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Skullgirls Encore Edition Tiers and Matchups Discussion Thread: The Revengeance

Peacock, Eliza, Parasoul
Squigly, Filia, Fukua
Double, Cerebella, Fortune
Painwheel, Valentine, Big Band
 
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I'm 70% sure the people saying Val sucks are trolls.

I'd still reserve judgment until the Eliza patch. Block out of noise cancel, unfly parry (because technically it's this version), and Val getting 1k+ added to all her combos are gonna matter a lot.
 
Characters change all the time so wouldn't it be too early to rank anyone until the game is completely done?
Also Big band sucks sorry.
 
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I'm 70% sure the people saying Val sucks are trolls.

I'd still reserve judgment until the Eliza patch. Block out of noise cancel, unfly parry (because technically it's this version), and Val getting 1k+ added to all her combos are gonna matter a lot.
Keep in mind that vial combos were always a thing, even in retail. so 1k+ to her combos was already being done. The main difference is the ability to save a vial, and the ability to save a higher level vial, while still being able to use shuriken (neutral buff). Keep in mind either val has to go for oki to safely load a vial, or call an assist to shield for a vial load. Which is nowhere near a bad idea, since val has decent oki possibilities.

Edit: Val sucks :p
 
I'm going to make a crazy ridiculous suggestion and say that the way that this game will evolve is toward keeping the pressure on at their preferred spacing distance in some way, and capitalising on your opponent respecting your maintained pressure at spacing distance. As people get better at the game, they will get better at spacing, and the less that "Make them block neutral assist, do up close mixups" will be the deciding factor in the game.

Characters that can maintain distanced pressure: Peacock, Big Band, Eliza, Parasoul, Fukua, Cerebella.
Characters that can't: Filia, Valentine, Ms Fortune, Painwheel.
Squiggly: It's a travesty that I have absolutely zero first-hand experience with Squiggly so I have no idea how to categorise her. IM SORRY I SHOULD LEARN HER SOON

Everyone in the second list has this thing in common: They MUST get in through movement and positioning, OR whiff punish to get their game started. Counterpoking is something that must be done with movement ie Filia IAD. This means they will have less consistent play in Neutral game without assists being a get-in-for-free card. They do have great frame advantage once they get in on their lights and lows, and Airdash/Flight opens up more avenues to get heavy frame advantage into strong high-low-left-right mixups/pressure. They also have greater capacity to set up pushblock baits with empty airdash->throw, but one correct super/reversal read or PBGC or Reveral assist call and they have to make their way back in again.

The advantage of being a character in the first list, is that you don't have to play in a range where most reversals can reach you if you don't want to. This makes people not want to use reversals. This lets you condition your opponent to calm their shit and respect your space control, to THEN run in and do a mixup if you so choose.

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Specific notes on certain characters:


Valentine: Her entire strength is the ability to ignore regular attack vectors, and dive in from weirdo angles that you can't do SHIT about. I believe that players who are doing poorly with her are treating her too much like Filia/Ms Fortune, and need to run away WAY more, and pick their spots VERY carefully, and most importantly pick a great neutral assist. I think her falling off is just coincidence of higher level players not playing her, or people not picking her up because people were all like "Well, Duckator is the best player, and he uses Val, I'm not gonna pick Val because playing top tier is boring!!!". If she had a plus on block c.LK, people would complain about Val far less, I think, but having a -4 on block c.LK kinda makes it fair when you can make people block shit from wacky ridiculous vectors.

Valentine is not quite a raw mixup character(BackdashAirdash shit notwithstanding), but she is a character who can make you block something easier than any other character in the game. EDIT: Shit I almost forgot, Valentine actually has a very strong capacity to counterpoke with her normals(j.HK, s.MP come to mind), compared to the other characters in her category. But still, she can't maintain spaced pressure with her normals, she always has to either go in or go out.

Painwheel: Painwheel has issues at neutral, yes, but she is the strongest character in the game once you are made to block something. Miles ahead of every other rushdown character in regards to being able to pushblock bait, deal with reversals/supers with j.HP into thresher on reaction, and make the opponent not want to do anything at all. Her raw mixup isn't as potent as Ms Fortune or Filia, but Ms Fortune and Filia do not have even remotely the same capacity to reset their pressure as Painwheel. With the capacity to reset your pressure, comes more tick throws, and painwheel can convert off of her tick throws everywhere in screen without meter without otg if she doesn't want to, which the others can't. I can not think of a single character who is as good as she is once she gets in.

Peacock: Peacock is a lockdown character, whose lockdown tools just so happen to help her zone. If you can get in, stay in and run mixups that you can turn not only safe but positive every time. If they get blocked, do LK George. If you get pushblocked, call another M item drop. When she puts so much shit on screen, she MAKES you respect her which lets you run Peacock's kinda okay mixup game to devestating effect because you don't have to worry much about people mashing jabs or reversals after they get item dropped at frametrap timing for the 500th time, or eat a long range c.HP, or eat a plane, or any of her other shit she can put on screen. j.MP is a fantatic air-to-air button that stops aerial approach and can chain into j.HP as an extra level of fuck you.

