People don't know what a D tier character looks like anymore, let alone F tier. Go look at Servbot in MVC2 and consider that he's in the same game as Magneto (practical infinite on the whole cast, 1f low) and Storm (it's Storm). Now consider that Servbot may not be the worst character in that game. That's a grim tier list.
@Konakon izumi Well it's just so close to what the stereotypical "millia complainer" says I assumed you had to be joking. Like it hits all the same beats of someone trying to parody your exact viewpoint.
@Konakon izumi look pal I'm not reading any of that. The way I see it, you can either continue to complain about your character which does nothing but make everyone around you roll their eyes or you can suck it up and play the best you can possibly play. I'm no stranger to playing a bottom one character, but I didn't go aroud on the internet saying "little mac sucks they need to buff him" because ultimately it made no difference. The devs could buff him tomorrow, or they could never buff him. At some point, the balance patches stop coming and you just have to take the L and try to be the best player you can be or pick another character.
@@cooperlittlehales6268 you must have never met this man before. He isn't "stereotypical millia complainer." he is THE millia complainer. he is the Daigo of millia complaining. if there was a tier list for millia complaining, hes in SSS+ tier while the next up is in F tier. if millia is in a video, hes in the comments complaining, and if millia isnt in the video hes probably still complaining. he has by far put out the most millia complaining content on the internet.
The hyperbole in online discourse (in games especially, but in general) is one of my biggest pet peeves. It's so frustrating that no one is willing to talk about anything without saying one thing is black and the other's white.
I play Millia in Strive just like LK and bro he’s like the only Millia main I’ve seen that doesn’t act like she’s the worst character in the game and that the people who play her have to work way harder. The exaggeration is definitely the bane of intelligent discussion in fighting games
@@rowleyryan9025 I've seen people who say he downplays her a ton mostly because he still does well with her while talking about her weakness and such but I haven't seen enough LK to argue either side and I prefer to just turn my own opinion on things either way
My other favorite is the "my character sucks ass" option select cause if I win I'm the best player in existence and if I lose it's all good it's a 20-0 matchup so no biggie
And then the mental gymnastics of how much you gotta lose in terms of games/sets in a tourney setting until you deem that you were playing a 'bad' char and it is time to pick a better one.
Two things: 1. If no one thinks Pot is tournament worthy, then naturally they won’t practice fighting him, and we saw how that worked out. 2. If anyone wants to see a real nonfunctional garbage tier character, look no further than Roll in MvC2. Every character in Strive is a god compares to her.
Hell, you don't even have to go that far to see a real nonfunctional garbage-tier character. Just stick with Potemkin, but go all the way back to the first game he appeared in, Missing Link.
@@NehfariusReading the dustloop wiki for Potemkin in the first guilty gear is really funny cause even they acknowledge how *_bad_* pot is in that game
Jokes aside, I think having this mentality is very important for new players coming into the scene who are adamant about competing, especially for the new fighters coming out. Kudos for having enough faith in the scene to offer this perspective LK. This is what it's all about!
This is great, I fell victim to this mentality in early strive as a pot main, blaming my struggles on his poor defense. But I won't turn my back on life I saw he still did big dmg and had so much comeback POTential. Watching people like FAB and Snake showed me the way. Even when I was into comp TF2, I regrettably grilled my irl friend for maining heavy. Sure, won't see heavy much in comp, but that wasn't what we were playing anyway.
I really appreciate your outlook on comparative roster strength and tier lists dude. You’re totally right, there’s no completely inviable characters in modern fighting games. Your angle on how characters relate to each other really helped me have a better grasp on the game. Keep up these break downs on the strive roster and why people put them where they do in tier lists. Your insight on this shit is mad helpful.
Your channel is quickly becoming one of my favorite for fighting game content. You present your experiences as a top-level player in a logical, argumentative fashion instead of relying on anecdote or dismissing viewers out of hand. It leads to very interesting topics.
Snake eyes is legit better than everyone at that tournament by an order of magnitude. He does things with Potemkin that almost nobody else can do (I know, I've day 1'd him.) When he can kara-super from a simple jab on reaction, he is just better.
0:50 LK always has the broadest music selection in his videos. Conquest from FE: Awakening is like Top 10 chill tracks in all of existence. That shit goes so crazy.
GGST is my first ever proper fighting game I've ever played and I didn't like it all that much at the beginning, until I set my eyes on Potemkin. Big health, big damage, jumpscares, that's all I ever wanted. I didn't choose the glue, the glue chose me!
I think the ending was a good point There are so many people I've interacted with who only describe their character in bad positions Like they'll describe a move that is literally the strongest launcher in the game and goes under highs and some mids, but then say it sucks because it's launch punishable??? Friend, if they're consistently blocking a high crushing move, that's on YOU not the character
Great video! I expected that the title was clickbait going in, but was still happy to hear you talk about Potemkin. I am also very happy with the change to how you do tierlists. I 100% understand and agree with the reason behind S+ to B+ tierlists, but holy hell do I hate how they look lol.
The thing about POT is that, never is impossible for a comeback. When you hit that Buster, the opponent gets desperate and is game over! He really needs to get that crucial win ONCE!
I can't stand it when people started saying that Ky was trash and the only reason he made it to Evo Japan top 8 was because Churara was that good. Churara's good, but that's because he can take advantage of Ky's strengths instead of crying about his weaknesses. And LK is right about the language too, when you only use hyperbole and call things either trash or broken, you make it impossible to talk about the nuances of characters and matchups.
Ky kiske has: mediocre neutral, some of the worst pressure win the game, garbage fireball(46 frames of counterhit recovery) low reward of random hits, slow dp, trash supers RTL does no damage and the projectile super is useless, and is just outclassed by a lot of the cast in general. But sure go ahead and push this ky is top tier nonsense rat
It’s clickbait like a boss but I’m here for it besides, always luv your content because you're one of the only top players who's able to have nuanced opinions and express them in a coherent way thats received by many povs. even the conflicting ones
I didn’t like seem to get that characters are designed in a way that will fundamentally make them weaker, like Anji has to work the way he does because though yes you might want to win the round with him you also sort of win a secondary objective as anji, and that is feeling galaxy brain by doing some crazy mix, because the room that being underpowered gives to fueling the ego is actually huge apparently. It also helps that every character has tools to help them win. Idk why I’m ranting this video is from like 3 months ago
I hate this discourse because people lack the nuance to even begin to engage with it. Saying everyone is good/viable is a true statement everyone in this game has a win condition. It's weird to just ignore that x character is good or bad at anything. Most characters have good and bad tools, some good tools are just compensating for the bad ones where other characters don't have the same stability. ie; Ky being a mid dispenser but a great stagger/oki game. Or pot having some of the worst neutral tools but has probably one of the biggest one chance factors in the game.
