Note: Tiers are alphabetically ordered.

This page tracks changes in my opinion of how strong each character is. Changes are mostly me getting increased understanding of the game, but patches obviously change things too.

November 2023 (patch 5.10)

More understanding

Putting more value on moves that lock opponents down from moving, e.g. Claudio b+1, Noctis db+1,2. Less value on slow, linear mixup buttons. Why work to enforce e.g. Law f+1+2 or Shaheen b+1 when you could just have your mid be homing in the first place?

Putting more value on being strong on infinite. Any chars that depend on wall pressure or pushing opponent to the wall are horrible in tournament given stage pick rule. The chance of randoming infinite in first round is too high to be worth risking.

Akuma

I underestimated how good his pokes and neutral buttons are. The tracking and range on f,F+4 is ridiculous. (Can it even be whiff punished?) If he’s +4 or better his df+1 is a force block, and the extensions can’t be fuzzied or reacted to. You have to play the guessing game.

The range on b+2 makes it rarely ever whiff and it often evades the first jab of a jab string. This is a huge problem move when combined with the 2D jab that you have to whiff punish preemptively.

I also overrated the issue of tournament nerves. Defending vs Akuma is arguably more nerve wracking than hitting a 2 frame link. In many cases he doesn’t even need to hit the link, since FADC into i10 is just as much (or more) damage. So it just comes down to power level, and the power level is there. The only real weakness of the char is a bad Marduk matchup.

Anna

Matchup vs 2D characters is bad enough to bump her a bit. She also struggles vs characters with good safe mid CH launchers… which is like half the cast.

Eliza

It’s really hard to overstate how bullshit 2D jabs are. I have no idea why they’re still 14 frames recovery. There might be no reason to play her over Akuma or Geese but she’s still got real threats to make that 2D jab a problem.

Feng

Isn’t able to lock opponents down as easily as Kuni, Noctis, or Zafina. While b+4 is bullshit, it’s also not enough to really discourage movement on its own. So he relies more on good reads and situational awareness than those above him.

Heihachi

Most matchups are absurdly in his favour, but his bad matchups are really bad. His neutral is substantially worse vs chars that can punish f,F+2 consistently, and he struggles vs strong evasive options. Hard to consider him “A” tier when there are 5–10 bad matchups and an awful matchup vs Zafina.

Jin

The best mixups, best jab strings, best CH buttons, and the best parry. What more do you need. Scrubby Jin players will see pro Jin mains swap to Akuma or Noctis and think that means he isn’t top 10. Get real.

Leo

I underrated how strong playing entirely off of slower buttons can be. Instead of trying to lock people down with linear pokes, you can just play like a degenerate relying entirely on power mids. The only thing keeping her below A tier is low combo damage on infinite.

Leroy

I was running disinfo the whole time and can’t believe how many fell for it.

• Mixups are strong and easy to enforce.
• Jab strings are good and 2,1 is a solid poke.
• Easy CH fishing neutral with d+1+2 and db+4.
• Reversal options (1,1; b+1; b+1+2; parries) are unmatched.
• Combo damage is above average and W! HRM.f+4 is absurd.
• Solid range and damage on whiff punishers.
• The quality of his hitboxes, the range of b+4, and his universal parry make him impervious to almost all bullshit.

Add it all up and he’s a solid character without any bad matchups.

Frames on his df+1 aren’t great but the damage is good and what more can you ask from that crazy hitbox and tracking. More importantly, both extensions being natural and similar speeds is quite rare, especially with how relatively safe the mid is.

Noctis

Poster child alongside Kunimitsu for everything wrong with the game. The ultimate issue is his trivial ability to disable movement with db+1,2 and f,F+1+2 combined with his best mixup options d+3 and b+2 being fast and evasive. There’s little reason to use other moves except for specific situations. Of course there are other moves that make him strong, but those are the problem ones.

King

Biggest oversight was assuming df+1,2 could be hit confirmed, but it’s only really the case on CH. He has more trouble enforcing the chain throw if people challenge the df+1 on hit situation well. The other issue is that in matchups where df+1 can be safely avoided (Alisa, Kuni, Lili, Zafina) he’s almost autolosing. It’s too much of crutch.

