I heard pre-patch Rachel players say the same thing. That she struggled against the other "Top Tiers". Though of course, there's nothing wrong about that position. At least you're not Eliot...
DOA5U The Official Tier List with Discussion Thread
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Like I said before, pre-patch Rachel wasn't even that overpowered. Just annoying and easy to pick up. She was worse then than Gen Fu is now.
Keep in mind that FSD's is still incomplete due to the refusal of any authority on certain characters contributing. A lot of people who are knowledgeable on certain characters pop their head in, say "My character's match-ups aren't right," and then duck back out without bothering to even try and correct or engage them.
Yeah, tech was being uncovered to deal with Pre-patch Rachel and her bullshit, but the issue was that she was too piss easy to use in comparison to the reward she was getting. Though GenFu's also pretty damn easy to use in comparison to the reward he gets compared to say Ayane or Brad Wong.
I personally feel that Top Tier characters should be hard to use or should have blatant weaknesses like Alpha (who isn't even Top Tier).
I actually agree. The FSD list has too many characters in B Tier when they're not exactly all equal.
IMHO: Rachel also should be higher along with Bayman. Brad Wong, I also suspect may be better than what people believe.
But yeah, characters like Hayate, Hitomi, Momiji and Mila are all really fucking good.
I personally feel that Top Tier characters should be hard to use or should have blatant weaknesses like Alpha (who isn't even Top Tier).
I actually agree. The FSD list has too many characters in B Tier when they're not exactly all equal.
IMHO: Rachel also should be higher along with Bayman. Brad Wong, I also suspect may be better than what people believe.
But yeah, characters like Hayate, Hitomi, Momiji and Mila are all really fucking good.
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Yeah, admitted laziness on many player's parts, including mine. Only reason I think many haven't is that, frankly, a lot of good players I know are ideologically committed to the idea that match ups are more even than not. That's both in the case of genuine belief (the universal mechanisms in this game are really dominant and overriding) and practice (because looking at it as if it is makes it easier to objectively create mindgames out of allegedly disadvantaged situations).
Still, I'd be game to help with the characters I know. Lei and Helena in particular. But I'm admittedly biased towards evenness myself.
I used to genuinely believe that, regardless who may tell you otherwise. I no longer do. In a comparative sense to other fighting games, sure. But realistically when someone tells me every match-up between top players is essentially 5-5 in the purest, most literal sense, I find the sentiment underdeveloped. And not to point fingers, but typically the people you hear saying that are people who main high or top-tier characters who don't struggle with the tough match-ups that others do on a regular basis.
But I understand the concept and don't condemn anyone based on which side of that particular fence someone falls. Others have their feelings and I have mine. I don't expect anything to magically change and in the end we're playing the same game and are dealing with the same things. Regardless, if you feel that most match-ups are near even, feel free to make a case for that belief and go into depth as to why you feel that way. I'm not blaming anyone who hasn't contributed to this thread, obviously, because many people are very busy, have things going on in their life, or are in a delicate spot regarding the public DOA community. I do recognize that and thus won't try to force anyone to contribute who is adversed to doing so for some particular reason. But, if someone comes in with complaints and does nothing to contribute, as if they are somehow immune to the burden of contribution when no one else is.. that admittedly irks me.
It's funny, too. I've been playing Bayman recently. Talk about a character who is forced to block against some of these people in a lot of the matches. But I'm still favoring evenness generally.
The thing is that in a lot of HLP I see, good players know how to force a mind game. Generally, unevenness tends to result more or less from the inability to force one at some point or other, and more or less have to give away certain reads or if the results for any read are wildly disproportionate to that read. And just with DOA's flexibility, I find there are a decent number of ways to keep forcing one even when the tools seem to favor one character badly. You don't have that many situations where there just isn't anything you can do.
(This, coming from someone who in the moment can be, to put it lightly, a whiny brat)
Not that it's perfect, and I wouldn't call all match ups even per se. In my mind, I see the most unevenness in characters with truly horrendous initial numbers without many tools to get around that fact, and then with characters who get universally outspaced and can be punshed even for effectively trying to get anywhere in range. But still, I mostly see good DOA play coming down to that basic element of mindgame control and construction, and there aren't many moments where something can't be thrown together.
I'm going to try to explain my position as concisely and accurately as possible while not writing something the size of a novel. Wish me luck.
The way I see it, like you, I believe that high-level play isn't utterly stunted by character tools. Technically speaking all you need is a standard punish throw, your four-point holds and the ability to fuzzy. With those, if your "yomi" is on-point, you can win any match. In other words, there is always something you can do in DOA, and the same cannot be said for all other fighters. And so in that respect, DOA is pretty unique, and I think that's where the "if you're on-point, any match-up is winnable and thus nearly even" sentiment derives from.
