Well I've Done It... 1:00:754 (I Didn't Use Slider Throttle)

Hello! It's a pleasure to see and meet you all!
Below is a tier list, as you can see! I'd like to go through and explain my thoughts, but for the sake of the tl;dr: This is obviously an opinion piece derived from feedback and experience, so don't take this as gospel. I encourage open and civil discussion on things you agree or don't agree with. Characters are not ordered within their tiers, unless otherwise stated consider most of them to be generally on even ground. Most of the commentary will be below, but just to give a quick breakdown of what each tier is gauged on:
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Dan tier - Dan is the man. This tier is not debatable, unless they add another Dan, then... maybe.
S tier - These are characters who, by and large, allow you to punch furthest above your weight class. Their existence increases your chances of success, and even if it breaks affinity advantage they're worthwhile to bring into a fight. Progression-necessities.
A tier - Strong characters whom either have an impactful and relevant niche, provide immense value in a PvP or PvE setting, or provide some highly coveted value that warrants their placement above others in their affinity. In general, these are safe picks you can easily justify placing into a composition.
B tier - Good characters who provide some form of interesting value, but are held back either by bugs or the existence of a more optimal option for their given role. That isn't to say you can't slot them, but you should consider these to be closer to "problem solvers" than characters that you'd bring to just any fight. Not bad by any means, all can be slotted and perform, but won't earn a spot over an A tier unless they're there for a very specific function.
C tier - Characters who have some form of value, but that value is overshadowed by their higher tiered counterparts. Functionally, these characters can provide one interesting aspect of their kit, but unlike the B tiers, those facets rarely operate as a complete means of negating an issue or as an enabler for a viable composition set. You can build around them and they'll work fine, but they're characters you *need to build around* to get the most value out of. Fine for punching laterally or down, but not great for punching up.
D tier - Characters who have a niche that just isn't going to warrant the investment into the team given other options on offer. You can slot them, but doing so over an option above them is typically going to be a suboptimal move. Usable, but at the end of the day, you'll usually be better off not.
Food tier - Delicious treats for your characters. Some B tier folks do have general usage, but the ones in here can be safely converted into upgrade fodder.
Unreleased Tier - What it says on the tin. When the characters release and data is available, they may be integrated in. Note fashion characters aren't on the list on account of not being a placable frame, but Fashion Sakura is in B tier and Fashion Blanka is probably in A. Charming Dudley is listed in B tier despite not being shown here.
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Now for the long part-
Dan Tier
- Dan
Dan deserves it. Trust me.
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S tier
- M. Bison
M. Bison is infamous for his ability to operate as an infinite health sponge, allowing you to utilize him as the ultimate in tanking technology. Paired with that health is a surprisingly large reservoir of damage output between his fighting spirit bonus and car bonus. Debatably the best character in the game (aside from Dan) as of this lists creation.
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- Beast Zangief
The fastest character around in a game where the first hit meter bonus is huge, a decent healthpool, and an AoE stun that can let you gut the opponent damage by denying them combos and supers. Add in a good car bonus and a strong response to control, and you have a character who can let you punch far above your usual abilities. A strong all around character to consider, and a strong support as well.
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- Rose
Debatably the strongest healer in the game, with access to strong debuff and buff effects in the form of silence and the tarot. While not as impactful as the likes of B. Gief and Bison in terms of raw cheese potential, her late game power cannot be denied. An easy slot into any team, especially with her master bonus allowing you to complete your affinity bonuses.
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A tier
- MH Ken
The newest character on the scene as of this writing, MH Ken is undeniably the highest DPS in the game. His attacks come out for free, allowing you to craft your combo structure around him, and his DoT effect is hefty when paired with his car bonus and fighting spirit, causing an auto-fail for the opponent and a myriad of debuffs to go with it. Arguably you could put him into S or A, his large health pool makes him a sturdy option to turn to, but his lack of utility outside of raw damage and curse leaves some wanting. Consider him the A+ of the tier.
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- Abel
While he may come off as underwhelming at first, an immunity shield can't be overstated as an incredibly strong mechanic to have access to. The ability to outright deny certain hits from the opponent can itself become a win condition, and his assist bonus is also strong as back-up. Pair into this his ability to stun and pass shields around and you have a character who can enable a team to become far more durable than it has any right to be.
