History Main / CharacterTiers

** The second "real" tier is the [[NeedsMoreLove Under Used]] (UU) tier. This tier is composed of Pokemon that are occasionally used. The Pokemon in this tier usually have a problem or two that prevents them from being used easily, or have Pokemon in the upper tiers that fulfill the same purpose, but do it better [[note]] Though it is not unheard of for a UU Pokemon, such as Quagsire, to find a niche in Ubers, as different metagames call for different capabilities.[[/note]]. In UU tier battles, only Pokemon from the UU tier and below are allowed.

* ''VideoGame/{{Dota 2}}''. Even though a skilled player can make use even of the worst of characters, there definitely is this sort of thing going on.
** '''God Tier''': Templar Assassin. Not very item-dependent, can own anyone on mid, doesn't require an insane amount of skill to play effectively, has insane base damage when all of her abilities are skilled at least once, has a skill that makes her immune to even up to 6 instances of damage on the last level (and it's a given 6 hits that will be blocked, unlike items like Talisman of Evasion or Phantom Assassin's passive skill "Blur" which only give a chance to evade damage), which easily makes her the best hero for 1v1 fights. This skill also lets her dive behind towers with ease to get kills. She also doesn't get less and less useful with the game's progress, as many early game heroes do. She can be effective throughout the entire game with a bit of farm that you're guaranteed to get on ganks.
** '''Top Tier''': Ancient Apparition, Bane, Lich, Chaos Knight, Crystal Maiden, Chen, Disruptor, Dark Seer, Death Prophet, Enigma, Keeper of the Light, Leshrac, Lion, Lycanthrope, Brewmaster, Nature's Prophet, Viper, Earthshaker, Naga Siren, Mirana, Night Stalker, Queen of Pain, Sand King, Shadow Shaman, Tidehunter, Tinker, Tiny, Ursa, Undying, Vengeful Spirit, Venomancer, Warlock, Windrunner, Witch Doctor.
** '''High Tier''': Anti-Mage, Axe, Beastmaster, Bloodseeker, Broodmother, Dazzle, Dragon Knight, Drow Ranger, Faceless Void, Kunkka, Juggernaut, Lifestealer, Lina, Morphling, Omniknight, Phantom Assassin, Puck, Pudge, Rubick, Shadow Demon, Shadow Fiend, Skeleton King, Spectre, Storm Spirit, Treant Protector, Wisp.
** '''Mid Tier''': Doom Bringer, Batrider, Bounty Hunter, Riki, Slardar, Sven, Weaver, Clinkz, Razor, Huskar, Silencer, Pugna, Outworld Destroyer, Spirit Breaker, Enchantress.
** '''Low Tier''': Clockwerk, Necrolyte, Jakiro, Nyx Assassin, Ogre Magi, Zeus, Sniper, Visage, Gyrocopter.
** '''Bottom Tier''': Alchemist.
*** And, of course, this is constantly changing as the game evolves and is patched. This list for example is horribly out of date. Templar Assassin is debatably a situational mid tier, Lycan is similarly situational as a carry after his jungling was nerfed, Viper is little more than pubstomper as is Ursa. At the other end of the spectrum Gyrocopter is top tier as a carry now, and Nyx Assassin and Bat Rider are considered first pick/first ban material in pro games.

** As a final note, it's worth noting that tiers are constantly changing as data is collected from [[strike:Shoddy Battle]] Pokemon Online and as new games are released. A good example is Charizard. [[note]]Formerly in the Borderline tier, the release of the 4th generation and Stealth Rock (deals damage to Pokemon switching in depending on its weakness or resistance to Rock) dropped it down to the Never Used tier, as Stealth Rock lowered its HP to the point that its most common strategy (sacrificing HP for Substitute and Belly Drum) left it to where any attack would instantly faint it.[[/note]] At the beginning of a new generation, the tiers are typically wiped, anything with a base stat total of over 600 is automatically sent to Ubers (barring special cases like Slaking and Regigigas, whose abilities make them lackluster), and the tiers are sorted out from there as the new metagame evolves.

