The Official Dead or Alive 5 Tier List with Discussion thread

[Omegan Eckhart]

Oh yeah, maybe I should've rephrased my sentense about him not having good lows. Yeah, he does have decent lows like ppp2k, pk2k and pp42k, but my issue with something like 2h+k is doesn't have the desired range I want from it and it doesn't crush. For that reason, I don't rate his lows in neutral high.

Yeah it's just designed to open you up. Having an i10 jab and and i12 mid kick means you gotta respect his pokes and as soon as you do that 2F+K forces you to deal with a reset or get opened up on CH. What it does it does very well.

Rig simply seems underused to me. There are a couple of Rig players that I've seen that are a royal pain in the ass with him. I have as yet to see high level tournament play with him, even low tier characters have one or two people who main them. Rig just doesn't seem to have much appeal, even though he certainly has the tools to win.

 

[DontForkWitMe]

I dunno Rig comes across as the "Poochy" of this series. TN tried too hard to make him cool. giving him full body tattoos, opened sleevless hoodie vest, shaved dudebro hair cut, and a cocky douchbag personality all while rehashing "the lost memory" trope for his storyline that they already did for Ein. His out of the blue heel turn during the story was rushed and felt forced. did he pretend to lose his memory the whole time? was his time at the oil rig as bass's BFF just for show, was he being brainwashed by MIST? is he really donovans son or some sort of clone? None of this shit was answered making him completely forgettable in the process.

It still doesn't really explain why no one uses him competively though, from all the times i fought him he seems pretty solid with good speed, good mixups, damaging juggles, a super throw launcher, and guaruanteed sitdown setups and isn't a completely shit character like eliot who actually has an excuse for no one to use his bottom tier ass

 

[iHajinShinobi]

Here goes an example for your lousy theory. Xdest and Hajin are the only two who knows how to use Ayane. No other Ayane player have yet to learn how to utilize the character tools to use her properly. Xdest doesn't play anymore sadly and Hajin have not had the opportunity to show it. No one on the ec nor mw have learned the character(that may change with PL). So you pretty much judging a match up by a character like Helena who been used to full potential on tournaments vs a character that has not? Again this is stupid and don't determind match up. Ayane may be the best character in the game. And this is from experience not playing online all day and judging what characters I hear about the most offline. Judging from paper also may be better than judging by no experience.

I recommand people put more learning into Ayane before they decide to sell her short.

Exactly this, a lot of you really aren't able to see why her match-ups are the way they are. I've been re-analyzing her tools and other character tools and how well they fair against each other in each of her match-ups (and from offline experience) for a while.

There's not much left for me to say here, but to tell you people to go the lab and study what you apparently don't see. Or refuse to see.

EDIT: Barely noticed Ayane vs Sarah was marked as 6-4 in Ayane's favor. That was supposed to be marked as 5-5.

 

[EMPEROR_COW]

I'm starting to think that Lei Fang - Christie may actually be 6-4 in Christie's favor ..

The reason being that Lei Fang doesn't have a Circular MID or LOW from the first hit of a string .. and Jakeiho goes right under all her circular Highs and crushes them regardless of what follow up Christie chooses ..Its quite a frustrating matchup for Lei Fang I think.

 

[Matt Ponton]

Christie is OP lol.

According to the Japanese that is. she's certainly high tier according to our match-up chart. Character has like everything besides egregious hold damage - but good luck putting her in stun or making her feel pressured enough to hold lol.

 

[crapoZK]

Against experienced Christie, Helena, Kasumi, Ayane, Hitomi and Lei Fang players; Zack is useless, because he doesn't have the tools to get out of a rush-down situation apart from holds. This is because with Zack you always have to use his offensive mix-up tools and stay in their face and constantly rush them down without giving them space. Going for combos WILL get you killed, because he is sometimes too predictable and many Zack players try to finish his strings (I have learnt not to do it in DOA5, lol).

 

[UncleKitchener]

Yeah it's just designed to open you up. Having an i10 jab and and i12 mid kick means you gotta respect his pokes and as soon as you do that 2F+K forces you to deal with a reset or get opened up on CH. What it does it does very well.

Rig simply seems underused to me. There are a couple of Rig players that I've seen that are a royal pain in the ass with him. I have as yet to see high level tournament play with him, even low tier characters have one or two people who main them. Rig just doesn't seem to have much appeal, even though he certainly has the tools to win.

