MK9 Most Current Tier List Thread: Updated 9/1/2011

[RWDY Nori]

You are missing important elements of ST. For example, while Dhalsim vs. Zangief is 8:2 in ST, if Zangief manages to corner Dhalsim, he can tick SPD Dhalsim to death because of his lack of a reversal attack. Dhalsim is difficult to corner, but the small opportunity is there for Zangief to pull off a "random" win. What can Sindel do vs. Kung Lao? He will annihilate her as soon as he approaches. Sindel cannot pull off a "random" win.

No, I think he's about right w/ST. Sim vs Gief IS 8-2 cause Gief should never, ever get in. It's beyond horrible for Gief to beat Sim. Sim has a teleport and Gief has almost no way to successfully to get in. And you mean to tell me a Sindel is incapable of baiting out a spin or a dive kick? Incapable of blocking 24Low hat? Incapable of ducking, baiting an overhead and punishing? Of course it's hard for Sindel, but you make it to to be impossible. That's not nearly the case at all.

And I have no idea why you are pulling straws about the communities size, it's 100% irrelevant. Fact is, the game is out, 500 people entered at Evo so obviously a lot of people play this game (that's not counting all the people who play online too). So yes, it's important to note that new players shouldn't come into a thread and see S Tier/Broken and get scared, cause it just doesn't exist in this game as I've already proved multiple times

 

[M2Dave]

And I have no idea why you are pulling straws about the communities size, it's 100% irrelevant. Fact is, the game is out, 500 people entered at Evo so obviously a lot of people play this game (that's not counting all the people who play online too). So yes, it's important to note that new players shouldn't come into a thread and see S Tier/Broken and get scared, cause it just doesn't exist in this game as I've already proved multiple times

Community size is very relevant. If more people play a fighting game, new strategies are discovered and the fighting game evolves faster. Tier lists evolve faster.

I do not associate "S" tier with "broken" tier. I did not create this thread either. Ultimately, you should contact Tom Brady and ask him to change his categories if it bothers you so much.

 

[Past]

Community size is very relevant. If more people have a competent training mode, new strategies are discovered and the fighting game evolves faster. Tier lists evolve faster.

I do not associate "S" tier with "broken" tier. I did not create this thread either. Ultimately, you should contact Tom Brady and ask him to change his categories if it bothers you so much.

Fixed

 

[salvificblood]

I still think Sao's idea is better and avoids all of these arguments. It's simple, and gives a fair placement for each character. We're concentrating too much on individual placings rather than dealing with matchups, which is where the focus should surely be? We may as well wait for the matchup chart Tom says is going to happen before trying to identify how "high tier" a character is.

 

[Lt. Boxy Angelman]

Past with the truth fix.

The sole fact that the dummies never use breakers makes it leglessly weak. 99.999% of the time, no such thing as a fight without a breaker.

If NOTHING else, I would really love to see NRS fix this above most things in the game, minus the online fiasco.
I'm all for going into super saiyan hyperbolic time chamber training with Cyrax to get ready for the Philly tournament, but Expert AI becomes predictable ass after a while, and no breaks means you dont know how much of the ass kicking is your skills, and how much of it is the computer not being able to fight back.

THINGS TO FIX: The MKOnline code, more intelligent training mode, additional return of Master or Champion difficulty level for batshit craziness.
The character buffs and nerfs would be way less necessary, and aren't going to do much good for the longeivity of the game if the PLAYERS themselves don't have an even playing field. Imagine the amount of people who'd come back to playing, or the new people who'd be enticed by unbrokenness, if Online wasn't a gaping pain in the guts of the game. Or how many more people would be capable of competing online or off if the AI were half as difficult to deal with as the better-than-average people you often run into. Or, I don't know, how happy the folks like us hoping for the sun to come up on the game's various issues would be with such things? If you're gonna patch and add and readjust, don't worry about the little things: take care of the big problems first.
Pretty please?

EDIT: Remember Drahmin? No one in this game is Drahmin. Be thankful.
Every goddamn fighting game since ever has had uneven matchups. They exist for a reason. They give us someone to worry about and better our abilities in preparation for. Or, if they're easily handled, they give you target practice most of the time. It's part of the game, dammit.

Get the fuck outta here with the Ball O'Flies... ant3:

 

[PhAzE213]

ok i hate tier lists and only look at them to see who ill mainly be fighting online. but i wnat to make a few points

1. KL did have to fast recovery on low hat and not enough start frames on spin and it was to safe. period. thats why hes getting a nerf, not because ppl complained about it.
2. there is no such thing as a god tier or "S" tier, we should call it something else because it may be misleading for those who are not familiar.
3. ive been playing raiden and have done very well, but what he has is a mechanic that most dont know how to deal with (teleport and superman on wake-up) but when you are a good player you know how to deal with that mechanic, ive been beaten by a jax and a baraka online ya know how, they were good players and knew raidens game, thats all you have to do you can beat anyone if you know them so...
its been said here before IF YOU WANT TO BEAT THE CHARACTER GO LEARN THE CHARACTER.

