So why this obsession with "Tier Lists"?

I’m no expert in the FGC but personally in my opinion, I don’t think Tier Lists are even necessary in fighting games, yet I find that there is so many players that are into Tier Lists that they’ve become obsessed. I find it hard to see how a fighting game character can become more or less popular due to a Tier List other than personal enjoyment, but that’s just me.

Can you explain to me why people are so obsessed with Tier Lists?

Because people want to use the best. The thing is since everyone uses top tier,people have expieriance fighting the top tier. I just use who I enjoy.

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This reminds me of a quote from Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver for some reason.

To me a “high tier” just means YOU don’t have to work that hard to “win” it practically gives you the win.

Tiers discourage diversity in tournaments. I’m sure Smash is full of Fire Emblem characters.

Tiers is also a dumb concept because I feel if a player wants to win they better make sure they do the right things no matter who they play. If they lose the only one who’s at fault is them.

I play a character I like. I’ll worry less about how good they might be, and how good I can use them.

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I also think the teir lists are really stupid. People are just looking for someone to tell them the “best” character in the game, so they can pick that one, because they think that it will be easy to win with a character they think is top teir. Most of the people that worry about teirs are just looking for a character that will give them easy wins, because they are to lazy to learn a character, and just play.

To me this is just like cross picking. Just because someone told you that “x” character is the cross pick doesn’t mean it is a easy win. I have won so many times because they pick the cross pick and did not know how to play them.

I know there are MUs that are sometimes in favor of one character over another, but any character can be top teir if the right person knows how to play them correctly.

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Some people treat the Tier list like it was the bible. Yet it shouldn’t even be the case.

You could have someone who uses a top tier character and yet they get curbed stomped. In my opinion, it has to do with the player, not the tiers.

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I agree. Especially since people say Fulgore is the cross pick to Sadira but if you were to look how many times I lost to her, you’d probably be flabbergasted. Lol

Others say Cinder can beat Glacius but considering how often I fight “Mr.Puddles” I get beat so bad it’s not even funny…well it kinda is, just not always.

I agree with you. People need to learn the MUs I think it’s more fun beating people with a character you like for reasons other than being held up to a standard based soley on opinion.

Thankfully KI is so diverse you don’t see so many of one or two characters.

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This, this SO much THIS!!

Couldn’t of said it any better myself.

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The point is I lose like this because it’s my own damn fault. Be it that I am either not familiar with the MU or they do something that stumps me and I haven’t figured out how to overcome their shinanigans yet.

Like figuring out how to punish Sadira fully after she tries one of her double jumping, web dagger throwing, widow-dropping shenanigans (all in that order)

Or this new on that my dear sibling @Justathereptile picked up. Tracking Motha-■■■■■■■ puiddle punches!

Most other times it’s either based off mistakes or the guy I fought was simply the better player. Case in point having a high-teir character doesn’t equal instant win. Chances are you are gonna get beat bad if you run into a guy who has the supposed “low-teir” and stomps you across the arena with them.

THANKFULLY I haven’t run into anything like that here on the KI community yet. Just gives me another reason I love you folks so much! KI Community for the win.

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I think you guys are missing the point of tier lists and counter picks. No one goes “oh this character is top tier? Let me pick them for free wins!” Or “oh Riptor beats hisako? Let me pick Riptor for a free win!” Tier lists are just a list ordering characters with the most favorable match ups to characters with the least favorable match ups, they’re not simple “this character is the best” lists or “this character is easy to win with” lists. They’re meant to simply provide knowledge/opinions on how well a character could perform at a competitive level, they’re completely irrelevant a low to mid level and casual play.

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Them being opinions is part of the problem. The lists are formed by alot of different people, are based on who they play, and have a hard time fighting against. If both of us did a list, they could end up being totally different, and who is to say which one of us is wrong.

Now if you believe in these lists, then why would they only matter to pros? A MU is the same, weather you are a pro or not. The only difference is the skill of the players.

I am not trying to start a fight. These are just my thoughts on the subject.

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Because people are sheep and want to know who they should play as, they don’t care about characters they want to use whom every else thinks is the best. Plus it gives them ammunition to belittle and attack others to feed their own inferiority complex.

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In my personal experience, I have won a few of those matches as Riptor. At the same time, I lost just as many. The hisako players I lost to were very good with using her.

From my understanding, tiers are neutral breakdowns of all characters with respect to each other. That is, a comparison that accounts for their tools and not the specific player’s skill.

I think a lot of people assume tiers mean what character is best and what character sucks, but it’s more about the number of favorable/unfavorable matchups.

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This is why I think we should be looking at player skill rather than character matchups.

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Because lower skilled players don’t take advantage of all the points in a match up. If two players play Fulgore vs Thunder and the Fulgore player keeps going in instead of zoning then the Fulgore player is ignoring the thing that swings this match up in his favor, in that situation the match up details are irrelevant, so by extension tier lists do not matter at this level of play. If these were higher skilled players, not necessarily pros just higher skilled, then the Fulgore player would know what his advantage is an use it.

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Tier lists are determined by many factors some of them include:

.Character strengths and weaknesses
.Character match ups
.The difficulty scale for each character (dependent on character)
.How effective they are in higher levels of play
.(In more broken FG’s) Character exploits

Tier list should not be used to try and use the ‘best character’ as any character has the potential to stuff any other character it is just a matter of skill and match up knowledge…But in competitive play it can be significant

For example Phenom (a Street fighter professional) in street fighter 5 despite him playing and maining M. Bison in street fighter 4 and in 5, he had to drop him for a better character (Necalli) due to Bison being low/ Mid tier and not effective in competitive since he lacks movement speed, predictable dash, no overhead, weak anit-airs and unsafe special moves. He says it is too much effort to win or get far with him.

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I never bother with tier lists. The characters I do well with are often vastly different to the characters others do most of the time.
I think that tier lists should be limited to a)characters that you can use well, vs b)characters that you have trouble fighting against.

Looking at it as a tier list built by a whole group of people usually turns into a popularity contest.

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This proves my point. The only reason people want these lists is so they can pick the best character in the game. That would be like me refusing to pick a football team to cheer for until the playoffs. We wouldn’t want people to play a game because it is just fun.

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Because my main is the best character in the game, and I need a list that proves it! Your choice of main is inferior to mine and here is a list that says so!

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