Character selection: Picking a character is just as much a part of a fighting game as any fundamental skill such as spacing or whiff punishing. Unfortunately two terms came about, tier-whore and low tier hero, and if I could I would wipe them from existence. Ever since I started taking fighting games more seriously (not tournament serious, I just love them) and became a part of the community I've constantly seen people saying things like, "Pick characters you like," or "Pick characters that are fun to play, but whatever you do DON'T TIER WHORE!" Which I find quite strange because characters with more tools, i.e. top-tier characters, are almost always more fun to play.
Whose to say how much someone likes a character anyway? Batman is my favorite character from any fictional universe, not just DC or comic books, and yet I don't play him because I know he'll get tonnes of exposure, and just because I like the skin a character model has doesn't mean I like their tool set or play style. It was the same with MvC3, everyone complained about how popular Dante was online,"Ugh I can't go a single match without running into a Dante. . .stupid tier whores!" Well what did you expect? He's easily one of Capcoms most popular characters (people lost their minds because they gave the guy a fucking haircut) and he's really good, why wouldn't he be one of the most used characters?
If you accept a job to build a fence, which requires digging holes for the posts, and your boss hands you a shovel (top-tier) and a spoon (low-tier) he's not going to give you props for picking the spoon, he's going to think you're an idiot. I know it's a silly and a outlandish comparison but I don't care.
The truly humorous part of it all is, I've seen so many topics on different forums from games like: Call of Duty, MMORPG'S, Fighting Games etc asking about which character/gun/class is underused or the least popular because they don't want to tier-whore, or they want to different. Essentially they're going out of their way to avoid a character or class that they might love playing because other people play said character or class, not because they love whatever they're picking.
I'm also aware that seeing underused characters is exciting (everyone likes an underdog), but avoiding a character just because it's popular is just as bad as tier-whoring. I myself like mid-tier characters because they're usually the most balanced, but do I deserve respect or props for not pick Batman or Superman? Absolutely not. Same goes for the low-tier guys. I kind of want to start picking top-tier just to spite people.
