War Has Changed: Pick a Mid-Tier

[@as95ms98]

Pick a MId-Tier, or pick the dev's favorite that's never going to be nerfed no matter how much people complain (Ram, Nago, Happy Chaos).

[@kyokusada4825]

Steve Fox has been good since Tekken 4. No cap. Best advice right here

[@user-bkey]

theories are going to have to start being made and seriously be considered when choosing a main lmfao like we could already have it down for arc sys if they release a horny character or a swordsman you might be sittin on top of patches for a while

[@Badatname]

@@kyokusada4825 Tekken is a different beast though, the Tekken devs seem terrified of pissing off the tekken boomers who want everything to be the same

[@as95ms98]

@@user-bkey my theory for Guilty Gear I think is to pick the characters with Daisuke's favorite theme lol

[@olzarius]

Meanwhile Heihachi waited 6+ patches to become viable, as Harada's main. There is little you can do to protect yourself in the FGC

[@TheAmericanGamer17]

“Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak. Also, pick a B or C tier character.” - Sun Tzu

[@brainc0la-_-]

Absolutely based.

[@MadMax22]

Dan Hibiki all day!

[@Marzimus]

@@MadMax22 Gadoken!!

[@TheConfusedMasses]

RIP XX Eddie

[@TheoryFighter]

And never pick a grappler, no matter how mid they are people will complain and they'll get nerfed into the dirt

[@dekuskrub2154]

THIS DUDE SPITTIN

[@N1k0SP]

i love grapplers too much to respect your opinion

[@dekuskrub2154]

@Byron Martin "coin flip bs" yeah bruh, tf you think a mixup is

[@zacharyjennings7675]

And they deserve it

[@machinatingminotaur6285]

people play sloppy as hell and then complain someone did the funny thing after rolling out a red carpet meanwhile actual ToDs will exist out of neutral and they won't complain about that

[@vachder7350]

War.... has changed. It's no longer about winning majors, bodying scrubs and tier lists. It's an endless series of mid tier battles, fought by secondaries and inoffensive B tiers. War--and it's consumption of sets--has become a well-oiled machine. War has changed. Twitter clip viewers carry twitter clip combos, use twitter clip tech. KZbinrs inside their minds enhance and regulate their neutral. Footsies control, oki control, setup control, mixup control…everything is labbed and kept under control...

[@koolaidfoxdie9847]

I need this in David Hayter's voice

[@Ronin8300]

@Vachder This comment deserves all the up votes. "Imagine if it's a game like Guilty Gear, not STRIVE!" Never change Obama...🤣🤣 Seriously though. If you want to give yourself the best chance in tournament. It is a solid philosophy. Once your midtier character is considered "fair" by the community. Everything is gravy.

[@t4d0W]

FG Devs have been running a long psy-op and we buffoons have just been eating it up for years...

[@InfernoCleric384]

To begin with, we're not what you'd call "casuals". Over the past 35 years, a kind of consciousness formed layer by layer in the crucible of the FGC. It's not unlike the way life started in the oceans four billion years ago. The FGC was our primordial soup, a base of evolution. We are formless. We are the very "equality" that fighting game scrubs have clamored for so often. How can anybody hope to eliminate us? As long as people crying for balance exist, so will we. Cut the crap! If you're immortal, why would you force us into a constant cycle of balance? Don't be silly. Don't you know that our plans have your interests -- not ours -- in mind? The mapping of fairness in fighting games was completed early this decade. As a result, the evolutionary log of the competitive fighting game community lay open to us. We started with just releasing new versions of the game, and in the end, we succeeded in creating simple balance patches themselves. But there are things not covered by balance. Playstyle feel. Difficulty. Character traits. False ideas of fairness. True viability doesn't effect the character outside of the high-level area. Are those something that should not be passed on? Should all those be left at the mercy of the high-level realm? We've always kept records of things unrelated to competitive viability. Through storytelling, character design, sound effects, from voice actors to animation quality... But not all the non-competitive traits were accepted by later generations. A small percentage of the whole was selected and processed, then passed on. Not unlike competitive viability, really. But in the current, balance-focused world, character feel is accumulating every second, preserved in all its triteness. Never fading, always accessible. Focus on visual appeal, character archetype, story relevance. All this preserved in an unfiltered state, growing at an alarming rate. It will only slow down profits in the end, reduce the rate of competitive appeal. You seem to think that our plan is one of manipulating the FGC. Are you telling me it's not!? You're being silly! What we propose to do is not to control character appeal, but to create balance. The new casual appeal furthers human flaws and selectively rewards the regression of the competitive scene. Just look at the strange juxtapositions of character selection and fairness around you. Ridiculous levels of ease in order to effortlessly rise up the competitive food chain. Viability of some characters are given more respect than the viability of others. Although there are low-tiers suffering in relative non-viability, huge buffs are made to protect certain top-tiers. Everyone grows up being told the same thing. "Git gud." "But whine when a character beats you with a tool you don't know about!" "Anyone can succeed at the game." "Just git gud and you'll make it." But it's obvious from the start that only a few can succeed... You exercise your right to "fairness" and this is the result. All rhetoric to avoid execution and protect each other from hurt. The untested truths spun by different interests continue to churn and accumulate in the sandbox of ease of use and balance. Everyone withdraws into their own small gated community, afraid of a larger forum. They stay inside their little ponds, leaking whatever kind of "balance" suits them into the growing cesspool of the fighting game community at large. The different ideas of fairness neither clash nor mesh. No one is invalidated, but nobody is right. Not even natural selection can take place here. The world is being engulfed in "balance." And this is the way the fighting game community ends. Not with a bang, but a whimper. We're trying to stop that from happening. It's our responsibility as rulers. Just as in genetics, unnecessary information and memory must be filtered out to stimulate the evolution of the competitive scene. Who else could wade through the sea of saltiness you people produce, retrieve proper critiques of fairness and even interpret their meaning for later generations? That's what it means to create context. I'll decide for myself what balance is! But is that even your own idea? Or something fighting game pros told you? That's the proof of your incompetence, right there. You lack the qualifications to play fighting games competitively. That's not true! I have the right -- Does something like a "fighting game fan" exist inside of you? That which you call a "fighting game fan" serves as nothing more than a mask to cover your own being. In this era of ready-made 'balance', "fighting game fan" is just something used to preserve those small achievements that you occasionally remember... Another possibility is that "fighting game fan" is a concept you conveniently borrowed under the logic that it would endow you with some sense of strength... That's crap! Is it? Would you prefer that someone else tell you? Alright then. "You're simply the best! And you got there all by yourself!" Oh, what happened? Do you feel lost? Why not try a bit of soul-searching? Ironic that although "balance" is something that you yourself fashioned, every time something goes wrong, you turn around and place the blame on something else. In denial, you simply resort to looking for another, more convenient "balance" in order to make yourself feel better. Leaving behind in an instant the so-called "balance" you once embraced. Should someone like that be able to decide what is "balance"? You've done nothing but abuse your freedom. You don't deserve to be free! We're not the ones smothering the world. You are. The age of patches has given even more power to the individual. Too much power for an immature brand of players. Building balanced involves figuring out what should and shouldn't be balanced. All this, you used to struggle with. Now, we balance for you. You want to control fighting game balance? Fighting game meta? Of course. Anything can be quantified nowadays. That's what this exercise was designed to prove. The SPFGP Plan... stands for Selection for Proper Fighting Game Players. Edit: The copypasta got extended to include the beginning part. Enjoy!