Maybe this is like a bit adjacent to what you're talking about but how do you feel about x/y graph lists like the ones seen on MMCafe? I feel like those tier lists can show character strengths and weaknesses in a much better light than just a regular tiermaker list layout like the ones used in this video tbh. They still do need like an extra page going into more detail in some instances imo but I think being able to rate important factors like setplay strengths or combo game or neutral is a great way of highlighting how good a character is when it all is added together.
That would assume people who can read those graphs would understand the nuance behind the placement of those chars. Reason why tier list makers are so popular is because its easy to communicate 'good and bad chars' in an utter vacuum and do it for content.
I wish you had taken a moment to contrast the low tier being B rather than F by showing an example of an F tier character from an old game, but I understand that properly understanding that sort of thing would probably take another 10 minutes to explain so I get it.
14:28 or on the other side of that coin where a character is known to be used a lot, can still get results at high level tournaments which doesn't surprise people, yet causes people to get defensive when it's pointed out that that character should, statistically, be getting more results than they are due to their popularity eventually leading to inevitable videos titled something along the lines of "what happened to _______?"
I’m wondering if the “grappler = big and slow” is not the only way of doing a grab focused character. I am still relatively new to fighting games, but doesn’t Manon in SF6 revolve a lot around her command grab? She isn’t slow. I could see grappler characters evolving in that direction. E.g. the big command grab starts off weak but you have tools and character specific resources to that can power it up. Definitely think there is a ton of unexplored territory for grapplers to evolve. Potemkin is definitely S tier when it comes to heart. Love the big guy.
Manon isn't *slow* slow but she is less mobile than most other characters because of her unusually weak drive rush. Lily is the "pixie grappler" of SF6, which is a long established archetype in its own right (Shermie from King of Fighters is the prototype for this kind of character). The slow big body grappler is a separate archetype that has its own appeal; people do really like having clearly defined weaknesses as a cost for overwhelming strength.
@@arachnofiend2859 Ahh thank you you. I was not aware of this pixie grappler archetype. Thank you! And yeah the big body with clearly defined strengths and weakness is definitely a solid archetype. Hell it even exists outside of video games. Lots of movies/tv shows/comics/books/etc. have a “slow but big and strong” character. David vs Goliath is just Bronze Age Chipp vs Potemkin.
We've had quick grapplers around for a few generations now, though admittedly my experience is pretty much strictly Street Fighter. Street Fighter 4 had Abel who could close distance very quickly with his tumble, Hakan who was basically the Anti-Grappler and El Fuerte who is questionably a grappler but is probably the fastest character in the game with his nutty command run and uses a command grab as part of his primary mix. Street Fighter 5 has Laura, who is blessed with a command dash like Abel and an armored EX dash command grab, Mika (more of a mid-weight grappler, but with a decent bit of burst movement), and G, another "questionably a grappler" who is no super slow giant man. That being said, while the "light grappler" archetype has been around for a while, they tend to get less reward off of their command grab, and worse neutral when they're not trying to skip it. (Say what you will about SF5 gief, but that man has buttons and his SPD is a true vortex)
Agreed, discourse is based on perception rather than any knowledge. Can't tell you what Pot does with meter but I know Hotashi got salty one time a year ago and said Ram was busted so she top tier. Looking at consistent results and what it takes to get there is a better lens for most of the player base
People sleep on the character, and when someone shows up and exploits their strengths in bracket with people who didn't know how to deal with it, they can make a pretty good tournament run.
@@epicthelegend9001 He put ky in that tier when ky doesn’t fit that profile at all. Ky has no knowledge checks outside of DI. He’s just plain and straightforward strike throw. Mediocre incarnate.
I came in with knuckles cracked ready to copy paste this dissertation on why you were wrong and how Snake Eyez won not Potemkin, then I watched the video lol. Good stuff LK.
16:20 While I agree, I don’t think this really applies entirely to Strive, I will say though that there are still some fighting games with this issue that I don’t like *cough* *cough* Smash Ultimate
Partial counter argument in support of the "there should be a bell curve" side. If you're going to use a tier list that just goes S-F instead of having meaningfully defined tiers, then all of those points are just relative to each other. There is no reason you can't just "zoom in" on the chart so to speak, put the average character in the middle and fill the chart out appropriately. No problem saying a character is S tier or F tier even if the game is extremely well balanced, just means the difference might be "his jab actually hits slightly farther, and his back dash comes out faster." Then again asking even 2% of tier lists to be that well explained, or 2% of viewers to understand that....yeah nm, screw the bell curve.
am I one of the only people then who got what newer lists meant? like the lowest being B made sense to me and I'm NOT a competitive player. like it always meant, whoever is B is the weakest of a strong enough bunch. they don't suck, but they aren't as good as those above them. gone are the days of shit like SF 3rd Strike Twelve where you could almost say the character isn't finished or just completely lacks some tools. gone are the days of Vampire Saviour Anakaris who legit has a broken guard cancel (I think that's what's busted on him) that doesn't work as mechanic is supposed to. most low tiers now would be high tiers in these older games because the overall casts of most games are a LOT stronger. Billy from KoF 15 is like one of the only recent cases where I'm like wtf happened... this dude has moves that get punished on HIT. other than that. modern fighting games work lol. and the casts are stronger for it. so my boy Pot being B always made sense to me. He "can" win, but it's easier to win with Happy Chaos.
this is a big component of balance, the purpose of balancing characters is to make it FUN for most people, not to make every character even in their power. if all the characters in strive or another game have the same level of strength, they would all be homogenized, since what is strong is just what people decide is the best strategy for getting wins consistently. most of the depth in games comes from the players, so even if many characters have similar game plans or mechanics, people will still find ways of making things unique and complicated by what solutions they can find to the dominant mechanics. then popular values shift from some mechanics and strategies to others, and some characters will always be better at those different kinds of counter play, and it just goes on and on. its actually a challenge to make a fighting game homogeneous and boring when people are so diverse and earnest about what they enjoy in life.
