/hit and that was his one major change…still loses to Chun and Vega…Pretty much everyone’s changes (except for Ryu) had no effect on Sim and none of his changes made him dramatically worse against someone he used to beat. Jury’s still out on akuma obviously
I never really saw super used all that much in japanese match vids so I don’t know if nerfing it really affects him all that much.
You have to take into consideration that a very small fraction of fighting game fans actually participate in tournaments. I’ve come across countless talented players since I started playing SF2 online on Xband almost 15 years ago. The guy who beat the two SF2 champions at the Gamespot HD Remix tournament was probably one of those people.
I feel that a service like Xbox Live with thousands of players competing every day is a lot more dynamic than a tournament with the same handful of people playing each other every year. Since the famous SF2 champions either don’t play online or keep their identities secret, we’ll never know for sure how they’d stack up to online competition, but I’d wager that they aren’t any better than the best online players. They’re just more willing to spend a couple grand to go to Evo than the average fan.
Yeah I’m hoping Blanka is in the same boat and a reversal horizontal Blanka ball will get him out of Raging Demons as well. It will pass through a raging demon done from a distance from what I’ve seen since it’s airborne.
I’m also hoping Akuma just flat out gets toned down more but that’s just me. I don’t think lowered health is enough in a game where everyone has low health. Akuma still arpes you when he hits you and if those RD setups are as good as they sound it’ll be tough to argue him not being tops.
