KOF XI tier list.

Strats, combos, technical discussion.
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Post by Perfect Stranger » Sun Aug 06, 2006 13:43

I'm not entirely sure either, but I think a large part of it is safety - most of his common attack strings/setups are very safe on block. Kim also still does pretty good damage, and still controls space pretty well with his flash kick and far a.

Then there's also the fact that for some reason Jump D is like an insane crossup this year <_<

I've a question myself - why isn't Jazu any higher in the tier lists? Stand E is awesome, Jump E covers the entire friggin' screen or close, projectiles are damn fast and pretty hard to punish, chips like hell with his Samurai Shodown Gen-An rolling move, etc etc.

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Post by AcidicEnema » Sun Sep 03, 2006 08:21

Slapper Joe wrote:Basically explains why I still think DL should be higher as he is a lot of Auto Pilot as well. Personally I believe AP stops becoming a factor on that list once it reaches the Malin/Ryo area, probably after both.....
Ionno man, going by all that, I still don't know why Malin doesn't get placed higher on lists (and didn't even make the friggin SBO finals, omg). Jump C blockstun of doom+ awesome jump arc (laughs at Gato's palm super then stabs him in the eye), great BnB that's safe and does tons of tick+guard damage and QS's well, stand Cs and Ds that recover fast, and good footsies overall.

Still whenever I don't understand the logic behind tier placings, I just point out that Ryo and King (fricken D tier King... doesn't matter, I still think she's awesome) made the SBO finals. :D Yeah, there is a clear top tier in this game, but match ups in general are really closer than the tiers suggest.

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Post by Empyrian » Mon Sep 04, 2006 18:21

The below criteria were used in deciding the tier rankings. It was posted on this thread earlier, although I did not directly state it.

Combo ability; stun value; guard break/offense; methods/patterns; QS ability; Counter Attack; Anti air; guard point; reliance on power gauge; guard crush potential; Number of characters this character has an advantage over; when selected as leader.

While it is true that some characters may be strong/overpowered on some aspects, it is often that these said characters are lacklustre on other criteria.

This unfortunately pulls the rank down for those characters.

Another point was that, SG style is ultra aggressive/offensive. Therefore characters that can slow the gameplay down sort of kills more effectively than it seems as players generally do not have the "patience" to wear the opponents out. (myself included.)

It is also from personal experience that once you can do that, (be patient.) you can take out these problematic characters. Of course a lot depends on the situation and atmosphere though. XD

If people really wanted to be specific, characters like Elizabeth and Malin do get boosts in rankings (+1 or 2.) when they are leaders...

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Post by Empyrian » Mon Oct 02, 2006 18:24

Today I give you not one, not 2 but 3 tier lists! They are from Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese sources. Compare the minute differences! XD

Japanese.

[SS]牙刀、クーラ
【S】オズ、影二、ダック(2P)、キム、クラーク
【A】ラルフ、ダック、京、マキシマ、リョウ、凱
【B】ジェニー、K'、アッシュ、テリー、シェン、邪頭、ズィルバー、ヴァネ、ケンスウ
【C】まりん、庵、デュオロン、アデル、紅丸、エリザ
【D】ユリ、ラモン、マリー、真吾、キング、グリフォン、
【E】香澄、桃子、アテナ、ウイップ

Korean.

【S】クーラ、牙刀
【A】オズ、影二、ダック(2P)、キム、クラーク、ラルフ、京
【B】邪頭、マキシマ、リョウ、ジェニー、K'、テリー、アデル、ヴァネ(永久)、凱、まりん、ズィルバー、ケンスウ
【C】アッシュ、シェン、キング、グリフォン、ラモン、紅丸、庵、デュオロン、ユリ、エリザ、マリー
【D】香澄、ウイップ、真吾、疾風、アテナ、桃子

Taiwanese.

【S】クーラ、牙刀
【A】Lオズ、ラルフ、クラーク、影二、キム、京、ダック
【B】テリー、ケンスウ、ジェニー、アーデルハイド、K'、リョウ、ズィルバー、邪頭
【C】凱、まりん、キング、ラモン、紅丸、グリフォン、アッシュ、マキシマ、庵、Lエリザ
【D】シェン、デュオロン、ユリ、マリー、香澄、真吾、ウィップ
【E】桃子、アテナ、疾風

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Post by SonicTempest » Mon Oct 02, 2006 18:35

Empyrian wrote:Today I give you not one, not 2 but 3 tier lists! They are from Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese sources. Compare the minute differences! XD

Japanese.

[SS] Gato, Kula
【S】Oswald, Eiji, Duck (2P), Kim, Clark
【A】Ralf, Duck, Kyo, Maxima, Ryo, Gai
【B】Jenet, K', Ash, Terry, Shen, Jyazu, Silber, Vanessa, Kensou
【C】Malin, Iori, Duolon, Adelheid, Benimaru, Elisabeth
【D】Yuri, Ramon, Mary, Shingo, King, Griffon
【E】Kasumi, Momoko, Athena, Whip
(SS' note: Oi...no Hayate?)

