GG:AC Official Tier List Thread

[rtl42]

sorry that this is a little late, but next time, please make a separate thread for discussing tier lists for old games. there's nothing wrong with such a topic, and it's better than posting in here, which is for AC tier discussion.

[Blade]

Here's a question for the experts: Assuming people were to start getting good at Slashbacking, would that affect the tiers any?

[faultydefense]

Yes, if everyone slashbacked and throwbreaks, no one would ever attack, thus the tiers are perfectly even.

[Digital Watches]

It would probably best help characters who don't otherwise have a lot of options for getting out of pressure. I could see Slashbacking at key moments in strings giving some characters outs they wouldn't have otherwise had (or that would otherwise have been really risky).

[Donutholes]

Yes, if everyone slashbacked and throwbreaks, no one would ever attack, thus the tiers are perfectly even.

There was a youtube vid of a Johnny player SBing one of Eddie's unblockables. However, he had to SB twice in a row, one for low and then one for the high so he could block low again. I think it was the FB drill and little Eddie D set up.

[Klaige]

In theory Eddie grows even stronger because his one weakness is that once he is put on the defensive, he essentially has to block and eat pressure. Give him a surefire way out of that and he's potentially far stronger than he is now. Otherwise yes, characters like Venom, Dizzy, Johnny, etc who lack pressure breaks would definatly get a little stronger defensively, by the same token, characters rely on pure pressure based offense could develope more difficult matches. Basically there would be movement, but nothing that jumps a C rank to S-A rank or vice versa. Also considering the game has been out over 2 years in japan now, and we aren't seeing slashback become a huge part of the game, I don't think it will ever be an issue.

[Spirit Juice]

After two years, I'd say the game has reached it's peak in evolving anyways.

[Teyah]

GGXXAC has been out for 1 year and 10 months. There was plenty of shifting between years 2 & 3 of #Reload, the same may happen for AC. We'll just have to wait and see.

[TITANIUM BEAST!!!]

I see Slashback get used a decent bit in some matches, it's more likely that Japanese players avoid doing moves/patterns that would result in easy Slashbacks. What prevents it from becoming a huge part of the game is the high risk involved. It requires great execution and if you guess wrong you get hurt really badly. In addition, the way Slashback works, simply Slashbacking something doesn't guarantee you anything in some situations. This is in sharp contrast to a game like 3S where parrying gives you a free punish in almost every situation. You also cannot SB on wakeup, which means the system mechanic has no effect on characters with strong oki.

[Light_Nazgul]

Testament would stay strong from poison, good throw combos, and strong oki. I think Potemkin would be the strongest with slashback into potemkin busters and his oki is strong after the knockdown.

[Spirit Juice]

GGXXAC has been out for 1 year and 10 months. There was plenty of shifting between years 2 & 3 of #Reload, the same may happen for AC. We'll just have to wait and see.

And what "plenty of shifting" was that? Low tier characters moving around a bit? By the end of year two the tier list was pretty well defined, with low tier not even really mattering how much they moved up and down considering how bad they were compared to the good characters in the game. I highly doubt the top eight characters in AC will move from their positions, while characters B-D rank will possibly shift.

[Hintalove]

Its a fact. No ammount of exploring character potential is going to turn Ino into Slayer. This thread gets less and less relevant as time marches on. The longer we play the game, the more we learn the matches, and the less tiers matter in the end. Sure there is theory fighter to be had, and all the bs, but at the end of the day you know how to fight against eddie better than he knows how to fight against you thats all that matters. Statistically you should lose more times than win, but those numbers just represent an average. 2 years down the road, I still hate putting my quarters in against eddie. I don't think any shift in the tiers is going to make me feel better about that. edit: Oh, forgot to mention that yes, slashback is developing. Plenty of japanese players will sb you if you get ultra predictable. Blacksnake does the same stuff.