->Po Yi sat down to play ''TabletopGame/{{Talisman}}'' with his generals. He said: ''At this moment, each of us has an equal chance of winning. When we choose our character cards, then we will no longer have equal chances.''
-->[[http://www.chimeramag.com/features/tenpoints.html General Tso: The Ten Points]]

* In traditional TabletopGame/{{chess}}, it is thought the white player may have an advantage over the black player simply because he moves first, although this is heavily debated. This is not the case in other chess-variants, especially ''shogi'' (Japanese chess) where both players have an almost even 50% chance of winning.

* ''VideoGame/{{Disgaea}}'' has some degree of tiers; other then the in-game tiers (unlocked by levelling up their "lower tier" units), some classes have definite advantages over other; until you realise that [[GameBreaker Divine Majins]] beat ''everything'' except ''maybe'' Flonne in a ''single'' stat. They are very time-consuming, though.
** Later games balanced this out a little, to the point where in Disgaea 3, Majins are considered the worst class in the game.
** In general with Disgaea, since only the PSP port of Disgaea 1 had PvP, this is mainly based on stats and performance against other stats and performances. Equipment, residents, and abilities play heavily into each character, and the Story characters can also be ordered along the same way. While each game has a definitive "best" class, it all depends on how one combines a character with its equipment and according to its abilities and overall stats. As an example, assuming one faces off against a Ninja with an Iron Knight, one has to take into consideration their abilities, the evasion potential of the Ninja versus the exceptional defensive wall of the Iron Knight, movement, attack possibilities, and what residents are in each item. If an Iron Knight has a 100 Specialist Alchemist in their weapon, it could take only one hit to win since the poison would pretty much assure repeated damage, but may never get the chance considering the dodging ability of the Ninja especially if the ninja has equipped a weight to activate its ability by keeping its health low, and also has a 25 Lover specialist, making it like catching air with your bare hands. In contrast, a Baciel never misses thanks to its ability, making a Ninja worthless, but it hardly matters if you can't miss if you're up against an Iron Knight with such incredible defense that you're doing basically no damage. Disgaea, in the end, mainly comes down to math and performance on whether something will perform in a given situation or not, but since the game has 9999 levels, the majority of all the battles fought in the game will mainly come down to being higher level unless one is up against the very last bonus bosses in each game, or wants to see the true potential of the character in question.

** The Orks also had a long time between their 3rd edition codex and their next one. They were one of the first to come out for 3rd edition in 1999 but didn't get another until early 2008 just before Fourth Edition was replaced by Fifth Edition.

* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'', despite having 649 characters of varying balance (as well as mons with alternate forms such as Rotom), has taken to heart the game's preaching of using your favorite Pokemon. The most well-known tier system, Website/{{Smogon}}'s, organizes all Pokemon into 4-5 tiers, with tournaments and friendly battles taking place in any one of the tiers. It is also continuously changing, with Pokemon moving from tiers or usage, and even implementation or removal of [[HouseRules clauses]] and other factors (for instance, the introduction of Eviolite[[note]]A held item that boosts the defense and special defense stats of the holding Pokemon by 50% provided that the Pokemon can still evolve[[/note]] altered plenty of Pokemon placement in tiers).

* Bring this up in ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' series, and expect chaos between one side that considers tier lists SeriousBusiness and the other side that believes [[http://ssbwiki.com/Tires_don_exits tires don exits]] or [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR6sxFBm1P8 tiers are for queers.]] It's a ''very'' touchy subject.

** In 3rd edition, versatility (how many problems a character can contribute to solving) is at least as important as power (how powerful the character's abilities are for problems) in tiering. The top tier is characters who, with the right spells prepared, can solve nearly anything the GM can come up with as a standard action. Lesser tiers either have [[CripplingOverspecialization less versatility]] or [[MasterOfNone less power]]. In general, while a character of any tier can be a GameBreaker with the right factors, only a high-tier character can be a [[StoryBreakerPower Story Breaker]] - imagine how ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' would have turned out if Gandalf could teleport any distance, read minds, identify any item instantly, and make anyone [[NoSell immune]] to mental influence... and that was just a fraction of his abilities.