Korean.

【S】Kula, Gato
【A】Oswald, Eiji, Duck (2P), Kim, Clark, Ralf, Kyo
【B】Jyazu, Maxima, Ryo, Jenet, K', Terry, Adelheid, Vanessa (infinite), Gai, Malin, Silber
【C】Ash, Shen, King, Griffon, Ramon, Benimaru, Iori, Duolon, Yuri, Elisabeth, Mary
【D】Kasumi, Whip, Shingo, Hayate, Athena, Momoko

Taiwanese.

【S】Kula, Gato
【A】Oswald (Leader), Ralf, Clark, Eiji, Kim, Kyo, Duck
【B】Terry, Kensou, Jenet, Adelheid, K', Ryo, Silber, Jyazu
【C】Gai, Malin, King, Ramon, Benimaru, Griffon, Ash, Maxima, Iori, Elisabeth (Leader)
【D】Shen, Duolon, Yuri, Mary, Kasumi, Shingo, Whip
【E】Momoko, Athena, Hayate
^ Translation

How come whether Duck is 1P or 2P makes a difference? o_O

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Post by Empyrian » Tue Oct 03, 2006 17:17

I left out Hayate on purpose because I do not really understand what they are implying. XD

It was said that in theory, Hayate is actually pretty darn good w/o notable mismatches and that most tactics and strategies don't really work well against him, i.e. he is hard to counter. However he is also *hard* to use properly.

They put him in S tier and also in E tier.

From what I understand, after a blocked chain of down A, stand b, 2p Duck has way better frame advantage. Basically Duck's down A upgraded from very good to a bit glitchy. If I read correctly, it can beat slams... and there's comments about 1F throws also...

Therefore I can safely conclude with my limited knowledge, 2p Duck is somewhat superior. XD

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Post by dobiqwolf » Tue Oct 03, 2006 19:29

thanks for the explanation empyrian, so slapper joe was right about hayate

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Post by Tel » Thu Oct 05, 2006 12:17

That Hayate has slow recovery for a bunch of moves, relatively low damage in combos, poor DM priority, builds stock relatively slowly, takes a lot of damage and gets stunned easily are all factors that put Hayate in the bottomfeeder's pile. He's far from horrid in actuality, but the fact that he takes a lot of damage and gets stunned easily, yet doesn't have the insane damage and stun capability of Adel and Jyazu really goes against him.

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Post by dobiqwolf » Thu Oct 05, 2006 18:01

Tel wrote:That Hayate has slow recovery for a bunch of moves, relatively low damage in combos, poor DM priority, builds stock relatively slowly, takes a lot of damage and gets stunned easily are all factors that put Hayate in the bottomfeeder's pile.
that is why he is so difficult to use, actually he does take lots of damage , that is the damage scalling which kill him and it gets worst when the opponent got about 30% life left.

Tel wrote:He's far from horrid in actuality, but the fact that he takes a lot of damage and gets stunned easily, yet doesn't have the insane damage and stun capability of Adel and Jyazu really goes against him.
he does have stun capability like adel or Jyazu, you should check hayate's topic and you will see what sho can do.

another point empyrian wrote " most tactics and strategies don't really work well against him, i.e. he is hard to counter." show that he got a natural defencive style bc of the nature of his playstyle, this would explain why he takes lot of damage and get stun faster than other character, it is a way to balance the character.

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Post by Empyrian » Thu Oct 05, 2006 18:24

It would seem that the 3 lists look different but they are actually very similar. A simple cross checking reveals that the characters on the high tiers are basically the same. XD

Well, it just means that these characters are genuinely that marvellous although almost everyone in the game can compete to a certain extent. Perhaps one has to have that extra level of dedication for some of them.

Then again, in a recent Taiwan vs Japan Tournament, Kaoru lost to a Kula(or is it Gato? XD)/Ramon/Oswald user.

Then again*2, a lot of high level play(almost 80%) revolves using 2/3 Gods, and a lot of A tiers. Makes those who uses just one S tier very disadvantaged. XD

The reason Taiwan won could be partially due to Ramon being a "surprise" character. He on his own is *argh.* Not surprisingly the MO was to link to Ace every single time Ramon gets a Dp D combo.