I think that people put way too much emphasis on character strengths and weaknesses in modern fighting games... It isn't 2003 any more. We don't have nonsense, not designed games with extremely asymmetrical casts...
right. no modern fighting game with a competitive scene is gonna have characters like 3s sean and twelve, GGML potemkin, SF4 vanilla Vega etc. games are designed now to be crafted over a long period of time to allow every character to shine. The only reason I see people say this is because Happy Chaos exists, who is not fun to play against but is not so above and beyond the rest of the cast. the fact that HC has not taken every tournament should speak to that enough.
@@yugimumoto1 Then why the hell are you gonna explain the one year terror of Sheeva and her 30 variation of timing Stomp+her Dragon Stance? Yes, you gotta hold that stomp for a WHOLE YEAR before a twitch girl crying on screen. LOL
I agree with most of what you said but Snake Eyez is clearly a much better player than anyone that was at Texas Showdown by a lot, all of you got outclassed.
Technically Pot is bad, but how many guesses you have in a match vs Pot is quite low, unless you're playing the character everyone who just wants to have fun dodges
This is good man. Direct all that pent up hatred to Potemkin and Jack-o players. Instead of hating ky you hate them I like to see this. Let the anti Potemkin propaganda campaign start.
@@mysticmycelium His +19 on block guard crush? His big disjointed normals? Command grab that does half your health? Armour on specials? Insane damage? High health? Cannot zone him? Him just being a grappler in general. Many reasons to hate this character that was made for baby
@@D4C_267 I’ll agree there’s good in the character. We can both agree on that. But let’s not pretend he’s got bad: movement, no fast buttons, bad supers like yeah the list goes on. He’s got bad points to you seem to be ignoring.
@@mysticmycelium Bad super? His wall super is like top5. Most of the cast is forced to hold the mix that is coming. And his button being slow is balanced because they are huge and heavily disjointed.
@@D4C_267 that wall super into mix? You mean when pot walks up and goes for a low into low and MAYBE 5D? What a mix🙄 and far slash and 5H are punishable and don’t reward pot unless it’s a counter hit. Plus Ky can dash under both of them
I do think Daru is kinda a god though and probably better than everyone else. Watching him play immediately gives me the impression that he's optimized his game so far ahead of everyone else. You see somebody catch a stray hit and combo with it and you're like hey that was cool, then you see Daru never let a stray hit go to waste as his default state. And nobody else moves like he does.
I think as Strive approaches year 2, people who spectate/play the game should recognize the clear divide with the strength of the character and the strength of the player. Because of how good Daru's ability to play risk/reward along with his great conversions, you can never really take him of the equation in a top 8 setting even against bad matchups.
I will admit I'm someone who didn't think Pot could win a major, though I didn't think he was complete trash either. It definitely helped Snake Eyez that he got to fight Leo twice (the one top tier most Pot players agree is a pretty fine matchup) instead of like, Ramlethal or HC.
Tbh its really rare that there isnt at least a braindead ramlethal or a competent HC in top 8 majors, and less surprisingly no Axls. Its also really lucky that Snake eyez didn't need to deal with Millia and Chipp's shenanigans, but then again he won against a baiken which is an even worse matchup so it kinda proves how good he is
@@z1u512 Snake Eyez also got to fight Flash in top 48, and he was trying out Bedman instead of one his usual characters that have good matchups against Pot. It really was a perfect storm, on top of Snake Eyez being cracked and Potemkin having a viable win-con.
But in all seriousness, I do agree with your point. When characters like Jack-O and Anji were bottom tier, it's not because they were bad but because other characters were just BETTER. Bottom tiers in modern games aren't unplayable, the top tiers just are stupid. Watching the clip of Kizzie vs TYL towards the end while you were saying exactly that made me understand. Like it's not Ky's fault his sword isn't twice as long as it is, ya know?
the clickbait title actually further proved ur point tbh. people clicking for a reductionist answer, but instead, receive a nuanced explanation for how these characters objectively interact. the shift from letter teir list to a newer and much more realistic rating system should be welcomed with open arms! teir list as they are now hinder play expression 😞
You know, it would be a little bit funny if some fighting game devs just decided to make an april fools update where they actually made the characters as broken/trash as people said they were. Just imagine those patch notes.
I've always loved your content because you're the only top player who's able to have nuanced opinions and express them in a semi-coherent way. Social media & twitter is cancer for discourse, and we can see exactly why in the case of strive.
@@z1u512 Its always been like that even the Xrd and arguably the +R era. Of course with Strive being more mainstream than the previous titles and everyone having access to a social media platform to air out their takes, it is easier to produce content to appeal to folks who don't really play the game. Especially since those social media platforms aren't great for nuanced discourse.
Exploiting your opponent's character's weaknesses is why weak characters lose. Playing to your character's strengths is just how you play. Weaknesses and strengths are relative, and if your opponent knows your character and can play a character that's stronger or counter picks them, your character can be only 10% weaker on average... But the things that make them weaker will come up 100% of the time, and winning will be very difficult. This isn't about playing to strengths. Guilty Gear Strive just has really narrow stratification between characters and tiers. A "trash" character is still bad in the sense that it'll probably lose an even skill match the majority of the time... But because the game doesn't feature absolute nonsense like, for instance, MvC2 Roll vs Cable, every single match is going to be closer, even if the weaker character still loses every match. Let's say your weaker character ends most of the matches with 10% of their health left... What happens when you introduce a 10% skill difference? Suddenly every match is a coin toss. It's not that the people who play the worst characters in Strive are gods. Quite the opposite, in fact. It's that slight differences in skill can make up for slight differences in character power. People just aren't used to playing fighting games where every character has strong specials and normals. There are a lot of fighting games where you can say a large portion of the cast has "bad/no tools." Strive isn't one of them. Everyone is going to play to their character's strengths, but if your character has few advantages over the opponent's it's not going to matter. That's the key lesson Arcsys learned at some point. So they make sure every character has some serious grease.
Enjoyed this one LK. Thanks for helping some people, particularly those who just window shop fighters and don't actually compete regularly, understand that there's a difference between games with viable/non-viable characters, and a game that is made to support viability.
