Tier list Discussion

Gameplay and Strategy
81

DeGrey’s read on armor break is 4? B - B punishes “Rook is glowing blue” on reaction (and usually counterhits for 4). If Rook wants to interrupt with no armor or tries to jump you hit C for 1. Otherwise be +11 (or get a counterhit with B - A and get AA followup for 3). Don’t use B as a reversal, use it to force a situation if you feel you can.

Air B - B is explicitly a punish for “Rook is glowing blue” so you can get a free 2 damage and knockdown. Otherwise there is basically no reason to continue the string since single air B leaves you plus.

Stringing into C on block is usually not a thing you have to do. Since every grounded normal except bA is plus on block (and bA has hella pushback and leaves you only -4 so not actually punishable), you can choose to keep pressuring with buttons or jump back B/C to gain more plus frames. String into ghost on hit is fine since it allows you to keep pressing after you get your damage.

If anyone wants to play Rook against my DeGrey I’d love a chance to fight. I think the matchup is actually totally fine.

2 Likes
82

BxxB punishes Rook’s C? Does it break armor?

83

Pilebunker breaks armor, yes. Hitting the C does not count as a counter hit though as far as I remember, so it’s “just” 2 damage.

84

2 damage that trades with another 2 damage in knock down, or 2 damage that actually punishes?

Because that changes quite a lot.

85

It does not trade. It deals 2 to Rook and KDs and DeGrey does not get grabbed. As usual, you can get grabbed out of the backdash part I think.

86

Armour break means breaks armour and hits.
Try it yourself in training mode. Pilebunker is a very legitimate answer to windmill crusher.

87

I will. That’s quite big, maybe the MU is not as bad as I though!

88

And not just limited to windmill crusher. It beats Super and with correct spacing, Landslide. Get those Pilebunkers rolling!

And I’ll tell you a secret: The real trick is spacing your Counterpoint Step so that Pilebunker is safe on block by being too far away. If you can master that, you can Pilebunker all day long and there’s not a lot Rook can do about it.

1 Like
89

Probably super fraudulent but no one has posted anything in a long time.

Top: Jaina

Jaina is peerlessly dominant at range, so every character is forced to approach her. However, her up close game isn’t really lacking either, with some excellent reversal options (I disagree that ground super is a bad reversal option at all, it’s pretty fast and has an absolutely insane hitbox) and combos that deal good damage and also knock you back out. She has several matches where she’s extremely dominant, and if she loses any matches, they’re not by much.

High: Grave, Valerie

Grave is just super solid. I feel like he has the tools to succeed in every matchup, including vs Jaina. I feel like this is very important in a game like Fantasy Strike, since it’s much easier to pick up characters compared to other fighters, having a handful of very bad matchups can leave you very susceptible to counterpicks. Back when Valerie’s BBC was +1 on block I would have said she was top tier, having a safe string that does 1 point of block damage and also gives advantage is just insane. She’s clearly a bit weaker without it, but I still feel like she has the tools to do well in most matchups. In particular, I feel her Ground Super is very underrated. It’s a great option to take back advantage if the match ever turns against you.

Upper Mid: Setsuki, Midori, Geiger

Upper Mid is basically just for characters where I’m not sure if they’re high or mid. Setsuki can be extremely oppressive vs characters who lack good reversals, but most of the good characters have solid reversal options and I’m not as sold on those matchups. Midori is just weird. I feel like his regular form is a low tier character, but the dragon form is high tier, so you’d probably expect mid, but I feel like he has the tools to stall out his normal form fairly effectively. He’s the character I’m most unsure about. Geiger usually strikes me as a somewhat lesser version of Grave. Like Grave, he’s a pretty solid character and I feel like he has few bad matchups, but I don’t feel like he has many good matchups either, whereas Grave does. I could be wrong here, it’d require some pretty detailed matchup analysis to be sure.

Mid: Lum, Rook

Lum is fun, but I feel like he has some pretty bad matchups due to his poor reversal options. Despite his chaotic playstyle, I feel like he is actually a very honest character who has to work for his wins, which isn’t great in a game where a number of characters have some pretty dumb stuff. Rook is just too polarizing. He’s very good in some matchups, but in some matchups he’s insanely bad, leaving him very vulnerable to counterpicks. Both of these characters also have an awful matchup vs Jaina, which doesn’t help.