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- Adon
Adon is a reasonably strong character with an unreasonably strong mechanic: Hatred Mark. Thanks to his fighting spirit, this mark allows your entire team to crit harder and deal more damage to marked targets, which can allow you to quickly dismantle enemies who fall even slightly out of position. Of course a single passive does not a character make, and Adon has access to more value from his car bonus. Grave Injury, when applied to an opponent, will not only reduce their attack by a percentage, but also cause them to take true damage in retaliation whenever they attack with a super or combo. This can lend Adon a bit more use as a debuffer or support which is great when paired with his great damage output. As a final note, his Thousand Jaguars (combo 1) lasts a while, meaning you have a slightly larger window to time your follow-up in regards to your opponent.
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- Zangief
Huge health, fantastic passive with percentage damage reduction to flame, thunder, and soul damage (which is very practical given the usual meta teams), an absolutely absurd Car 6 bonus to shut down passives along with giving him free healing while armored every 16 hits (and some characters hit a lot), taunt just removing a chunk of the opponents crit and effect accuracy, access to stun, access to true damage, access to super armor and the ability to give it to others, the character brings a ton to the table. His main downfall is that Bison exists.
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- Chun Li
Fast, high damage, huge battery building potential, grants allies speed, debuffs the enemy with damage resist down, she's the ideal offensive character to pack into a wind-affinity composition. Her pairing with B. Gief (and his ability to give damage reduction back from the bonus speed) is fantastic, her pairing with MH Ken is great for more combo opportunities, there's really no one she doesn't provide a benefit for in some way.
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- Dhalsim
While his combo 1 and car bonus leave a lot to be desired, no one can question the sheer output and magnitude of his combo 3 and his super. Burn debuff (and his ability to build up his own damage through tower), gigantic reach, short activation window allowing for combo weaving easily, all packed into a ranged backliner who can adjust position via super trigger to dodge certain attacks (like Viper Seismic). Probably the single strongest fire character in the game, at least in terms of raw damage. Outside of MH Ken's free swings, his AoE DPS is almost peerless.
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- E. Honda
Good bulky body, a fantastic car bonus and spirit bonus, soft enrage mode at low health, percentage damage negation for his team via sharing buff, and "the wall". The character is a bulky powerhouse who, much like Zangief, is solely hurt by the existence of Bison as an option. Debatably the best non-bison tank in the game, one should never underestimate the capability of this character to hang on by a thread and keep coming back for more, or the ability for his combo 3 wall to completely decimate certain compositions.
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- Elena
Outside of Rose, far and away the best healer on offer. Good buffs for offense or defense, and a very impactful fighter spirit providing constant buffs to speed and attack while also healing her allies. Her car bonus allows you to start with a nice defense boost and meter advantage, and paired with fast chant can allow you to circumvent first hit bonus in some content. The only thing keeping her out of S tier is that Rose exists and just does it better overall thanks to tarot, but like Ken this could be considered an A+ character.
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- Juri
Big damage, fantastic effects in defense ignoring and the clutch potential of her 3. Automatic engine activation is massive, her only real issue is she is made of paper and her range is typically limited to the first 2 in line. If she were a bit more sturdy I feel like she would be an easy S, but her tendency to die to heavy collateral damage and Bison existing as a front man to soak the hit I feel bring her down slightly in viability. Like Elena and Ken, you can consider her an A+ since beyond those small issues, her damage and effects can more than carry the weight.
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- C. Viper
The backrow slayer, her ability to snipe people out behind bison easily gives her a lot of leeway in terms of ranking, but she takes it a step further with a super powerful car 6 effect and her massive combo 3. Her ability to apply the ever-useful shock and burn debuffs are very handy, and she even has a big potential strike in the form of Detonation on her combo 2. All in all, an offensive and targeted response to backline can absolutely cook any team who relies heavily on their frontline.
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- Gen
In spite of needing a doctorate to understand his effects and a bug that is preventing his clone from acting properly, Gen is still a massive threat with access to strong damage and interrupt effects. His master affinity lets you maximize your bonuses, and the existence of his clone can sometimes cause targeting issues for certain enemy attacks. His value might not be apparent upfront, but after usage, you'll quickly find that he is a threat even with some of his kit being non-functional. If we assume his clone works properly, it wouldn't be hard to imagine an S tier argument for him, but for now he's in A.
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B tier
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- Blanka
A reasonably tanky individual with access to some of the better combo options in his 1 and 2, and the clumping potential in his super is a very powerful tool to have. His output can be high, his biggest issue is that he needs to maintain electrified to keep that output. This isn't per se difficult, but does cause his kit to become a bit one-dimensional. He just lacks the consistency and sheer power of those in the tier above him.
