Winnie's Assist Tier List

[winnie]

I put together an Assist tier list awhile back and recently updated it with Annie assists.

Winnie's Assist Tier List

I put my criteria for evaluation in the spread sheet and would love to hear anyone's opinion on what I could do to improve clarity and understanding of my methods.

The most important thing to take away from this is not what is the best assist in the game but to give you an idea of what assists are strong for each character to help you build the team you want to play.

I want to try and keep this list evolving with the game's meta so I will try and change it when I see fit and would be happy to listen to anyone on what they think is a good assist and why to add to the spread sheet.

 

[Kankato]

My MvC2 legacy brain is reeling from the DP assists being so low, but I know you're right.

 

[Stuff]

tbf currently in this meta a DP assist is very useful, it's funny because assists are more useful or less useful the more a character is used

e.g Ms. Fortune is getting more popular atm which is making a DP more useful.
or
e.g Annie is really good which makes Painwheel more useful since Annie is weak to her

A dp can still be a crucial choice if you run a trio but at the moment a lot of people are favoring neutral advantage which isn't a problem in a trio since you can have both

In a duo it might be more favorable to run a neutral assist since you have the added bulk which might make a dp unnecessary

fwiw a lot of people still use DP quite frequently and I think the categories heavily favor neutral assists

Like at least for beam assist, I wouldn't call it an offensive assist, most players don't use beam up close, which is why with the annie robo shell you'll see north knuckle instead when up close in that regard I'd rate it a B because it's mostly used to close the gap while forcing a crouch or a jump (or a block) which I would consider neutral but you can also consider that offense itself so at least for me "offense" and "neutral" are sometimes the same thing so I think it can be a little lopsided which is why DP isn't as highly rated but it was the difference between Sage losing to Cloud's Fortune (he did not have H Beat Extend) and winning to it (He now had H Beat Extend).

I also think that stuff like alpha counter ability should also be taken into consideration because that is also a utility you can weigh against other assists as some are more useful in that area than others. It's the difference between being able to burst safely and having to just hold that and similarly in regards to safe strings

Additionally, whether or not an assist can help a character get its resource should matter too but it's also going to complicate things so maybe as a different list specifically for those characters?

I think with offensive maybe it could be seen more as how this assist sets up a mix up or how well it lets you do things in a blockstring or what it can stuff

and with Neutral I'd personally look at it as how much screen it can fill and how much easier it is for you to get in with it

Combo I'm not sure how to rate myself since some attributes of it I just gave to offensive and I think different character would weigh this part differently and I'm unsure how to average that out. Also I think L pinion should get an S or an A in combo because that has a ton of hitstun which lets you pick up from really far while doing like 1k.

and defense is defense (which I think alpha counter might fit in)

Overall I like the idea of lists like this, it helps players decide on what they might want which is awesome.

 

[winnie]

These are a lot of good points thanks for the feedback. I'm going to redo the list after Umbrella officially comes out of ps4.

How would you all feel if I also made a more in-depth assist tier list with more nuanced criteria? For example adding more details to the general categories with subcategories like alpha counter in defense and on block/ on hit for offence.

 

[Kankato]

I'd be down. I think the primary function of an assist tier list is to demonstrate what is strong and why, so the more detailed your criteria the better the end list will be :)

 

[fayestra]

now that it's pointed out, yeah, a lot of the DP assists are rated pretty low for neutral. sure, if you're getting zoned out they can't help much but in a more footsies/midrange type of matchup or if you're playing as the zoner, then they're great at controlling the match, and maybe even better for some matchups than more horizontal assists.

imo the final score should be a different rating system than "ranking individual points then taking the sum". the grades are good at showing the roles of each assist and how effective they are in that role, but it feels skewed because it's directly part of the ranking too (like beam being B+ defense is odd). maybe weighing certain categories higher than others? like losing a combo assist would be livable for some characters, but losing out on a long-range, horizontal assist can put them at a bigger disadvantage. or maybe just a separate list of "best overall assists" separate from "best assist in different categories".

 

[Stuff]

I like the idea of rating assists per category because it lets a new player know what an assist can do for them in a specific category. This way if a newer player isn't set in stone with a team yet they can look at their options for what each character can bring to the table assist-wise and they can make the judgement of whether or not they think the assist value or lack thereof is worth it or not when making a team.

Overall I still think this is a great guideline tool without bombarding a new player with tons of information. This and the team building guide are good simplified ways for a player to get into the game so I like it a lot for that. As long as it can stay easily digestible I'd say you're doing a great job.

I also think something in depth could be great as well, and maybe even have stuff like how it helps the character or how much that character would prefer that assist behind them but stuff like that is a HUGE time sink. Maybe like a star rating system for how much the character really likes that assist, for example:

H Fiber
5 Stars: Robo Fortune
4 Stars: Painwheel
3 Stars: Big Band
2 Stars: Parasoul(?), Squigly(?)
1 star: idk but that's the gist of it.


Like we know H fiber is kind of a niche assist but for some characters it can still be p decent, that way a newer player can still maybe use it if they play like Robo or something idk. I think that even if you were to average it out this way neutral assists would likely still outrank a lot of other assists because they're so handy at establishing the attack plan while a DP is mostly just for getting people off you when you don't get start your plan but still helpful just also hard to categorize and rate even though it can save you from a loss. Not a bad assist and very handy because it's very good at what it needs to do and it is possible to run no DP like a DP isn't always a must-have but fighting games are complicated and it always depends.

Possibly even a tier list per character but again the more complicated stuff is a huge undertaking and involves keeping up with any possible meta changes because at that point it's kind of a write up level type deal though I wouldn't dis-encourage it either stuff like this is great for new people.