Who are the top tiers in CvS 2

Classic Fighting Games Capcom VS SNK 2
101

Well this thread seems much more enjoyable, but a little random. IMO the only real agreeable way to rank ‘tiers’ is to calcuate every match in the game, and see who wins the most. There is a lot of debate about who ‘can’ beat who, but i think we’re missing some things. Sure i can beat generic blanka with Ryu most of the time, but he doesn’t win that match. The question is with two well informed players playing a long set of games what characters will fare better… i only have a couple things to start this with:

Sagat/Blanka would most likely be the only ‘top’ tier characters. There are many characters that do well, but sagat/blanka dominate more matches than the other characters (8-2 or better), the 2nd tiers win them but not as convincingly.

Blanka would probably be #1, IMO he only loses to vega (claw), and has toss ups with bison/sagat. People are saying geese, but I would have to see it with tournament level (i’m only pressing the buttons i need to, and if you whiff a move from half screen i get a free super, and if you don’t i get to RC you to death) blanka.

I see how rock can compete, but IMO he has to take way too many chances to do so, playing vs blanka is like playing as strider in MvC2, on paper strider is top tier vs everyone, but in reality you have to work too much, and when you guess wrong, you die for free.

102

I figured i’d snip it to save space.

IMO, it’s way too hard to make tiers for this game accurately. With 44 (i think) characters and 6 grooves, you have way too many match-ups to go through. Plus, a lot of those close 5-5, 6-4, and maybe even 7-3 match-ups aren’t as bad because of the way the ratio system is set up. I mean, even if you barely win a match-up, it doesn’t mean as much as it did in previous games. The only match that really matters is the last round. The first two characters are only there to see if you can gain an advantage before the last round IMO. That would mean that unless the match is really lopsided (9-1 or 10-0), almost any character can score enough damage on another to make it worth playing him.

I agree with only Sagat and Blanka being top tier in general. I, myself, would rank Sagat higher, mainly because I feel that he has the least amount of bad matches (then again, i get to see choi play him) and I don’t really see why you say Blanka is better than Sagat. You listed the matches you thought Blanka lost, and I’m just curious to see what you’d say were Sagat’s bad match-ups.

I also wonder why you think Vega beats blanka. I always thought Blanka could rush him down.

Also, I play Geese, so I have a little insight into the Geese v Blanka match. IMO, Geese has a few things going for him. First, is high counter, which stops RC electricity, except maybe from cross-up forward. Second, he has RC double reppuken. This is probably the most instrumental part to playing Geese. You stop jump-ins with this, small jumps too. You stop slide. I’m not positive, but I also believe that it helps against RC hop-in. Third, Geese’s poking arsenal is great against Blanka. C.Jab beats everything but OC.Fierce slide and sweep. C.Roundhouse beats or trades with slide and sweep. I also think that C.Fierce should stop any worries you have over being crossed up. Only time cross-up should bother you is if you get knocked down, and that’s not supposed to happen. I don’t think i need to get into how good S.Roundhouse is at following up things like RC double reppuken or a string of blocked jabs, etc.

But, as you said, a lot of what I mentioned is not tested in a tournament, nor am I a high quality player to test it. I have tested a few tactics in that match-up against my small pool of players, and I still feel that Geese has the tools to get the job done.

103

Top-tiers
1.Sagat
2.Blanka
3.Cammy
4.Bison
5.Vega
One reason these characters are top-tier is because they all have one thing in common… they are all scrub friendly. Now when when fight a good Sagat, Blanka, or etc., it gets very difficult. Now most of you are probly saying " Yama’s top- tier" or " Chun -li is up there". Well thats another things I wanted to cover. There are characters that are considered top-tier or close to top-tier if you can play them very good. To me these are:( not in exact order )
1.Geese
2.Chun-li
3.Yama ( sorta scrub friendly tho )
4.Balrog
5.Iori
6.Eagle
I might have left some out, but all these characters have a total package, and can even give the best Top-tier trouble, if you can play them. As for Sagat or Blanka being placed higher in tier rank, it’s Sagat because even tho Blanka is sorta an anti-Sagat, Sagat is overall better, and has less anti-characters. No one really owns a good Sagat, but a decent Hibiki, Bison, or even Honda player can own Blanka. See my point? Anyway if you disagree with anything, just post your reason why.