Part of the issue as well is that "Broken" has become a sort of slang, for "really good" or even sometimes "surprisingly good"/"Better than expected" I think the result of that is muddying the waters around how we talk about moves and characters. Is Pot 'broken' in the literal sense? Obviously not Is Pot 'broken' in the sense that he is better than expected? I think for some people, yes.
@@D4C_267 and thus concludes my thesis on why Pot needs a buff and Ky needs a nerf. Don't forget to like and subscribe, hit that bell icon, and visit your grandparents.
@@D4C_267 I mean I already stated that it's select matchup issues. Also I want to do you a favor by nerfing Ky. I want your whinging to have validity instead of being series of bike horn honks. You want clout obviously.
I think the guy won with sin by people not practicing against him. So someone actually good at the game comes along with solid knowledge of the kit, and people don't know what to do against them. All strengths, no real weakness.
Sin has some good tools. Yeah there is a bit of not knowing the matchup but sin is a character you can never sleep at the wheel with since his main gimmick is that he can just not do what you expect and then you get thrown from the fakest stuff ever and are forced into blocking one of his slowest moves that makes him plus and beats any option if he predicts right. I see all the time people discounting conditioning as a valid win con but in older fighting games it is a very potent strategy and still works in modern games.
yeah alot of his moves are punishable but if you don't know the matchup it would be hard to spot those weak points hes not bad but damn could he use a buff
@@yugimumoto1 Discounting the conditioning are for people/players who don't accept the absolute human condition in fighting games. Like they expect to win out to grand finals by playing like a machine, consistently be stoic and ride off on inhuman reactions for long hours (or however long the tournament runs). These are the folks who are easy to guard break mentally in fighting games.
Consistently winning with a character deemed "Not consistent" is a matter of persevering against the odds and demonstrating superior skill. Skill being a combination of game knowledge, mechanical skill, and the ability to apply them both in a real-time changing environment. Was Snake Eyez more "skilled" than the rest of the entries? Maybe, but match-up knowledge and experience were definitely in his favor as Potemkin is not a popular tournament pick. Also, Potemkin has huge potential but most players cannot consistently execute his commands. Even Snake Eyez flubbed inputs in several of the matches of the Top 8 alone. Haters will hate, but Potemkin's execution is just absurdly high compared to most of the roster.
Even if Pot isn't a popular tourney pick, as a player you are still held accountable to losing to things you 'should' know in tournament. Only thing I'd give a pass is that some players have a really good skillset of making in game adjustments. If you lose to that you are losing to a better player regardless if their char is low tier. And even with year 2 of Strive approaching, the game is still very volatile even with the obvious popular top chars who can always threaten a top 16/32.
I feel like this should be obvious, but descriptors like "good" or "bad" are all relative terms. It's pointless to evaluate a character based on their own merits because none of them exist in a vacuum. The only purpose in a tier list is to see how a character compares to others -- as such the lettering used is completely arbitrary.
It's really just a relative power discussion: Older games just had greater separation in power level between characters, greater severity of matchups, etc, as they only had 1-3 chances to balance and when they did they usually were adding new mechanics too which would change things. So tier lists reflected those gaps. Modern games stand on the shoulders of giants, and simultaneously have many more patches to work with, and so much more sample data from the collectives of people figuring things out exponentially faster and sharing it online. So many older pros show that by grouping the cast closer together in terms of power, because they are still using the same scale as they did for older games. That's why letter systems aren't as good anymore, as people don't understand whether the scaling is relative to fighting games as a whole, the game itself, etc. So description style tiers fix that by sharing exactly what each tier means in terms of power level of the characters in each tier.
I am politely asking you to subscribe (or else)
can i have an air kiss pls
I subscribed because of this comment
I've been here im just here for nuanced content as per usual keep it going brother
Just did ✋🏻
ruclips.net/video/TJ7IuFwv08Y/видео.html
Yes snake eyes is that guy, who just that good at the game my friend. Pot dint win, snake eyes did
It’s clickbait but I’m here for it
😂😂😂
I like the clickbait titles because I have no idea what they're actually going to talk about
People don't know what a D tier character looks like anymore, let alone F tier. Go look at Servbot in MVC2 and consider that he's in the same game as Magneto (practical infinite on the whole cast, 1f low) and Storm (it's Storm). Now consider that Servbot may not be the worst character in that game. That's a grim tier list.
@Konakon izumi Nah bro you trolling 💀No way you watched the video and still think that you must just have a "millia is bad" fetish or something
@Konakon izumi Well it's just so close to what the stereotypical "millia complainer" says I assumed you had to be joking. Like it hits all the same beats of someone trying to parody your exact viewpoint.
@Konakon izumi look pal I'm not reading any of that. The way I see it, you can either continue to complain about your character which does nothing but make everyone around you roll their eyes or you can suck it up and play the best you can possibly play. I'm no stranger to playing a bottom one character, but I didn't go aroud on the internet saying "little mac sucks they need to buff him" because ultimately it made no difference. The devs could buff him tomorrow, or they could never buff him. At some point, the balance patches stop coming and you just have to take the L and try to be the best player you can be or pick another character.
This is such a smoothbrain example
@@cooperlittlehales6268 you must have never met this man before. He isn't "stereotypical millia complainer." he is THE millia complainer. he is the Daigo of millia complaining. if there was a tier list for millia complaining, hes in SSS+ tier while the next up is in F tier. if millia is in a video, hes in the comments complaining, and if millia isnt in the video hes probably still complaining. he has by far put out the most millia complaining content on the internet.
The hyperbole in online discourse (in games especially, but in general) is one of my biggest pet peeves. It's so frustrating that no one is willing to talk about anything without saying one thing is black and the other's white.
Can't agree more and mechanics as upvote/downvote is only emphasizing this rather than setting room for discussion and arguments.
I play Millia in Strive just like LK and bro he’s like the only Millia main I’ve seen that doesn’t act like she’s the worst character in the game and that the people who play her have to work way harder. The exaggeration is definitely the bane of intelligent discussion in fighting games
@@rowleyryan9025 I've seen people who say he downplays her a ton mostly because he still does well with her while talking about her weakness and such but I haven't seen enough LK to argue either side and I prefer to just turn my own opinion on things either way
two are one
My other favorite is the "my character sucks ass" option select cause if I win I'm the best player in existence and if I lose it's all good it's a 20-0 matchup so no biggie
And then the mental gymnastics of how much you gotta lose in terms of games/sets in a tourney setting until you deem that you were playing a 'bad' char and it is time to pick a better one.