 

[DrDogg]

The first world tournament for any new fighting game is usually not indicative how balanced or unbalanced the fighting game is. I am not sure why you keep bringing up Evo to the discussion. Evo was a success for the Mortal Kombat community, but Summer Jam is the most recent major tournament. Its results coincide with the current opinions on the tier list.

VSM CD Jr (Rain, Jax)
AU Erik Warda (Kabal)
VSM Crazy Dominican (Kitana)
Tom Brady (Sub Zero, Kung Lao)
THTB (Reptile)
LB NYC Chris G (Reptile)
Michaelangelo (Kabal)
TS Sabin (Reptile)

The characters in bold were almost exclusively used in the top 8. As you can see, aside from Rain who is a high mid tier character, every other character is an established S tier character. The more time passes the better players get and the more the tier list becomes evident. That is what fighting game history tells us. The game is not as balanced as some people would like to believe. As far as vanilla Sagat vs. low tier characters go, Kung Lao, Kabal vs. Stryker, Sheeva, Sindel, etc. are no different whatsoever in terms of match up numbers.

Did you watch the top 8 at SJ? The lack of character knowledge was deafening! It should not be used as anything other than a lesson in how not to defend against certain characters.

Vulcan Hades: If people come on to this site, all first impressions are important. There is no point in us looking like tools in describing chars incorrectly when in fact, they aren't in S tier. If we want the community to grow, we can't give off the impression to anybody that certain chars are near unbeatable, because if they were that strong, you would see them constantly winning tournaments all the time. Yet, the evidence suggets otherwise, so why insist on saying S tier? When the community as a whole realizes it, it will be stronger as a whole and have a better understanding of the game

The MK community, much like the Capcom community, is full of people who do not grasp the concept of high-level play. Unfortunately, the number of people in this situation is significantly higher in the MK community. There's no use arguing with them. You will never win because they simply do not understand what you're trying to tell them.

Even well-respected members like Brady do baffling things. What top player posts a tier list with no explanations...?

...and before someone complains. Yes, I'm an ass... but an ass that states the truth.

 

[Trini_Bwoi]

Top
High
Mid
Low
Bottom

 

[DanCock]

this game does indeed have s tier characters. Kung, Cyrax, Raiden, kabal, reptile to name a few are well above the rest. hopefully when the patch comes out we wont have anymore S tiers.

If sindels cartwheel gets the proper armor buff, meaning it should be super armor not just regular armor she'll then no longer be low tier. she wont be high tier but in the mid area. she still wont be able to dish out 30% damage unless her foe makes a huge mistake or the sindel player "guesses" right..


did you guys know that sindels Xray is low poke and cross up~able?? meaning she is the only character in the game that has to guess to have her xray connect.. the rest of the cast have the mid range xray where x rays counters every attack. then theres the other 4 --> jade + quan theres counters cross ups but not lows and kano and jax theres counters lows but not cross ups (and theirs are unblockable..

sindels xray in combos scales so much so that in some combos she dishes out less damage then a naked xray.. in high level play sindels xray is trash.. whats the point of it having armor???????? theres so much more crap with sindel and glitchy stupid shit..

her cartwheel and hair whip enhance versions only dish out 2% more damage nothing else special about them THANKFULLY the cartwheel enhanced version will have that "something else" to it.

shes the only character in the game with a "stun" type of move where she has to use its enhanced version to combo into it from a standing attack.

i can go on and on.. bleh.

 

[Tom Brady]

Dr. Dogg, i didnt do an explanation because the game is about to change in a few weeks. this is more of a this how the game basically is right now today list, after the patch is when i'll start working on match up charts.

 

[RWDY Nori]

So is there a reason to keep this thread open if in a matter of weeks, the tiers will change and a matchup chart will be used instead?

 

[Lt. Boxy Angelman]

So is there a reason to keep this thread open if in a matter of weeks, the tiers will change and a matchup chart will be used instead?

Thats what I was thinking. The hat nerf will be as good as a rewind button.

 

[shura30]

Dr. Dogg, i didnt do an explanation because the game is about to change in a few weeks. this is more of a this how the game basically is right now today list, after the patch is when i'll start working on match up charts.

i raised the point few pages ago because few weeks for a patch could be too far

there's already a matchup chart thread that require to be updated
then until everyone figures what each patch change will do to those placements we can still read something useful that a standalone tier list

 

[RWDY Nori]

Going to close thread for now. There doesn't seem to be a point keeping it up w/a patch coming very soon, plus everybody seems to agree that a matchup chart is a lot more effective than a tier thread