November 2022 (patch 5.01)

Patches

Anna

Getting huge buffs to three key moves (df+1,2 ws1,2 and df+4) is obviously a big deal. But the part I underrated was how significant the buff to df+1,2 (and ws1,2) was.

There are two parts to this. The first is that the situation is super common. df+1,2 on block happens many many many times per round.

The second part is that the change in payoff was absurd, about 3–4x more payoff when the mid extension hits. Note that unlike most mid/high string ender mixups, this is a true three-way mixup (play frames, block, duck) since the fast extension is delayable: There’s no fuzzy. And in these situations, the attacker’s mid option wins vs two of the defender’s options (play, duck). So increase in payoff to mid hitting increases payoff for two outcomes, not one, making it twice as effective as it seems on the surface. Not only does it significantly punish taking your turn, it also punishes ducking the high.

Even before this buff, the situation on block was arguably in her favour, since it’s only -3. But now it’s clearly in her favour, and quite significantly. Even just moving is taking a huge risk for little reward. This is such an outrageous situation to be in for blocking an i13 mid that does 23 damage. Its supposed weakness to movement is also both greatly exaggerated and fixable by not having skill issue.

Fahkumram

Despite losing a lot of strong tools, he’s still a real character. The biggest hits were to his mixups and whiff punishment, but he still has the hellsweep and a good variety of whiff punishers. The space control and poking is still outrageously good, just without the brainless CH launchers. But his issue remains being a casino character who’s so lame nobody wants to make him work.

Geese

Losing so many high payoff buttons is a big deal and being underrated by only focussing on his solid set of pokes. The meterless and wall damage off his parry is now so much lower that it’s changed outcomes for a number of games I’ve seen already. Yeah 1,2 is a great poke, but so is Chloe’s, and is she A tier?

Josie

The d+4 buff was huge enough to make her a real character, but she was starting from such a low spot that she’s still far from being up there with the big boys.

Julia

Nothing fundamentally changed about her. Nerfing one mixup option doesn’t matter much when she still has plenty of others.

Katarina

Similar to Anna, while the buffs seem small, they’re all on key moves. Her df+1 going from -2 to -1 changes countless situations, most notably: df+1 df+1 beating i15 mids, and df+1 4 beating i13 mids. The sweep that evades almost every mid in the game not being launch on block is outrageous.

Leo

Despite buffs that look really good on paper, they don’t fundamentally change anything. You’re not going to use b+2 as a poke. Now df+2+3 is stronger but it still has range and tracking issues. The df+2 change makes whiff punishment far simpler and gives a real callout button. But this doesn’t solve any real problems Leo has. It makes her more explosive, but she was already explosive.

The ws2 change is perhaps the most significant, since it fixes a lot of previously very bad matchups. But it still feels like she’s more of a counterpick character than one you can main to win tourneys.

She still has the issue where every mid is either df+3 or needs to be complemented by movement. There are no good force block mids in her pressure.

Leroy

He was already awful, and nerfing a whole bunch of key moves sealed the deal on him being bin tier.

Lidia

Going from having godlike mixups to no real mixups at all is a big deal. But the fall from grace is not that far, since she’s still got great movement paired with crazy neutral buttons. The main concern with her as a tournament character is that she’s somewhat priced into taking gambles with the stances and strings.

Lucky Chloe

Straight number buffs to already key moves are enough to bump her up a bit, but not by much. The FC mixup having a CH launch attached is by far the biggest deal, making it a lot harder to play tight defense against her.

Yoshimitsu

The wall crush is a little overrated, but it’s still good. The bigger change was giving him a braindead neutral CH button, removing his biggest weakness: goofy neutral.

Xiaoyu

Losing all the tricky wall tech traps isn’t that big a deal but it’s enough to bump her down a peg.

More understanding

Eddy

d+[3~4] is a super solid mixup low, which with his strong mids make him scary to block against. This totally changes how easy I feel it is to pressure people into eating his funny neutral moves. Even still he’s a bit too high risk to be a main tournament character.