[@brunop.8745]

@@InfernoCleric384 *slow clap*

[@WuBrotherNumbaOne]

"play an honest and fair character and you will be lead to the holy land." - moses

[@NorthernNights-o3k]

Either pick an inoffensive mid-tier or a character so popular and horny that devs refuse to nerf them. And never play a grappler in a game with an arcade release.

[@TatsuMakiEd]

*laughs in churned butter

[@gwen9939]

A character so popular and horny that devs refuse to nerf them? So that's why sexy Goldlewis is so strong right now.

[@SaiKisaragi]

*laughs in Lab Coat 21, Juri, Chun-li and Lili*

[@brunop.8745]

Playing grapplers isn't about winning, it's about sending a message. And that message is **"POTEMKIN BUSTAAAAAAAAAAAAA"**

[@baconboi4482]

@@SolidFakenaw, everyone gotta play grapplers

[@thebrianjohn]

"pick an inoffensive mid-tier" , "you're competing with the devs" - Obama , thank you for this deep dive into the character select meta.

[@Zalozis]

Counter-point: play not the Mid-tier that never gets buffed, but the Low-tier character who always gets nerfed. Each amputation of your character's tools further battle-hardens you into an inevitable "do whatever it takes" playstyle to squeeze out a win. When the eventually buffs come 3-4 seasons in the future, they will know the hell you suffered...

[@nouvelle147]

Anji bros on their way to terrorize the ladder after fighting through God's toughest battles

[@MioKedama]

Zamasu coming from the depths of bottom tier to reign divine death upon everyone:

[@RockNRollWombat]

Sfv nash seasons 2-4?

[@slifer875]

Otacon: Snake!! what was she labbing for!? What am i labbing for!? What are you labbing for!? Snake: If we we make it through pools, i'll tell you.

[@n.harmonvilla7648]

The weight of this so true though...

[@alijahb1962]

hard as fuck

[@nailwind]

Sun Tzu definitely was a mid-tier picker

[@NeoBoneGirl]

Patch culture has changed things. You need to be able to play the 4D chess of knowing which characters are strong, weak, AND which characters will get complained about to the devs the most Real talk though Raven had the nerfs coming, any character that Kazunoko plays should be nerfed on the spot, that shit is a BAD sign for your character's balance

[@Pandaman64]

Never forget that bedman got nerfed while johnny got buffed.

[@rivendzi]

Outstanding move, lol.

[@Hazard_sys]

Shoutouts to Sega for keeping Akira consistently top tier for 20 years.

[@Robstafarian]

Did they make his execution easier, or did I finally get better?

[@Hazard_sys]

@@Robstafarian I'd definitely say Akira is easier in 5FS compared to 4FT but that's just across the whole cast.

[@mikaelamonsterland]

he's so cool

[@Robstafarian]

@@Hazard_sys Nice, I cannot get 4FT to run in Demul without Aoi's and Shun's models breaking the game.

