MK9: Unofficial Tier List Speculation, and/or Character Shenanigans Discussion!

[oZii]

So what do you guys think about Raiden?

I also saw some very good Scorpion tech from Black Hawk on the IE stream even though he didnt win it in the end. The Forward 2,1 into teleport adds more depth to his mix up game. Using the Ex Teleport gives you an advantage on block also.

 

[lobo]

randomly putting things in CAPS and bold makes me more likely to read meandering page long rants.

oh wait...

 

[oZii]

randomly putting things in CAPS and bold makes me more likely to read meandering page long rants.

oh wait...

Hmmm thats interesting:superman: , I think Raiden's teleport does provide him with alot of flexibility block strings into teleport really do keep your opponent guessing and a strong 50/50 game.

It will be interesting to see what new technology appears at the PDP tournament what do you think?

 

[dookieagain]

So what do you guys think about Raiden?

I also saw some very good Scorpion tech from Black Hawk on the IE stream even though he didnt win it in the end. The Forward 2,1 into teleport adds more depth to his mix up game. Using the Ex Teleport gives you an advantage on block also.

Raiden is really good. He gets great damage, controls the ground and the air with superman, beats a lot of the zoners for free with teleport. He has frametraps on everything. He has strings that come out fast and hit at all heights. He's just a really solid character. In my opinion he might be number 1. But it's hard to say considering I play the character Raiden seems to beat the most for free. Off the top of my head though, from playing against him his biggest strengths are:

Teleport- makes everything safe, sets up stupendous frametraps, just a great move for making him the most mobile character. Plus the sheer speed of teleport, and the ability to tag any whiff with teleport or superman means Raiden wins the positioning game almost all the time.

Superman- The fact that you can make this mostly safe on block at the right distance is ridiculous. It's so fast, it has so much invulnerability, it gets armor from enhancing it, it builds meter, it can be used to beat anti-airs/control the air on jump. It's just amazing, it's like spin that covers the whole screen, it gives you huge corner push and ends combos for positioning.

 

[D_Matt_Ma]

Since no one is replying to the Sheeva/Baraka comments, I'll give it a shot.

Baraka's problem is speed/damage from strings and meter/damage on specials. His design is pretty obvious. They wanted him to be a heavy specials character that is high risk given his ridiculously slow movement and startup on his strings, but relatively fast special startup. Problem here is that they overdid the normals/strings because he has the slowest strings in the game while also having the lowest damage on strings. I would probably increase all normals that use his blades by 1% since right now he's just a slow character with low damage on everything. His second problem is meter gain. His only way to build meter is with his specials. All his specials with the exception of chop chop leaves the opponent too far to continue an attack. His only way to get in is his Enhanced Stab, which also doesn't give him wake-up. To sum it up, he has a counterproductive design. I would fix this by giving him meter gain per HIT on his triple slash, spin, AND stab, speed up his projectile (which is the worst in the game), up chop chops damage/recovery slightly. To round it off, give him a hit of armor on his enhanced chop chop, and he's back in business. Otherwise, everytime you land a hit, you deny yourself from winning.

Sheeva has a flawed design as well. She's a big character with no advantages but all the disadvantages. She is literally FREE on wake-up. My simple fix is just to give her armor on all her enhanced moves, 2 hits of armor on her enhanced stomp, and armor breaking properties for her air throw. Her problem really is defense. She has no way to get people off of her once she's knocked down or at significant frame disadvantage. Her x-ray is also glitchy in that the full move doesn't hit occasionally (I think it's triggered by armored opponents) and it does weak damage given her inability to combo into it effectively. Combine this with her lack of overheads, heavy reliance on her crouch throw for mix-up, and unreliable combo/launch properties on her strings and you have a character with inconsistent offense and garbage defense.

 

[Sequel]

It will be interesting to see what new technology appears at the PDP tournament what do you think?

I'm going to this tournament but I have no practice with the stick they are forcing us to play on. So what will be interesting to see is if whoever wins is the player with the most experience on the PDP stick. That will be my first question to them lol.

 

[Dandy J]

This is probably premature but other people are giving similar input so why not. Sorry this gets a little long, and I don't think my input is particularly correct, just my thoughts. The first big patch isn't even out yet and I fully respect NR's vision to make the game they want to make.

