So… you’re saying is that we should decide tiers from single incidences with particular players? Sure. That makes a lot of sense.
Tiers exist for a reason: some characters are better than others.
That’s not saying that some characters can’t beat others. It either takes more effort or skill to win w/ low tier characters than those that are high tier. Just because occasionally a Tweleve will beat a Ken doesn’t mean that Tweleve is mid tier, and that Ken isn’t top (or very high) tier… it just means that in that one match, the Tweleve player did better than the Ken.
Tiers mean that two people of the exact same skill level playing different characters will usually win a certain percentage of the match-ups, ie Chun:Sean is ~8:2. Sometimes this isn’t always true, but in general that’s how the match plays out.
Has ksk beaten a chun both sets in tourny before?
Did the US always look towards Japan for street fighter strats? Was it like this during the street fghter 2 era? If not then i blame all the old ppl who didnt give 3s a chance when it first came out, that put us behind japan even more than we should be if we played it with this much gusto when it first came out.
It’s true man. 3rd Strike has tiers but they’re so loose it’s ridiculous. If you know what you’re doing you can fuck up with anybody. Bad matchups can make things harder but…not impossible like in Super Turbo. I mean, it is true that KSK is just THAT much better with Alex than a lot of other Alex players but…if this was ST he would generally have a harder time winning certain fights.
A lot of people have said that this matchup generally works in Dudley’s favor but…I think it’s more so one of those debateable matchups. It’s not so bad that Alex is just going to die for sure like Ken vs. Twelve but…generally, Dudley’s offensive game is said to overwhelm Alex. Which in some respects is true but…Alex has a lot of good options even in this matchup IMO. Generally Alex has to play smarter but a lot of characters have to play real smart against Dudley in order to win. He just has the potential to do too much damage to really kinda wait him out (unless you’re Chun Li). Alex can go air to air with him real nicely and good placed stomps do mess him up. Plus, Alex can simply take hits. Dudley can get in and do some damage but, Alex can do damage too and a good EX machine combo won’t do Alex in like it does the other characters. Alex can definitely poke Dudley too which is always a plus since Alex has a hard time even playing a poking game with certain other characters (Chun Li, Makoto etc). That alone gives him enough advantage to come through with some good wins when played right.
As far as “Alex sucks”, it’s all opinion. IMO he has enough matchups that work in his favor to not be a “crap” character. Vs. Urien works in his favor, he can play footsies rather well against shotos, he does enough damage where Yun and Ibuki can give him mad trouble but, he can still come back and pwn them hard with some serious EX combos/power bomb setups. The only matchups IMO where he just has to give up are against Makoto and Chun Li. Has almost no poking game vs. either of those characters (none at all in Chun’s case). Makoto can just whail on him with crap that he can’t do much about and she can more or less beat all of his pokes and jump on him all day. The only thing he has going for him in this matchup in his vitality and that he can mess with her once she’s grounded (just gotta look out for random supers). Same with Chun except Chun can’t do shit when he grounds her. But her pokes make it so that he probably never will ground her to begin with.
That’s not saying that some characters can’t beat others. It either takes more effort or skill to win w/ low tier characters than those that are high tier. Just because occasionally a Tweleve will beat a Ken doesn’t mean that Tweleve is mid tier, and that Ken isn’t top (or very high) tier… it just means that in that one match, the Tweleve player did better than the Ken.
It depends on how that Twelve beat your Ken. If Twelve won because that person just had perfect execution, luck and/or capitalized on mistakes by the opponent, it was the person. But if that 12 did shit you have never seen before, and proved to you that 12 had more options than you thought, then it might be both the person and the character.
For example, if I never got to download 1 of the million different Q matches and just picked him up, I would think he totally sucked. By after seeing those matches, I know some key moves, some things you can do to counter, etc. In other words, the players in Japan showed us more of the character’s potential. And that does help you see how good some characters can be.
Now by comparison, when I see an Alex fight, I still think he sucks because the Alex player in Japan is usually parrying like a madman and taking big risks (whereas Q seems to have a decent risk to reward ratio relative to Alex).
Well…Q’s biggest asset is that…he can take damage. When fully taunted he has the best defense of any character in the game. If Q couldn’t take damage he’d be such a horrible character it’s ridiculous. At least Alex still has a poking game if you rape his defense. Q has shit if you rape his defense and he pretty much needs to taunt to win against certain characters (Akuma, Ibuki, Yun etc.). Has no poking game and pretty much relies on his superior air to air game and CandDB setups to win matches. Dash punches are safe (even when parried if you have SA1) but dash punches alone won’t win you matches. Eventually someone will jump straight up and come down on you with a combo or just find a poke that beats it before the dash punch gets to them.
Alex IMO is a lot better than people make him out to be. People figure that since he sucks against Chun Li that there’s no point in using him since you’ll never make it out of a tourney alive with him (theoretically speaking any ways). Which in some respects is true but, he just does well enough against the most of the other cast where it would be just wrong to not use him. You can kinda play Alex the way you want to because of his ability to change pace with the momentum of the fight. His poking/air to air game is strong enough against most characters that he can zone when he needs to, and then when he finds openings he can come down on you with the jump in to power bomb/EX flash combo setups.
Alex is one of the best characters for dizzying opponents as well. Eat more than one EX combo or a couple power bombs and you’re on your way to being dizzy with a majority of the cast. Even if you can take hits Alex does good enough damage and takes enough damage that he can still make shit work in his favor against characters like Dudley and Urien. The fact that he can raise the stun bar so quickly makes opponents more likely to give in to his offensive setups when they already see their bar going up.
