Tier lists and Character Discussion Thread

[LouisCipher]

My updated tier list:

A+: Beni, Karate, and Hwa.
A: Both Iori's, Shoto Kyo, and everyone else except...
B+: Joe.
B: Terry, Athena, Maxima.

I honestly think Beni is top. He has so many good options, probably the best crossup in the entire game. Amazing and really safe air control. Corner stun combo. OP Wakeup game. Seriously. His 1-frame grab, his SRK, and Shield Super cannot be interrupted on wakeup and I feel that unlike Karate or Hwa you have to back off of him. He's the only character where I feel like I have to do that. Unless there's some secret that I'm not aware of.

[Arch4ngel]

KoF is an exceptionally balanced game, and one that I'm rapidly absolutely falling in love with.  Tier lists tend to be pretty all over the place, but my buddy Beboped and I (mostly him, really) came up with a list of A tier characters based on tournament showings that seems to hold water really really well.

In a nutshell, here's how it works:  There is a list of characters (somewhere around 1/3rd of the cast) that make up 2 of the 3 slots in every competitive team.  In other words, every top-8 team @ EVO, and all but 2.5 of the top 32 was structured like this, in some order: List Char/List Char/Wildcard.  At least while on-stream

THE LIST (In no real order)
Hwa Jai
Benimaru
Kyo
Shen
Kim
Iori
EX Iori
Billy
Mr Karate

For the record, the outliers are Fox, Luis Cha, and Mr KoF's second team when he ran it back against Xian.

[nightmoves]

Sounds about right so far. Pretty much every player's team we've seen at EVO so far have had those characters thrown in there somewhere.

[Hyun Sai]

The list will be a bit biased as every member of CafeID seems to have Kim in their team for obvious reason lol.

[Hyun Sai]

Well, seems like Duo Lon was the MVP of the KoFXIII EVO 2012 tournament.

I can't be happier than that.

[Arch4ngel]

The list will be a bit biased as every member of CafeID seems to have Kim in their team for obvious reason lol.

Perhaps a little, but less than you might think.  Gutts didn't use Kim at all (that I saw), so Cafe ID only comprised about half the Kims in the top 32.  Remember folks like Reynald, Zero Black, Poongko, and Sange Tencho...  His place on the list is legitimate.

It's not a "do this and win" tactic at all, but it's an interesting trend to notice.  It's a statistical anomaly that actually holds true more than you'd think.

[choysauce]

do you guys do anything special while meeting/practicing together other than just playing? for example; going over character matchups in training mode, finding new strategies/tech, critiquing teammate's weaknesses, etc.

what's your strategy on meter usage? when do you decide to use meter even if it may not be the most efficient combo (meter to damage ratio)?

what do they think are the hidden strengths of the american low tiers, athena, leona, mai?

[Hungry Color]

I would be interested to see a tier list that explained that strengths of each character in each position.

I.e.

King on Point
King on Mid
King on Anchor so on and so forth.

Team based tier charts would be sweet.

[LouisCipher]

what do they think are the hidden strengths of the american low tiers, athena, leona, mai?

I think Leona is pretty damn good but has that high execution requirement. She's good at zoning, great footsies, fast overhead (I think instant?) into massive damage, an air super that pretty much beats anything on top of that. Just requires high execution and her wakeup game is kinda' bad, she really needs to spend meter to get you off of her, and her EX's aren't safe at all and funny enough Clark's B SAB beats all of her wakeup attacks aside from I think Super and Neomax.

Athena I think is bottom tier. Horrible character. Has good corner juggles but that's about it. People tend to use her if they mistakenly think that they can get away with SF-style zoning with her and no, it doesn't really work that way with her. You can get away with that with Ryo, Ash, Saiki, and King to an extent. But not Athena. Too many holes in her game and fireball spam isn't going to get you far.

I think Mai is good at zoning. She has a really good jCD that seemingly beats every Air-to-Air attack. Good normals. I'd put her on par with Terry. Not a bad character at all, just doesn't excel as well as others, and a good pick for 1st.

[Tikok]

Athena I think is bottom tier. Horrible character. Has good corner juggles but that's about it.

As a Athena main , reading such things about her annoys me a lot. How is Athena an horrible character ? I don't want to sound mean, but I really think you have no idea what you're talking about.

I won't go into details because then I'll have to write way too much, and I really don't know how to organise all of that but, there are a few things I want to talk about.

- First of all , let's talk about her zoning game and what she can do with it.

A common strategy to counter zoning is to merely block the fireballs or nulify them to build a lot of meter. Athena's zoning game , unlike Ash's, Saiki's or King's doesn't have that weakness because she can build meter like crazy with tiger knee Phoenix Arrows. Which makes Athena a threat even fullscreen range and forces the opponent to attack her somehow or she'll just build meter.