Feng

Looking at every other top tier, all of them have a few bad matchups. But Feng always comes out looking like the favourite. The combination of high evasiveness and S tier pokes isn’t given to anyone else. That plus shoulder handles a lot of weird situations that for other chars cause big issues and bad matchups.

Kazuya

Kazuya is what people think Anna is: forced to play hish risk only. The good mixups are all slow and linear, so the only serious way to play him is going hard on electrics and df+2. This is fine for deathmatches, where he’s maybe top 10, but terrible for tournaments. There’s no good pokes for playing a low risk, tight game.

Kunimitsu

Her standing mixup (db+2,4 and db+3,3) is actually surprisingly strong. db+3,3 is 15 damage for a fast high-crush low that isn’t launch on block. The generic d+3 that other chars have is by comparison 12 damage and -17. And db+2,4 is 30 damage for a fast evasive safe mid.

Her qcf+1+2 is a great move for covering weird situations ensuring she has solid matchups across the board.

Law

Being so bad on infinite is a bit of a deal breaker for tournaments.

Shaheen

His 1,2,3 is—similar to Kuni’s 1,2,4—actually a clef cannon, being a very slightly delayable CH confirm. This makes pressing into him surprisingly scary.

August 2022 (patch 5.00)

This list is for initial thoughts on winners and losers from the patch in terms of the changes.

July 2022 (patch 4.20)

New evaluation

Tiers are now decided by broad viability vs the cast and tournament viability rather than a raw strengths vs weaknesses basis. So it’s now more important to have few bad matchups and good consistency rather than being generally favoured or having good robbery potential. This re-ordered things quite a lot.

More understanding

I’ve noticed that characters having bad mixups is only a serious issue if they also have to often give up their turn somewhat to contest space and movement, or if they’re outclassed in neutral.

If they have to give up turns, then it becomes viable for the opponent to simply play the waiting game and dash block, step block, etc. until there’s an opening. Otherwise, the opponent has to take serious risks to challenge eventually, removing the need (or purpose) for strong mixups.

Similarly, if they’re outclassed in neutral, the opponent can just play defensively and end up with a bunch of neutral resets, and there won’t be a serious way to challenge this approach. But if we’re comfy in neutral then there’s no need to get hasty.

Converesely, good mixups are worthless if enforcing them takes too much work, or if it’s impractical due to awful pokes or bad risk/reward on checks.

Somewhat related is that I’m considering the game as played in tournaments, i.e. with cheap video splitters, dodgy monitors, and PS4 lag; plus tournament nerves. So characters like Asuka, Leo, and Jin don’t have even remotely reactable mixups.

Bob

One of the most overrated things in the game is a homing hellsweep. The problem with trading off being easier to enforce with having worse reward is that it’s much worse when the opponent is just blocking. The sweep still loses to mashing even at +9, so he still has to check challenges before actually using it. So this particular tradeoff just isn’t worth it when step block is a thing. It only stops you from sidewalking. So you can’t sidewalk vs Bob? Who cares. The only reason to play Bob over a real Mishima is skill issue.

Fahkumram

The issue with Fahk is he’s just a straight up casino. There’s no effective way to play him that isn’t the functional equivalent of a drooling 3-moves Kazuya player. That’s not a good recipe for winning tournaments, but it’s a real grief to play against. He’s top 5 in terms of raw power level but you can’t really outplay the opponent. In tournament you will eventually guess wrong and lose.

Heihachi

Without a doubt the most downplayed character in the game, mostly because he’s so difficult to play. What distinguishes him from other Mishimas is the degree to which he takes and remains in control of the game. He’s a god of neutral, and there’s never an opening in his pressure. Taking any initiative against him is a massive risk, while he can do anything freely. While Devil Jin can take someone to the cleaners if he’s lucky, Heihachi just dominates them outright.

His mixup is greatly underrated, with either the thought that db+2 is always reactable at no mental cost, or because basic risk vs reward is misunderstood. Almost all lows in Tekken 7 are already launch on “block” because of low parry, and Heihachi’s hellsweep is immune to all defensive options other than ducking. Complement that with f+4—by far the best pressure mid in the game—and the mixup quickly goes from sus to more serious than actual joke mixups like Bob’s or Leroy’s.