[qwerty]

And what "plenty of shifting" was that? Low tier characters moving around a bit? By the end of year two the tier list was pretty well defined, with low tier not even really mattering how much they moved up and down considering how bad they were compared to the good characters in the game. I highly doubt the top eight characters in AC will move from their positions, while characters B-D rank will possibly shift.

millia (previously a tier) and many of the formerly b tiers have all been demoted to c tier, for whatever that's worth.

eventually, we'll probably see an opposite fluctuation. anything between s and d tier is pretty much fair game at this point.

but at this point, fuck making new tier lists- where the hell is a decent matchup chart?

[Teyah]

And what "plenty of shifting" was that? Low tier characters moving around a bit? By the end of year two the tier list was pretty well defined, with low tier not even really mattering how much they moved up and down considering how bad they were compared to the good characters in the game. I highly doubt the top eight characters in AC will move from their positions, while characters B-D rank will possibly shift.

Dizzy (#5) & Sol (#8) bumped from the top 8 to strictly mid-tier (with Venom/Faust moving up to take their places), Slayer demoted from #2 to #4, Millia rising from #6 to #3, Robo moving down a bit as well. The gap between S&A (Eddie, Jam, Millia) & the rest became much wider. And then all that 'low tier characters moving around a bit'. I thought you were around for this.

Anyway, this is an AC tier thread not a #R tier thread. As we can see from the latest tier list changes are still happening and it'd be quite silly to assume that the tiers are set in stone, so long as the game is still being played.

[Spirit Juice]

I probably wasn't aware of this because Slash was announced at that point. No one really gave two shits about #R after that and any further tier developement was irrelevant. :o

[Hellmonkey]

The main reason for tiers "shifting" is because the amount of people who care enough to give input gets reduced drastically, the list just become more biased toward those that remain. The tiers for ac especially are too close to define well in the first place, this "shift" is expected and doesn't have any significance.

[Teyah]

You've just explained what happens as a game ages. Those top players who remain active in the scene are in the best position to tier the characters and so they do, while those who drift away from the game decide not to (and don't have the ability to do so accurately).

[Hellmonkey]

Quite the contrary, the players who understand that there is no benefit to discuss tiers and have stopped doing so include a majority of active players who have the ability to do so. There is very little new to add to the the discussion at this point besides recent results, and the best argument that can be made regarding those is that the tiers are extremely close and any character has the ability to win.

[Destin]

I generally think tiers are not as close as some people seem to be making them out to be, and are more important in the American tournament system, as opposed to the Japanese one. That being said, whats the point in talking about it?

[Teyah]

Quite the contrary, the players who understand that there is no benefit to discuss tiers and have stopped doing so include a majority of active players who have the ability to do so.

How do you know this? Right now you're just telling us what you think Japanese people are thinking regarding this subject, which is not objective at all. Please provide some proof if you can. That is, actual records of several Japanese top players stating that tiers are irrelevant and not worth discussing.

I generally think tiers are not as close as some people seem to be making them out to be, and are more important in the American tournament system, as opposed to the Japanese one. That being said, whats the point in talking about it?

I would say that discussing tiers is useful, because unlike the game engine, combo system, etc, tiers are not set it stone and change as players find optimal ways of playing each character. This thread is also a good way to outline the strengths/weaknesses of each character relative to the rest of the cast to newer players, and to answer related questions.

[Discotheque]

Saying that tiers are so close together and that discussing them are useless is kinda... dumb. As much as people say AC is balanced and that certain characters can beat another character as long as the players are good, there are pretty much only 2,3 players in those specific characters that can actually reliably pull this off. Yes, unlike other fighters GGXX is much, much more match-up dependent than straight out character traits, but saying that there is negligible difference between S tier and D tier is absolutely misinforming. How often do we see a Johnny, Bridget, Chipp players beat the top players of Eddie, Testa, Slayer? I can only like name like 4-5. And 4-5 players doesn't really account for the thousands of guys who play this at a much "lower" level. I personally rather discuss more 3 vs. 3 team team "tiers," though I can kinda see how the team set-up would look like (lol Eddie, Testa, Bakiken team)

[Hellmonkey]

How do you know this? Right now you're just telling us what you think Japanese people are thinking regarding this subject, which is not objective at all. Please provide some proof if you can. That is, actual records of several Japanese top players stating that tiers are irrelevant and not worth discussing.