Of course I agree with things like button config during in-game pause, real record+playback in training.
Negative edge should go, unnecessary, just makes certain things harder/virtually impossible to do while making nothing easier.

Cyber Sub Zero

• 2,1 is done with the same arm, shouldn't it be 2,2? :7)
• I think something needs to happen to his d+4 divekick, not sure what though. I think the best solution is to slow it down. It's not really overpowered in any single way, it just does too many things well. Punish on reaction to any kind of zoning from 3/4th the screen, easy way in from 3/4th the screen, easy 'you can't move if I jump' from 3/4th the screen. There are a lot of moves that can do these things, but his 4 divekick can do all of them, for no meter at that. I'd say make it punishable but it would still be too good for just punishing full-screen shit on reaction, something I don't think CSZ should have.
• I agree with Tom Brady that bombs should be done with 4, so you don't get dash up bombs when doing dash 3 or throw. Yes 3 is hella good, but that's a dumb way to keep in it in check, since you can just input additional directions to make it not happen anyway.
• Counter should have more recovery. Like a lot of the things in this post, it's not too good, but it being hard to punish dumbs the game down and makes it scrubbier than it should be.
• I'd like to see a more graceful 'solution' to his bombs. Right now they simply don't freeze if the bomb was performed while the opponent is in a vulnerable state. I'd like something more clear, maybe make non-freezing bombs look different, or just not allow them to be thrown, like Cyrax's. Just seems like a weird/messy mechanic right now.

Kung Lao

• Abnormally high x-ray damage...even though you can combo from his x-ray, at the end of a combo it does more damage BEFORE the followup than most x-rays that don't allow a followup do total.
• Should have more recovery on whiffed/blocked spin. I saw Tom Brady even missing a lot of punishes on missed spins at PU. I don't care if it's a high pressure situation or not, you shouldn't have to react fast to punish this move. The way I see it, if a Kung Lao player misses a spin, they should be getting hit, no questions asked. Like whiffing a fierce DP in Street Fighter, instant fucking death.
• His dive kick is fine, punishable on block, and not so fast that you can't zone him.
• To anyone saying Kung Lao is fine, just wait some years. Iori is fine in KOF98, other than the fact that he's the best character in the game. Sometimes a character is good because they have everything, not because they have 1 cheap thing.

Sub-Zero

• (2),2 shouldn't hit above his head. I do appreciate the literal hitboxes though, lol.
• His x-ray does abnormally high damage at the end of combos. I don't think it's wrong to get around 50% for a combo into x-ray, but SZ is not a damage character, he should have to play by the rules that 99% of the characters play by as well.
• He should jump forward when he does ice clone. I've wanted this since UMK3 lol. The forward movement should have recovery, just like the jump back, so it's punishable if you place it wrong. He should fall straight down or forward after air ice clone. This would 1. make him much less annoying to fight, and 2. actually give him cool oki setups with him on one side and clone on the other. I don't think it'd be too good since now you can do a wakeup and hit him without getting frozen, and if you block, you'll just get pushed into the clone while blocking and it will dissipate. Makes him both less powerful/annoying to play against and more fun to play as.

Reptile

• 45% for no meter should to get touched a little, should have to use a stock to go over 40% midscreen.
• More recovery/different animation when elbow is blocked, to make it more clear it was blocked. Like Kung Lao's spin, you use this move when you shouldn't, you should die. Just have the same recovery as Kabal's blocked runpast.

Smoke

• I don't think he should be changed yet. The one character with a ton of good shit and hella damage but it feels like he needs it.

Sonya

• Military stance cancel is too fast obviously. As i understand its getting changed in the patch so w/e. I think she is a really cool character so I'm looking forward to seeing good Sonya players.

Cyrax

• Fix his damage resets: net -> whiff move -> jump-in and buzzsaw -> bomb, obviously bugs.
• Create actual recovery on anti-air throw; having such low recovery on moves like this or cage's flip kick dumb the game down.

Cage

• Create actual recovery on flip kick - no this move doesn't do much damage, but having it be so difficult (impossible in some situations) to punish dumbs the game down. Autopilot defense = bad.

