This week marks the release of the newest addition to the Guilty Gear series of fighting games with the console introduction of Guilty Gear Xrd Revelator. Revelator takes the initial set up of Xrd SIGN and expands upon it with some core system changes as well as adding in a few new characters. After a lengthy period of arcade exclusivity, players worldwide now have access to the Japanese console release and are already playing it in preparation for the rest of the tournament season.

When any game update releases into the competitive scene, the first question to always come up is “What changes happened to the characters and what is the tier list now?” Revelator is after all still built upon Xrd SIGN so it makes sense to have some expectations. What ends up defying expectations this time is that Revelator did not actually retune any of the SIGN cast, it only changed a couple of mechanics and introduce new characters. So old characters should be placed the same, right?

Not exactly.

Gathering Thoughts

Tier discussion in fighting games is always a bit tricky, but there is a key rule to remember when diving in. The strength of characters and their tools is only relative to other members of the cast; tools do not exist in a vacuum. That means that something that is strong in most fighting games might not be strong in the one we’re looking at. For example, a character with high damage combos might not be strong in a game dominated by drawn out neutral and single strikes for damage. Another part of this is that a tool can be extremely strong but not make a character the best in context. Protected knock down set ups into fast, four-way mix up might not make a character great if other characters have unblockable setups on knockdown.

Elphelt's combos and unblockables are dangerous © Arc System Works

With that out of the way, let’s move on to analyzing what’s been happening with the cast during the last few months. In order to that, we called in the help of some better known Guilty Gear names to offer their own opinions on the matter. To anybody following Arc system Works games, DLink’s Lord Knight needs little introduction; he is extremely experienced in the genre, with Guilty Gear being his most recent venture into the competitive scene. On the other end of things we have a slightly newer name with Lost Soul providing his thoughts today. A relatively small name before Xrd came around, Lost Soul’s Elphelt made a huge splash in tournaments taking multiple wins and high placing finishes.

The obvious question to ask first is what caused the tiers to change when no balance changes actually took place. “Going from Xrd SIGN to Xrd Revelator, for the most part, the only changes characters got were systematic changes,” Lord Knight starts us off. “So, the main changes to the tiers revolve around discoveries about the cast and system and new characters being added.” Lost Soul seems to have similar thoughts and says, “The things that have helped the characters is the system changes, and they include the new charge blitz mechanic and side dust that is given in Revelator.” The charge blitz is a new change to Revelator that allows blitz to be held to better stop offense, while side dust’s combo mechanics were changed to allow for more follow ups midscreen and in the corner. The new mechanics have changed things, but how does that affect the characters overall?

Johnny is the new standard for power in Revelator © Arc System Works

Heeere’s Johnny!

When it’s time to start evaluating a metagame, it’s best to start with looking at what toolsets are powerful. Throughout Xrd’s life, and most of Guilty Gear’s as a series, the main focus has been on tools that create powerful, offensive situations. Aggressive buttons, big conversions, and oppressive knockdowns are highly valued. With that in mind it makes sense why characters like Zato or Millia tend to end up on the more powerful side since they focus on heavy offense.

Xrd has seen a few different stages of development though where characters with larger normals and consistent neutral have been highly valued. Faust saw repeated mention in S tiers early on based on how consistently he was able to win out of neutral. Elphelt’s release sparked immediate attention due to her exemplifying the neutral along with a strong damage and knockdown game, and further optimization made it the goal to keep up with her.

Now players are looking at an entirely new level of power with the return of Johnny in Revelator. He more than makes up for his absence in SIGN by showing up with extremely large normal, high damage, and host of unblockable set ups. “Since the release of arcade Revalator, we have seen on how strong and dominant Johnny can be in it,” Lost Soul explains. “Johnny's range on his normals, damage, and unblockables certainly puts a target in him as a must need to know matchup in Revelator. Due to his cool factor as a character, the emphasis on how to deal with Johnny will be big depending on how popular he will get in the meta. I like to dub this as the ‘Johnny Apocalypse’ from how he changed the metagame in Revelator.”

The implication laid out here is that Johnny is now setting the standard for what type of power levels are expected in order for a character to compete. The type of progress that has had the most metagame impact in Revelator has been that related to maximizing one or two touch kill set ups. It is not uncommon to see characters that didn’t have this ability before to have developed new set ups or conversions in order to enable quick kills the best they can. The ability to convert off normals that can compete with the likes of Johnny or Elphelt has also increased in value in a short amount of time, pushing an already strong character like Sin even further up on lists. The two other character introductions, Jam returning and the all new Jack-O, have had noticeably less impact as they don’t immediately present dangerous situations that need to be answered. Johnny is the new guy running the show.

Sin, from Xrd Revelator © Arc System Works

Making the List

It’s no surprise both Lord Knight and Lost Soul list off strong normal, the ability to create oppressive situations, and conversion ability as the top traits when putting characters on tier lists. It makes sense with those traits being good in any fighting game really. What really makes the difference in Xrd is the extremes in which these tools go to. As mentioned earlier, strength is all relative to other characters. That means the top characters have large normals that convert into high damage and mix up set ups that in turn lead back into the high damage. The characters that aren’t keeping up are likely having trouble consistently winning a neutral situation that can turn into a won round off the hit as is.

Lost Soul offers a couple rankings up instead of just a straight list. His top four characters are Johnny, Elphelt, Zato, and Sin. He notes they can control neutral with their projectiles, have high damage, and with the exception of Sin all have unblockable set ups to extend damage further. The bottom characters that struggle are Potemkin, Slayer, Jam, and Ramlethal. They are still very viable and the gap between top and bottom is rather small so players shouldn’t be too dissuaded. Lord Knight on the other hand offers a classic tier list with some explanations. The characters are listed in no particular order within tiers:

S: Johnny/Elphelt/Sin/Zato

S-: Millia/Sol

A+: Faust/Ky/Venom/Chipp/Bedman/I-no/Jack-O/May

A: Axl/Ramlethal/Slayer/Jam/Potemkin/Leo

“S tiers have powerful neutral, knockdown, are oppressive, and create highly rewarding situations all around. Characters in S- are the same as S except their conversion ability is not totally on par. A+ characters are all around strong, but not in the overall way that S tiers are. Most of them have a slight weakness when compared to the S tiers. A tier contains characters that are strong but also are missing something. Despite that they are still strong and can win if they get you into their goal situation.”

Change Can Happen

No tier list is actually established in a way that is permanent, so it is important to understand why they look what they do. It is entirely possible that the metagame shifts away from what is currently established if techniques to circumvent or beat dominant strategies arise. It is also entirely possible that characters get even stronger along the path that is already set up and disparity between tiers grows wider. The last case is that a new element comes in and changes things, such as a balance patch or the even newer characters. Since we know what is strong now and shapes the current tier list, it is easy to point to what to look for in the future as possibly being the next change in the game though.

New characters are being introduced with the console release, and if they can control neutral, hit as hard as often as the strong characters, and keep up oppressive situations, there is no reason why they couldn’t appear near the top. The possibility of a patch a few months down the road isn’t out of the question either, knowing Arc System Work’s past tendencies. Keep an eye out and remember what’s happened so far and it shouldn’t be too hard to stay on top of things. Watch out for any more cool dudes with katanas in the meantime.