However, a tier list measures "players of equal skill." Thus if the players had the same tools, they would come out 50/50. Any re-balancing of that shifts the outcomes. Favoring one player with advantageous tools the other doesn't have access to would shift the match-up away from 50/50 in varying degrees, depending on the tools' specific efficiency. Thus, if one character has a bunch of tools the other doesn't, the 50/50 evaluation is going to get pretty weighted, provided the two players are of equal skill. While the other player "can do something" at all times (unlike other fighters) to offset this, their opponent theoretically has the ability to counter-act their attempts with the same success rate, and that's stacked on top of having more tools to integrate those proper reads into the game with. So when the disadvantaged player makes a good read, theoretically the advantaged one also makes a proper read, and either does so more frequently or gets a higher success rate per each read. The thing standing in the way of a perpetual 50/50 in the difference in tools. Statistically speaking, the player with the better tools will win more often.
How much more often? That depends on the validity of the tools. If one character has way better tools than the other, they will win far more. And if the disadvantaged player tries to compensate, the other player, having the same skill (and not just crutching on their advantaged toolset, but also utilizing it to its fullest capacity all the same) will re-compensate in the same manner, and come out ahead with the more advantaged tools. For every step the disadvantaged player makes forward, the advantaged player takes 1.1 to 2 steps forward.
Now, the objection is: "You're just playing theory fighter. That's not how it really plays out." First of all, yes, it is. And secondly, some evidence to back up the counter-claim would be helpful. Point to where the low tier characters are compensating for their hindered toolset and consistently winning offline tournament events. Point to where they are not only winning (which they rarely ever do), but are winning to an almost equal capacity to the other "advantaged" characters, indicating that their tier placement really only leaves things at a near 50/50 distribution with toolsets only slightly shifting things in a minimal degree. People don't point to this because it isn't happening.
So there's no practical "in-play/practice" evidence to suggest things are nearly always 50/50, and there's no theoretical/hypothetical basis that suggests things are nearly 50/50 either. And so when people tell me to believe that it is nearly 50/50, I ask: "Why?" There's no reason to, at least not yet.
The way I see it, like you, I believe that high-level play isn't utterly stunted by character tools. Technically speaking all you need is a standard punish throw, your four-point holds and the ability to fuzzy. With those, if your "yomi" is on-point, you can win any match. In other words, there is always something you can do in DOA, and the same cannot be said for all other fighters. And so in that respect, DOA is pretty unique, and I think that's where the "if you're on-point, any match-up is winnable and thus nearly even" sentiment derives from.
However, a tier list measures "players of equal skill." Thus if the players had the same tools, they would come out 50/50. Any re-balancing of that shifts the outcomes. Favoring one player with advantageous tools the other doesn't have access to would shift the match-up away from 50/50 in varying degrees, depending on the tools' specific efficiency. Thus, if one character has a bunch of tools the other doesn't, the 50/50 evaluation is going to get pretty weighted, provided the two players are of equal skill. While the other player "can do something" at all times (unlike other fighters) to offset this, their opponent theoretically has the ability to counter-act their attempts with the same success rate, and that's stacked on top of having more tools to integrate those proper reads into the game with. So when the disadvantaged player makes a good read, theoretically the advantaged one also makes a proper read, and either does so more frequently or gets a higher success rate per each read. The thing standing in the way of a perpetual 50/50 in the difference in tools. Statistically speaking, the player with the better tools will win more often.
How much more often? That depends on the validity of the tools. If one character has way better tools than the other, they will win far more. And if the disadvantaged player tries to compensate, the other player, having the same skill (and not just crutching on their advantaged toolset, but also utilizing it to its fullest capacity all the same) will re-compensate in the same manner, and come out ahead with the more advantaged tools. For every step the disadvantaged player makes forward, the advantaged player takes 1.1 to 2 steps forward.
Now, the objection is: "You're just playing theory fighter. That's not how it really plays out." First of all, yes, it is. And secondly, some evidence to back up the counter-claim would be helpful. Point to where the low tier characters are compensating for their hindered toolset and consistently winning offline tournament events. Point to where they are not only winning (which they rarely ever do), but are winning to an almost equal capacity to the other "advantaged" characters, indicating that their tier placement really only leaves things at a near 50/50 distribution with toolsets only slightly shifting things in a minimal degree. People don't point to this because it isn't happening.
So there's no practical "in-play/practice" evidence to suggest things are nearly always 50/50, and there's no theoretical/hypothetical basis that suggests things are nearly 50/50 either. And so when people tell me to believe that it is nearly 50/50, I ask: "Why?" There's no reason to, at least not yet.