Raiden

• Another character like Kung Lao, hella good but what would you even tone down? I honestly think superman should be slower; a lot of times this shit hits you even when you consciously dash~block, hella dumb, and it goes without saying because of the speed+range it fucks up a lot of characters main tactics. Match-ups are fine, but you shouldn't have a character that literally makes another character not able to play their game.
• A lot of people say teleport should be slowed down but it can be punished, I'd wait and see for people to get used to it. String into teleport is definitely good, though.

On to buffs...

Kabal

• Not sure what to say about him right now. I heard he's getting changed in the patch so I won't say anything except that it shouldn't be a chore to break 40% with a combo into x-ray.

Baraka

• At least make d,f+2 safe on block (let's say, just enough recovery to be safe from Raiden's superman), i think that would do a lot for him, and give him something that is unique in a super long range, fast, safe poke.
  I dunno what else since I haven't played him much.

Jax

• OTG enhanced ground pound reset off d,u+4 should go, even if he kind of deserves it. would be nice if they just made it combo + scale and follow the normal move limits so you just get one. maybe even make it actually launch so you get it midscreen?
• His multi-slam doesn't do enough damage. 1% more than everyone else's throw, for who is supposed to be a grappler? Full slams should do around 18% I think.
• Air gotcha switching sides is bad. Having to use meter (enhanced air gotcha) off one of his main strings (2,f+2,b+1) just to keep your position really sux for Jax.
• All of his combo-able 'grapple' + enhanced versions (gotcha+en, air gotcha+en, en dash punch) need to do more more damage, considering your combo is ending whenever you use them. As it stands, using a stock gets Jax just a tiny bit more damage, and he can't even use his x-ray to get a little extra juice like everyone else (except Kano) can. For example, 2,f+2,b+1 into air gotcha does 26%, already sad for a meterless bnb, and using enhanced gotcha ups it to 28%...why even bother? That should be doing at least 35% if you use enhanced gotcha. Maybe make all his grapple moves not scale? A character that is designed as a heavy-hitter needs to be doing way, way more damage.

Sindel

• What's wrong with her levitation fireball? Doesn't come out half the time.

I don't know enough about Sheeva and Stryker to comment on them.

 

[RWDY Nori]

I think anybody that doesn't have actual practice against a char and is asking for a nerf 2.5 weeks into the game is a crybaby/whiner/quitter. There, i said it. More than half the people asking for a nerf I've asked several times if you have access to a KL player, no answer or the answer is no. It's like asking for Sagat to be patched in SF4 when you've never played one. This game, like any other, is muscle memory. Once you are used to seeing a move over and over, you eventually memorize the timing to run up and stomp it.

Only experience I have personally is against: Raiden, Scorpion, Ermac, Kitana, Liu Kang, KL and Smoke. For me to ask for nerf on any other char would kinda be stupid no? Some people need to be a little more open minded towards a game instead of always looking for the easy way out. I think that's what the top players are trying to get across. In the end, it will make you better



So yeah, I'm reading Shang as upper mid tier or whatever. I don't see how. His mixups are slow. Yes, he can zone great. However, anybody with a teleport seems to be able to have his way w/him. No reliable way to get people off of him and for sure has to have the WORST wakeup options in the game. Is his entire game just revolved around soul steal? That seems pretty weak if that's the case.

 

[lobo]

i get 50% damage for free off a blocked KL spin.

spam it more plz.

 

[Porkchopexpress]

Instead of nerfing chracters they should buff the ones that are lacking. I agree Lobo, its a risk reward sitiation.

 

[oZii]

I'm going to this tournament but I have no practice with the stick they are forcing us to play on. So what will be interesting to see is if whoever wins is the player with the most experience on the PDP stick. That will be my first question to them lol.

Free Advertising :china: Our Stick > controller lol.

You think that will throw your timing off with your juggles and set-ups?