Two things:
1. If no one thinks Pot is tournament worthy, then naturally they won’t practice fighting him, and we saw how that worked out.
2. If anyone wants to see a real nonfunctional garbage tier character, look no further than Roll in MvC2. Every character in Strive is a god compares to her.
Hell, you don't even have to go that far to see a real nonfunctional garbage-tier character. Just stick with Potemkin, but go all the way back to the first game he appeared in, Missing Link.
@@NehfariusReading the dustloop wiki for Potemkin in the first guilty gear is really funny cause even they acknowledge how *_bad_* pot is in that game
you alerted the horde
Title was clickbait? Smh typical LK downplay
Jokes aside, I think having this mentality is very important for new players coming into the scene who are adamant about competing, especially for the new fighters coming out. Kudos for having enough faith in the scene to offer this perspective LK. This is what it's all about!
Snake Eyez was right about anime players VS sf players. 😆
Nature is healing.
What he say?
This is great, I fell victim to this mentality in early strive as a pot main, blaming my struggles on his poor defense. But I won't turn my back on life
I saw he still did big dmg and had so much comeback POTential. Watching people like FAB and Snake showed me the way.
Even when I was into comp TF2, I regrettably grilled my irl friend for maining heavy. Sure, won't see heavy much in comp, but that wasn't what we were playing anyway.
I really appreciate your outlook on comparative roster strength and tier lists dude. You’re totally right, there’s no completely inviable characters in modern fighting games. Your angle on how characters relate to each other really helped me have a better grasp on the game.
Keep up these break downs on the strive roster and why people put them where they do in tier lists. Your insight on this shit is mad helpful.
Loving the Fire Emblem music in the background
Your channel is quickly becoming one of my favorite for fighting game content. You present your experiences as a top-level player in a logical, argumentative fashion instead of relying on anecdote or dismissing viewers out of hand. It leads to very interesting topics.
saw the video title: oh they're not gonna like this
watched the video: oh they might like this
Snake eyes is legit better than everyone at that tournament by an order of magnitude. He does things with Potemkin that almost nobody else can do (I know, I've day 1'd him.) When he can kara-super from a simple jab on reaction, he is just better.
0:50 LK always has the broadest music selection in his videos. Conquest from FE: Awakening is like Top 10 chill tracks in all of existence. That shit goes so crazy.
As an OG Pot believer, I just wanna say LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOO
@ 12:33 Who thought Chipp was "trash" on game release? I don't think Chipp has ever truly been bad.
People memed during the beta because he dies fast
My guy didn’t even mention snake is a legend in everything he’s played
GGST is my first ever proper fighting game I've ever played and I didn't like it all that much at the beginning, until I set my eyes on Potemkin. Big health, big damage, jumpscares, that's all I ever wanted. I didn't choose the glue, the glue chose me!
POT is not braindead. Grapplers need to have insane patience and learn how to seize from 1 or 2 shots.
I think the ending was a good point
There are so many people I've interacted with who only describe their character in bad positions
Like they'll describe a move that is literally the strongest launcher in the game and goes under highs and some mids, but then say it sucks because it's launch punishable??? Friend, if they're consistently blocking a high crushing move, that's on YOU not the character
Being able to play the character you want is the cool thing about balanced fighting games now
Great video! I expected that the title was clickbait going in, but was still happy to hear you talk about Potemkin.
I am also very happy with the change to how you do tierlists. I 100% understand and agree with the reason behind S+ to B+ tierlists, but holy hell do I hate how they look lol.
The thing about POT is that, never is impossible for a comeback. When you hit that Buster, the opponent gets desperate and is game over!
He really needs to get that crucial win ONCE!
I can't stand it when people started saying that Ky was trash and the only reason he made it to Evo Japan top 8 was because Churara was that good. Churara's good, but that's because he can take advantage of Ky's strengths instead of crying about his weaknesses. And LK is right about the language too, when you only use hyperbole and call things either trash or broken, you make it impossible to talk about the nuances of characters and matchups.
Ky kiske has: mediocre neutral, some of the worst pressure win the game, garbage fireball(46 frames of counterhit recovery) low reward of random hits, slow dp, trash supers RTL does no damage and the projectile super is useless, and is just outclassed by a lot of the cast in general. But sure go ahead and push this ky is top tier nonsense rat
@@D4C_267 I never said he was top tier. Churara proved that the problem isn't Ky, its you.
@@GetterRay Chuara would do much better if he played an top tier. Ky is the problem
@@D4C_267 Stay weak.
@@GetterRay Stay unwoke. Stay Willingly ignorant about how bad ky is.
It’s clickbait like a boss but I’m here for it
besides, always luv your content because you're one of the only top players who's able to have nuanced opinions and express them in a coherent way thats received by many povs. even the conflicting ones
I didn’t like seem to get that characters are designed in a way that will fundamentally make them weaker, like Anji has to work the way he does because though yes you might want to win the round with him you also sort of win a secondary objective as anji, and that is feeling galaxy brain by doing some crazy mix, because the room that being underpowered gives to fueling the ego is actually huge apparently. It also helps that every character has tools to help them win. Idk why I’m ranting this video is from like 3 months ago
I hate this discourse because people lack the nuance to even begin to engage with it.
Saying everyone is good/viable is a true statement everyone in this game has a win condition. It's weird to just ignore that x character is good or bad at anything.
Most characters have good and bad tools, some good tools are just compensating for the bad ones where other characters don't have the same stability. ie; Ky being a mid dispenser but a great stagger/oki game. Or pot having some of the worst neutral tools but has probably one of the biggest one chance factors in the game.
LK spitting facts like usual
Maybe this is like a bit adjacent to what you're talking about but how do you feel about x/y graph lists like the ones seen on MMCafe? I feel like those tier lists can show character strengths and weaknesses in a much better light than just a regular tiermaker list layout like the ones used in this video tbh. They still do need like an extra page going into more detail in some instances imo but I think being able to rate important factors like setplay strengths or combo game or neutral is a great way of highlighting how good a character is when it all is added together.
