Let's do this.

My Tier List

High Tier

• Dr. Shoals - my main. She's just super fast with a very high dive. Her kicks can be very tricky to defend against and when you consider her air special, she's dangerous to everybody. Also can build meter like a mofo.
• Kick - Kick can get you from absolutely anywhere on the map at anytime if you know what your doing. Both ground and air specials are extremely effective. Can also build meter alarmingly fast.
• Uncle Sensei - Haven't played much with him, but is always very difficult to read because he's coming at you from so many different angles.

Mid Tier

• Kung Pao - Has a great low to the ground game and can be trouble for a number of higher tier characters.
• S-Kill - Can be very dangerous once you get a better understanding on how he controls. He's very scary.
• MarkMan - Don't even go for the controller parts, just master his Just Frame's.
• Dive - Similar to Kick but not that scary. His jump forward special is really good in a lot of situations though.
• Mr. N - Ground special is worthless outside of a chuckle, but can jump very high and can fool a lot of people with his air special.
• Jefailey - Eff what ya heard. Jefailey isn't awful.

Low Tier

• Kenny - I'm sure he could be great if people had a grasp of every character in the game, but most people don't.
• Redacted - Super fast, but can be handled.
• Stream - Flamebait is a good special, but Stream is super vulnerable in a lot of situations.
• The Baz - The Baz is awful. Don't pick The Baz.

Strengths & Weaknesses

Since I'm maining Shoals right now, I'm pretty sure I know what her strengths and weaknesses are.

Dr. Shoals

The Baz is awful? He wrecks me. I've only played like 2 hours though.

Redacted is definitely too low.

I'd say Redacted is at least mid-tier; she is ridiculous with meter and I've seen a lot of insane players online. Everyone else seems about right one (I feel S-Kill has to play too defensively, so loses a lot of people who challenge him, but I have been bodied by great S-Kills).

The Baz, though, definitely deserves his spot. Once you understand how he works, it takes a pixel-perfect Baz player to be threatening.

From Iron Galaxy and two top Divekick players pre-launch (Meansaltine and Kerahime), S-Kill is the worst character in the game next to The Baz.

As an S-Kill player, though, The Baz is a massive pain so I always have to counter-pick.

Could someone who is more knowledgeable about these things tell me if Dr. Shoals and The Baz are supposed to be good against Mr. N? I use Mr. N primarily and I do pretty well I think. I have like 25 losses though and at least 12 to 15 of those are to Dr. Shoals alone. I just get destroyed every time.The Baz also seems to give me a lot of trouble. Also, it seems a lot of people have been picking Shoals or Baz after I make my pick of Mr. N. I've been trying to use Dive against those two now and it's at least working a little better for me.

@dethfish: In my opinion, Mr. N should have the clear advantage against Dr. Shoals and The Baz, especially with the Kick gem. He has the clear dive advantage against Shoals and He can just rush The Baz down.

The best fight I had against S-Kill at the end of the story mode had me using The Baz. I wouldn't say he's low tier. But I agree on Dr. Shoals, she's definitely top tier.

Shoals is a beast. I adore her you can play so many mind games and delay your second kick or sometimes not even do a second kick when they expect you to.

@fluxwavez: Huh...well that would mean I'm just bad. I guess I can't figure out how to handle Dr. Shoals. I always wait for her to come to me but the just gets me killed. As for The Baz, I never remember the lightning.

@dethfish: Mr. N definitely has the advantage over The Baz, but looking at that list Kerahime made above I might have underestimated how much of a problem Shoals could be for Mr. N.

Though, I don't like that list. It was made before the game was released and when only a select number of people had played it. Plus, it's only one player's opinion and it's directed exclusively at high level play.

I agree he should be able to easily rush in, get above Baz and take him out (using Marneto to bait/avoid an escape attempt), but I feel Shoals does well against Mr. N because she has some really great mid-air control, builds meter fast and her hit box points way forward and out in front of her.

Mr. N's a very vertical attacking character, so unless he can get above a foot-diving Shoals (again, not easy because he's very up and down and she's very horizontal while still being able to dive very high), he can't really intimidate her or gain space on her.

Just my two cents, but I'm a very cautious/counter-hitting player so I approach the game differently.

SSSSSSSH! Are you CRAZY! You can't let out the secret of Shoal's awesomeness, now EVERYONE'S going to be using her!

Mr. N seems really strong to me. His positioning on defense is perfect. Great for counter-attacking. The only drawbacks are his hitbox and weak kick speed.