[@Pragmag]

As a person who can't escape the inevitability of gravitating towards a mid-tier, this is solid advice. Most of the time you just get QoL buffs and it just makes playing the character even better. Thanks for the laughs Obama-san

[@themancalledben2731]

What's worse is when you aren't competitive and pick a character you genuinely like day one and it ends up being a top tier competitively. Now your character gets nerfed across the board to the point that its not even fun to play an arcade ladder with them. I've had that happen multiple times since the introduction of the "balance patch".

[@AFoolishPaper]

gaslight and downplay all characters but your own in a tier list discussion to avoid your character from getting any unwarranted attention 👍

[@moonmannd7501]

Information warfare

[@TheBabbager]

2 things. 1. The fastest I have EVER seen this happen was when Potemkin was seen as pretty strong in the last Strive beta, people made jokes about him and posted some funny clips on twitter etc. Then when they announced the character changes for when the game launched he was fucking GUTTED. All of his normals got massive hitbox nerfs and were slowed significantly. Arcsys is so scared of a grappler being even kind of good that it's genuinely mind boggling. 2. This is actually something that affects League of Legends REALLY hard. Patches in that game are once every 2 weeks, with very few exceptions. Most of the time it's just very minor number adjustments on damage but sometimes the balance team will just decide to turn a random character into a fucking god or completely annihilate someone. The way it goes is exactly like you said. Someone underperforms so they get hotfix buffed into the stratosphere and then EVERYONE plays them for a month before the balance team breaks their kneecaps again and they either become normal if you're lucky or useless if you're not. Because of this, unless someone is so good that you'd have to be stupid not to use them, a lot of pro players will just play simple, middle of the road champions that tend not to get a lot of attention- partly because easier execution makes it easier to focus on the other parts of the game, but partly because it's unlikely that the balance team will get any funny ideas about such innocuous characters with middling play and win rates. Funniest thing is, because League is F2P there are characters that make too much money because they're insanely popular so they will never, ever get the nerfs they probably deserve because management doesn't wanna make the players mad. Its formed a massive divide between people who see cool, strong champions with lots of fancy skins that will almost certainly remain strong and think "I'd have to be stupid not to pick this one." and people who go "If I have to play against this fucker one more time I'm going to Commit Atrocities." This also means that if a character is getting a skin soon, you can almost certainly expect them to get buffed to go along with it. It's not 1-1, but it happens often enough that people just accept it's a thing. TL;DR Arcsys is Big Boy phobic and League of Legends is a nightmare.

[@christopherwest671]

How the fuck has Camille not been meaningfully nerfed or fallen out of favor in top lane. Is she the Zato of top lane? That champion is clearly fucking absurd and at minimum A tier in nearly every meta. Her and Gangplank (though GP has more tough times if we go back to the early days) seem to avoid getting neutered.

[@BinBintheRiceCake]

I feel like riot does the exact opposite on release. Stuff that should have never left pbe goes live and then they "level them" after the honeymoon period.

[@JustOniWorks]

I can confirm. When I started up ranked on KOF, I went with Kula, Betty, and Krohnen, no fucking kidding. They're all fuckin' mauling right now, and I can feel the noose closing in. The nerfs won't stop me. Played Kula since '02UM. Try and stop me now, cowards.

[@t4d0W]

Even Kula on release was potent for a mid tier. I think the nerfs on her later would be more on damage than her newfound extensions. Krohnen may lose a few confirms but he'll still have that DP which was also part of his design on release. Betty been fine. She was a safe pick on release and her stability kept her useful after the patch.

[@blues4509]

Yeah we have nearly the same team. I've been playing Kula/Krohnen(Sometimes Shun'ei)/K' almost since release. Then the buffs came and two out of three of these picks are wild now. Not complaining but I know soon I'll be back to being one of the only Kula/Krohnens online in my area.

[@ZzigZaG00NIN]

You ain't sugiyama killed me I'd been trying to learn nerco from watching and dude really is on another level with it 💀

[@doogies]

hes a beast lmao

[@aruretheincomprehensible20]

Something else that helps this mentality is that devs are generally getting better at balancing their game. Picking a mid tier in a modern game doesn't hurt nearly as much as it did in older games because those mid tiers usually have enough good tools to compete with the stronger characters, whereas older games may have mid tiers that are absurdly overshadowed by SS tier and higher characters.

[@williampounds5191]

Pick the puppet character or other weirdo archetype like a Venom every time as long as they aren't complete ass tier. Weirdo characters like that get ignored or given an aura of respect due to their odd execution (even if it's not particularly difficult) and you're home free. Right now in Strive I'm pretty sure everyone agrees Zato is a solid top tier. Many people believe he's right below "The Enemy" characters, consistent showing in top 8s and even winning majors but he's been buffed every patch and STILL nobody bitching about him. Shout out to Ky and Ino in Strive too. War has changed but sometimes the battles be the exact same.

[@tatzeta]

spittin. Ky went back to being a mid tier for like two patches before going "im dippin" and getting buffed to the high heavens

[@it_me_lui]

Zato in XRD used to be top tier till he got gutted like a pig in a slaughterhouse.

[@kriemhild9425]

Puppets are super gamble actually whenever Zato is top tier next version he gets nerfed he was top tier in X and Rev1 and bottom tier in AC and Rev2 same with Carl in BlazBlue they are either super good or super bad

[@joaocorreia8052]

That literally only happens in strive and we don't know if that won't change, puppet characters have been rebalanced throughout FG history and some like rev2 zato until they are absolute trash

[@mazystarr]

ino got nerfed pretty bad last patch tbh

[@lilliangoulston5706]

I just play whatever character I enjoy the most and become a character specialist. That way, I can perform at least reasonably well regardless of how strong or weak the character is at any given moment.

