That was one of Lion's gimmicks, in fact. Because VF doesn't have a sticky ring edge, and you can get shoved off, or just fall off, at any time-you can even push people to the edge and off while they're laying on the ground, or blocking-characters that could shove their opponents around had strong tools in most situations. VF3 is a very spacing-heavy game, and a lot of it it, besides stage trickery with slopes, is based around either really high burst damage, or really good ring-out options. I remember him being considered weak (because of gimmicks), but also that he did pretty well in competitive play, because of his gimmicks and being underestimated. He has special properties on his moves, too, that basically give him armour in some situations. He's got a weight class all his own, so it changes how most combos work. Taka is kind of a weird character to place on tiers. Pai is kind of like Sarah, being a softer, weaker version of Lau, but she has some tricks like reversals, even if they're not that good. Jeffry and Wolf had some problems, but Wolf is better than Jeffry.
Slightly faster, but that hardly matters, and does less damage across the board, plus she's lighter. Sarah is basically a weaker version of Jacky in every way that matters. Lau can do a shitload of damage if you let him, and Jacky has some good tricks plus he's on the heavy side (VF depends a lot on character weights for combos, so the heavier you are, the better, and Jacky and Akira are pretty high up on the weight scale for medium characters). Lion is kind of gimmicky, but they're strong gimmicks.
Aoi has strong mix-ups with her cancels, but low damage and her ground throw options are pretty weak once you know how to escape them. They all have good things they can do, solid play and options, but nothing that stands out a whole lot (except for Shun, obviously, if he can get drinks).
There's some middle ground where you'd probably put characters like Lion, Jacky, Shun, Lau, maybe Aoi. Akira does have some difficult inputs, though, and Kage kind of depends on 10-foot toss combos for his really broken stuff. Lots of damage, lots of ring-out options, good zoning tools, etc. You should try VFDC for that, I'm sure there are some old players still around there.įor Team Battle, I could only give you some rough highs and lows.Īkira and Kage are at the top. I couldn't give you an exact tier list off the top of my head.