Low: DeGrey

Maybe I’m missing something, but I feel like DeGrey is just a bit too slow to be effective. A lot of his moves seem to have a ton of startup, which limits his ability to react to situations and score the counterhits he’s so dependent on. I feel like in almost every matchup his gameplan is to get them into the corner, but this is often a tough proposition and all it takes is one backthrow or other form of escape and all that work is gone. He also seems to have quite a few very bad matchups, in particular I feel like his matchup vs Grave is just atrocious, Grave can sword slash so many things on reaction.

90

Last patch, my tier list was

Rook, Grave, Geiger
Degrey, Val
Jaina, Setsuki, Midori

With tiers being roughly equal within themselves

I’m not really sure anymore at all, I haven’t played enough of various matchups this patch. Jaina vs Geiger was probably the worst matchup in the game (for Jaina) before and I’m not sure if Geiger super being worse changes that. The Setsuki change makes her worse vs Jaina (Jaina divekick can be used to shut down C->C now). Jaina might be a lot better - she feels good vs Lum, and her 3 hardest matchups (Grave/Geiger/Setsuki) all got a lot easier.

People in the discord are saying Setsuki B might be super degenerate vs non-reversal characters. I haven’t been playing non-reversal characters so idk, but maybe Setsuki is in a weird degenerate counterpick situation now, maybe not.

I have no idea on Lum - 90% of my experience of the new update so far has been playing vs people trying to figure out how to play Lum and I’m not losing to them at all with Jaina or Geiger or Rook, but I don’t know if that really means anything. I’d need to see how it all feels when it’s more settled

1 Like
91

I don’t have enough practice to post my own postpatch tier list, but I feel confident in saying that Valerie’s buff helped her a lot in the Grave and Rook MUs. Geiger’s ground Super nerfs also helped Jaina a lot in that MU, but I don’t see Jaina being that good still.

@Tero I disagree SO MUCH with you on just about everything you said.

92

I don’t know, it looks to me like we agree on about half the cast, based on your last tierlist, and most of the characters where we differ got nerfs or buffs that generally fit the direction I have them in (ie, you have Geiger top, but at least some of that is presumably based on the Jaina matchup, which got worse).

I think some of it could be the methodology we’re using to determine character goodness. Personally, I’m basing it on a character’s ability to win a tournament. To win a tournament, the most important thing is a solid matchup spread. Even if you have fairly good matchups vs most of the cast, a single extremely bad matchup can sink you easily (for example, see Zangief in SF4). This is why I think Grave is one of the best. I highly doubt Grave has any matchups that are worse than 5.5-4.5. To further this point, due to the relatively low learning curve of Fantasy Strike, I think it’s reasonable to assume most good players could play at least half the cast fairly competently. This means counterpicks are likely to be fairly significant, once again making very bad matchups terrible for character viability.

93

It confuses me that this has led you to Jaina being the best character. Prepatch I was inclined to say that Grave was the best for roughly the reasoning you outlined - Geiger had more dominant good matchups but had a rough one vs Rook, and I don’t think Grave had bad matchups.

Prepatch Jaina vs Geiger was the worst matchup in the game and I doubt it stopped being bad - maybe it’s winnable for Jaina now but I still don’t think it’s going to be great. Jaina matchups across the board just aren’t that great I think - nothing one-sided (except maybe vs new Setsuki and Lum?) and a bunch that I feel like might be bad if I played a really good player of the character (Grave, Geiger, Degrey).

94

Well, you’re obviously forgetting Rook, I think Rook vs Jaina was actually the worst matchup in the game prepatch. Even though Jaina can’t play her normal game vs Geiger quite as much, I feel like she can still fight up close somewhat well so I don’t see this being nearly as bad as the characters who literally can’t get in vs her at all (basically, Jaina vs Geiger is like a lesser version of Lum or Rook vs Jaina, she’s forced to go on the offensive, but I’d way rather go offensive vs Geiger than Jaina).

Besides Geiger, what other matchups do you think Jaina loses? The only other one I can think of might be Val, though I definitely don’t think this is as bad as Geiger.

I agree that based on this, you could debate the positions of Jaina and Grave. I definitely think these characters are top 2. The main difference is that I feel that Jaina is more “oppressive”. In the vast majority of matches, she forces you to play the game her way, even if your character would usually prefer not to, rushdown is the only option. Some characters have tools for it, but I feel she is generally in control of most matches. Grave is almost the opposite. The opponent can usually dictate the pace of the match, but it barely matters, Grave has the tools to deal with any situation. Maybe the latter is actually better, but IMO the former feels way worse to play against.

95

Jaina loses to Grave as well.

While you may feel like going on the offensive on Geiger is easier than Jaina (I disagree, but it’s arguable), don’t forget that going on the offensive as Rook is far easier than doing so with Jaina.