104

i think akuma should belong somewhere on your close to top tier list. He’s the most versatile shoto, gets free jumpins, great supers. Ok so he’s got about a sweeps worth of HP less than Hp middle tier characters i.e. Iori or eagle. Great moveset, great combos and his pretty decent normals more than make up for it i think. if he has as much hp as ryu, surely he’d be top tier:)

105

yama’s not scrub friendly. Fuck you biatch. :mad:

Anyway, Blanka gets owned but turtle vega and Sagat has less inferior match ups.

chunli has trouble with small characters.

Iori has the best roll in cvs2. That’s all you need to know.

Thx.

106

yama is one of the most scrub friendly characters in the game, along with vega.

107

There are a lot of characters out there that can benefit from a “little modifications”… And by this reasoning, virtually the whole cast of CvS2 characters have the potential to be at the top…

Let’s say they gave Kyosuke the same damage and vitiality as say, Rugal… Some would argue that a 30-40 hit air cc with Kyosuke would put him somewhere closer to that top 4 a.l.a. Sakura.

108

More damage never makes a character better. Good normals make better characters than powerful characters.

Look at the top two characters, Blanka and Sagat. Yes, they do damage, but their damage comes from good normals.

Look at the next crop of good characters, Vega, Bison, Eagle, Yama, Sakura, Iori, Kyo, Cammy, Hibiki, etc. They all have good normals. Not as damaging as the top two, but still good none the less.

If you wanted to make Kyosuke better, his sweep would have to be fast, and not be punishable. Making it comboable ala shotos would help too. His other normals would all have to be fast and comboable too. That would make him good.

109

It’s pretty much impossible for him to beat Blanka (as with any shotos). Learn Akuma to learn how basic mindgames work etc… then drop him for somebody else. He’s good for casual play (or if you just want to warm up before a real match) other than that, he sucks unfortunately :bluu:.

110

Looks like Fluffy decided to add Sakura up there. Way to go.
My redefined list of the CvS2 top tiers: (Top 5, then the possible nexy 7-10 best).

  1. Blanka
  2. Sagat
  3. Cammy
  4. Bison
  5. Tied off: Sakura/Chun-Li

And for the next:
7) Vega
8) Hibiki
9) Geese
10) Yamazaki
11) Iori
12) Kyo
13) Rolento
14) Honda
15) Guile

Most has already been explained. Got a complain? PM me.

111

hell no, i think its the following

sagat
blanka
yama
vega
bison
cammy
honda

i think those are the top tiers

112

I suppose you’re right, in that, but I’m sure that you agree that RCs changed the tiers a bit. I wasn’t just arguing on Kyosuke’s normals.
On that note, when people take Sagat and Blanka and just say “Ok, these two are the best, but Sagat’s at the top…” Isn’t Blanka possibly better because of his RC’s?

113

A couple things.

First, I don’t recall saying Sakura was bad. I just wanted to know how she handles match-ups. Keep in mind that I actually can be easily swayed in opinion if someone explains something and I can try it out. Besides, the only person I’ve ever seen play A-Sak at top levels was Ricky, and that was a long time ago.

Second, as for the rest of your list, I remember a while back when you were saying that Kyo was better than Iori because of better normals. Is there a reason for Iori now being ranked above Kyo?

And third, I think it’s really hard to rank characters beyond maybe even top 4. Too many characters can be played well in high levels and do get played. For instance, if I was making that list, i would have put Eagle, Balrog, and Todo on there at some point definitely. I don’t think I would have included Guile, but that’s just me. IMO, it just gets to hard to rank beyond 4, since we can see a clear limit between those four and all those below.

114

Yes, RCs changed the game. There is no doubt about that. But, how it changed the game is a different story.