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See, I wish there was real evidence. The problem is, the analysis of actual matches of players involves a very subjective notion about "this player's skill is about equal to this player's skill", and is insanely arbitrary, being honest. (It's more vibe than fact) So it's very hard to produce the kind of evidence that would make that useful.
Still, I think DOA often has been revealed well as a mind game machine. I just find that, even before we're in stun game holding, you can have ways at CQC to force various little issues along the way and make different way to add in as many reads as you can. It's not totally even throughout, but you can reliably add in a mindgame even with characters where objectively, I might come in thinking "wow, this looks fucking awful", before actually working on it in depth. Usually, you have enough tools in neutral to work consistently in a 50/50, and DOA's on negative hit structure works for that, because even every strike is some kind of very significant risk if your mindgame is on point. The reward structure is usually then of degree, and not in a totally unmoderated way..
It's not perfect. I think, to be honest, the ranged tools for the characters are not balanced, and some characters have deep issues reliably poking and playing that game. Some characters really have issues with 12-frame lows or 11-frame mids, so it is a bit of a black chess moment. But it's usually good enough that the two players are going to be sitting in their constructed mindgames the entire time pretty reliably.
Still, I think DOA often has been revealed well as a mind game machine. I just find that, even before we're in stun game holding, you can have ways at CQC to force various little issues along the way and make different way to add in as many reads as you can. It's not totally even throughout, but you can reliably add in a mindgame even with characters where objectively, I might come in thinking "wow, this looks fucking awful", before actually working on it in depth. Usually, you have enough tools in neutral to work consistently in a 50/50, and DOA's on negative hit structure works for that, because even every strike is some kind of very significant risk if your mindgame is on point. The reward structure is usually then of degree, and not in a totally unmoderated way..
It's not perfect. I think, to be honest, the ranged tools for the characters are not balanced, and some characters have deep issues reliably poking and playing that game. Some characters really have issues with 12-frame lows or 11-frame mids, so it is a bit of a black chess moment. But it's usually good enough that the two players are going to be sitting in their constructed mindgames the entire time pretty reliably.
Yeah I know where you're coming from (as I mentioned, I used to be sitting right there as well), but the really frustrating thing for me is that when I say "It's not always 50/50 for X and X reasons," people's retort is always "You're playing theory fighter." Putting aside the fact that that is presumed to be inherently bad, I am not just playing theory fighter. I play this game. I play these match-ups (often times when my critics don't!). And when I look to empirical evidence where there should be something to indicate I'm mistaken, there's nothing. And then no one even acknowledges that.
I'm not saying I'm 100% right. I very well recognize that there are some things that are true even when existing evidence hasn't surfaced to reinforce it yet (of course playing that game is pure theory, not that anyone will admit it). But as of now, there's no concrete reason for me to swayed over to the universal 50/50 sentiment, and yet I'm condemned for not doing so.
Being a scapegoat is no fun.
I'm not saying I'm 100% right. I very well recognize that there are some things that are true even when existing evidence hasn't surfaced to reinforce it yet (of course playing that game is pure theory, not that anyone will admit it). But as of now, there's no concrete reason for me to swayed over to the universal 50/50 sentiment, and yet I'm condemned for not doing so.
Being a scapegoat is no fun.
I'd like to think I'm above the whole thing where I personally attack someone for their beliefs in the way that "theory fighter" is a slur. At the same time I understand it, because most of the knowledge about gameplay is subjective rather than objective; one learns how to play a game at a level that exists before the prefrontal cortext, so the ability to analyze and talk about in-game data isn't really as valuable as those impressions. Still, it's presumptuous at best at moments, and you are no slouch nor talking before trying.
At best, I can only go through read-by-read, and given there's a billion a second, that's pretty hard. But I do want to work on that Hayabusa vs Sarah match up, because it sounds interesting. I'm starting to try and work more with characters, indeed, where my natural choices aren't as easily made. (Any accusation about character choice with me is pretty correct, even if at heart I'm a female-favoring, Chinese martial arts loving junkie)
At best, I can only go through read-by-read, and given there's a billion a second, that's pretty hard. But I do want to work on that Hayabusa vs Sarah match up, because it sounds interesting. I'm starting to try and work more with characters, indeed, where my natural choices aren't as easily made. (Any accusation about character choice with me is pretty correct, even if at heart I'm a female-favoring, Chinese martial arts loving junkie)
UpSideDownGRUNT
Well-Known Member
I personally feel that Ein should be around C grade here... but I can't really say because I don't know most of his match ups.
I would list the match ups I do know, but I can't remember them completely and feel like I'd just mess up the numbers.