The only lacking aspect to this is that he can’t exactly steal wins off mixups alone the way that, say, Anna or Paul can. But if this were a real issue, you’d be saying Zafina’s no good. You don’t need a comeback mechanic if you’re never behind in the first place.

Jack-7

Grossly underrated because people can’t read numbers. f,F+1 into blue upper does 45 damage and leads to oki where hFC.db+1 can’t be parried. That’s way more reward than any other mid of this speed, range, and tracking gets, and it more-or-less resets to neutral on block. I can’t even think of a move to compare it to it’s that good.

So when we take the whole mixup into account where the low does 16 damage, is +6, and must be low parried, it’s actually above average just in terms of risk reward vs guessing. (I rate Kazumi’s mixup highly where her low is only 17 damage and +4 because the mid complement is so good. Getting the same reward and forcing low parry is still a damn good low.) When we also consider how easy the mixup is to enforce, it makes the people saying “Jack dies to low parry” look like innumerate morons.

With a serviceable mixup, his enormous range and god tier pokes allow him to play the safest possible game (outside of perhaps Heihachi), never leaving any openings, while still putting huge pressure on the opponent. He is at worst giving up turns (and going casino mode) from ws2 in matchups where the opponent can launch ws2,1.

I used to think Jack is just bad Fahkumram, because Fahkumram gets a real jab and a magic 4 to complement his bullshit range, right? But Jack’s 2,1 is in fact the best poke in the game. Better than generic jab. Better than Jin’s 2,1, Kuni’s 2,2, or Julia’s f,F+1. The space control you get from 2,1 is insane before you even consider that he also gets a homing mid poke and that his main low doubles as a poke. Having the best pokes is what really defines A+ tier because it’s what lets you play a lower risk game and consistently perform in tournaments. Compare this to Fahkumram whose entire game plan is doing canned string mixups, i.e. he’s just casino Jack.

Kazumi

Ironically, the reason she’s so low is the reason people think she’s good. Her pokes are not good. She’s a mixup character pretending to be a poke character. And the mixups aren’t good enough to justify how bad the pokes are.

Hitting someone with df+1 10 times still doesn’t kill them, and there isn’t any other serious option to stop someone struggling incessantly. For her to compete with a B-tier character, she needs a proper callout to mashing when she’s around +5~9.

King

Similar to Heihachi, his pokes are godlike, but he trades weaker neutral for better mixups. Probably not the best trade, but his df+1 is so good it doesn’t really matter.

Leroy

The spectre of Leroy Japan is so haunting people still haven’t realized he’s been nerfed into oblivion. The numbers on his df+1 are a joke. Oh, but the hitbox is amazing! Nice, it’s great for oki I guess? Who cares.

Like Bob, the issue with the homing hellsweep is that it traded off the reward. Low damage plus no oki and underwhelming mids means it’s not even good for gambling. Real gamblers like Paul and Kazuya get actual payoff for being a dickhead. His impressive seeming suite of lows doesn’t even have a proper pressure low. (SS.4 is a joke.)

His parries are also grossly overrated. None of them do any damage. Oh, b+2 parries everything? Have you tried blocking?

Negan

This is the character that people think Kazumi is. Godlike pokes backed by reasonable mixups, neutral, and callout buttons.

March 2022 (patch 4.20)

Difference in definitions

Definitions for tiers were very different at this time. The criteria used to focus on strengths and weaknesses, rather than viability of the character vs the field generally.

New evaluation

Bob

Something doesn’t quite sit right with him being in either A or B. He’s clearly very strong and has everything you need, but he’s lacking some real X factor. The hellsweep is overrated, but his neutral is still strong.

Josie

See Lucky Chloe.

Lucky Chloe

While they do suck, they’re not quite as bad as bears.

Marduk

Don’t know why he was in B in the first place. Respectable neutral paired with ridiculous mixups and oki. Degenerate character. Would really like to know why d+3 does 18 damage. It’s absurd given he also has the unparriable d+4.

Negan

His b+1+2 is uniquely powerful. His cheese isn’t very good, but all the key moves are solid buttons.

