Ok I went and watched his latest tier list (at least the part about Raiden). Whenever Sonic says Raiden is S tier he talks exclusively about Raijin and only Raijin. Perhaps I should clarify that when I mention Raiden isn’t S tier I mean his character as a whole because his base character is not good at all. Only Raijin is ever mentioned as a potential contender for top tier because discharge redefines safety for the entire cast. While this claim is valid, Sonic often over exaggerates how powerful the impact of discharge actually is. Opponents can just as easily stagger those strings and open up an extra layer of guessing for Raiden. Raijin’s fastest projectile is also 27f start up after being buffed, and his low fireball only comes out after the low staff hits the ground, so it’s hard to get out in trades. This means that Raijin is much easier to zone out by most characters as their projectiles are often faster or even low profile BF1 altogether. Of course this doesn’t mean Raiden is bad, especially now since he’s been buffed quite significantly. We probably need to wait until the next tournament to see how the pros use his new stuff and then make a better conclusion.
EDIT: Sonic also has some stuff in his tier list that only pretty much applies to him (like reacting to 19f overheads) which is hard for most players at our level to do, especially online. So his conception of tiers is inherently going to be a bit different than ours. Not saying it’s not worth listening to, but just something to keep in mind