The proof is the absence of said discussion. I challenge you to find recent meaningful discussion on GGAC tiers anywhere. The threads that were extremely active with said discussion are nowhere to be found these days.

With a quick look at the wiki:

GGXXAC(アクセントコア)のキャラランクについて

* 基本的に全キャラが強いので、ある程度はキャラバランスが取れています。が、事故の起こりやすさからランクとしては色々ぶっ壊れているという気がします。

o 実際は明確にランク分け出来るほど、キャラ性能に大きな差がない(少なくとも青リロ-SLASHほど上と下の格差は酷くない)調整です。

+ 繰り返しますが、プレイヤー性能次第でキャラ差はいくらでも覆せます。

o 「全キャラが強い」というのは「全キャラに『一定状況-条件下において爆発的火力-圧倒的有利状況が生み出せる』スペックがある」って感じです。

* ACでは全てのキャラに高火力コンボや高い性能の必殺技があるので、全ては相性とプレイヤー次第です。

A quick translation:

"Basically, every character is strong. To a certain extent the characters are totally balanced. The main reason being that various things related to ranking the characters are broken it seems.

- In reality, for being able to make distinctions between tiers, there is no big difference between the characters. (at least not nearly as badly at reload or slash)

--- it's just repeating but, depending on player's strength any possible amount of difference between their characters can be overturned.

- "All characters are strong" as in "All characters, without denial, have either huge damage or other methods of giving themselves an overwhelming advantage" it seems.

In AC every character has combos that do big damage or other areas of strength, in the end it depends on the affinity with the player."

Satisfied?

[jabhadouken]

Dizzy (#5) & Sol (#8) bumped from the top 8 to strictly mid-tier (with Venom/Faust moving up to take their places), Slayer demoted from #2 to #4, Millia rising from #6 to #3, Robo moving down a bit as well. The gap between S&A (Eddie, Jam, Millia) & the rest became much wider. And then all that 'low tier characters moving around a bit'. I thought you were around for this.

Anyway, this is an AC tier thread not a #R tier thread. As we can see from the latest tier list changes are still happening and it'd be quite silly to assume that the tiers are set in stone, so long as the game is still being played.

<blink>

Millia got booted up to #3?

I thought the tops were:

Edweirdo, Testi, Slew-ya, Bluntbuster, Prolly, Broken, & Hi-Hi-Puffie-I'm-A-Too-Cheap?

[Hintalove]

I believe they were discussing tiers irrelevant to this thread, causing great confusion to all.

[reaVer]

Saying that tiers are so close together and that discussing them are useless is kinda... dumb.

As much as people say AC is balanced and that certain characters can beat another character as long as the players are good, there are pretty much only 2,3 players in those specific characters that can actually reliably pull this off.

Yes, unlike other fighters GGXX is much, much more match-up dependent than straight out character traits, but saying that there is negligible difference between S tier and D tier is absolutely misinforming. How often do we see a Johnny, Bridget, Chipp players beat the top players of Eddie, Testa, Slayer? I can only like name like 4-5.

First of all, you can't build a tierlist around non-serious players. The top level is generally serious about how they play and they tend to be best in detecting actual game balance.

So how often do we see bottom tiers beat top tiers? Often enough, just look at SBO where not a single S tier character made it to the final, the highest was A tier Slayer, B tier May and B tier Venom. Not to mention that there was in fact a D tier present there.

Don't forget there's also a plentiful of very good players we don't even get to see because their matches aren't getting recorded. People barely see KZO for example, but he was able to kick Ogawa's ass as if Ogawa was just a noob during the 23on23 the last year. Another example would be Ruu beasting during the 23on23.