The moment Peacock gets ANY kind of momentum, and sets ANY of her shit up, she is incredibly difficult for every character to deal with.

Big Band: L Brass needs more abuse, it's really good for neutral. M/H Brass + Neutral assist that keeps it either safe or plus is stupidly braindead. He walks you to the corner if you want to block brass, and counterpokes your approach if you want to get in. As Big Band mains get better at parrying, he will be less free to pressure/neutral game rushdown openers. Every confirm can turn into a hard knockdown that sends them fullscreen and then some. His close lights are quite plus so his pressure is actually really good once he get in, everyone needs to do more frametraps. j.LK->j.MK fuzzies are also great. L Extend is a game changing assist. I personally think that Giant Step is a bit of a gimmick mixup option, but the light one is great up close. Keep an eye on him.

SIDE NOTE:

Every character that has the capacity to set up an air throw/burst bait 50/50... be very very very afraid of them once they land a hit.
 
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Valentine: ... I think her falling off is just coincidence of higher level players not playing her, or people not picking her up because people were all like "Well, Duckator is the best player, and he uses Val, I'm not gonna pick Val because playing top tier is boring!!!".

@2:09



I want to be Duckator's Kobe Bryant. $_$
 
Eliza (currently doesnt gave a bad matchup afaik)
Peacock (damage still hasn't been adjusted to be more in line with the rest of the cast)
Val (reasons that are both obvious and to numerous to explain, again)


The rest is kinda a crapshoot:

Parasoul (bad matchups against fukua,val and peacock keep her down)
Fukua (airfireballs and good mixup options)
Fortune (still a really solid character, minus the stupidity)
Cerebella (godlike normals and cr.lk>mgr make her always a rock solid contender upclose, from far she can run through pokes with her armor, hit people with Titan knuckle or lock n load, and reflect attempts at projectile zoning, shes just a super solid character)
Filia (the best character in the game once she makes you block, imho, her greatest strength is how good her high starters are... They go over low starters and confirm easily, do great damage, and are completely safe on block while also being very anti pushblock unless pushblocked perfectly... Plus she has updo... But that is now overshadowed by the much better for everyone not named "val or parasoul or double" beat extend L)
Painwheel (upclose mixups are great, damage is good, needs no meter to convert from any throws... Painwheel as an offensive character has basically everything, but excels at not a whole lot, as a defensive character she can zone by runni away and maintaining proper spacing to get other characters to overextend, painwheels primary weakness is that she hates midrange play, grab a beat extend L and painwheel becomes an altogether different character... Perhaps even top 3.)
Double (her damage seems on the lower end right now because of all her throw starters and lack of ridiculously good resets... I'd personally rank doubles resets as lowest tier right now, though she does have some decent options, its variance and damage that keeps them down in my mind)
Squigly (good at any range but has a hard time changing her ranges well on the fly, also becomes an altogether ridiculous character with beat extend L)
BB (has beat extend L and H brass assists, but to little is known about his neutral play to put him higher in my mind, still, were i to put letters on these tiers, id put peacock at a+ because of her damage (Eliza is an s-tier character in my mind right now) and BB at like B tier. I still think the tiers are quite compressed and the game is still more matchup based than tier based with the exception of peacock,val and Eliza )



Tldr

Just pick Eliza if you want to win
 
Characters that can maintain distanced pressure: Peacock, Big Band, Eliza, Parasoul, Fukua, Cerebella.
Characters that can't: Filia, Valentine, Ms Fortune, Painwheel.
Squiggly: It's a travesty that I have absolutely zero first-hand experience with Squiggly so I have no idea how to categorise her. IM SORRY I SHOULD LEARN HER SOON

Would Double fit into the top category too ?
 
Hello :^)

Now that it's been a little while since Evo I'm curious what everyone's tier lists look like now. I've been hearing a lot of people saying Val is low tier, which has got me wondering, is that what most people think? For a while I think everyone's top 3 in some order was Val, Fortune, Peacock, but then Fortune got nerfed and now Val has kind of fallen out of favor. What does everyone think the top 3 is now? And I guess the remaining 8 while we're at it.
I still have this thing that I posted a few pages ago. I was going to finish it but then... I kinda stopped caring about it. I haven't played the game since EVO but I still stand by this. http://pastebin.com/EZ4EaxsC
 
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Top: Val, Eliza, Peacock
High: Fillia, Fortune, Parasoul
High Mid: Fukua, Double, Bella
Low Mid: Squigly, Big Band
Low: Painwheel

Can't remember how different to my last list this is, but eliza wasn't in it and I'm thinking I know enough about Eliza to say she is good right now.
 
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I believe Big Band is secretly high/top tier.

His potential is there, just no one to make him shine.
 
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I believe Big Band is secretly high/top tier.

His potential is there, just no one to make him shine.
I think his risk will always be a factor, but with his ability to fit on/round out some teams will probably move him up over time as will people getting better at parry.

With how risky it is for him to do pretty much anything, I can't see him being on par with the top 3.
 
With how risky it is for him to do pretty much anything, I can't see him being on par with the top 3.

