Who would you accept for top tier?

Don’t bother posting if you’re just going to say this is stupid or you prefer balance. We’re all aware of that.

I personally accept that balance will never be perfect. I’m cool with the fact that there are characters who are tough to fight against. I don’t mind going against the odds in a 4-6 matchup, although 7-3 is pushing it. I honestly have fun knowing I’m fighting against the odds, well not always :P.

With that said, which characters do you think fit for being on the strong side?

----My answer----
Any character that feels somewhat like a boss character.
The original bosses (Dictator, Claw, Boxer, and the King). I also think Juri fits for a strong character since she’s got the powerful tandem engine in her. Seth too (although he’s a pain to fight). Akuma, Oni Akuma, and Gouken because they’re masters. Rose since she’s a powerful psychic. C. Viper since she’s got her crazy technology to help her.

I think that’s it for me. I don’t want ppl to get the wrong idea and think I really want imbalance. I’m just saying if we’re going to have imbalance (which we always are), at least have a top tier character feel like he/she could be a top tier character in real life.

Thread Evolution: This thread has evolved into what qualities/traits are you okay with a top tier having and what qualities/traits are you not okay with them having. It seems to speak to what we enjoy most about the fighting aspect of Street Fighter and what we seem to not enjoy as much… Ultimately everyone has conflicting views but a majority consensus seems to be at least that Vortex mixups are not enjoyed and we don’t like our top tiers mainly representing them. It’s hard for me to truly define what a vortex is, but I feel like it’s a fighting strategy of multiple safe steps, or at least steps of high reward compared to risk. This sequence of steps is fullproof to the point of straight up resembling rock, paper, scissors in order for the defender to at least safely defend against them all. An improper defense results in the Vortex netting some nice damage and resetting itself or some variation of itself. They generally don’t require too much thought for how powerful they are. It detracts from the heat of the fight because it puts the attacker into autopilot mode until the vortex ends.

I come from a computer programming degree. When I think Vortex, I think that a computer program could easily be made to execute the series of steps for them (no options weighed, no significant risks to influence a change in their strategy, just straight up do vortex procedure with slight safe random variations here and there to keep them fresh, and loop it indefinitely until the opponent escapes or they lose lol). I don’t like it when I could literally hit my “enact procedure” button and have an unthinking Vortex loop taking up a significant portion of my fight time. Funny enough, I now have more respect for El Fuerte because at least his “Vortex” style has more risk, less payoff, and is constantly requiring him to think and commit to single choices that will either payoff, be neutral, or hurt him in some cases. Other vortexes pretty much don’t require you to have to think about your opponent at all when you’re enacting them because their generally low risk coupled with high mixup and dmg ability enables them to be auto-piloted for repetition after repetition.

Dhalsim is among the most powerful characters if canon is to be believed. Gen can kick Akuma’s ass with little effort if he’s just as young.

To me, Vega and Balrog are kind of difficult to perceive as real-life threats.

I posted this somewhere else awhile ago…my wish list top 5 (yeah balancewise this would be very difficult)

  1. Oni (my true main)
  2. Ibuki (my secondary)
  3. T Hawk (with the racist win poses and ultra, how native americans have been screwed over worse than any other race, how t hawk always sucks in games (other than ST due to a recent finding of some loop he has) he deserves more than anyone else a chance to shine)
  4. Dhalsim (the most ingenious character design in fighting game history)
  5. Juri (cause she is the most creative design of the SF4ers)

As far as by canonic power

  1. Oni (full demon Akuma is easily the most powerful, also the hardest secret boss fight to obtain)
  2. Gouken (He is the more powerful of the brothers but refuses the dark side, however what if he accepts it? 2nd hardest secret boss fight to get)
  3. Akuma (3rd hardest secret boss to get)
  4. Seth (the final boss of SF4)

after that I don’t know…Ryu, Sagat, Dhalsim, Rose, Bison are all up there.

people these days are so spoiled. 3-7s make me feel alive

Well, Vega honestly seems like the kind of boss that’s tough but that you’re meant to overcome. He seems powerful and damaging with his quickness, reach, claw, bloodlust, and acrobatics. But if you battle hard you beat him. Balrog seems this way to with his barrage of rush punches. It’s supposed to feel like Mike Tyson is pummeling you to death. I think these characters are kind of tame and too much on the turtle side in SFIV compared to SFII.

Gen and Dhalsim would make for interesting top tiers. Although I really like the way things are now with Gen, where literally nobody even knows lol. You think he’s low tier and then Xian starts kicking ass left and right with him. I think the best tier for Gen is the unknown tier since he’s old and a bit of a mystery. If he was young, then sure. Although I don’t know much about young Gen; I just hear that he was really strong and that he taught Yun and Yang which is cool. Isn’t there some bad blood between him and Chun-li?

