Top tier (fighting games)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Top Tier generally refers to any characters in a fighting game that has a clearly distinct advantage over a majority of the other characters in the game, especially in known fighting gamer circles where all characters from any game are categorized according to their overall strengths. These advantages come in a few forms:
- Large majority of higher priority attacks
- Easy, powerful combos (often repeatable into each other)
- Innate advantages over other characters (being resistant to certain attacks, etc.)
- Software glitches or bugs in combo engine that provide unfair or unbalanced advantages that are not readily accessible otherwise (i.e. bugs)
[edit] Usage
In hardcore fighting gamer circles, this is an often-discussed topic, especially when it comes to who they would use in an organized tournament. These tournaments generally are for the "best of the best" to show off their skills under pressure, and having a top tier character, while not always, can give them an edge on their opponent. If both players use the same character, it comes down to their individual skills that determine the outcome.
These tiers are generally broken into 3 subgroups (which can more specifically be divided further if deemed too broad into such things as "near top" or "upper middle"):
- Top tier, which has been discussed
- 2nd (or Middle) tier
- Bottom tier
Middle tier is for well-balanced characters that don't have any real stand-out characteristics, but can put up a good fight if both players are of equal skill. In the end, though, middle tier characters have a much harder time eliminating professional top-tier players. Bottom tier, often referred to as scrub, characters have a decidedly large disadvantage in terms of their usability. Such underdog characters have very little chance of winning unless their user is much higher skilled than the top tier user. Any fighting game since Street Fighter 2 on will have all their usable characters grouped into these three generally, with top tier being the most preferred.
