LOL at Nightmare "potentially" being top 10.
Very old post in the scheme of things - I know, but I'm sure you see the retrospective funny side in this statement.
I actually stand by pretty much all of that, apart from Leixia and Xiba dropping out of top ten due to their nerfs (though Leixia may not have been there to begin with). Nightmare is still GROSSLY overrated. He's a good character, but he's not the SSSSS+ tier character everyone makes him out to be. The best argument anyone could make for Nightmare being top tier is "Well he keeps winning". In reality, it's two separate Nightmare players that have been winning consistently. I hear shit like "WELL NIGHTMARE HAS WON LIKE SIX EVENTS", when
four of those wins are all one guy and the remaining two are another.. The next most conclusive argument is that he has the damage. So does Pyrrha. So does Pat. So do their respective alternate versions. So does Astaroth. So does Cervantes, so does Xiba, so does Algol, so does Natsu. In fact, many more of those characters do more damage than Nightmare does in open space, often times MUCH more (Alpha Pat, Algol and Astaroth come to mind). Nightmare gets 75 damage off his go-to starter. Xiba gets... 98 damage meterless on a punish. Pyrrha can get as much as 110. Pyrrha Omega can get 80 just for throwing out DNS B (which is -14 with pushback, meaning it's all but completely safe). Cervantes gets more damage off his launcher than Nightmare gets off his, and Cervantes' launcher is faster and safer.
Seriously, what is the argument for Nightmare being so overpowered? He has godly wall game, that's about it. The problem is that he's also a spacing character, meaning he can't actively push you towards the wall and do what he does best at the same time. The Soul Calibur community will go "MAN NIGHTMARE IS SO DUMB IN ARENAS WITH WALLS HE CAN JUST PUSH YOU INTO ONE AND TAKE ALL YOUR HEALTH", but then they'll go "MAN NIGHTMARE IS SO DUMB IN THE COMPLETELY OPEN STAGES BECAUSE HE CAN JUST KEEP BACKSTEPPING AND DOING 3B TO WHIFF PUNISH YOU". So, wait... They're complaining about how he should be in open space when he's not, and then complaining about how he shouldn't be when he is. I mean, come the fuck on.
If you want the hard truth about Nightmare, the simple fact is that the community just doesn't know how to fight him. No one played him in SC4, namely because he was shit tier in that game, so the majority of the scene had little to no Nightmare matchup experience going into SC5. Now that he's out and running amok, he's dominating, because no one has any idea how to deal with him. He's just as well to be a new character, but because he
technically isn't, everyone is acting as though they should just immediately understand this character none of them have ever had to deal with before. As a Nightmare player, there is so much shit I know I'm getting away with that the community is not blowing up. Like, no one seems to realize that literally ALL of his BE attacks are full combo punishable (no exaggeration, they are). I get guard breaks into easy attack and grab mixups for an attack that should merit a death sentence every single time it's blocked, not free advantage. People still fall for NSS K and GS A, when both of these can be option selected in most cases. I mean, fuck, the list goes on. There are a million and one ways to blow up Nightmare, and this community would rather bitch about him than figure out most of them.
Long story short: Nightmare is not as good as he's cracked up to be. He's absolutely solid, but he isn't anywhere even close to the top five, let alone top three. Don't buy into what you hear.
Also, for the record, my current top five (in rough order) is Alpha Pat, Cervantes, Pyrrha Omega, Algol, Astaroth. The remainder of the top ten (in no particular order) would be Pat, Pyrrha, Viola, Natsu, Ivy. I'd put Nightmare right in at 11, maybe 10. It's possible he's better than Ivy, but no fucking way is he better than Natsu, Pat, Pyrrha or Viola. Hell, I can't think of a single matchup Pyrrha has that's worse than 6-4, if it even gets that bad.