That would assume people who can read those graphs would understand the nuance behind the placement of those chars. Reason why tier list makers are so popular is because its easy to communicate 'good and bad chars' in an utter vacuum and do it for content.
keep the grappler narrative going. love the title
My god I read the title and heard Snake Eyez cry out in pain.
I wish you had taken a moment to contrast the low tier being B rather than F by showing an example of an F tier character from an old game, but I understand that properly understanding that sort of thing would probably take another 10 minutes to explain so I get it.
The lack of nuance is a general problem. If you judge the world by kneejerk reactions, you're doing it to your own detriment.
14:28 or on the other side of that coin where a character is known to be used a lot, can still get results at high level tournaments which doesn't surprise people, yet causes people to get defensive when it's pointed out that that character should, statistically, be getting more results than they are due to their popularity eventually leading to inevitable videos titled something along the lines of "what happened to _______?"
I’m wondering if the “grappler = big and slow” is not the only way of doing a grab focused character. I am still relatively new to fighting games, but doesn’t Manon in SF6 revolve a lot around her command grab? She isn’t slow. I could see grappler characters evolving in that direction. E.g. the big command grab starts off weak but you have tools and character specific resources to that can power it up. Definitely think there is a ton of unexplored territory for grapplers to evolve.
Potemkin is definitely S tier when it comes to heart. Love the big guy.
Manon isn't *slow* slow but she is less mobile than most other characters because of her unusually weak drive rush. Lily is the "pixie grappler" of SF6, which is a long established archetype in its own right (Shermie from King of Fighters is the prototype for this kind of character). The slow big body grappler is a separate archetype that has its own appeal; people do really like having clearly defined weaknesses as a cost for overwhelming strength.
@@arachnofiend2859 Ahh thank you you. I was not aware of this pixie grappler archetype. Thank you! And yeah the big body with clearly defined strengths and weakness is definitely a solid archetype. Hell it even exists outside of video games. Lots of movies/tv shows/comics/books/etc. have a “slow but big and strong” character.
David vs Goliath is just Bronze Age Chipp vs Potemkin.
We've had quick grapplers around for a few generations now, though admittedly my experience is pretty much strictly Street Fighter.
Street Fighter 4 had Abel who could close distance very quickly with his tumble, Hakan who was basically the Anti-Grappler and El Fuerte who is questionably a grappler but is probably the fastest character in the game with his nutty command run and uses a command grab as part of his primary mix.
Street Fighter 5 has Laura, who is blessed with a command dash like Abel and an armored EX dash command grab, Mika (more of a mid-weight grappler, but with a decent bit of burst movement), and G, another "questionably a grappler" who is no super slow giant man.
That being said, while the "light grappler" archetype has been around for a while, they tend to get less reward off of their command grab, and worse neutral when they're not trying to skip it. (Say what you will about SF5 gief, but that man has buttons and his SPD is a true vortex)
Mika from Under Night, too. But why play her when Waldstein is in the game?
That edge up lookin clean
Agreed, discourse is based on perception rather than any knowledge. Can't tell you what Pot does with meter but I know Hotashi got salty one time a year ago and said Ram was busted so she top tier.
Looking at consistent results and what it takes to get there is a better lens for most of the player base
God thumbnail
What does ruin brackets mean in the context of a tierlist or viability discussion?
People sleep on the character, and when someone shows up and exploits their strengths in bracket with people who didn't know how to deal with it, they can make a pretty good tournament run.
This basically. Think Anji at frosty faustings for example
@@epicthelegend9001 Thanks for the clarification
@@epicthelegend9001 He put ky in that tier when ky doesn’t fit that profile at all. Ky has no knowledge checks outside of DI. He’s just plain and straightforward strike throw. Mediocre incarnate.
@D4C I think it's like them being solid and slept on, not inherently gimmicky. I could be wrong though.
Last time I checked, he got nerfed. Years later, Snake Eyes is fucking shit up.
shoulda called it "potemkin is extremely busted"
Digging deep into the content mines.
I came in with knuckles cracked ready to copy paste this dissertation on why you were wrong and how Snake Eyez won not Potemkin, then I watched the video lol. Good stuff LK.
Seeing this in my feed got me dying at work
I wasn’t around for the first half of a year of this game. It’s insane that people called Chipp trash when the game came out
16:20 While I agree, I don’t think this really applies entirely to Strive, I will say though that there are still some fighting games with this issue that I don’t like *cough* *cough* Smash Ultimate
"POTEMKIN IS BROKEN"
"okay so here's why millia sucks and I'm not a downplayer"
You ugh kinda spitting brother man. 🎉🎉🎉🎉
Be careful there’s a tonberry standing right behind you
Partial counter argument in support of the "there should be a bell curve" side. If you're going to use a tier list that just goes S-F instead of having meaningfully defined tiers, then all of those points are just relative to each other. There is no reason you can't just "zoom in" on the chart so to speak, put the average character in the middle and fill the chart out appropriately. No problem saying a character is S tier or F tier even if the game is extremely well balanced, just means the difference might be "his jab actually hits slightly farther, and his back dash comes out faster."
Then again asking even 2% of tier lists to be that well explained, or 2% of viewers to understand that....yeah nm, screw the bell curve.
am I one of the only people then who got what newer lists meant? like the lowest being B made sense to me and I'm NOT a competitive player. like it always meant, whoever is B is the weakest of a strong enough bunch. they don't suck, but they aren't as good as those above them. gone are the days of shit like SF 3rd Strike Twelve where you could almost say the character isn't finished or just completely lacks some tools. gone are the days of Vampire Saviour Anakaris who legit has a broken guard cancel (I think that's what's busted on him) that doesn't work as mechanic is supposed to. most low tiers now would be high tiers in these older games because the overall casts of most games are a LOT stronger. Billy from KoF 15 is like one of the only recent cases where I'm like wtf happened... this dude has moves that get punished on HIT. other than that. modern fighting games work lol. and the casts are stronger for it. so my boy Pot being B always made sense to me. He "can" win, but it's easier to win with Happy Chaos.
Comments are gonna have a fun time with this one
@3:10 Sin is considered not a good character. Meaning he is trash. @14:00 said they will get buff because they are trash.
#BuffSin
Yeah ya got me. Strive is going though it right now so I probably wouldn't have clicked otherwise.
instructions unclear. still gonna harass every Ramlethal and Happy Chaos player
I love LK's comment section, its like a free comedy club.