** More in-depth: [[http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=658 The generally agreed list]] is six tiers. Tier 1 is for characters like wizards, clerics, and druids, who learn loads of powerful spells and abilities and learn even more with every new book. Tier 2 is for characters like sorcerers, psions, and favored souls, who learn powerful spells and abilities, albeit more restrictively (the creator compared it to the difference between a nation with a thousand nukes and one with ten). Tier 3 is for characters like bards, factotums, and duskblades, who can either do one thing pretty well and still be useful, or do everything appreciably. Tier 4 is for characters like rogues, barbarians, and rangers, who can do one thing pretty well and only that thing, or can do a lot of things without ever really shining. Tier 5 is for characters like fighters, monks, and paladins, who can do only one thing (and not all that well), or can only ever achieve MasterOfNone level. Tier 6 is for {{Joke Character}}s, plus [[TierInducedScrappy the samurai.]] And then there's [[BrokeTheRatingScale Truenamer]], which is like Tier 7 in uselessness, and Planar Shepard, a PrestigeClass that's referred to as being "Tier 0".
** Tiers themselves are based on "As Written" comparisons based on how effectively the class can deal with different situations. The original author pointed out that optimized fighters can still be a low tier but capable of taking down the [[PhysicalGod Tarrasque]] in a single turn. In the hands of the right munchkin many classes can be equal to higher tiers[[note]]except for the Complete Warrior Samurai[[/note]]. The Truenamer breaks the tier system by dint of its mechanics not being properly thought out, getting worse by every level, until level 19 when it will just spam Gate Celestial Angels.

** Akuma is also considered God Tier (probably the first of his kind), but unlike Old Sagat, he is completely banned in tournaments because despite the lack of twin air fireballs, he cannot be dizzied at all and has ridiculous priority. When ''HD Remix'' hit Xbox Live and PlayStation Network, people had assumed he would be tournament legal now that he was rebalanced. Then the official tournament rules for EVO came in. He's still banned because his juggling (the main reason he's banned) was toned ''[[UpToEleven up]]'', and he can now do some nasty air fireball traps that will inevitably lead into said juggles. Also, he has the Raging Demon as a super now, which has numerous inescapable traps.

** And, despite those years of testing, still fail, with Puzzle Strike being a particularly bad offender pre-errata thanks to one character being clearly better than all the rest thanks to their ability to take an extra turn AND get rid of a character chip at the same time, extremely early in the game, leading to a game-long advantage.

* '''Top Tier''': Incredibly good characters that are still overpowered, but less so than those in God Tier, and not overpowered enough that they warrant a ban. When God tier is banned, these are the characters to choose. They are generally better than most non-God Tier characters.

*** Wouldn't [[CantCatchUp this]] somewhat count as GameplayAndStoryIntegration?

** The arcade mode in the first two games had an explicit series of tiers. ''Gran Tusimo 2'', for example, has Class C compact sedans, Class B high-power sedans, Class A sports cars, and [[RankInflation Class S]] supercars.

* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'', despite having 649 characters of varying balance (as well as mons with alternate forms such as Rotom), has taken to heart the game's preaching of using your favorite Pokemon. The most well-known tier system, Website/{{Smogon}}'s, organizes all Pokemon into 4-5 tiers, with tournaments and friendly battles taking place in any one of the tiers. It is also continuously changing, with Pokemon moving from tiers or usage, and even implementation or removal of [[HouseRules clauses]] and other factors (for instance, the introduction of Eviolite[[hottip:*:A held item that boosts the defense and special defense stats of the holding Pokemon by 50% provided that the Pokemon can still evolve]] altered plenty of Pokemon placement in tiers).