EDIT: turns out @Tenryuga has already listed Ein's (incomplete) match up ratings.. but he's still so high on the list? there's no way Ein is Mid tier, he's a low mid at best. comparing 5U Ein to DOA4 Ein is clear enough proof of that.
I would list the match ups I do know, but I can't remember them completely and feel like I'd just mess up the numbers.
EDIT: turns out @Tenryuga has already listed Ein's (incomplete) match up ratings.. but he's still so high on the list? there's no way Ein is Mid tier, he's a low mid at best. comparing 5U Ein to DOA4 Ein is clear enough proof of that.
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UpSideDownGRUNT
Well-Known Member
I didn't necessarily mean that, I just meant that Ein in 5U is slower and had his best tools taken away from him for the most part.
I do understand though, he has alot of 5-5 MUs which alone bumps him up the tiers but he also has quite alot of 4-6 MUs as well and only a few 6-4 MUs which is what these are based on.
I guess I just can't get the idea of Ein being in B, he's by no means a bad character there are worse behind him but it doesn't feel like he's up to B grade. I suppose I'm just bathing in my ignorance.
I do understand though, he has alot of 5-5 MUs which alone bumps him up the tiers but he also has quite alot of 4-6 MUs as well and only a few 6-4 MUs which is what these are based on.
I guess I just can't get the idea of Ein being in B, he's by no means a bad character there are worse behind him but it doesn't feel like he's up to B grade. I suppose I'm just bathing in my ignorance.
See, technically every character can force a mixup, but I don't think that means much. If I can force a 50/50 situation, that's just the ability to force a choice. There's still the aspect of risk/reward.
Whenever people say that the game's mechanics makes things even, I'm assuming it's 'cause the right read can always stop the enemy offense. But that's literally like saying Cammy vs Ken is even 'cause both have a shoryuken. Technically, you can win Street Fighter with just throws and shoryukens. There's so much risk to playing like that, though, 'cause if your shoryuken gets read, you lose half your health. It's the same in DOA, I feel like, where you technically can just hold every move but it has the risk of getting throw for half your health.
It just doesn't make sense to me that a matchup is somehow even because one side has high risk low reward options, the other side has low risk high reward options, and they technically can both force mixups.
Whenever people say that the game's mechanics makes things even, I'm assuming it's 'cause the right read can always stop the enemy offense. But that's literally like saying Cammy vs Ken is even 'cause both have a shoryuken. Technically, you can win Street Fighter with just throws and shoryukens. There's so much risk to playing like that, though, 'cause if your shoryuken gets read, you lose half your health. It's the same in DOA, I feel like, where you technically can just hold every move but it has the risk of getting throw for half your health.
It just doesn't make sense to me that a matchup is somehow even because one side has high risk low reward options, the other side has low risk high reward options, and they technically can both force mixups.
If the generic risk for a hold was anything like a dragon punch, that's be one thing. But it's nowhere close. And whereas in a 2D responding specifically to a DP means just losing pressure, responding to holds in DOA can mean *also* getting blown up for most of the health bar. The rewards to the risk are pretty advantageous.
But it's not really just the holds. It's the multiplicity of defensive options and the negative-on-block-and-most-NH structure. If DOA sudden had a ton of positive on block structures again, you'd suddenly see things become way more lopsided.
But it's not really just the holds. It's the multiplicity of defensive options and the negative-on-block-and-most-NH structure. If DOA sudden had a ton of positive on block structures again, you'd suddenly see things become way more lopsided.
Well, I just used holds as an example. Certain characters can just put other characters in extremely disadvantageous situations. Like I'm way more scared when I get CH by Gen Fu than Eliot. I'm also way more scared of pressuring Gen Fu than I am of pressuring Eliot. Pretty much in every situation Gen Fu's options are more threatening than Eliot except maybe at mid-long range. It's easier for Gen Fu to both put someone in a disadvantageous situation and when he does, it's a bigger advantage. But, they pretty much have the same options in a very generic sense. That's what I meant when I say that risk/reward is skewed for the top tiers.
While the other character has all the tools to win, they're more risk for less reward.
While the other character has all the tools to win, they're more risk for less reward.
That's fair, and with Gen it's pretty exaggerated in particular because his reward is pretty bonkers. But people generally still get a keep momentum in similar ways. If you get that stun, the reward goes way up in your favor, and every character has a very good means of getting that from the second they block any attack. And any generic pressure read can be taken down for a quarter health by anyone. For a fighting game, that's remarkable. In 7-3 MU's in other fighting games, that shit just doesn't happen. You just take it and take it and take it until someone makes a major category error keeping pressure. You can't play a safe enough offense on DOA to pressure in the way that stuff requires, with a couple exceptions that basically for the most part involve Christie and certain characters.