[@WhensMahvel]

I'mma be real Majin, this is good advice, the meta in my personal view on the issue, is a popularity contest. You gotta play a character the public just likes and thinks is cool. I mained Katarina, a characer with bland buttons, limited high low mixup, and boarderline ineffective neutral. Best thing she has is some positive frames and some gimmicky jank all in season 1. Her head is just above water at mid to lower mid season 1. Season 2 rolls by Shorty is solid she got some actually decent tools they gave her the Electric Wind thot Fist, which was just ff2,4 but as a punish had to be executed like a Kazuya PEWGF, So pretty much a situational just frame. Took that away from the chick, so now we back to Season 1 without the emergency jank rescue lol. This character's win condition is just to be a snake oil salesman, you gotta really sell on the key points people don't know about cause playing this bitch is like riding a whip on 4 donuts wishing you stumble into a wheel. Mean-while Devil Jin has been living life for like 4 games now. The main constant: All the anti Katarina propaganda and 4444 memes. Nobody likes the bitch, casual competitive, w/e I get the side eye all the time playing this bitch lol. Naturally they put Katarina on a shirt, and I been fluctuating be tween her and Negan because of it.

[@SimpleJimmyBlueChip]

downplaying and shutting down twitter hate threads is one of the most important skills as a fighting game player nowadays

[@mort3562]

You want the theoretical high tier, the one everyone says is crazy but no one actually plays. Those kinds of characters never get touched and remain theoretically obscene

[@espeonage4522]

The Gen of SF4, or the Ginyu of DBZF. The weirder the character, the better. They will receive buff after buff and nobody will care because they do not get played anyway

[@neo-giu]

Fucking Angel in KOF No one plays her but she is goddamn crazy good, will probably never get nerfed

[@ShadowCoH316]

I stuck with Ryu and Cody in SF4 for this reason. Picked up Adon later for fun, but no matter how good he really was he was VERY unpopular, so no one was complaining. My trip through that game was smooth sailing.

[@Venomousse]

You've exposed my strat. The solid high-mid is what I look for in every game. Strong enough to be competetive but just weak enough to fly under the radar when people bitch about the "broken" characters. Venom is my boy. Don't usually have to worry about buffs or nerfs, just get to enjoy the game.

[@JG_Minnit]

This is why I'm still having fun with Tekken: Armor King went from B tier to A+ just because everyone said he sucked and was mid tier at best.

[@AnBi_]

It's usually pretty easy to learn characters in new games. The actual strat is: Don't get attached

[@kyokusada4825]

I believed in this mentality. Daisuke still murdered my boy Durag. Ky was inoffensive at launch but he slowly getting buffed to the Throne. I wonder what KOF looks like in this regard because I'm convinced NO ONE is safe in this new gen of fighters.

[@DuvJones]

Honestly I think you're right. Which is probably why picking mid-tier is better, at the very least if nerfs do come around it won't be egregious (unless the devs really hate that character, or fgc Twitter).

[@olzarius]

I love this, and it was my mentality for a while. But I think this is now the last era. War has changed again. And the way every game is getting so balanced now (OG Goldlewis winning, Rangchu winning TWT with Panda), I truly believe we are approaching the era where you can pick any character you want. Tiers will soon mean nothing but views for content creators. You heard it hear first

[@Punishment90]

This is honestly probably the best advice you can give to anyone that is serious about playing fighters. The constant patches and dev favoritism is just the reality now.

[@dylanreeves4339]

Meanwhile in Melty Blood: "You get a buff, you get a buff, you get a buff, everyone gets a buff! YourstillgettingfuckedbyVlovthough." Mid-tiers also have their biggest selling point, and that's consistency. Across all patches, the low and high consistently have to adapt to a new game plan. Mid-tiers though will (theoretically) have the same general game plan. If you suck at fighting games (like me) and don't want to change your approach to the game, pick a mid-tier. Also, everyone expects a top-tier and they kind of make stupid mistakes when fighting a mid-tier.

[@buddhaboy10000]

Man Obama is right. Even when rangchu won tekken world Tour with panda, next patch they nerfed her. Even though bears are considered low tier. Damn majin Obama third eye is most definitely open.

[@paxcaster]

bruh, amazing video not sure how people feel about this but imo devs should stop listening to player feedback when it comes to balance; just observe the game for like 2 years and make a new version that you think resolves the core issues you identify. there's just not a lot of time between patches for top tier counterplay to become more widespread, which will naturally shift the balance on a meta level without affecting the game itself. it creates this pattern of "oh, this guy's top tier, he's winning, so i will just wait for the nerfs instead of developing any counterplay"

[@chillaxboi2109]

I'm not paying a 120 for a singular entity.