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Post by Tel » Fri Oct 06, 2006 05:04

dobiqwolf wrote:he does have stun capability like adel or Jyazu, you should check hayate's topic and you will see what sho can do.

another point empyrian wrote " most tactics and strategies don't really work well against him, i.e. he is hard to counter." show that he got a natural defencive style bc of the nature of his playstyle, this would explain why he takes lot of damage and get stun faster than other character, it is a way to balance the character.
Yeah, I read about Hayate's stun capabilties in a QS combo. It's good if you're tagging him in, but not if you're going to switch him to someone else. Adel and Maxima stun opponents easily on their own with relatively simple combos. Hayate needs to rely on corner combos and a QS to do the same thing. No big deal, but when you consider that it's not easy for a Hayate user to get all-out offensive to the point of cornering opponent, then you'll understand why he's low tier.

People make the assumption that low tier charas are unusable or plain crappy, when it just means you have to work harder at winning matches compared with the high tier charas. And that sums up Hayate pretty well. Though to be honest, I'm not sure Hayate is actually worse than Momoko though. At least Hayate's got range, a very painful DM, and an LDM that's quite usable.

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Post by AcidicEnema » Sat Oct 07, 2006 09:26

Guess I'll disagree.

Tier lists aren't just about ease of use. They also reflect how the character matches up against other characters- how much of the cast the character has an advantage/disadvantage against.

High tier characters tend to have few or no match ups where they face a distinct disadvantage, and hold an advantage against a fair portion of the cast. See the Silber thread for Empyrian's break down of win/loss ratios that each tier in this game seems to have.

That's why Kula and Gato are the undisputed top characters. Because their (observed, empirical) win/loss ratios against all characters do no worse than 5:5, and mostly stand in the 'advantaged' 6:4, 7: 3, region, with a few 8:2 region. These ratios, being based on empirical observation, tend to reflect how the match ups go, given the level of play skill, and play styles of the observers (and that's why Empyrian presented us with 3 seperate tier lists). That's why Oswald never gets placed on the top of these lists, despite being the best QS finisher in the game- because match ups are judged based on a character's performance as 'point' man, and Oswald isn't nearly as good on point as K and G.

The reason why, I believe, some Japanese place Hayate at the ubiquituous S/E tier is because even in the worse case scenario, he doesn't get a worse match up than 4:6. Hence, no bad mismatches. Used correctly, his low stun, and stamina never come into play, since he can threaten almost all characters outside their effective ranges. The point is, however, few people can play him 'correctly' because he plays quite differently from all other characters. The Japanese hardly even touched him because time-released characters were banned from SBO. He can't stay in the S/E tier for long though... as more people play him, more people will learn his more off-beat strats and strats to counter them. Time will tell if he's a top/mid/ or bottom tier. I'll stand by what I've been saying for a long time tho- among all the low-tier characters, Hayate has the best odds of beating KGO.

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Post by Tel » Sat Oct 07, 2006 18:03

AcidicEnema wrote: Time will tell if he's a top/mid/ or bottom tier. I'll stand by what I've been saying for a long time tho- among all the low-tier characters, Hayate has the best odds of beating KGO.
That much I agree with you. A Whip who's aggressive enough may stand a chance, but once she's forced into the defensive and she isn't leader, it's extremely hard to break out. As for Momoko, I've yet to see a matchup where she had anywhere near an easy time against KGO users. Hayate on the other hand, has viable options he can use which already set him apart from his tier mates.

Howver, I do believe that his overall low damage AND defence does have a huge impact to his tier standing. It's fine if he does low damage OR low defence. But the fact that Hayate isn't very combo-centric means that he needs to be able to deal a lot of damage on his own, which unfortunately his BnB combo only does so-so damage. Throw in the fact that he takes a lot of damage AND gets stunned easily, and that starts becoming a problem. Adel takes the most damage in the game, and he gets stunned almost as easily, but he makes up for it with sheer damage from his almost moronic cr.B twice > f+B > qcf+D combo which also does ridiculous stun meter damage. Jyazu has a lot more keepaway options, combos easily despite his average damage levels and has both speed and range. Gai and Silber have easy to do combos that hurt a lot, while they take less damage and are hard to stun. Compared with all of this, it's hard to say where Hayate stands. He doesn't have any real bad matchups like you said, but getting stunned from a combo by say Adel or Maxima which wouldn't dizzy a character with higher stun resistance would make all the difference between winning or losing, especially when you consider he's already taking an extra 10% damage from each hit.

The nature of fighting games is that you simply have to assume that your character will take hits no matter how carefully you play. So I believe the damage resistance levels do affect a chara's tier rankings. I doubt Gai would be in A rank if his damage and stun resistance was at Adel or Jyazu's levels.

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Post by Empyrian » Sun Oct 08, 2006 19:00

Actually it is agreed that Kula has a 6:4 advantage against Gato.

However this is also affected by whether they are leaders or not, character order, how many stocks they have left.

Personally, I still feel that Leader Gato is the best in the game.

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Post by Perfect Stranger » Fri Oct 13, 2006 05:16

Bug discussion posts have been split into a separate topic, here:
http://kingoffighters.planets.gamespy.c ... sc&start=0

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