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- Cammy
Cammy is a character defined by her damage, and in this regard she's one of the best. Spin knuckle displacement can allow you to hit a bit combo 3 on a mid-line character, she's reasonably fast, her bonus attacks can be devastating, she just lacks anything else. If you need raw power, she's a fine choice, but then so are a lot of characters. In this way, she falls short to the meter building power of Chun Li or the backline sniping C. Viper.
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- Cody
But isn't Cody a B-grade unit? Yes, but he has access to one of the most cheese-creating features in the game: A free super. At that, the super is really good: Targets beyond backline, displaces the target, can stun and interrupt, and the cost (minus combo damage for 6 seconds) is easily worked around by just slow-rolling your supers. Mind you, he's only good insofar as your ability to win a fight with only 3 characters, but given some of the absurd output the A and S tiers have, that's not a hard bar to fill when you're chaining together 2-3 super combo chains in a row.
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- Decapre
Strong execute damage, a great assist bonus, and her guardian mark can make soul damage teams pop like no other. Her biggest issue is that for her to maximize her potential, you really have to build with her in mind, but when you do she's almost second to none in terms of what she can enable. Paired with the likes of MH Ken and Bison, Guardian Mark and her execute effects can really make the team feel like a proper burst and drop comp. Beyond that, she's pretty good but not someone you can bring to any team.
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- Dee Jay
Late game with the right assist, Dee Jay can be an absolute wall of a unit, soaking hits and dishing out stuns like a madman, but therein lies his issue: To utilize him to his maximum potential, he does need you to invest the support space for him to use. This can create some teambuilding issues where your support might've been better served elsewhere, and as such, Dee Jay might not find a spot on a team where you don't have that support to spare. That being said, if you can spare the support and put someone like Abel in his corner, Dee Jay can become a tank that can rival the likes of Honda and Gief.
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- Guile
Strong AoE damage, good damage penetration through Saber, a super strong combo 3 and access to armor break are the defining factors of Guile. His main issue comes in the form of his combo 3 having a limited reach that you need to build around (and generally doing less than a lot of other characters combo 3s), and that outside of armor break he really doesn't provide much else for his team. Even with the benefit of his fighting spirit adding a ton of juice to his combo 3, he still comes out a bit lacking compared to the likes of Sim, Ken, Viper, or Juri.
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- Hugo
Mr. Potato is a huge wall of health and regeneration, and to his credit, with the right build around he becomes a real menace to break down, but on his own he's just an average tank with some reasonably high niche potential in healing comps. Much like Dee Jay, with the right support in tow he becomes a lot harder to bring down, but that in itself creates issues. You could find worse tanks, but not many.
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- Mad Ryu
Sacrilege, but I feel due to his current bugs and almost non-existent fighter spirit effects (sans his assist), he's nowhere near as potent as he used to be. Don't get me wrong, his damage is still absolutely absurd, easily the highest in this tier and competing with some of the best in the next, but his health burning (from max hp instead of current) and the shield seeming to amplify his damage taken hold him back a lot. Without heal support, he burns himself out quickly and falls to collateral damage easily. If fixed, he would probably be an easy A tier character, but until then...
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- Makoto
A decently strong tank with good grouping abilities, a great passive in Qi focus, and the rare ability to get a guaranteed stun (albeit on a gate). All things considered, she's a character that you could argue is above anyone else in B tier, but the matter is "Is she as good as the tanks in A tier". I feel like defense bonuses are a lot weaker end game than flat percentage damage reduction, grouping isn't uncommon with the likes of B gief around, and while her stun is nice it's something gated on a low percentage chance to stack to get to the point where she might be able to snag the front and mid (and the animation stun doesn't come out until the end, much harder to utilize for interruptions than B Giefs spin). You can consider her B+ easily, I just don't see her on the level of shutting down passives or projectiles.
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- Poison
Good access to debuffs in the form of shock and silence, decent damage, and an interesting passive effect enhancing her abilities against enemies based on gender. She's an all around solid pick, though if you want shock you can go with Viper, and for silence you have Rose. She's all of it in one package, but the overall power level is a fair bit lower than her contenders. For the trade off of the 100% chance, you're losing out on either a better super effect or a better combo 3. Her biggest problem is the same of a lot of other B tiers: Good, but there's someone better. If you want shock to always occur, though, she's the one to call.
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- Guy
Like Viper, he's really good at slapping the backline, and like Mad Ryu, he's really good at capitalizing on kills. He's just not better than either of them at either of those things. He's solid, fast, and his fighting spirit can really maximize damage output. Putting him in an assist position is also a viable option. Like Makoto, he's a B+ character, standing above those around him for packaging naturally powerful effects together. He just doesn't provide the slaughterhouse potential of Viper, and thus has to contend for that position.