I've been doing pretty well with Jefailey. Has anyone played against someone actually using Stream well?

I'm really having a hard time with people who play with The Baz and seeing that he's low tier makes me feel even worse.

After some more practice I've changed my mind about Mr. N vs Shoals. He can handle her just fine if you play it right. It has been a while since I've lost to her now, so either I've figured it out or I'm just playing really bad players.

I still really dislike facing Baz though. Rushing him helps a lot, but I still screw up and get destroyed sometimes. Also, I just saw this for the first time yesterday, but apparently he's invulnerable after he's filled his meter? How do you deal with that? I'm assuming you have to just run away and dodge him till the meter drains, but that's not exactly the easiest thing to do in Divekick.

@gorillamopena said:

Stream's the only character I've detected as a fraud so far.

Most people seem to play Dr. Shoals, which is good for quickly learning how to deal with her. It's not too difficult.

The Baz fucks me up every time, also Shoals is weak.

@oscar__explosion: the secret with the baz is changing your mindset. His unique divekick can work against him, as what you need to do is simply collide withhim. easier said than done, true, but going for the offensive and making sure he doesn't build meter is key.

@gunslingerpanda: baz defense sucks because he cant react (if you stay one step ahead of him he just becomes a scared little girl with sick beard). his attack has a huge hitbox but is predictable

I disagree with your assessment of Markman. I don't think he's highest tier necessarily, but he's a bit higher than mid I think. His items are absolutely worth using as well. Not only is Precision mode great, but careful placement and usage of the items is helpful in tons of situations. I'm learning new uses all the time.

I don't think Dr. Shoals is that good. You can react to fly cancels and her mixups don't matter when you are right below her since only one attack can actually hit you. If you use someone with an especially fast or steep kick arc you can punish any attempts for her to come down on you, as at the very least you reset to neutral.

I definitely think Dive and Kick are some of the strongest characters in the game though. They are simple but they have strong fundamentals and you can build Kick Factor fairly easy, which both of them are very scary in, while still having very useful specials.

Markman I don't think is incredibly top-tier just playing for just Justframe. It is fast sure but if you only play for Justframe then you can only come down at one angle. His items let you set up tricky situations (or sticky situations) with the trampoline, glue, oil slick, and chemistry. Playing for Kickbox is kinda rough, but incredibly useful for controlling the air.

Also, calling Mr. N's GTFO useless is really silly. There is no other way in the entire game to control pixels of space that quickly. Don't think of it as a runaway skill since his kickback is generally better for that. You need it for incredibly precise spacing, which is what Mr. N is all about, controlling precise amounts of space to cause you to either just barely miss an attack or for you to come into his domain so he can give you a taste of his footie pajamas. I could talk game all day about Mr. N.

Off-the-top-of-my-head-tier-list, within the tiers the list the names have no particular order.

Ballertown Tier

Dive, Kick

==

Langzone Tier

Redacted, Kung Pao, Uncle Sensei, Mr. N

==

Salty Tier

S-Kill, Markman, Dr. Shoals

==

Fraud Tier

The Baz, Stream, Jefailey

==

Kenny Tier

Kenny (I wouldn't call Kenny particularly bad, just you can do really well or really poorly depending on the stances you get, so putting him in a tier list is just playing with how generous the RNG gods are to you)

I will probably disagree with at least some of this when I wake up. I kinda want to move Redacted down but it is more just because I hate the way her Kickback works so much.

@oscar__explosion said:

I'm 603 on PSN and the Baz still fucks me up sometimes. He's definitely my hardest matchup. I thought I had him figured out before but sometimes he'll just dominate me.

Zornack, do you make a habit of rage quitting games when you're 3-0 down? Just curious.

lol, damn i guess that's why kick and uncle sensei are my favorites

This is pretty much my first fighting game, I'm having a great time with Kung Pao. Too many assholes trying to meter spam The Baz, but once you figure how to beat him it's so satisfying.

It's probably also worth mentioning that Markman's Air Feint is fantastic.

The better the players I play against, the more it becomes apparent that Mr. N can't hang with most of them.

I love that turbo called stream low tier and then got sent to the losers bracket by one.

Having played in the top 8 of the GB tournament and practicing with great players all weekend it seems to me that Sensei and Markman are better than Pao while having very similar dive heights and kick angles. I may have to switch to stay competitive.

Jefailey is the true god tier, I don't care what the charts and the Shoals-counter pickers say.