[@63skarduken]

a lot of player feedback is just sheeple echoing the words of their favourite player anyway

[@Joltman11]

No balance changes for 2 years is a good way to kill a game. I played TFH for a while, that game had balance patches every 15 or so months and that was too slow for most of the playerbase and the online population suffered massively because of it. Game got stale and people got tired of losing to the same shit over and over again. Lots of really obvious issues with the game not getting fixed because of how long it was in between actual changes. And that was a small game with a passionate and niche audience where the long wait between patches could be justified by the small dev team, there's no way that shit would fly with a bigger game that had a larger dev team working on it and a community that's more willing to bitch about stuff they don't like. Beyond that, the nature of fighting game releases has changed. Even 10 or so years ago, new fighting games would usually get an Arcade release 6 months to sometimes even several years before the "official" home console release where they could figure out the mechanics and balance the game before the masses got to play it. These days, games get one or two betas before release and then it's out there. These days, outside of games that don't change much from previous entries, most fighting games are released in a rough state with the plan being to fix the game later. There really aren't any games being put out these days that are released in a state where they can be left alone for 2 years and have things be fine. Then there's DLC. What happens if a new character comes out and they're extremely over/underpowered? You just let them rock for over a year? Imagine if it took 18 months for Leroy or Labcoat 21 to be nerfed.

[@AchedSphinx]

unlikely they'll slow patch culture anytime soon. if a popular game gets a new patch, it's basically free marketing and puts the game back in gaming news headlines. that's why if you want a game to maintain consistent success, you gotta keep the consumer constantly thinking about it in some small way so they're willing to keep playing it. it's probably one of the reasons fighting games suffer in the mainstream now that I think about it. if a fighting game is too slow with their patches, people forget about it, so to hold things over they release new characters or something to keep people thinking about getting steamrolled by more ram buffs.

[@63skarduken]

@@AchedSphinx “You have to understand that balance is not just about the competitive side, it’s about sales.” -Markman

[@DaxWyvrn]

When I choose a main in any FG, I have always had and kept this sentiment as my guiding ethos. Just happens to always be the characters I enjoy the most anyway. It's ridiculous when those same mid-tiers eventually becomes top-tier by the end of the game's life cycle because the characters preceding them are slowly nerfed into oblivion.

[@axsprime]

My slight counter argument is that the discrepancy between tiers is nowhere near as bad as it use to be back in the day, so nine times out of ten if you pick a top tier and they get hit with the bat you'll still be eating good likewise if you pick a low tier your character is nowhere near as bad as they could be due to them getting buffed. That being said the mid tier is still the safest choice,

[@Darksoul9669]

Gonna pick low tiers so I can pretend I improved after 3 months and buffs.

[@ClexYoshi]

I wish games at the end of their life cycle would do the Hyper SF2/Ultra SF4 where it's like, "Guess what? we kept masters of each version of the game and now we're gonna let you play as ANY VERSION OF THE CHARACTER YOU WANT!" because this video... this video hurts me so badly.

[@imaslusho]

My strat has always been to pick a character with a good toolkit rather than looking at tiers. Unless a character is unplayably bad, you can't really take away the things that make the character. I definitely DONT pick a low tier ever though.

[@kylematthiesen410]

The true meta is to pick a low tier. I redact my previous statement, what you actually need to do is pick the character that the influencers are playing and downplaying that's the wave.

[@yosha101]

I'm not a play to win type, so I just gravitate to the character that SPEAKS to me. This has landed me all over the "Tier List (tm)" but as long as I sink the time to learn a character, I can do fine with them. This is also a change with more recent games, even the shittest character can function, while in old games... well... we know THOSE bottom tiers, like, can't fuckin play game bottom tiers, like, you aren't even playing the same game bottom tiers; Just glad that, at the very least, if you like a character, there is NO chance they are ALMOST QUITE LITERALLY unplayable.

[@cylondorado4582]

I’ve noticed this too and think it’s kind of annoying. I usually go with who I like, but it’s!stressful when I think they might get nerfed, but there’s hope of they’re low tier. The worst thing is not knowing how it’s gonna go, since some characters still stay bad or good.

[@rensten4893]

I remember when they did this exact same thing in Starcraft. There's only three different armies to choose from with multiple ways to influence your build order. And the forum wars were all about how OP this was in early, middle, or late game. The struggle between patches was real...

[@ricardoludwig4787]

Also weird thing is in smash ultimate, even in the final patch, we have had multiple of the best players in the game dropping their top tiers and having better results after picking a worse character. Mkleo dropped the top 2 joker for the mid tier byleth and is having one of the most dominant periods in his career. Spargo dropped the top 5 aegis for his old main Cloud, and now he's the number 2 player in the world, having beaten all of his demons at least once

[@BinBintheRiceCake]

Byleth was mid tier? I felt like she was always a low high at least.

[@DuvJones]

to be fair smash is unique. In that Sakurai basically does what he wants... it's partly why the Tekken Team works specifically on balancing and Bug fixing. Sakurai cares very little about the competitive tier lists and the Twitter chatter around his game.

[@jjrambles683]

@@BinBintheRiceCake Byleth is still high-mid if only because there are so many other characters that do what they do better and it's pushes them down. Like why pick byleth when you can choose Palu or pythra or lucina

[@Van5195]

I think this is good advice even for casual players. If you pick a mid/high tier who doesn't get messed with too much, you can have fun mastering one character who may even end up in a pretty good spot by the end of the game's cycle. Top professionals have no problem dealing with the churn, but for a casual player who only has so much time, a character nerf can feel like too much of a blow to want to invest time back into the learning cycle for a different character. Also a reason why I feel it's generally better to buff rather than nerf. DBFZ is one of my most played FGs as a casual player, and one of the things that kept me coming back was the fact that I was always able to have A21 as a baseline because she only ever stayed the same or got better. The most time I spent away from the game was when SSJ Goku got nerfed and I had to figure out how I wanted to rearrange my team. Basically pick a mid tier, but the devs could help by trying to gradually raise up the weaker characters instead of pull down the stronger ones. I'd rather have characters grow in strength around me than be put in the dirt.