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- Charming Dudley
A better version of regular Dudley, mainly due to his niche as a heal denial unit. Thanks to his fighting spirit, he absorbs 20% of the healing done to those characters, giving him some decent value against Rose and Elena comps which are somewhat common. His damage output is surprising, with him being able to fire off his super as soon as the battle starts and his combo 2 being deceptively damaging. His ability to spread Black Rose to enemies along with his 6 car bonus also means your entire team gets a decently hefty boost while also getting 75% of that healing he's stealing.
C tier
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- Dudley
An interesting concept of a dodge tank and his super and combo 1 are decent, he synergizes with Grave Injury and can apply it but realistically doesn't get much value out of it like Adon does aside from upping his admittedly above average damage. He's alright in an interruption focused comp as a combo 1 stun for B. Gief, but he's admittedly worse in this role than someone like Honda who can provide the same thing. He's fine, just he's only fine in a game where every slot matters.
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- Combat Guile
An interesting AoE fighter with good debuff removal effects, however most of his kit is tied to these and none of them are guaranteed. If that wasn't enough, his car bonus is basically just some flat attack and health stats and his fighting spirit is a middling amount of attack and health with a decent 30 to give his combo 3 a 20% chance per hit to purge something. When looking at all of this, it's not hard to see where other characters might be better suited to his role. He's a purger when such a thing isn't incredibly valuable, though if it becomes more valuable then naturally his stock will rise.
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- Fei Long
Great in a fire composition, except "great" is a hard sell given you are restricting yourself from the best units in the game arguably. He does have a guaranteed stun on the frontline if they're a burning opponent, which is nice. He can apply burns and his fighting spirit helps to improve burn damage, his assist is actually very strong on a Dhalsim composition, and the bonus damage from his passive stacks up... But only if you're willing to functionally only run fire characters, which is arguably one of the weakest affinities. Still, Fei could somewhat be useful in something like a Bison/VipeSim composition where you just don't have Bison doing anything, and as a result I'd say he's a C+ character. His output just doesn't match the likes of Adon who would be a better use of that slot, or B. Gief who would be a better character overall to bring in any composition where Fei would fit.
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- Ken
Another B grade unit with some form of utility thanks to his AoE aura. While he obviously doesn't exist late game like Cody might in some niche capacity, I'd be remiss not to mention him as probably the strongest B grade unit overall. If rented as a mercenary, his scaling is surprisingly good for his grade. Still, consider him a C- unit overall, and if you feel they belong in D or food then that's fair as well.
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- Mayor Cody
S tier in terms of drip, but in terms of capability he falls short on almost all regards. His damage is ok but not great, all of his effects are done better by someone else, he would fall to D tier if not for his amazing assist giving the character a flat attack increase against the opponents highest attack unit. This can be especially deadly on characters who use executes or bypass frontlines like Viper or Guy. If you *had* to use him, he can be passable as a burn provider and hinder has some potential behind it.
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- T. Hawk
Like Combat Guile, T. Hawk is a character who does a great job of dispelling effects when that isn't something that is highly valued in the game presently. Of course, also unlike Combat Guile, he does have some genuine utility in his effect resistance buff thanks to its ability to shut down stun attempts. He just doesn't provide enough as a tank to contend with those in the tier above, but he has a special place in my heart against Beast Gief opponents.
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D tier
- Sakura
A healer who can last for a surprisingly long time in her role, she's immediately discardable once you get Elena and Rose. Not much else to say on her aside from that for the most part, like Ken her mercenary scales decently well so it's something to consider if for some reason you just lack other options.
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- Yang / Yun
These two have the issue that part of their kit is tied with the other being there, and it's not an insignificant part of their kit. This means to use both characters to their best effectiveness, you're devoting two team slots, and arguably neither of them can contend with most options in this regard. Why would you ever use them when you could bring almost any other pair of characters. Between the two of them, Yang is superior by a large margin and could be a C or B tier on his own if he didn't make you saddle yourself with Yun to get his full kit online.
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There you have it! As mentioned before, I welcome open and constructive discussion over it. Obviously there will be some folks who disagree with placements, but hopefully I did an alright job describing my justification on why each character are where they are. I feel like while Tier Lists themselves are a mostly pointless endeavor in a changing game, they incite some of the best discussion on balance and allow for people to display their character knowledge on what someone else may have missed or not considered.
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Thanks for reading!