Alex is one of the best characters at dizzying but the problem is that to dizzy consistently you have to be able to play with a pressure style. However, due to his slow speed, it is hard to consisently pressure with Alex.
I am not nearly a tournament level player, but if I was going to play at a tournament, I would feel more comfortable with a character like Q or Hugo than Alex. All Q has to do is block and throw until he sees an opening… He doesn’t have to attack, really. Hell, he can even let the clock run out if he wants to. Though it’s true Q has no way of pressuring the opponent, there is pressure on the opponent to put the pressure on Q before the time runs out… (If you don’t rush him down, he can taunt, so you kind of have to rush down.) Thus Q can just lay back, poke and wait for openings or until the opponent gets predictable and he sees an opportunity to parry.
With my line of thinking, I would rather play Q. I would be too afraid several of the risks needed to play Alex effectively in a tournament setting, where you’d have to play against people you’ve never even met before (hard to predict). Therefore, I personally see Q as having the better risk-to-reward ratio for me personally.
True enough. Alex just doesn’t have the overall maneuverabilty to keep up with characters like, Yun, Ibuki, Oro etc. Still…Alex just has the sheer damage potential and his maneuverability is definitely better than Q’s. Q can risk just sitting around but eventually if he doesn’t find an opening…he’s just sitting and getting owned. LOL. Q is basically a prisoner of his own playing style. He’s great when you can create some openings and can do a good job of just not taking too much damage. Though once someone starts to overwhelm you your only means of escape is reversal SA1. That’s bout it. Again, you are right about Q’s ability to take damage being able to help him tremendously in tournament play. Cuz people always talk about how their character doesn’t take enough damage in fighting games and Q is a prime example of a character that can just simply keep taking hits.
and whatever “3s masta” says is the final word… cuz… he’s the 3s mASTAHHH
It’s +2 on block. ex-MGB is -15.
Alex does not counter Urien, and Alex doesnt really have any match ups (other than Sean) where U can say Alex is the huge favor.
KSK isnt even the best Alex in Japan.
And tiers arent determined by whoever wins in Japan… my God…
lol @ this huge argument over semi what i said antoine i know alex would still be beat by those guys but i think more people would pick him up since the threat of a couple of those heavy counters weren’t there
In my opinion, Alex goes about even with Dudley and Urien. Urien loses the standard midscreen unblock and for some reason corner tackles don’t always hit Alex. It’s hard to explain but aside from Alex being a big target, Urien doesn’t seem that tough for Alex compared to many others. And with Dudley… I dunno, it just seems so easy to hit Dudley with stupid shit. EX flash never whiffs, MP and f+HP against Dudley are great. I think that it’s either even, or 6-4 for Dudley which isn’t that bad. I’d be more worried about 12 (yeah I said it), Ibuki, Makoto, Oro and Akuma. When you play as Alex, a 6-4 matchup in their favour is still good news.
So while Alex does get better if Chun’s gone, there are still a lot of bad matchups remaining. Even with the top 3 out I doubt he’d win big tournaments. But if there was an experimental tourney with the top 3 banned, I’d be really interested to see how it would pan out. I wonder how all those Ken/Chun/Yun players would do without having the advantage.
Unless you see that shit coming, you’re not gonna parry it. Too fast to parry on reaction, only parriable on anticipation. It’s hella fast, like 3-4 frames startup I think, and is fast enough to punish alot of characters normals.
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Q has more of a poking game than you might think. His normals are decent if you know how to use them, cfar MK stuffs alot of shit, lp can setup captures, close MK is quick enough to stuff normals or to bait throws and then can be hit confirmed. On top of that he can land sick damage off of CDB’s, and can reall get crazy on CDB mind games especially if the opponent is in the corner. Weaknesses? Of course he’s tall, easy to get in on and mixup on , and easy to attack on wakeup. And he’s slow, so rushing down is usually not an option for him.
Q only has 3 matchups in the game that I would consider very bad: Yun, Yang, and Akuma. Vs. a good Yun or Yang, you’re ONLY chance is that you guess right on divekicks, parry one and land a Deadly Double, get your taunts off, and otherwise get lucky. Otherwise, you are fucked. Akuma isn’t as bad, partially because he doesn’t have GeneiJin, and he can’t keep you paralyzed on the ground like Yang can. He’s still a massive threat, but 1 parry into CDB will take him down to 50$ life, and like I said Q’s ground game can at least fight back vs. a Shoto rather than a twin.
As for tiering, I don’t think there is a huge gap between Q, Twelve, Alex, Necro, Remy, and Hugo. I think all these characters belong in the same bracket more or less. All have glaring weakness’ but all offer some serious game as well.
co-signed.
although there are tiers in 3S, with the higher ones being pretty firm, the mid-low tiers are sorta a toss up. the only guarantee is that sean is absolute bottom. other than that, the mid-low is pretty close to each other.
Top
Ken
Oro
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Mid
Everyone else
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Low
chun
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yun
Uh, I really hope thats a joke.
lol. that’s be funny if ken was top of the top. in japan, he’s super high mid-tier.
Why are people coming up with such ridiculous ideas lately?
Ken top, oro top, yun, chun low? wow.
thats what all the chun players thoguht until KSK owned them.
That’s what KSK thought until the ranbat before last, where nuki raped him, because chun is just better.
Did the US always look towards japan for street fighter strats?
Not really, I think until 98 and a3, where daigo played valle, cole and the rest.
I agree with Gajin (i find myself doing that a lot lately) in how Alex and Dudley are pretty even.
epsilon, if you can parry that slash on reaction, that is godly.