That's an interesting observation actually. I always knew he had great pokes that are not more buffed up. Maybe I've been playing Rig wrong or something like that.

 

[Omegan Eckhart]

That's an interesting observation actually. I always knew he had great pokes that are not more buffed up. Maybe I've been playing Rig wrong or something like that.

He also has an i13 low (2P) that is 0 on NH, an i13 high (K) that is +2 on block and an i15 high crush (9P).

Although if you play Rig you probably already know this.

 

[UncleKitchener]

Yeah, I knew, it's just that in terms of a gameplan, 2H+K seems like a decent poke up close now.

Obviously, you've played the character more than me, so you have a better picture of how to play him.

 

[Omegan Eckhart]

Yeah, I knew, it's just that in terms of a gameplan, 2H+K seems like a decent poke up close now.

Obviously, you've played the character more than me, so you have a better picture of how to play him.

I've never played him, he's a pain in the ass to fight so I went to the lab to see what his pokes were to see if Helena could beat him on any hit level and the sad answer is noooooo. Plus I could never throw punish him so I went to check how safe he is and he is extremely safe.

 

[Matt Ponton]

Rig is highly underrated, I think his matchups need to be looked over more closely.

 

[HoodsXx]

How's that? She's a bit faster but Akira has a parry that shuts down both her 9 frame jab and 1P. As well as his sidestepping damage. I don't recall Kasumi having "too" many tracking moves. Not seeing how it's 5-5 for Kokoro and 6-4 for Akira.

SSP for Akira also beats out 6PK which is her preferred move for tracking. So... you really only got 6K and P+KP, which are both unsafe and throw punishable sadly D:.

 

[DR2K]

Rig is highly underrated, I think his matchups need to be looked over more closely.

He's good, but rather easy to crush. Has to commit to highs and high mids a lot. Of course the nerf in low hold recovery will help him out in DOA5U.

 

[HoodsXx]

You know what I find interesting? Basically what you've been saying is that the Christie player has to mess up to give Kokoro a chance to take the advantage back. That is not really an argument to make it 6-4 instead of 7-3.

Another thing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but, just like sidestepping, you can not hit Christie out of JAK with any linear attack, if she does not attack from it. PP attacks can hit sidestepping attacks when the sidestepper attacks from the sidestep, but if he doesn't, it won't. It's when Christie attacks from it that the linear attacks can hit her. So, basically Kokoro is completely dependent on the Christie player in this case too.

You can delay attacks after blocking, but then, Christie can easily start interrupting you instead of going into JAK because of her speed. If you stop delaying, Christie can simply do JAK. The whole point is that Christie has a much easier time adapting to Kokoro, while Kokoro has to wait for the mistake of Christie. She has no other way. Mistakes by the other player is not to be used as if it's an advantage of the other character.

But hey, what do I know.

People also don't seem to realize that if you just SS normally and they whiff the linear hits the person who SS'd is at advantage, so either way they're still in a horrible position, depending on the string the other person used. (Obviously not many people just SS nowadays...)

 

[Tenryuga]

SSP for Akira also beats out 6PK which is her preferred move for tracking. So... you really only got 6K and P+KP, which are both unsafe and throw punishable sadly D:.

P+K and 6K also seem to have hitbox issues. I have been 2P'ed out of P+K and witnessed people ducking under 6K with either high crush moves or just simply crouching especially after stagger escaping. Could probably be a range issue as well. So she doesn't have a completely reliable tracking mid other than the one from that string which as you stated gets stuffed by Akira's SS.

 

[UprisingJC]

P+K and 6K also seem to have hitbox issues. I have been 2P'ed out of P+K and witnessed people ducking under 6K with either high crush moves or just simply crouching especially after stagger escaping. Could probably be a range issue as well. So she doesn't have a completely reliable tracking mid other than the one from that string which as you stated gets stuffed by Akira's SS.

This is really a problem. Some players say Kasumi owns everything in hand to deal with any possible situations, but some of them don't know that her attacks like P+K, 66K, 6K, 6PK...etc have hitbox issues.