Patches

Armor King

Just look at this list of changes. He was strong before this, but that’s a lot of big buffs on key moves. Homing df+2 is insane.

Lili

Getting some more respectable mixups is enough turn her into a big problem. Having the best sidestep gets a lot more valuable if your opponent can’t just block all game.

More understanding

Armor King

His buffs weren’t enough to make this placement, so clarifying: The downplayers need a reality check. His df+1 tracking is “bad” in the way that Lidia’s is: it tracks so well that it’s a big shock when it doesn’t. He has neutral buttons all over the place, now fully rounded out with an easy mixup off f,f,n+2. His only issue is that he’s got an i14 d+4, but it’s not like he’s lacking defensive buttons. The chain throws are fast enough to be scary and open up the can of whoop-ass that are his CH buttons.

His only “issue” is you need some skill to whiff punish with dark upper, and some moves that people never use anyway need to be block punished with it. Having bad crouching punishment doesn’t matter when you can just low parry anyway, and he has a chunky ws4 which is ideal for whiff punishment. He has good standing punishment on the most important ones: -10, -12, and -13.

Asuka

Maybe the best character in the game for stealing a set. She has so many buttons that murder you for guessing wrong on even a jab. And no, d+1+2 isn’t reactable in tournaments. Her only issue is against characters with a fast knee or elbow for a mid check.

Bears

Despite having a few things that look really strong on paper (2,1, f+1,1,1, b,f+2, df+2,1, safe-on-block lows), there’s really nothing else going on here. Bears suck, and not in a way that’s redeemable. They don’t even have the good kind of cheese where knowing is only half the battle.

Their biggest issue is dealing with generic d+4 and dickjabs. Bears lack a d+4 of their own, fast mid checks, and good low crush options. While they can answer an opponent’s mid check with 2,1 or f+1,1,1, that’s not enough to neuter real robust pressure. Both options are ultimately gambles as they can be launched on reads just as easily.

Bad defense alone wouldn’t be a death sentence, but it’s combined with abysmal mixups where opponents are quite comfortable to guard a lot. This gives opponents a lot of flexibility to both pressure you hard while not fearing any pressure back. As long as they adequately respect 2,1 and f+1,1,1, you’re in big trouble.

Bryan

The hardest character to place just because at his fullest potential he’s outrageously strong. Ultimately he does have weaknesses, just ones he gets excessive compensation for. People need to stop acting like his +4 after b+1 needs to be air-tight pressure. It’s not, and it shouldn’t be, but it’s still an advantage.

Claudio

His key mid poke being a knee is surprisingly useful when so many top tiers have good parries. Aside from that, the damage on it is insane.

Dragunov

The range on wr2 is much worse than I thought. (I was treating it like it was similar range and tracking to Kazumi’s.) Fairly easy to interrupt it with pokes or CH moves, which just leaves d+2 as the only neutral button. Range on df+2 is also surprisingly bad.

Eliza

Too hard to justify picking her over Akuma. Ultimately plays the same as him but with worse buttons.

Ganryu

The clap is too good. While his mixups are a little overrated, his space control is something else. Biggest weakness is against good punch parries.

Hwoarang

The more I lab this guy the more it’s clear the people playing him are bad. His “bad tracking” is a complete lie. Sure he can’t spend all game in flamingo, but his neutral isn’t bad anyway. His ws3 and ws4,4 are hands down the best checks from crouch dash, and with clean execution he can mix JFSR with d+3,4, even from wave dash. Notable also that a flubbed JFSR input almost always gets you df+4, which is still a safe mid that’s roughly the same speed.

Katarina

While you can neuter the HAR mixup with ssr duck, this is both hard to do and she can just take a free mixup by doing HAR into crouch. Feels similar to Leo in that she actually has great buttons for playing fundies with and can blow people out fast with surprisingly hard to defend against stuff.

Kazumi

Her db+4 isn’t reactable with the P1 costume on (the ceremonial dress). I was also underrating how good f,F+4 and wr2 are, both of which make it super risky to ever block lows vs her. Even without db+4 she can get far with just db+3 and d+3.