Then, Athena has many , many ways to anti air. She has her 4f dp A that moves her forward a lot , her fully invincible dp C, her very good jump CD, her extremely good ground CD (and you can even option select it with teleport so that if it anti airs you have a safe jump after , or a free dp C /EX DM if it hits counter) , her EX teleport > throw can also be used as anti air.

Her zoning game isn't her damage source, it is used to allow to her build meter , be a threat even at fullscreen range, and use her superior anti air options to push the opponent in the corner, where she's at her best.

- Then , let's take a look at her normals.

Athena has good pokes in s.A , s.B , c.C and far D. Good air to air in s.C (which can be whiff cancelled into phoenix arrow so that you don't eat a c.B into combo when you land) , very good air CD and ground CD , a nice c.A that leaves her at +3 on block , a great anti air in close D and can crossup pretty well with j.B

Her normals are good.

- Now, let's take a look at her special moves/toolset.
I won't talk about her fireball since it's obvious that it's good.

Her A DP is a 4f dp that moves her foward a lot. It gives her yet another anti air , but it's also good to punish things like Andy's Zaneiken on block, or Elisabeth's Coup de Vent. (And yes, it's a good punish, for 1meter 1drive, you get about 420 damage off a dp A punish)
Her C DP is a slow, but fully invincible dp, that does nice damage. Not much to say about it, just your regular DP.

She can reflect fireballs and use her tk phoeniw arrows to build meter from fullscreen if the opponent doesn't want to attack her.

Phoenix Arrow can be used as crossup (EX can lead to combo , even HD ones)

Her teleport can be used to escape corners, like c.C > teleport. Or you can just use her EX teleport, which can be cancelled for free into any of her special moves.

She also has a nice command grab that I'm about to talk about.

And her DM is a 3f , fully invincible dm.

As you can see, between, fully invincible dp, teleport, fireball, reflector, command grab and 3f anti air dm. Athena doesn't lack tools.

- And to finish, I want to talk about her command grab.

Athena's command grab is a 7f fully invincible grab (if you do it at the same time as Ryo's DP, Ryo's DP will whiff and you can punish him).

Since it is a slow, invincible grab, it can be used as anti air , and as a way to beat safe jumps. Also, since after an air reset you have 6f of throw invincibility , you can do it as soon as they hit the ground after and it will throw them.

Her command grab leads to huge damage. A lot more than the likes of Clark can ever hope to do with a grab.

She has a lot of combo potential after her grab. From midscreen 1drive 1meter 450 damage combos , to corner 800 3 meter HD. Her grab leads to HD combos anywhere on the screen by the way, not just corner. Also, speaking of HD, Athena can activate hers from counterhit j.CD and even counterhit ground CD in the corner.

Athena is a very complete character, with a lot of tools and good damage. Saying she is an horrible character is just stupid. No one is bad in this game, especially not Athena.

(I'm sorry for this long post, it may be a bit of a mess, and a bit agressive, but reading such nonsense about Athena really annoys me)

[solidshark]

Athena I think is bottom tier. Horrible character. Has good corner juggles but that's about it.

As a Athena main , reading such things about her annoys me a lot. How is Athena an horrible character ? I don't want to sound mean, but I really think you have no idea what you're talking about.

Trust me, nearly any tier list out there is not only based on ability but style as well. How you play them isn't always the same as how they can be played; your great write-up is proof there. And don't worry, it always takes one awesome Athena to show everyone how "low" she is. Plenty of JPN players online have already shown me otherwise.

[Tikok]

It just pains me how misunderstood and underestimated Athena is. She's such a good character in KoF XIII...

[LouisCipher]

Yeah she can build meter but again, if you want to punish her doing that you're free to do that. That invincible command grab, truth be told if I see someone do that I'm going to bait it and punish. Prove me wrong but I just don't see anything to that character that makes her truly viable.

[Tikok]

Yeah she can build meter but again, if you want to punish her doing that you're free to do that.

How do you punish tk Phoeniw Arrow after blocking a fireball/a knockdown or from fullscreen distance...?

That invincible command grab, truth be told if I see someone do that I'm going to bait it and punish.

Yes, you can bait it. Just like you can bait anything in this game. That doesn't make it any less threatening.

Prove me wrong but I just don't see anything to that character that makes her truly viable

She has a lot of stuff that makes her viable , and I already told you quite a few of them in my previous post. Her command grab alone is enough reason to say that she's viable.

[Saitsuofleaves]

Yeah she can build meter but again, if you want to punish her doing that you're free to do that. That invincible command grab, truth be told if I see someone do that I'm going to bait it and punish. Prove me wrong but I just don't see anything to that character that makes her truly viable.

I guarantee the only reason you're saying this is because A) You haven't faced a good Athena or B) You're still salty about online Athenas and by proxy will never give an Athena any credit because it doesn't involve rushdown.