As for ur description above, I wonder:

What if you replace her P+K or 6K with attacks like 3PP?
For most of the time, ur opponents tend to SS when they are at some disadvantage, they may avoid ur first attack by SSing but Kasumi's 3PP is fast enough to hit her opponent if her opponent intends to use a SS attack.

I don't really like using her 6K to deal with SS that much because of its hitbox issue and the fact that the follow-ups after it are rather bad(a high kick and a VERY SLOW low sweep which doesn't make Kasumi into a crouching stance and is very easy to react to) and 6K leaves Kasumi at -13 if blocked.

 

[Codemaster92163]

As a random thing, I remember my friend telling me that people felt Ayane-Pai matchup was 6-4 in Ayane's favor. I'd have to disagree with that one.

Pai can beat out most every one of Ayane's mix-ups after her 66KK4 lock, and Pai's 66H+K is amazing against defensive rolling Ayane's, mostly because of the distance traveled and the fairly powerful combo she can get off of it (assuming they hit her BT). And, of course, Pai's mid-kick holds give her a nice chunk of guaranteed damage, and her mid-punch holds leave her in a really great position to go for a CB combo or throw loop. Since most of Ayane's moves revolve around those two, and the fact that Pai can easily break Ayane out of her stance dancing as well as ignore some of her frame traps, I think that match-up is more 5-5 or 4-6 in Pai's favor.

 

[iHajinShinobi]

As a random thing, I remember my friend telling me that people felt Ayane-Pai matchup was 6-4 in Ayane's favor. I'd have to disagree with that one.

Pai can beat out most every one of Ayane's mix-ups after her 66KK4 lock, and Pai's 66H+K is amazing against defensive rolling Ayane's, mostly because of the distance traveled and the fairly powerful combo she can get off of it (assuming they hit her BT). And, of course, Pai's mid-kick holds give her a nice chunk of guaranteed damage, and her mid-punch holds leave her in a really great position to go for a CB combo or throw loop. Since most of Ayane's moves revolve around those two, and the fact that Pai can easily break Ayane out of her stance dancing as well as ignore some of her frame traps, I think that match-up is more 5-5 or 4-6 in Pai's favor.

Your general overview is a bit inaccurate, because of what I highlighted. For one, rolling and 66KK4 does not make or break Ayane. Ayane shouldn't even be rolling all that much, as it is an obvious cry for getting counter hit too easily. Rolling is not for defense either, it is another option within' her integrated movement. Which is supposed to be used for baiting button presses, catching standstill opponents with slow reactions, and punishing badly placed pokes or moves from a distance (this is assuming BT 6H+P is used).

Furthermore, every character has access to the mid punch hold and the mid kick hold. And while some do more than others, I'll agree that Pai's holds do give her some nice damage when she holds either option. However, that fact does not scare Ayane from using her range tools and keep away tools. And you also cannot overlook the range of her BT2P and BT2K lows either, especially BT2K. I don't think you realize how much range some of her range pokes actually have (take a look at her BT4H+K).

Ayane does a very good job of keeping Pai at a distance and making her pay harshly if she makes a mistake. One of the biggest things Ayane does really well is baiting out responses from her opponents. With 66KK4, their jabs will tie, not a big deal. Don't ignore the fact that Ayane can do BT8P after 66KK4 either, which is a great option because almost every player feels the need to challenge the +1 after a blocked 66KK4. Ayane also has a higher damage output, although Pai's damage is nothing to laugh at either.

Ayane can deal with 9/11/12 just fine, just doing a simple P > BT8P already puts her in a good position because she gets away from you for free and initially set you up for button presses for her to punish. And no, Pai does not punish Ayane's "stance dancing".

I don't know who you've been playing, but they're not making good use of Ayane's tools if they are relying on 66KK4 and rolling often. And I'm quite sure they are using 66KK4 as a range poke, lol.

 

[Icy]

Pardon me , but what does a "vortex" means ? Combination of mix-ups strings?

 

[Allan Paris]

Pardon me , but what does a "vortex" means ? Combination of mix-ups strings?

It's a Street Fighter (SF4) term to describe having multiple attack options after landing an untechable knockdown.

It's a term that honestly doesn't belong in DOA, though people use it a lot. How I've seen most people use the term, technically, everything could be considered a vortex in DOA once you stun someone or force tech them up. We use to call them 50/50 mix-ups but I guess calling it a vortex sounds cooler and gives a guessing game a better look.