[@KittSpiken]

"Hard execution" Seems to be less about the character and more about the player. If an old head is playing a technical character that slaps, they'll probably get the "hard execution" pass. If it's some punk kid no one's heard of? Technical proficiency be damned, that character is cheap af.

[@DarkstarZenith]

This shit happened with me and strive. Picked Sol in the beginning and everyone on twitter had a conniption so arcsys proceeded to nerf and change his combo structure every single patch.

[@RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS77]

I think you touched on this in an older video, but this stuff makes me feel like I just want to play an old game where all my knowledge doesn't get thrown in the trash every couple of months. I guess this is the problem with being somewhere in the middle; I'm not a total casual but I'm not hardcore enough to keep abreast of constant changes.

[@Doyoulike4]

Mid tiers and also unpopular high tiers are the secret sauce in newer games. Even in older games you'll still have good tools and people may have less matchup knowledge.

[@tysonxavierz]

Absolutely solid video! The thought process was very interesting and you had me laughing throughout. Love your content!

[@doogies]

Thanks for coming through man

[@gigawhopper]

Now unironically patches make you stick with what you love and/or play everyone and LEARN the game. Not just your character. But no matter what you'll always learn through time commitment.

[@zenzaga2490]

i pick low tiers for the street cred and nothin else. if i lose, its bc my char weak, and the matchup is 9-1, and i was laggin, and that was really my lil bro on the sticks

[@FavoriteSniper]

9:00 That’s the thing, people will always complain about something regardless of tier. I’ve seen this happen in LoL, Paladins and even in some shootergames. The more people interact with something, the higher chance they’ll complain about because they will find an excuse to why they lost by blaming everything but themselves. This really shows in pokemon online battles. People get salty and call low tier pokemon OP when their team of legendaries get wiped by a single magikarp kek at least that’s my thoughts on that part of the discussion

[@ZeroKitsunei]

IMO just pick a chara you like. If they have a play style you vibe with that will take you further that looking at tier lists. My friend who got me into fighting games played Q in 3S. While I played Chun and Ken (been playing them since SF2). Think I've won a handful of games in the 20 something years we've been playing. He is just that good with Q. Not that he wouldn't have been easier with a higher tier chara, he just likes him. Unless you're the top 1% where you're fighting people that aren't missing 99% of their combos and stuff. You'll be fine. I see people in ladder with high ranks that drop while playing top tier. You might have to work a little harder at it, but I think it's worth it.

[@alexlovehall7796]

Honestly this is a problem. I love your video and your voice to shine light on this and you bring up some good points. Real talk, this overtuning and Twitter patching is a issue. Now I like devs making adjustments and having support, tho this is OVERKILL is ruins playing characters and what makes someone weak or strong. Ima have to make my own video on this topic

[@doogies]

lookin forward to it

[@salvatorenoth2489]

"You're competing with the Devs!" Wisdom. Sounded a bit like Lord Aris there.

[@user-bkey]

this is actually a good mindset to have rn i really wish devs werent so weird with patches though because i want everyone to be able to enjoy their character to the fullest when they did the patch for dbfz that gave everyone 3 assists i was on hopium for patches because everyone kinda became viable in some way and they were buffing some weaker characters too, but now it just seems like the changes are back to buff characters the devs think are cool or its just make the cast really dumb

[@MechaTengu21]

Thankfully, I'm a pervert and I just pick whoever I think is the cutest. You guys can rage war on them frame datas and discuss about meta shit by yourselves.

[@belinskiparadox7687]

Fighting games then: Pick a top tier Fighting games now: Pick a low tier and wait for them to get buffed

[@kiticanax1421]

While I can understand the pick a top-tier mentality, it isn't uncommon even for old solved games to have their tier lists change a bit to have lower tier characters much more viable. Such as Pikachu in Melee or Third Strike's modern tier list being a bit more diverse than say the 2000s.

[@KittSpiken]

I wanna see FGC false flags posting Twitter combos and brigading against a character that's a hard match up for your main.

[@faceurhell]

Picking a mid tier is like being mildly popular in high school but not tied to any cliques. You can do whatever with the jocks, nerds, stoners, party maniacs, hipsters, whomever, no one bats an eye. You don’t lose social status, you don’t have social pressures, you don’t gonna suffer with the group, you just do you.

[@GGus776]

I think patch culture favors those that can pick up characters quickly. If you can easily switch to top tier every patch you eatin until the game goes out of style. For boomers like me that need months to learn a bnb, mid tier is the way to go until the last patch.

[@BadoorSNK]

Damn, I feel so seen lol. But yeah you do have a point. & it can be tiring to learn a new character every patch, or even to relearn your mains combos, setups, & tools that were changed for one reason or another. In some way it makes me anticipate when a game’s dev support ends, as the stability & finality of it can be comforting. After that moment, no big damage crazy combo, or cool oki setup, or insanely good neutral tool you learn to use will have that ominous cloud hanging about, dampening some of the excitement cause you know deep down in your gut it’ll be nerfed. I know I can enjoy my stinger YRCs for the rest of my life.