Jaina vs Geiger was far more difficult than Rook vs Jaina. For Rook it was hard to get in, but when he did she had huge troubles getting out, and corners help a lot with that. For the Jaina vs Geiger MU though some people were talking about letting the Geiger player get his free damage every Super he builds, that’s how desperate it was.

To be honest before this last patch I feel like Jaina was actually kinda bad, now a lot of her bad MUs got nerfed and she has a very easy time against Lum. Her slight buff on her jC and jSuper that gave her arrows hitboxes on the way up is appreciated as well. Still she is nowhere near Grave, that’s for sure.

96

I feel like there’s quite a lot of “let them get their free damage when they get super” MUs in the game. For example, I feel this is also the case in the Lum vs Jaina MU. Ground super is going to hit, and air super is always free damage vs almost all characters. Might as well just get it over with so you can continue rushing down. Whenever Midori gets dragon vs Lum, I basically just consider it a free round for him, where your objective switches from “win the battle” to “stall out as much time on Dragon Form as you can”.

Also, I feel like Jaina vs Grave has always been even, which seems to be a fairly widely held opinion. If anyone ever had any advantage it definitely wasn’t by much.

97

Which MUs besides Lum vs Jaina and (maybe) Jaina / Grave vs Geiger do you know that makes one of 2 hold a damage each time the opponent has Super?

Regarding the Grave vs Jaina MU I feel like popular opinion has shifted that Grave wins it more and more lately, but I might be wrong. Personally I’m in line with that sentiment as I too first thought it was even then changed my mind. Grave’s projectile is slightly better in neutral and has wind to take momentum, chip damage and nullify Jaina’s jSuper. Grave’s jA (and general offensive game) also is way better than Jaina’s, which helps a lot in the MU.

98

I guess we should clarify what we mean here.

Are you asking “in which matchups, can Super be converted into damage with very high reliability by one party”?

or

“in which matchups can super be converted into damage INSTANTLY with very high reliability by one party”.

I feel like there are very many MUs where you can almost always find a situation to land your super, but you may have to hold onto it for a while. Matchups where you can always convert your super to damage the moment you get it are much more rare, but I feel like Jaina’s supers are among the best for this, as if you’re at full screen, Air Super is almost guaranteed damage vs a lot of the cast. Incidentally, I feel that Grave has among the worst supers for this, I find I usually have to hold super quite long to find a good situation for it, it’s one of his few weaknesses.

Also, are we counting the situation where you just convert your super into chip? Because I feel like Lum air super can very reliably generate one point of chip vs a lot of the cast.

99

Geiger’s Super was/is so problematic because it hit exactly where Jaina wanted to be, it was the same problem even though less so for Grave.

Lum on the other end doesn’t want to be fullscreen, but it’s very easy to find himself in that spot in the MU, so I count it.

Both Jaina’s and Lum’s air Supers are, as you said, good for this kind of thing, but as far as Jaina’s goes it’s not granted in the vast majority of MUs:

  • Geiger can evade with jB or punish with Super if he’s close enough
  • Grave can evade with C or nullify her Super entirely with the wind
  • Valerie can evade with C and her hitbox is small enough to jump around it as well
  • Setsuki can B punish Jaina in most cases
  • Rook can jC to stop Jaina from charging her B and instead eat 1/3 of block damage only
  • DeGrey can jSuper and punish on reaction most of the time, and when he can’t, dodging isn’t a terrible option with his mobility
  • Midori has an harder time, but a well timed jC can help
  • Lum is fucked, but he’s alone in actually having to hold it I belive

I don’t know enough about Lum to say anything about him being able to get (almost) free damage with his jSuper.

100

I’ll admit, now that I think about it, more people can probably get out, though it’s worth noting that a fair number are reliant on things they don’t have all the time. For example, Grave without wind is much more susceptible to it. Is there actually a reliable escape with ground C or B? I played a lot of Grave before Lum and it seemed like it was always possible to vary the timing of the arrow release to beat whichever escape option I tried to use if wind was not available. (you might ask “why is Grave at range vs Jaina without wind?”, the most common situation was at the start of a new round where I had used wind at the end of the previous round).

Maybe my opinion on Jaina top is partially based on the fact that I rarely play Val or Sets, though I still think she’s a very complete character and I can’t see her being lower than like top 4 or something.

I’m curious to see what Arg will bring, since it sounds like he’s kind of an anti-zoner and maybe he’ll be able to force her to go on the offensive.