Men gets bodied by snake eyes and now pot is broken😂😂😂
this is a big component of balance, the purpose of balancing characters is to make it FUN for most people, not to make every character even in their power. if all the characters in strive or another game have the same level of strength, they would all be homogenized, since what is strong is just what people decide is the best strategy for getting wins consistently. most of the depth in games comes from the players, so even if many characters have similar game plans or mechanics, people will still find ways of making things unique and complicated by what solutions they can find to the dominant mechanics. then popular values shift from some mechanics and strategies to others, and some characters will always be better at those different kinds of counter play, and it just goes on and on. its actually a challenge to make a fighting game homogeneous and boring when people are so diverse and earnest about what they enjoy in life.
I've been baited
*Snake Eyez is broken
I think that people put way too much emphasis on character strengths and weaknesses in modern fighting games... It isn't 2003 any more. We don't have nonsense, not designed games with extremely asymmetrical casts...
right. no modern fighting game with a competitive scene is gonna have characters like 3s sean and twelve, GGML potemkin, SF4 vanilla Vega etc. games are designed now to be crafted over a long period of time to allow every character to shine. The only reason I see people say this is because Happy Chaos exists, who is not fun to play against but is not so above and beyond the rest of the cast. the fact that HC has not taken every tournament should speak to that enough.
People cling to tiers to explain their loses instead of trying to improve. It's kind of dumb
@@yugimumoto1 Then why the hell are you gonna explain the one year terror of Sheeva and her 30 variation of timing Stomp+her Dragon Stance? Yes, you gotta hold that stomp for a WHOLE YEAR before a twitch girl crying on screen. LOL
I agree with most of what you said but Snake Eyez is clearly a much better player than anyone that was at Texas Showdown by a lot, all of you got outclassed.
Lemons a tier? Grapes c tier...bro do you even taste?
Strongest S-tier in Strive is momentum.
no, Potempkin is *busted*
I'm Main and is not broken told ya true
Potemkin downplay love to see it
Great take that will be ignored lol
Grapplers arent people an nvr will be
We may eat glue but we're still people, don't do us like that man.
Why are u jealous? 😂😂
People need to chill with the hyperbole....don't wanna give arcsis ideas
Technically Pot is bad, but how many guesses you have in a match vs Pot is quite low, unless you're playing the character everyone who just wants to have fun dodges
TLDW: SKILL ISSUE
Load Knight couldn't change society. So instead of reflecting on himself, he blamed the beasts.
This video is coping NGL
This is good man. Direct all that pent up hatred to Potemkin and Jack-o players. Instead of hating ky you hate them I like to see this. Let the anti Potemkin propaganda campaign start.
Pot isn’t that good tho so why do people hate him? He gets blown up by so many people. Just don’t make a mistake when fighting him.
@@mysticmycelium His +19 on block guard crush? His big disjointed normals? Command grab that does half your health? Armour on specials? Insane damage? High health? Cannot zone him? Him just being a grappler in general. Many reasons to hate this character that was made for baby
@@D4C_267 I’ll agree there’s good in the character. We can both agree on that. But let’s not pretend he’s got bad: movement, no fast buttons, bad supers like yeah the list goes on. He’s got bad points to you seem to be ignoring.
@@mysticmycelium Bad super? His wall super is like top5. Most of the cast is forced to hold the mix that is coming. And his button being slow is balanced because they are huge and heavily disjointed.
@@D4C_267 that wall super into mix? You mean when pot walks up and goes for a low into low and MAYBE 5D? What a mix🙄 and far slash and 5H are punishable and don’t reward pot unless it’s a counter hit. Plus Ky can dash under both of them
Bedman? 6P is what’s broken, and I don’t mean in the OP way 🫡
I do think Daru is kinda a god though and probably better than everyone else. Watching him play immediately gives me the impression that he's optimized his game so far ahead of everyone else. You see somebody catch a stray hit and combo with it and you're like hey that was cool, then you see Daru never let a stray hit go to waste as his default state. And nobody else moves like he does.
I think as Strive approaches year 2, people who spectate/play the game should recognize the clear divide with the strength of the character and the strength of the player. Because of how good Daru's ability to play risk/reward along with his great conversions, you can never really take him of the equation in a top 8 setting even against bad matchups.
"zato's numerous bad matchups" they literally cannot keep getting away with this
zato players and chipp players getting away with actual fraud
I will admit I'm someone who didn't think Pot could win a major, though I didn't think he was complete trash either. It definitely helped Snake Eyez that he got to fight Leo twice (the one top tier most Pot players agree is a pretty fine matchup) instead of like, Ramlethal or HC.
Tbh its really rare that there isnt at least a braindead ramlethal or a competent HC in top 8 majors, and less surprisingly no Axls.
Its also really lucky that Snake eyez didn't need to deal with Millia and Chipp's shenanigans, but then again he won against a baiken which is an even worse matchup so it kinda proves how good he is
@@z1u512 Snake Eyez also got to fight Flash in top 48, and he was trying out Bedman instead of one his usual characters that have good matchups against Pot. It really was a perfect storm, on top of Snake Eyez being cracked and Potemkin having a viable win-con.
most contentious thing in this video is at 1:46 where Strawberries are in F tier. I thought he could never miss, but I was mistaken 😔😔😔😔😔
But in all seriousness, I do agree with your point. When characters like Jack-O and Anji were bottom tier, it's not because they were bad but because other characters were just BETTER. Bottom tiers in modern games aren't unplayable, the top tiers just are stupid. Watching the clip of Kizzie vs TYL towards the end while you were saying exactly that made me understand. Like it's not Ky's fault his sword isn't twice as long as it is, ya know?
the clickbait title actually further proved ur point tbh. people clicking for a reductionist answer, but instead, receive a nuanced explanation for how these characters objectively interact. the shift from letter teir list to a newer and much more realistic rating system should be welcomed with open arms! teir list as they are now hinder play expression 😞
You know, it would be a little bit funny if some fighting game devs just decided to make an april fools update where they actually made the characters as broken/trash as people said they were. Just imagine those patch notes.