........which have yet to be agreed upon, because this game is pretty balanced, and there are too few, to no glaring imbalances between characters
 
........which have yet to be agreed upon, because this game is pretty balanced, and there are too few, to no glaring imbalances between characters
There have been some characters that have been pretty consistently thought to be better/worse for quite a while.

No the game obviously doesn't have glaring imbalances... guess we should throw out all tier list talk all together then?
 
Characters that can maintain distanced pressure: Cerebella.

Eh?

I kinda disagree that Peacock is a lockdown character. It's more about pressure to me, but at all ranges. Constant frametraps that chip away and make people want to take a big risk to break the cycle. Double cat heads was more of a lockdown style, and Parasoul with the right assist and play a strong lockdown game too.

I could agree with your view of Painwheel if Filia's j.hk didn't work the way it does. Baiting out pushblocks is cool and all, but people will never get to the point where they can actually block Filia's stuff reliably, so she doesn't need all that baiting ability. I guess I haven't played with the new air gregor, but I still think with the close-up game being similar strength to PW, Filia's team utility puts her ahead.

Eliza/Valentine/Peacock; seems reasonable as a top 3, especially if you're thinking mainly about point characters. Peacock and Eliza still have plenty of room for growth, Valentine less so in my opinion.

Filia/Bella/Double/Big Band; I would see as the top support characters, with Big Band having a lot of potential to become stronger.

Fortune/Parasoul/Fukua/Squigly/Painwheel; are in somewhat of a no man's land to me. They all have some application as support characters, and Fortune and Parasoul make decent point characters as well, but I don't think they blow any of the other two lists out of the water.
 
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is it me or fortune's utility for assist very limited and is regarded to stick to point or 2nd?

you are right about that. not everyone has an easy time converting from H fiber upper assist since it knocks people so far away and doesnt knockdown. i saw one guy using st.HK (headon) as a lockdown assist which worked semi well, but theres other way better LD assists out there.

other than those 2 there arent any other moves worth using now. maybe downtoward+HP (head off).

i should give her head toss a go actually...
 
Fortune's best spot on a team is on point by a pretty significant margin. Taluda makes her work 2nd because Painwheel is one of the few characters that can really utilize Fiber Uppercut as an assist. I'm obviously not saying she can't be placed second but I think she's at her strongest when backed by assists.
 
Fortune's best spot on a team is on point by a pretty significant margin. Taluda makes her work 2nd because Painwheel is one of the few characters that can really utilize Fiber Uppercut as an assist. I'm obviously not saying she can't be placed second but I think she's at her strongest when backed by assists.
i concur. she needs an assist that will cover her poor air prioity.
 
Fortune's best spot on a team is on point by a pretty significant margin. Taluda makes her work 2nd because Painwheel is one of the few characters that can really utilize Fiber Uppercut as an assist. I'm obviously not saying she can't be placed second but I think she's at her strongest when backed by assists.
Fortune's strengths as a support character were more about a great incoming and a strong alpha counter assist than being an 'assist' character per se. I am not sure this is still the case if her air super was nerfed.
 
BB is higher than what i first thought. He's a real monster of a character with parasouls lp shot making almost everything he does not only safe on block... But gives pressure.

Right now i think of him as high mid and he could be even better than that.
 
Top: Val, Eliza, Peacock
High: Fillia, Fortune, Parasoul
High Mid: Fukua, Double, Bella
Low Mid: Squigly, Big Band
Low: Painwheel

Can't remember how different to my last list this is, but eliza wasn't in it and I'm thinking I know enough about Eliza to say she is good right now.
PW that low? Why? What is she lacking that makes her so bad? Just curious.
 
What are her good matchups?
I don't know much about the game. That's why I'm asking. Her air normals, resets, flight cancels, mixups, etc seemed pretty good to me. I mean yeah she doesn't have instant overheads but...I thought she would be at least mid.
 
What are her good matchups?
Val, at the very least. My gut tells me she should also have advantage against Fortune, Fillia, and Band, but I don't play those matchups.
 
Val, at the very least. My gut tells me she should also have advantage against Fortune, Fillia, and Band, but I don't play those matchups.
this prolly does not mean much but....

PW has an adv over filia for sure. fortune........IF the fortune takes the head off then its a definite for PW with head on its still in PW's favor.


for filia she needs to get in....so does PW. problem? j mp covers most air options filia has. and plus she's extremely linear. you could TRY to grab to the PW but if she spaced you out you're eating j mp PLUS the followup conversion. unless @WingZero or @Pikmario would care to explain how this matchup is approached from the filia side.
 
Val, at the very least. My gut tells me she should also have advantage against Fortune, Fillia, and Band, but I don't play those matchups.
I don't know about that. It's pretty easy for Val to keep pw out and it's pretty safe to pressure her on the ground. Normally when I go in with val, if they block my mixup I just back off. Against pw, unless she has a dp assist I just go ham.
 
You know it's funny that mostly everyone's tier list has the top tier as the best point characters, and not support or anchors
 
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Best point characters: Fukua, Peacock, Parasoul, maybe Bella
Best support characters: Fillia, Double, Bella, Fukua