*** Necrons had similar issues. The changes from Fourth to Fifth Edition almost completely gutted their competitive metagame, and since their army had such little variety it was nigh impossible for players to find new tactics. This was eventually fixed with the release of a new, much larger codex in late 2011[[hottip:*:and to prevent the same problem from happening twice in a row, the codex was written with the upcoming Sixth Edition rulebook in mind rather than the then-current Fifth Edition]]

* In the original ''MassEffect'', Adepts were basically the top class - their powers kept enemies under permanent lockdown to the point where they could never fight back. Even the final boss was not immune. This made the hardest difficulty in the game (Insanity) pretty easy. Sentinels were considered the absolute worst class in the game, due to being a SpoonyBard class that was basically the MasterOfNone, having the worst weapon skills and weaker biotic and tech skills than any class bar the Soldier (who had no biotic or tech skills) without anything to really make up for it. In an attempt to tone down Adepts in the sequel, the game was changed so that biotic powers no longer work on shielded enemies. Pretty much every single enemy in Insanity difficulty is shielded, dropping Adepts from the best class to the worst. Sentinels also got a huge boost when they were given the same weapon skills as Engineers or Adepts (still technically the worst, but this could be remedied in a later mission that let them upgrade their weapon selection to include assault rifles) and the Tech Armor power, which made them the most durable class. They also got abilities to deal with pretty much every protection (Overload was especially useful considering how common shields were).

** Character who sit in their God Tiers are generally those who influence the game in a much bigger extent than the rest of the cast, such as [[FireEmblemAkaneia Sheeda and Rena]], [[FireEmblemJugdral Sigurd]], [[FireEmblemElibe Young Marcus]], [[FireEmblemMagvel Seth]], and [[FireEmblemTellius POR!Titania, and RD!Haar]]

** Character who sit in their God Tiers are generally those who influence the game in a much bigger extent than the rest of the cast, such as [[FireEmblemArkaneia Sheeda and Rena]], [[FireEmblemJugdral Sigurd]], [[FireEmblemElibe Young Marcus]], [[FireEmblemMagvel Seth]], [[FireEmblemTellius POR!Titania, and RD!Haar]]

** Since Go and Chess are theoretically solvable (the same way Tic-Tac-Toe is solvable), a hypothetical computer which could calculate the optimal strategies could determine who wins when both sides play perfectly. For example, Tic-Tac-Toe can be completely solved by a bright ten year old, so a sufficiently advanced player can quickly learn the optimal strategy. It yields a draw every time. Chess and Go are like Tic-Tac-Toe. When (If!) they are ever solved, the optimal strategies will either be a win for one player or the other, or a draw. Many other games have similarly been solved, such as Connect Four, where perfect play results in player 1 invariably winning and Chopsticks, where player 2 can always win. So when played ''perfectly'', in any game with no random element and a finite number of possible states, there is either no character tiers or a GodTier and a You Lose tier. It may just be beyond our power to calculate out what the optimal strategies are, which is indeed the case for Chess and Go.
*** To elaborate a little bit, Go is typically played on a 19 x 19 board (361 spaces), with each space able to be black, white, or empty. That means that there are a total of approximately 2.08 * 10^170 (yes that is 170 zeroes) legal positions possible in Go. Those legal positions can be reached numerous ways, causing even more calculations necessary every move. Without going into too much detail, with the most powerful computer currently in the world, it would take over 3 days for it to calculate a single move in the opening stages of the game.

* Tiers are completely evident in nearly every single Manga/DragonBall Z game.
** The Tenkaichi and Raging Blast series are notorious for their tiers (which is somewhat expected with over 100 characters).

** In 3rd edition, versatility (how many problems a character can contribute to solving) is at least as important as power (how powerful the character's abilities are for problems) in tiering. The top tier is characters who, with the right spells prepared, can solve nearly anything the GM can come up with as a standard action. Lesser tiers either have [[CripplingOverspecialization less versatility]] or [[MasterOfNone less power]]. In general, while a character of any tier can be a GameBreaker with the right factors, only a high-tier character can be a [[StoryBreakerPower Story Breaker]] - imagine how ''TheLordOfTheRings'' would have turned out if Gandalf could teleport any distance, read minds, identify any item instantly, and make anyone [[NoSell immune]] to mental influence... and that was just a fraction of his abilities.

* ''DungeonsAndDragons''