Leo

While her key lows might be reactable in a perfect environment, offline tournaments are never that. Add tournament nerves on top and you can’t expect people to neuter her mixups that easily. Also, KNK.3+4 and KNK.1+2 is a real mixup. Animations seem identical at the start.

What she does have is arguably the best df+1 in the game in terms of recovery and damage. These are two fairly underlooked numbers. The recovery combined with KNK cancels make defending against her a surprising amount of trouble. Her jab also fully tracks one way and has great range and forwards movement. Solid character to win off fundies with.

Master Raven

The more you lab her the more OP she looks. Basically a more obnoxious version of Lidia. db+2 is unparriable, insane range, good hitbox, tricky on block, and gives a great mixup on hit. Her neutral is almost unparalleled, with the FC mixup having huge range and backed up by a ridiculous set of random keepout buttons. Needs clean execution to mix the FC sweep with df+4, but it’s entirely possible. She’s not lacking for anything, and she always gets out ahead in scrambles because of all the parries and jumping moves.

Nina

Her bad tracking is a meme. She gets blown out pretty hard by characters with strong neutral, but anyone forced to defend against her is in a lot of trouble. Reacting to the plethora of ~i20 lows with bonkers properties in tournament environment is also not something you can depend on.

Noctis

There’s a few key things that make defending vs Noctis annoying: low parrying doesn’t really work (because of d+2), and sidestepping doesn’t really work (because of db+1,1+2 and f,F+1+2). He also has arguably the best neutral button in the game (except electrics) with f,F+1+2. The only trouble he has is if you play super defensive, but a demoman is the perfect tool to answer that. His ub+1 is also super frustrating given the above difficulty with stepping or ducking vs him, because you can’t do anything when you block it. His biggest issue is vs characters that can get a strong mixup after blocking f,F+1+2.

Jin

His pokes are too good, and after seeing Book hit Arslan and Anakin with both CD.4 and f,F+3 at CEO anyone that says it’s a fake mixup is capping.

Also, having an i14 ws launcher is even more privileged than I thought. People just think, oh, how many lows are even -14 anyway? It’s more important for whiff punishment than block punishment. Everyone can low parry any low to get a combo, but to punish highs you need a good, fast button, and in that situation every frame counts. They’re also good to just use as a mixup or keepout button from crouch, and there every frame counts too.

Paul

See Steve.

Steve

While their neutral is really strong, they seem dependent on having a walled stage to cash in on it. On infinites, they have too much trouble making a comeback, which is what they’re supposed to be good at. Would be A tier if stage picks were back to always random.

Yoshimitsu

Seems to have too much trouble vs patient players. He’s not lacking in pokes, but he is lacking in mixups.

April 2021 (patch 4.10)

It’s possible that Zafina is S-tier despite receiving no buffs: Since her release she’s been otherwise overshadowed by Fahkumram and Leroy, and almost everyone else previously in A tier has gotten some big nerfs.

Difference in definitions

Definitions for D and E were slightly different at this time:

D tier is for characters with slight weaknesses and no uniquely powerful strengths to compensate. Against stronger characters they have a fighting chance, but there’s no reason to pick them.

E tier is for characters with clear weaknesses and no uniquely powerful strengths to compensate. Against players exploiting their weaknesses, they’re almost losing by force.

Patches

Bryan

Got serious buffs for some reason.

Devil Jin

Got serious buffs for some reason.

Fahkumram

Got enough nerfs that he’s not completely bullshit anymore.

Lidia

New character. Her supposed weaknesses are overblown: f,F+2 can be easily stepped, but f+1+2 is a totally viable answer for this. Similarly, even though you can duck and launch most of her strings, she has so many of them that doing so consistently with i15 moves is tough. If you can only get i12 punishes consistently, the fact that they all have a mid mixup makes this not that concerning. The reward on her risks are big, and the risk is not super high (mostly -10 or -11 or fast recovering highs), so I expect her to get strong results eventually if she isn’t nerfed.

Still, low risk is not no risk, which I think will make her only very popular with Japanese players. The only thing that makes me doubt this is that she probably has a bad matchup against any character with strong i10 punishers, so Akuma and Geese (and Gigas and Lee if we pretend they’re relevant) could be issues.