[@kenshin2820]

I think the real path for anyone who takes fighting game(s) serious in this day and age is still pick a top tier while having a competent under the radar mid-tier as your pocket. It’s quite doable too considering many FGs are rather accessible nowadays

[@MarioDiciple]

Simple pick a character that the "community" finds neat and cool. Like a disabled kid in a school. If you really took a look at it youd be suspicious of whats going on but whos going to be the guy who says the kid with the bad dp has it good.

[@toastandbutter7]

Picking legacy characters like Ryu and Jin are super safe It is rare for characters like them to get nerfed and skills cleanly transfer between games. They also tend to show up in all entries of the series within the base roster

[@ZarytheMovies]

I'll never get tired of watching games where the players are character specialists like Gear (Xrd). No matter where the character is in a tierlist the players will try their best to perform with their character and it's the hypest shit when they succeed. It never gets old watching different players play the same character because no two players have the same tricks

[@doogies]

Def less of a thing these days, unfortunately

[@rivendzi]

That was the reason I got into fgs.

[@elegy8187]

The real strat if you want to win is pick a top-tier thats braindead easy to learn, not a top-tier who's hard or technical. Then when they nerf them just pick another top-tier who's braindead easy

[@hunterbanks3746]

The worst is picking a mid tier on paper since they're cool and they turn out to be Nagoriyuki. Luckily Daisuke loves him and he hasn't been dusted yet

[@tylerpayne4138]

this is why I'm glad I got into MBAACC and Xrd years later...no more patches/new versions to worry about lmao

[@aramondehasashi3324]

I'm a big character loyalist when I comes to fighting games and it has been a pain in the ass when the character i like is low tier which has happened a lot. Just got to remind myself its my fault for being so attached to one character. What sucks is I did pick an inoffensive mid tier in MKX (Warlock Quan Chi) and still got shit on because Quan's other variations were stupid good. Because of variation system if one move was shared between all three variations when they nerfed that move it affected all three variations! To make this long comment short by the end of the game's life Warlock got nerfed because of a universal mechanic was nerfed and that's all he had and they didn't give him anything to compensate for that loss. I hate the variations and f*ck you Paulo and still salty over that! lol

[@Countdownsmiles]

Character loyalty is the truth. Anybody placing well in tournaments just because they play krohnen now will one day pay the price for their sins. Character loyalty will lead you to the promised land

[@mazystarr]

mortal kombat doesn't count passed umk3, we r talking about valid competitive fighting games.

[@CIOTECHSFX]

@@mazystarr no one asked

[@mazystarr]

@@CIOTECHSFX your mom asked, but she was too big for me

[@akoyash9964]

@@mazystarr based

[@TheDeadTexan]

I think that strategy is good for something like KoF where you can focus on a mid-tier and sandwich them with some top tiers to further downplay what you're really all about. KoF's patches have been a little heavy handed for the stronger characters in the game. They're not really about bringing them to fair status, but to just outright delete them and make others better by comparison. Not a strategy that really works for me, but I'm just a spectator for the game since I'm not giving SNK money until they fix the matchmaking. I haven't played in any sort of competitive scene for a fighting game in over 20 years, and have enjoyed just picking up a game a lot more than to worry about the meta for every encounter I have with a game I enjoy. Even that's not safe from certain patches and updates to games, though. When Marvel 3 was announced I was hype as hell for it, especially since they were bringing back Tron. I picked her all the time, and loved losing but having fun. Then started noticing that everyone online and in person was picking her too and didn't know why. Invincible assist. Little did I know that this single advantage would cement her doom in UMvC3. Not only was invincible assist gone, but general use was just scaled down and made harder and essentially made her a gimmick character when people Vergil, Zero, Spencer, Nova etc were all allowed to exist as is. TL;DR Nagoriyuki got buffed.

[@GBFGO-PLAYER]

that snippet of the video you uploaded on twitter had me in tears, so I knew I had to watch/listen to the entire thing. jokes aside, great video as always.

[@patriotic54]

"Real Guilty Gear" Bless ya Obama! You understand

[@BknMoonStudios]

*_"You're not even competing against other players or yourself anymore. You're competing with the devs."_*

[@HS_Gomikubi]

Year and a half later, Majin was absolutely correct about Jenet meanwhile Chizuru is still flying under the radar since nobody who reached the final stage at Evo was playing her. That may change in the future, the next series of big events is on the horizon so it remains to be seen...

[@bluegrave4376]

I'm sure from my profile pic, you can tell who I main in kof. When he came out during the Ralf, Vanessa, Terry era, I thought I was picking the mid tier. But now he's considered one of the top so I'm praying that I turn out to be the baby being coddled in this scenario

[@galesturms]

Picked up Ram in Rev 2 cause I thought Lucifero was cute and the swords were cool, wasn't up on tiers or anything just vibing with the kit, went to a random local and felt like I triggered some form of PTSD or shock in those dudes.

[@rivendzi]

Ramlethal in Xrd is actually fun and interesting character with drawbacks compared to braindead gorilla in Strive.