Looking back at it, I think RCs actually have the opposite effect of what people assumed they would. N-Groove, for example, is now considered to be one of the worst grooves. P-groove is now much better, as is C. K-groove is still good. If you look at those three grooves, they all have something that can directly counter roll cancel tactics. C can air block and often score lots of damage off of it. K can just defend. P can parry. All lead to very favorable situations. N groove can’t do anything of the sort. I honestly don’t understand why A-groove is not worse, since it also has fairly limited options against RCs, other than activate meter.

Also, look at how some characters are better because of RCs, like Geese for example. His high counter is much easier to land now since you think most people are going to RC. No more poking mindgames. Just counter that shit. Anway, point here is that Geese was not as good as he is because people use more specials.

The funny thing is that IMO, the top tiers still haven’t changed. I still list Sagat because I feel he has fewer bad matches than Blanka, RCs or no. Blanka is still second, because no one else is that good. Cammy and Bison are still third and fourth. Everything else below that gets altered by RCs.

115

NOTE: I did base my rankings off RCs.

Sakura has excellent RCs, anyone can vouch for that. You can’t jump in at Bison because of RC P.Crusher, and if your char is close to the corner, he can blow through whatever with a scissor kic (RC) and kill you with custom. Vega gets free damage off RC Claw roll, and RC dive is a nice way to get out of rushes. Hibiki has an RCable OVERHEAD, that has followups that knock down. Put that in plus her 50/50 side switch stuff on wakeup (RC Run slash on certain times makes it a tossup as to which side it will hit.) Cammy’s short RC drill is the definition of BS, and so is Blanka. Sagat is just Sagat so he stays up there. Chun can kill you off one normal. If that isn’t top tier, I dunno what is.

FluffyXXL: I ranked Iori higher this time because I’ve been able to randomly Scum Gale people out of certain RCs. It takes a little time to get it, but it’s worth the payoff (free 3400 damage if you land it). Also, I had completely ignored Iori’s s.forward, which is one of his best normals. Kyo has a certain messup factor on his RCs that make them unpractical at times. (You REALLY get his kick RC oftenly, but you can still get punished).

116

I have to agree with this ALMOST entirely. I still think Sagat is a very little bit higher than Blanka though. Also, I would put Guile above Honda.

I agree that Iori is slightly better than Kyo, and your reasons are valid. Iori simply has more versatility to go along with his better pokes and higher priority in normals. So despite Kyo being a bit faster, I think Iori slightly out-performs him.

Actually, I think I would find Geese higher than Hibiki myself, but most probably will disagree with this.

117

I would argue a bit about that last comment on ChunLi. First, there are numerous characters that can kill you (or at least practially kill you) off of one normal. Second, it’s not one normal that kills you, but a series of combos off of that one normal (unless you’re talking about something else that I don’t know about) and you normally have opportunities to stop it.

Well, I don’t play Iori at all anymore, mostly because I can’t RC Scum Gale for shit. I picked up Kyo mostly playing him in P groove and then switching to A later when I found out about his GC custom. I’m really not a top contender with him, but I can rip up the scrubs that I play with him.

Anyway, end of side note. Back when I did play Iori, i always wondered what his S.Forward was for. A while back, Viscant said it was one of his best pokes, but I never quite figured out what was so good about it. Maybe you can shed some light in on me about when to use this move?

118

No point to RC Scum Gale. It’s not easy. Period. No one can do it consistenly. =/ HIs s.forward is like a shield. It beats out stuff that the main pokes don’t.

119

IIRC RC command grabs are really good, i don’t see why iori’s would be different. The s.fwd i was playing with a little tho, it’s very fast and hits kinda mid (sorta like sagat s.short i guess), so i can see why it would be good.

120

RC Command grabs ARE good… But just not 63214, 6 + P ones. You have 2 ways that make it liable for you to fuck up the RC which are the rekka and the run grab thingy. It’s not consistent enough to make it a viable gameplay tactic. And that’s a good comparison for the s.forward. It also seems to beat out most low attacks.