Kunimitsu

New character. Her supposed weaknesses are overblown: No real standing lows is irrelevant when her full crouch mixup is both the best in the game and easy to enforce. Similar to Yoshimitsu (see below), her df+1 is a big problem on block and you ultimately have to take the mixup. I remain unconvinced there are robust answers to her gimmicks, and her backdash is up there with Alisa in its ability to delete enemy options.

Like Lidia, I expect her to be unpopular with pros purely because of the bias players outside Japan have against high risk characters.

More understanding

Anna

I thought her df+1,2 had poor tracking and didn’t jail. Neither of these are true: It’s both hard to step and a pretty good situation for her on block. There’s no robust way of getting around her pokes, so at some point you really do just have to guess. She’s probably the best character in the game at enforcing a strong mixup.

Asuka

I thought her 1 jab was slower than i10 and that she had to fight like Ganryu, i.e. unable to poke effectively. Truth is that her 1 jab is still strange, being -2 on block, and she has no real i10 punisher, but this doesn’t stop her from being able to play the game.

Eddy

Not sure why he was in B tier in the first place.

Feng

One thing learnt from Fahkumram is that a key low being -15 is grossly overrated as a weakness. Low parries are a thing. It’s not as though the Kazumis out there with their “safe” lows aren’t getting juggled off a read just as well. Having a -15 low is actually useful in making your other, safer lows better, because now your opponent doesn’t want to low parry. In any case, lows hit people a lot more than they get blocked. So Feng has strong pressure, and pressuring him back is a struggle given the amount of safe, evasive options he has.

Kazumi

Her d/b+4 is reactable, and with db+3 getting its damage nerfed people can just block and laugh at how little damage she does. The only way she can actually get damage is with a CH 4, but how are you supposed to get them to attack with just db+3?

Leo

All her critical lows are i20 or slower with distinct animations. A sharp opponent can block them on reaction (LowHigh’s argument), at which point she has no real capacity to apply pressure. The virtues of the rest of her moves are irrelevant if this is the case.

Yoshimitsu

Despite the often repeated claim that his weakness is lacking “fundamental tools”, he has a df+1 with solid range and tracking and two extensions. The high extension in particular is notable because there isn’t enough time to react to it not being done before taking the turn. I measured 13 frames from the start of the high animation to the end of the blockstun. So the choices are take the mixup or give up the mental frame advantage and make it effectively around +3 on block. So in reality the only real option is to take the mixup and risk the counter hit launch, which is not that bad (because you also launch him if you duck it), but this is so far from his df+1 being bad just because it’s -4 on block. In a similar vein, having no dickjab really doesn’t matter when he has flash and spin that does the same thing but way better.

August 2020 (patch 3.32)

Very uncertain about Bob, Ganryu, Katarina, Lei, Leo, Miguel, and Raven.

Uncertain about Lars and Lili.

OLD: Explanation of tiers

The following was used up till November 2022.

S tier is for characters that overwhelmingly dominate the field. They at worst have a few “bad” matchups as specific counter-picks, but even those are close to even.

A tier is for characters with at most a few bad matchups and no seriously unplayable ones. A player could reasonably main only this character and consistently win major tournaments. These characters are always able to run their game and demand the opponent adapt to it in some way.

B tier is for characters with many bad matchups and some awful ones, but the worst can still be overcome with serious effort. These characters won’t always be able to run their game fully, but only small adaptations are ever needed. There’s no need at this point to pick up a side character.

C+ is for those in C where they’re very strong as a side character with many favourable matchups.

C tier is for characters that can usually run their game effectively but it doesn’t demand serious adaptation from the opponent. They have few enough awful matchups that they can power through them, but it doesn’t come at any serious reward. Someone dedicated to this character could win a major tournament if they get lucky, but they’re more likely just to be a resident gatekeeper.

D tier is for characters with enough awful matchups or no very favourable ones that siding another character is almost necessary to win major tournaments. It always feels like they’re playing from behind. There’s some critical aspect of their gameplan that can be shut down entirely in one way or another.

E tier is for trash characters where every matchups sucks at best. Nobody serious mains them. They only whip them out to dunk on kids.