What's the Point of Picking a Low Tier?

It's an option selects LK, if you lose it's because of a low tier. If you win, it's all skill.

To answer the tweet, i pick whoever fits my style. Whichever character no matter how good or bad functions best with my brain ill stick to and try to milk the most out of it unless its extremely flawed beyond viability. There are still advantages to using unpicked characters after all so theres always a chance

Raw arrogance and nothing else Everytime I win as a low tier, I am a superior human being

to the point. if the goal "IS TO WIN" then picking a weaker character is only going to make it harder. you can pick whoever you want but you are only making your goal that much harder to reach by picking confirmed bad or lacking characters. this goes for literally any competitive game in any genre.

I just hate when ppl try to invalidate my desire to win or be competitive because I'm not playing a top tier. You cannot determine MY own goal in game just because of the character I choose to play. If I can't win or have success with the character I enjoy and connect with, than the success is worthless to me. I'm not going to force myself to be miserable trying to win with a character I don't like as much who's strong and make the game a chore to play. If the character I choose is godlike, then that's great. If not, I'm at least going to try and make it work for a good while.

I myself pick who I like and love. I dont care if they are good or not.

Makes sense from a competitive perspective. Playing a weaker character might force you learn different things because their tools for certain situations are weaker, but it's certainly valid if all you're looking for is tournament results, to just pick the strong characters. Personally, I'm just a casual online player, so I'm very much a "play who I like" guy. Hell, I've been playing a lot of BBTag since its rollback update, and there I play a mix of everything from top of bottom tier. My main is Yang, and my favorite partner for her is Ruby, and there I'm just lucky that two of my favorites are top tier. But I also play characters like Platinum and Neopolitan, who are some of the worst in the game, or mid-tiers like Weiss and Izayoi, because I like them too. Same deal in GG Strive. Main May, who is strong but no longer top, and was just lucky she happened to be that strong initially, but I also play a variety of others, including Happy Chaos at the top end and Millia at the lower end. Because I'm just after fun games - learning and improving along the way is nice too, as is winning, but both are secondary goals, not the main one.

I think it's less that I don't care what tier my character is and more that my goal is legitimately just improving. A stronger character would make that improvement potentially more worthwhile, and I want my effort to be rewarding, but I would rather get really good at the character I like (and coincidentally them be strong, but that's secondary)

I play characters I think are cool, have a cool play style, or just feel good to play. I play casually so a character’s relevance in tournaments or tier lists don’t matter to me. I pick who I want, and if there’s a bad matchup, I either deal with it and try to find answers, or pick a different character that deals with them better

I’ve tried a few times to pick up a secondary, but I haven’t enjoyed the game with other characters as much as with Anji, and if I’m not enjoying my time with this game then what’s the point?

I would say playing a "worse" character in serious competition is from my experience character loyalty (due to either the character or to their tools). Like if you really like Anjis spin and are comfy w it, why wouldnt you play him. Id feel the same way about Testament, esp since theyre not very weak either. Testament may not have the best zoning ever, but their 6p is goated and they have a lot of situations where you can mess people up if they dont know the matchup. So you end up playing a really complex and certainly not overpowered character where you arent as rewarded for good choices but you have the ability to play in ways you cant with top tiers. Like I main I-no and I gotta say Im really glad I play Test as a sidemain/pocket since without Testament helping me with being focused on neutral, I can counteract I-nos way more hyperrushdown playstyle that would otherwise make me play in a very specific and predictable way. And ofc Test covers some of my worse matchups (mainly it helps w Nago and w Sol even if the Sol mu still isnt favored. Idk as far as HC goes, but Im more comfy w I-no against Chaos but if that changes I have Test to rely on.

The only reason I'd pick a low tier is because I think they are cool as a character. I can only play to improve with characters I like. I know this about myself and I think most casual players are like this. I was only able to improve in the 1st place is because I kept playing the character I like who was a low-tier character and because of that I got to a level good enough to almost win my local Tekken tourney which was also my 1st tournament ever.

"All people remember is the result at the end." While this is USUALLY true, there are a couple of exceptions, though those cases are usually pretty extreme. See Tekken 7 Leroy, where everyone remembers how many Leroys there were in EVO Japan 2020 top 8 (six), but people struggle to remember who actually won that tournament.

I feel that's a pretty measured take. even as a competitor I will perform better with arctypes I do better with. I've played shotos for years and years at this point that the decision making process even if shotos aren't super strong which is rare in a fighting game but does happen xx was a good case study for that ky wasn't particularly good for most of xx he was alright but not super good only being a true top tier in slash. I personally perform better with this arctype even if they're weaker just because it's my skill set. learning a new arch type is hard and I've dabbled but really pushing a different mentality and decision making process requires some serious investment. I don't have the mentality to be good on a grappler and even if a grappler were high/top tier which isn't super common I wouldn't do better with them than I would on a comparatively weaker character from an archtype I'm better with. I do tend to pick whomever is the best version of what I like for a game I only am playing ky in strive because of a history with the character and attachment. my main competing days are behind me now so I can afford to just play who I like even if he gets nerfed and isn't super strong. he happens to also be strong right now which is nice but if he were weak I'd still play him just because I don't have higher goals anymore.

You can definitely gain new perspective when playing a characters that’s considered low tier. You can also gain it from top tiers too though depending on the characters. You’re outlook on defense/defensive options will probably be different if you go from Leo/Sol to Happy Chaos for example.

This is something I am very thankful of Guilty Gear for: I have played League of legends for 10 years by now and recently bought Strive and became somewhat decent at it. Reached floor 10 playing Ky but felt like I was outmatched against certain characters. Eventually I ended up taking a break and realized what was making me play worse: and it was the fact that I had 0 confidence in Ky or myself, I would never go for a DP because "im just gonna mess up the input" or not 6p an obvious Gio crossup or Troväo, blaming my character for my results, like I had done for 10 years in League. Ky became a much better character when I just trusted what I was doing a lot more. Raw data of "oh Ram Ky is 6-4 so I am losing frame 1" that doesn't matter unless you are .1% of the ladder. Play who you want and trust them and they will reward you.

The answer is pride and hubris.

The editing is 🔥🔥🔥

I think, especially for games with more unique individual playstyle differences/character gameplans like blazblue for example, certain character may also fit your skillset/what you enjoy much more than other characters even if they are stronger competitively (to say nothing of things like legacy skill on a cross game edition basis that you may have built up). Like even if Faust is bad, I would expect Nage to still probably play Faust since his legacy skill and awareness for items is so practised. Also doesn't account for things like balance patches or even new versions of the game coming out. If angi was turbo-buffed next patch then the people who were doing sorta ok with anji may suddenly be playing a top-tier with the training weights off. Swapping mains can be a pretty large investment at the top level so I don't know if its that clear cut.

Hi there LK! I'm a big fan of your vids, and I had a question or idea. Earlier, Romolla made a video about arcsys' questionable balance history when it came to the guilty gear sign-xrd series of games. And i know you're a blazblue guy, do you think making a video on the history of blazblues' balances, or maybe just one or two of the games could make an interesting video? If you have something similar to this already, i'd love to see it, but the idea just crossed my mind. have a good one!