 

[oZii]

I think anybody that doesn't have actual practice against a char and is asking for a nerf 2.5 weeks into the game is a crybaby/whiner/quitter. There, i said it. More than half the people asking for a nerf I've asked several times if you have access to a KL player, no answer or the answer is no. It's like asking for Sagat to be patched in SF4 when you've never played one. This game, like any other, is muscle memory. Once you are used to seeing a move over and over, you eventually memorize the timing to run up and stomp it.

Only experience I have personally is against: Raiden, Scorpion, Ermac, Kitana, Liu Kang, KL and Smoke. For me to ask for nerf on any other char would kinda be stupid no? Some people need to be a little more open minded towards a game instead of always looking for the easy way out. I think that's what the top players are trying to get across. In the end, it will make you better



So yeah, I'm reading Shang as upper mid tier or whatever. I don't see how. His mixups are slow. Yes, he can zone great. However, anybody with a teleport seems to be able to have his way w/him. No reliable way to get people off of him and for sure has to have the WORST wakeup options in the game. Is his entire game just revolved around soul steal? That seems pretty weak if that's the case.

Kung Lao Topic = eadhorse:

Tom Said on one S1lents of the streams after MK came out that they changed some properties of his moves. What that was I don't know. I don't have enough practice so I can't comment on Shang.

 

[Dandy J]

It's interesting to see how differently 2D and 3D players think of various elements of the game. I really can't wait to see how tourney results shape up in the end, haha.

 

[oZii]

i get 50% damage for free off a blocked KL spin.

spam it more plz.

:congrats:

 

[dookieagain]

i get 50% damage for free off a blocked KL spin.

spam it more plz.

I get 8%. Frankly that's the most annoying thing for me. I have a character whose tools are flat worse than the top tier and even when I successfully read them my reward is a pittance. With both Kung and reptile they have moves that hit me into full combo and that I can only punish for 8%.

So even if they don't change the recovery wouldn't it be fair to speed up the punishment options of the bottom end so they can at least get full combos off of successful reads?

 

[RagingNight]

I'm going to this tournament but I have no practice with the stick they are forcing us to play on. So what will be interesting to see is if whoever wins is the player with the most experience on the PDP stick. That will be my first question to them lol.

I agree with that sentiment

I personally think the pdp tournament will actually HURT the MK9 image rather than promote it. Yes it put the game on notice, but at the same time forcing people to use their stick sends the wrong image/message to people that are 1) new to the game 2) don't have the game and were thinking about getting the game. The biggest one is 1) I need to get a stick to be good, which by itself limits the number of new players coming into the game.

It also hurts the tournament itself by limiting the entrants to owners of the stick and/or people comfortable with the stick. The stick itself isn't even easy to get a hold of (Tom Brady mention this in a podcast last Wednesday).

And honestly who wants to see a bunch of people dropping combos because of not being used to their equipment?

 

[oZii]

I agree with that sentiment

I personally think the pdp tournament will actually HURT the MK9 image rather than promote it. Yes it put the game on notice, but at the same time forcing people to use their stick sends the wrong image to people that are 1) new to the game 2) don't have the game and were thinking about getting the game.

It also hurts the tournament itself by limiting the entrants to owners of the stick and/or people comfortable with the stick. The stick itself isn't even easy to get a hold of (Tom Brady mention this in a podcast last Wednesday).

And honestly who wants to see a bunch of people dropping combos because of not being used to their equipment?

All marketing unfortunately it seems that the core audience they want to go after are the ones they might end up alienating. The Tournament Players are the ones that will put the stick on the map (see MadCatz TE) I think after PDP that no one will have anything to say much about the stick or the company. Right now the eye is all on the cash so everyone is a bit more quiet. I could be wrong though maybe they will shock everyone and it will be a great experience.

 

[Juggs]

Let's stay on topic guys.

 

[GStick]

Instead of nerfing chracters they should buff the ones that are lacking.

I agree with this. I think right now we need more buffs than nerfs... See how things go after that, further down the road.

 

[Porkchopexpress]

I think Tom would know best, after all he was a tester,lol. I always hated developers nerfing things, it can create more imbalance if not thought through. Before they think about hitting chracters with the nerf bat all the lower tier chracters should have their buffs first. Eventhough teir lists can be made and broke overnight, Neatherrealms should have a good idea of whos on the bottom,after all they made the game.