[@guilhermeberbert]

i played guy in sf4 and kolin/zeku in 5. so it was smooth sailing during both games lifespan. all characters are strong, but flew under the radar for most of the time. zeku is actually ridiculous and only got buffed during the years. kolin up until the arcade edition was just okay, but as soon as vt2 came out, she became top tier. her buttons were obscene, her damage was bonkers, and she has good health. then this last patch they nerfed a bunch of options, but her gameplan didn't change and you just gotta use vt2 dash intelligently for once. you just can't ZOOP ZOOP around the screen anymore. for kof15, i agree with you. at first i was running iori, beni and chizuru just because i love all 3 characters and played them all the time in every game they'be been (plus, beni and iori are almost never truly bad). but i know beni and chizuru are stupdly strong as of july'22. i know at least one of them are getting the nerf hammer next patch. i need to find at least one new character for the team.

[@nixedification]

Great vid! Something I like alot about strive and KOF is that picking a new character is so damn easy. So if your character has some bad matchups you can just pick someone and be tournament ready in a few weeks. This is something I like even more in the discord era, where I can just run into the axl cord or some other general strive cord and ask someone to run a set. War has changed, moving forward I really expect games like strive and DNF to require players to have secondaries at the top level.

[@cameronchattic9278]

I’ve been preaching this for forever. I don’t go on twitter so when news about twitter complaints get to me I know that whatever game I’m playing it’s time to switch up my strategy cause the devs are marching in.

[@EllaEllaAudios]

That's why you just pick whoever is your favourite, the tier list doesn't even matter because next week it could be an entirely different video game and the time you put into a bad character might be rewarded... For a week and then they get nerfed again. Or then your already bad character gets nerfed even more (I love League of Legends)

[@johndissociative8331]

Holy shit, my PTSD still kicks in when I hear Johnny's Xrd battle music.

[@johan662]

Sometimes you get lucky and they buff a top 10 character to top 3. Or those mid/high tier characters become top tiers

[@Gpop119]

Meanwhile Ramon was buffed from bottom tier to bottom tier. When will they do my man justice

[@rivendzi]

Devs be like: But buff is buff!

[@Tophbbq]

Godlike advice for some games but maybe not Strive because they still keep buffing my girl Ram LOL I feel like "reading the devs" is becoming a real skill in fighting games

[@doogies]

strive ram and nago are the baby for this game I think. ASW Balancing always has a baby... and yeah I agree. Dev reading but also being able to peep which influencers devs like the best, because you can be sure their characters will be spared an ill fate...

[@Tophbbq]

@@doogies word and btw meant to say This thumbnail is game changing ROFLLL

[@giefhoward8381]

War has changed. Influenced players use influencer characters, wear influencer gear.

[@xtremesonictheking1498]

Pretty much experiencing this with millia in strive right now. New patch dropped and she's buffed. Now we wait to see if she gets results and in turn nerfs. Never thought about it before but you spitting straight facts.

[@Pandaman64]

Don't worry. The top was buffed enough that millia isn't gonna get any attention. Ky on the other hand....hmm. you know? Hmm.

[@TheCrimsonCat89]

Me, a Ky main in Strive: *playing Girls Just Wanna Have Fun while drinking mimosas Me, a Ghostblade in DNF Duel: O.O

[@LiteralmenteFadul]

I'm loving how nobody can win shit with jamie in sf6 even tho he is actually really decent, because next year he's going to be taking names and I'll just be able to say "90% scaling bro"

[@zensei5659]

‘You wanna win in 3 months time? Pick an inoffensive mid tier yo’

[@soba.]

Never enjoyed a video so much despite having only a surface level familiarity with the subject matter. Your energy is infectious

[@doogies]

Glad ya enjoyed

[@IbanezNinja]

when the sandford kelly pick a top tier video came out balance patches were basically non existent, they were being released as different versions of the game. you would occasionally see stuff adjusted in an online balance patch (sentinel getting his health nerfed in vanillia marvel 3) but for the most part they let shit ride until the next release version

[@doogies]

that is the point of the video yes

[@giangole]

that's why there should be only 1 patch at year for fgs, capcom does that correctly, they have the pro tour patches comes out at the end of each one than that's it, at max some minor stuff.

[@DJMizzy]

I woke up this morning humming the outro music you use for your videos but I can’t pinpoint what it is. It’s so funky. I need to hear the whole thing

[@doogies]

Neon night riders

[@meddlingmage23]

Remember 3S? Chun was and still is a monster. No nerfs. People just adapted over 20 years. People still love the game 24 years later. Lol, I played I-no in Xrd.

[@doogies]

Yeah thats an old game with no updates man

[@Dude902]

This really rings true for SFV. I am just thinking of Cody, Alex, Falke, Ed, all getting better/new moves in the last patch. Zangief kept getting placed really solid A tier for ages and I knew my main Gief was destined to end low tier. My hope for SF6 is not for green hand to come back or for better SPD, I just want a grounded, mild, wrestling-inspired moveset with slight hints of the past playstyle that won’t piss off anyone.

[@Imanifestchaos]

Obama sensei of FGC wisdom. I require your merciful and magnanimous insight. I play three archetypes, Puppets, Shotos ( or Main Characters) , and Zoners. Am I safe from the ever fickle community outrage or the unforgiving tides of patches? Should I continue unto my path or should I look for greener pastures. Your generosity and benevolence is appreciated in advance.