Come to think of it, I like Dhalsim being in the unknown tier too. I honestly think Dhalsim is already very strong in this game. It’s just those dive-kick characters that give him trouble (him and Gen come to think of it lol). Dive-kick characters give old ppl trouble.

If you think Sim is strong in AE2012, I don’t know what to tell you.

Also, using lore/story as balance justifications = gamefaqs thread.

Ibuki has a dive kick? Hakan has also one like Guy, Abel…

fei, sagat, balrog, akuma, gen, gouken, adon, dictator

Fei: He’s my main, I love him to death. I feel like he’s similar to Ryu. I like him being somewhere near the top…

Adon: Not sure… I just feel like he’s meant to be close to the top but not quite there. He’s always trying to dethrone the king, but I feel like he should still not quite be as strong as Sagat. As Sagat says in one of my favorite rival battles, “The power you seek is twisted.”

I want a God tier Blanka, of course I wouldn’t be playing that game, I just want to see the internet explode lol.

How bout a peoples’ choice top tier? Straightforward characters with no gimmicks?

  1. Ryu
  2. Rose
  3. Fei Long

and so forth. Anyways with these fair, solid characters at top I think we would have the least amount of complaint.

The complaints can be the game is too tame (or boring), if the other characters are so weak now that the ones you just listed emerge as the top characters. Not competitively viable/tournament worthy mind you… TOP characters. I agree that solid play should be more rewarding, but I don’t think any interesting competitive FG has ever thrived on 100% honesty.

I’d like Chun to be more viable, but any time she’s been a top character geared towards defensive play, she’s really dragged the pace of the game down and killed the enthusiasm of a lot of players quite a bit imo. Now I mentioned being geared toward defensive play (where she’s basically too hard to touch/catch for most characters AND has anti-projectile tools so you can’t zone her either) because whenever she’s good in a Vs. series game, it’s mostly because of offensive tools/comboability and much more fun imo. I like her best when she has a nice mix of both, but doesn’t become too hard to stay in on because her intended weakness is negated (usually by system mechanics).

Having said that, I haven’t had problems with any of the top characters being where they are in any iteration of the SF4 series. It’s other aspects of the game or playing my character that bugs me (e.g. how deliberate it seems when they implement moves that just don’t work properly, when I can make it work and still not overpowered in half a day… come on now).

AE was only good when Yun ran shit

Chun being top tier is usually the sign of a good game

I’d like straight forward characters to be top tier. However on that note I want those straight forward characters to have distinct weaknesses and strengths. I don’t want a character like the current iteration of Cammy to be top tier as she has few if any distinct weaknesses. I don’t want her to be BAD by any means, I wouldn’t even mind her staying top tier if they gave her a distinct weakness. But right now her only weakness is against 2F SPDs otherwise she has good air 2 airs, good air 2 grounds, good walk speed, a lot of good anti zoning tools, decent mixups (not amazing in terms of options but they are difficult to defend against due to safety and lead back into themselves.) some of the best normals in the game (if not THE best.) an invincible anti air reversal that can be FADC’d on block, and a dive kick.

Fei as he is right now I think is a character that I’m ok with, sure I think there is room for improvement (mostly just make his Rekkas cause slightly less corner carry on hit so he doesn’t put you in the corner in ONE rekka series but still close to the corner.

I want the game to be far more ground based than it is now with less emphasis on dive kicks/jump arc altering and vortex. Obviously I think those should still exist and still be viable I just want them less emphasized.

I’d be ok with:
Fei
Dhalsim
Gief
Cody
Honda
Sagat
Rose
Ryu
Chun
Balrog

I’m fine with any top tier as long as they are not charge characters, cuz then it will be a lame fest like Super. Can’t argue that holding down back was pretty darn powerful in that version.

Top tiers, who don´t dominate the rest of the cast with too many 7-3s, but have also some 4-6s.

Would love to have ground based footsie characters at the top of the list. Reward footsie ability not vortex and mixups, that is why although Fei remains high on the list, he is one of the only characters I think deserves to be there. Akuma, Seth, Cammy etc could see some nerfs.

If a character is going to be mixup oriented I think it should be at the cost of speed/mobility, with a design like Zangief or Thawk (ie not Akuma, Ibuki, Seth, Cammy or Yun)

Ideal top tier list for me
Ryu
Sagat
Balrog
Chun
Rose
Guile
Fei
etc

Also fine with
Blanka
Honda
Dhalsim
Gouken
Ken
DeeJay
Sakura

Mid to low
Divekickers and characters that can alter their jump arc

Sagat, Fei Long

This is contradictory. Dhalsim can alter his movement mid-jump so much it’s not funny. He just can’t divekick spam you to death because his divekicks suck more than a donkey farting in your face.

I’m sad to see so little Akuma in the lists. It’s not like he can’t play a good, enjoyable fair game. He actually has to do that to get a vortex started in the first place. It’s a reward, not a whole playstyle the way it is for some characters.