@starvinggamer said:

Is this the real tier list? If so, it actually does make some sense.

I do think that Kick is number one, though. I know it's a one-match difference for him and Dive on here, but as I play him more and more, I just think he's too solid not to be the tippity top of the tier list.

I actually think Shoals should be lower after playing a lot of Shoals players. There have been a few who really know how to control her utilizing the Jetpack special and control space like a beast, but for the most part I can run all over her with Kick.

I will attest to Jefailey being the realest of real, though. I don't think I've beaten a single Jefailey in the past couple of days.

@imperiousrix: This is the tier-list made up by Kerahime right after Evo, an all around theory monster and the 2nd place finisher in the Evo Divekick tournament (who actually gave the eventual champion a tip that allowed him to beat the 3rd place finisher in Losers' Finals with relative ease after getting dominated initially).

@starvinggamer: Nice. Yeh, it looks accurate enough to me (granted, I've only played about 300 matches online; still lots to learn), but I can see this changing quite a bit as people figure some new tech out so to speak.

Maybe they just weren't that good, but most Shoals matches I've had playing as Kick, all I had to do was rush in and keep close.

How meta has this joke gone now that there is an actually MU chart for this game?

@strife777: Same, only a few Shoals have been able to really utilize short footdives + jetpack to keep me out as Kick. Regardless, as soon as they make a mistake I can chase them down.

@flstyle: I actually enjoyed playing against as you as Mr N. Compared to all the Dive & Kick players it was actually fun not to expect the same match tactics over and over again!

@pawsoffury: Hopefully it'll become less Dive and Kick heavy over time, who do you play as? I don't recognise your GB username as a PSN name I've played against.

I'm really enjoying myself with Divekick. It is essentially the fighting game I've always wanted - simple and striped back to basics - because I'm absolutely terrible at the more traditional fighting games.

Currently still trying to figure out all the different pros and cons of each character and having a lot of fun in the process. For the time bein I'm trying to master Kung Pao as her style seems to fit my play style. At one point over the weekend I was actually doing surprisingly well for a time, but then ran into a bad stint and quickly slipped down the ranks.

At the moment I'm struggling with Markman, because like Kung Pao he also is content with sitting back an letting his opponent attack him, which Kung isn't very good at. Jefaileys power up kick is also causing me some trouble and I can't seem to figure out a half decent S-Kill player for the life of me!

But yeah, really having a good time and nice when I bump into somebody and think to myself, "Hey, isn't that ....... from the Giantbomb forums?" Haha :)

Maybe I'm just partial to S-Kill because I like the way he plays but I would consider him top tier. He's one of the only characters that has an effective psychological game. I've fucked so many people over with his counter and his front dodge (Trick) too. He builds meter pretty damn quickly too so you can sit in the back and work up to a Trick. The biggest downsides he has is his approach is kinda clunky but can work decently and his kick is slow as molasses. He might become less effective once people start to understand him more but he's really hard to approach for sure.

My tier list:

God Tier: Mr. N, Kick,

Mid Tier: Kung Pao, Dive, Shoals, Sensei, Redacted

Low Tier: Kenny, MarkMan, S-Kill

Roll Tier: Stream, Baz, Jefailey

As a player of Kick and Mr. N i've found there are very few characters that should give me trouble, but i still suck. Most characters kicks are too slow or their dives are short to give me issues. Although i still suck at fighting Baz, even though i know he's terrible.

This game does nothing for my stress levels haha :) I guess that's why I don't play many competitive online games

Also I think stream is rated too low on most of these lists. He is very tricky though and you have to play him defensively a lot. He also has the best kick back in the entire game. Very good against hyper aggressive players though I'm not great at controlling his dive kick yet to be able to hit people consistently at times. You can try to react against people who like to go in a lot by kicking back then do dive,jump into kick in quick succession (I'd like to use D~K ala Tekken-style nomenclature in this case) to punish. Another would be to just use single D at the start to bait a divekick then immediately do a K~K to punish. Stream is however harder to fight against cautious, patient players in my experience.

You're all crazy for putting Markman so low. His just frame is awesome but so is his air feint and it's always worth digging if only to bait a character closer as his kick is mostly horizontal but not to such a degree as Kung Pao. He can also get under Schoals very easily and punish from behind.

@mrcraggle: The worst part of Markman, for me, is his random special. He seems like hes got a decent dive and kick but the randomness is pretty terrible.