Sometimes you gotta trick people with clickbait in order to get them to listen to quality discussions. I for once, appreciate it
I've always loved your content because you're the only top player who's able to have nuanced opinions and express them in a semi-coherent way. Social media & twitter is cancer for discourse, and we can see exactly why in the case of strive.
I honestly believe the guilty gear community has went down the shitter post strive's release
@@z1u512 Its always been like that even the Xrd and arguably the +R era. Of course with Strive being more mainstream than the previous titles and everyone having access to a social media platform to air out their takes, it is easier to produce content to appeal to folks who don't really play the game. Especially since those social media platforms aren't great for nuanced discourse.
Exploiting your opponent's character's weaknesses is why weak characters lose. Playing to your character's strengths is just how you play. Weaknesses and strengths are relative, and if your opponent knows your character and can play a character that's stronger or counter picks them, your character can be only 10% weaker on average... But the things that make them weaker will come up 100% of the time, and winning will be very difficult.
This isn't about playing to strengths. Guilty Gear Strive just has really narrow stratification between characters and tiers. A "trash" character is still bad in the sense that it'll probably lose an even skill match the majority of the time... But because the game doesn't feature absolute nonsense like, for instance, MvC2 Roll vs Cable, every single match is going to be closer, even if the weaker character still loses every match.
Let's say your weaker character ends most of the matches with 10% of their health left... What happens when you introduce a 10% skill difference? Suddenly every match is a coin toss. It's not that the people who play the worst characters in Strive are gods. Quite the opposite, in fact. It's that slight differences in skill can make up for slight differences in character power.
People just aren't used to playing fighting games where every character has strong specials and normals. There are a lot of fighting games where you can say a large portion of the cast has "bad/no tools." Strive isn't one of them. Everyone is going to play to their character's strengths, but if your character has few advantages over the opponent's it's not going to matter. That's the key lesson Arcsys learned at some point. So they make sure every character has some serious grease.
Enjoyed this one LK. Thanks for helping some people, particularly those who just window shop fighters and don't actually compete regularly, understand that there's a difference between games with viable/non-viable characters, and a game that is made to support viability.
Part of the issue as well is that "Broken" has become a sort of slang, for "really good" or even sometimes "surprisingly good"/"Better than expected"
I think the result of that is muddying the waters around how we talk about moves and characters.
Is Pot 'broken' in the literal sense? Obviously not
Is Pot 'broken' in the sense that he is better than expected? I think for some people, yes.
As potemkin main, I heard none of that, was too busy sniffing glue
God needs faster 2P.
Just please give me an actual option to hit Jack O minions, please .
No.
@@D4C_267 and thus concludes my thesis on why Pot needs a buff and Ky needs a nerf. Don't forget to like and subscribe, hit that bell icon, and visit your grandparents.
@@HellecticMojo Potemkin is top tier while ky is not. Why would pot need a buff and not ky exactly?
@@D4C_267 damn where you getting these tier lists from, i need those tier makers to give their supplier's numbers
@@D4C_267 I mean I already stated that it's select matchup issues.
Also I want to do you a favor by nerfing Ky. I want your whinging to have validity instead of being series of bike horn honks. You want clout obviously.
I think the guy won with sin by people not practicing against him. So someone actually good at the game comes along with solid knowledge of the kit, and people don't know what to do against them. All strengths, no real weakness.
Sin has some good tools. Yeah there is a bit of not knowing the matchup but sin is a character you can never sleep at the wheel with since his main gimmick is that he can just not do what you expect and then you get thrown from the fakest stuff ever and are forced into blocking one of his slowest moves that makes him plus and beats any option if he predicts right.
I see all the time people discounting conditioning as a valid win con but in older fighting games it is a very potent strategy and still works in modern games.
@@yugimumoto1 Definately. he isn't bad. they just released him on the weak side to see where he lands, and they will buff him from there
yeah alot of his moves are punishable but if you don't know the matchup it would be hard to spot those weak points hes not bad but damn could he use a buff
@@yugimumoto1 Wait a second you're just describing anji
@@yugimumoto1 Discounting the conditioning are for people/players who don't accept the absolute human condition in fighting games. Like they expect to win out to grand finals by playing like a machine, consistently be stoic and ride off on inhuman reactions for long hours (or however long the tournament runs). These are the folks who are easy to guard break mentally in fighting games.
G A P E A R T H
Consistently winning with a character deemed "Not consistent" is a matter of persevering against the odds and demonstrating superior skill. Skill being a combination of game knowledge, mechanical skill, and the ability to apply them both in a real-time changing environment.
Was Snake Eyez more "skilled" than the rest of the entries? Maybe, but match-up knowledge and experience were definitely in his favor as Potemkin is not a popular tournament pick.
Also, Potemkin has huge potential but most players cannot consistently execute his commands. Even Snake Eyez flubbed inputs in several of the matches of the Top 8 alone. Haters will hate, but Potemkin's execution is just absurdly high compared to most of the roster.
Even if Pot isn't a popular tourney pick, as a player you are still held accountable to losing to things you 'should' know in tournament. Only thing I'd give a pass is that some players have a really good skillset of making in game adjustments. If you lose to that you are losing to a better player regardless if their char is low tier. And even with year 2 of Strive approaching, the game is still very volatile even with the obvious popular top chars who can always threaten a top 16/32.
Bonjour depuis la France LK.
LK here bringing the calm and deep insights that the Guilty Gear community is known for
I feel like this should be obvious, but descriptors like "good" or "bad" are all relative terms. It's pointless to evaluate a character based on their own merits because none of them exist in a vacuum. The only purpose in a tier list is to see how a character compares to others -- as such the lettering used is completely arbitrary.
Still though, you got gapped in the tourney.
GAP EARTH
It's really just a relative power discussion:
Older games just had greater separation in power level between characters, greater severity of matchups, etc, as they only had 1-3 chances to balance and when they did they usually were adding new mechanics too which would change things. So tier lists reflected those gaps.
Modern games stand on the shoulders of giants, and simultaneously have many more patches to work with, and so much more sample data from the collectives of people figuring things out exponentially faster and sharing it online. So many older pros show that by grouping the cast closer together in terms of power, because they are still using the same scale as they did for older games.
That's why letter systems aren't as good anymore, as people don't understand whether the scaling is relative to fighting games as a whole, the game itself, etc. So description style tiers fix that by sharing exactly what each tier means in terms of power level of the characters in each tier.
I love you LK