 

[Action Kungfu]

It's interesting to see how differently 2D and 3D players think of various elements of the game. I really can't wait to see how tourney results shape up in the end, haha.

Definitely. That was something I was thinking about myself. It comes off as night and day.

It just goes to show that 3d players or players that prefer 3d fighters, have a different philosophy on balance and risk/rewards, compared to the 2d guys.

With that said, I thought your list was really good. Also what you said about Reptile, Kitana actually has a higher damage output than he does, where she can get that kind of damage midscreen and then upwards of 50%+ with just 1 bar.

 

[Luxus Nights]

So yeah, I'm reading Shang as upper mid tier or whatever. I don't see how. His mixups are slow. Yes, he can zone great. However, anybody with a teleport seems to be able to have his way w/him. No reliable way to get people off of him and for sure has to have the WORST wakeup options in the game. Is his entire game just revolved around soul steal? That seems pretty weak if that's the case.

So you think Shang is Low tier?

 

[RWDY Nori]

So you think Shang is Low tier?

I honestly don't know what to think of him. I read around the boards he might be upper mid (seems to be general consensus). The more I play him, I just don't see him being anything higher than mid. He's just so slow and again, no reliable wakeup. I'd like to see what a high level Shang looks like to be honest.

 

[Tool of Isis]

Ya know the best way I can think of to balance this game is not to just dumb down damage. Now that I've had a taste of high damage ermac and smoke combos I want them to stay. I think the best way to balance the game is through the requiring of meter to do those combos.

You know what I mean? Like how a combo with ermac can do 44% using a meter but 40% using no meter stuff like that. I think they should just remove the ability to even perform the high damage combos without meter. That would make some characters like ermac become "glass cannons" They can dish out huge damage using meter, but whenever they need that meter for a breaker, it isnt there because they are so focused on doing 45% damage combos. I think if your using meter to do a combo, it should do great damage.

They should focus on using the meter to balance this game instead of just toning down damage.

Than obviously some characters are just ass. They should fix those. I mean honestly, who is gonna pick baraka? He just can't dish out damage.

 

[mutantmagnet]

Since no one is replying to the Sheeva/Baraka comments, I'll give it a shot.

Baraka's problem is speed/damage from strings and meter/damage on specials. His design is pretty obvious. They wanted him to be a heavy specials character that is high risk given his ridiculously slow movement and startup on his strings, but relatively fast special startup. ...

... To sum it up, he has a counterproductive design. I would fix this by giving him meter gain per HIT on his triple slash, spin, AND stab, speed up his projectile (which is the worst in the game), up chop chops damage/recovery slightly. To round it off, give him a hit of armor on his enhanced chop chop, and he's back in business. Otherwise, everytime you land a hit, you deny yourself from winning.

Sheeva has a flawed design as well. She's a big character with no advantages but all the disadvantages. ...

... Combine this with her lack of overheads, heavy reliance on her crouch throw for mix-up, and unreliable combo/launch properties on her strings and you have a character with inconsistent offense and garbage defense.

Very apt summary. I'll just throw in (for those who haven't seen the other thread yet) that another reason Sheeva is inconsistent is that she appears to be the most stance dependent character in the game.

Stances making a difference is an interesting game play element but everyone else just has 2-5% less damage for being in the wrong stance.
Sheeva will drop full combos for being in the wrong stance :|


Counterproductive definitely seems the best adjective for Baraka. On top of everything you said, he has a couple of defensive tools for anyone who wants to get close to him but his ranged options are so lacking even rush down characters have the luxury of getting into a zoning war with him and win. All you need to know is his spacing requirements with and without meter.

If he has placed himself in health deficit with a rushdown opponent he is the only character that requires meter to gain invincibility on wake up.

As for opponents with heavy zoning tools, his ability to make up for any damage received or meter lost trying to get close isn't going to be rewarded; because his damage output in the corner is no different than anyone else (unless you are able to do the one chop chop combo megamonk discovered that has no room for error in execution).

He requires more effort to get similar results.

If they want this character to be a specials attack dependent character they need to give him a couple of more specials that allows him to link together all the other specials he already has. By being able to create specials combos he'll build up meter insanely quick.