PC Tier List (Meltdown, No Items) - Version 3
Previous Week: https://www.reddit.com/r/Battleborn/comments/4klyhm/early_tier_list_pc_comp_version_2/
Continuing with my experience from the battlesphere.gg tournament and another week worth of scrims. We're going with Team 1 Ban / Team 2 Ban / T1 Pick 1 / T2 Pick Pick 12 / T1 Pick Pick 23 / T2 Pick Pick 34 / T1 Pick Pick 45 / T2 Pick 5
Usual disclaimer: Here are my thoughts on the power of each hero, in relative order descending. Do note, I consider every hero up until tier D to be completely playable. The tiers are relative power order, however you aren't going to, for example, pick Benedict 1-3rd in a scrim: You'll most likely pick him 4th or 5th assuming they don't have the hard counter to him.
Also, I noticed a lot of the time I'm just repeating myself. So if you need more indepth explanations on why someone belongs in their tier, just either ask or go to last week's post linked above.
So on to the tier list:
S Tier: ISIC, Marquis
A Tier: Thorn, Oscar Mike, Miko, Caldarius
B Tier: Ghalt, Reyna, Galilia, Boldur, Mellka, Kelvin
C Tier: Toby, Montana, Shayne & Aurox, Kleese, Benedict, Orendi, Deande, El Dragon
D Tier: Rath, Ambra
Unknown Tier: Attikus, Pheobe, Whiskey Foxtrot
Haven't scrimed against yet because she's banned until everyone can play her: Alani
Moved: Thorn to top of A from mid A. Miko from S tier down to A tier. Ghalt down to B tier. Oscar Mike up further into A tier. Ambra down to D tier. Kelvin to bottom of B tier. Toby down to C tier. Mellka up to B tier. Shayne from Unknown to C tier. Deande to the bottom of C tier.
S Tier: ISIC, Marquis
ISIC : ISIC was banned in every single match. Not banned/picked, banned. He just does too much damage, has far too much survivability- he's overtuned.
Marquis : Marquis has disgusting amounts of damage, but he also has disgusting amounts of reach. He can kill your thumper from his allied minions and the other thumper 1/4 up the bridge. He hard counters half of the cast. He puts out disgusting amounts of damage- great for forcing people to back.
A Tier: Thorn, Oscar Mike, Miko, Caldarius
Thorn : She's the god of wave clear in this game. A blight + volley will instantly clear any lane pretty much regardless of how many enemies are in there. Later in the game, you can start assassinating people with Blight + Volley + Ult - giving your team a viable counter to Miko and Marquis if you can get a good angle on them. At level 5 with Hexanguinate, you are super duper annoying to everybody with shields. Most of the time in the tournament and scrims, she was either picked first, or she was respect banned.
Oscar Mike : Kind of bad at level 1, super mega turns on at level 2. At level 2 he can clear a lane all by himself. He can also throw a grenade at your thumper and run away- and the thumper dies pretty much solo to the fire DoT.
At level 5, he can solo clear BOTH lanes by airstriking one lane / grenading the other lane if under isn't contested. I consider him the second best wave clear in the entire game behind thorn, because the minions need to be fighting each other for his napalm to be super effective (Thorn's swampfoot will just root and kill everything on its own). Besides that, his airstrike actually does a lot of damage. If he plays safe, he's literally unkillable because his cloaking gives him +30% move speed. It's really the great wave clear + decent DPS + airstrike potential that makes him super good.
Miko : Dropped from S because I feel that Reyna has started to grow on me. As usual, Miko gives your team a lot of sustain and a lot of early game pressure, but I found that having sustain and early game pressure isn't that big of a deal in my eyes anymore. Since I'm putting less of a weight on the early game, Miko dropped a few tiers. We don't mind going against Miko anymore, especially if we have someone like Thorn or Marquis or someone that can burst him down.
Caldarius : He's slightly worse than I thought he was, but he's still super solid. He hasn't changed from last week.
B Tier: Ghalt, Reyna, Galilia, Boldur, Mellka, Kelvin
Ghalt : Ghalt moved down because they nerfed his slug rounds (Sniper shotgun!), and they also broke his double damage trait at level 7.
That said, I'm pretty sure we lost the finals of the tournament pretty much because Woof is a god with Ghalt.
Ghalt's hooks are extremely potent. His traps give him a lot of lane control. His only problem now is that his damage isn't obscenely good now- he's just really good. He has great initiation if you can land hooks.
He's a little big and bulky too- I find it's really hard to stay up early early game unless you have dominant lane control. So hug your Mikos guys.
Reyna : Reyna has been getting better and better in my eyes. At level 2 if you take the homing helix, she can do 30-40% of any single target's HP by herself. If you take the slow, you have a potential of 9 seconds of slow on any target. It's pretty gross.
Besides that, I found that being more liberal with her ult is actually really good. In such a ranged dominant game, it shuts down a lot of people (Toby, Marquis, things like that), and gives you a chance to turn the game around.
Unfortunately, it's kind of hard to use. But it's the type of thing where I see Reynas doing a lot better with more experience.
Galilea : First off, if she has a Miko or Reyna on her team, knock her up a few pegs. If she doesn't, knock her down to the bottom of B.
She still does great damage at full HP and she still has great territory control. The nerfs didn't do much. Shields are still broken in this game.
Boldur : Boldurs never die. Great lane disruption, a very good charge stun. Good damage too if he tries hard. Boldurs tend to lag behind the team in terms of experience, but I don't feel that it's a big deal for boldur. He can be effective even if he's underleveled late game.
Mellka : I moved Mellka up from C tier to B tier. She's a lot better than I thought. She still needs to get in your face in order to kill you, but I underestimated two things- One, her mobility is caldarius levels of mobility. She can zip around the map and reliably have lane presence in both lanes. Second, her poison is god damn annoying if you have a shield.
She also does a lot more damage than I expected. Especially with the slow on her Spike. The only thing that separates her from the A tier is her lack of super easy lane clear. She's okay at it.
Kelvin : I'm starting to dislike Kelvin.
The dedicated stun is super nice. And the burst damage from Chomp is good. You can make big plays with Ice Wall.
The issue is that he isn't tanky compared to Boldur and Galilea. It can be really hard to get into the lane and tag the minions, so as a result you tend to fall behind in experience as a Kelvin. And since you don't have a shield, things can get pretty rough in the Kelvin department.
Don't get me wrong though. The dedicated, super reliable stun is -super- nice.
C Tier: Toby, Montana, Shayne & Aurox, Kleese, Benedict, Orendi, Deande, El Dragon
Toby : I'm starting to also dislike Toby a bit more. I find that even in lineups where we're like "Oh man, there's no way they can take down his shield with that lineup!", they can take down the shield with something as simple as a Miko throwing Kunai at it.
Plus with his big ol' hitbox, it makes people that can't aim (like me) able to aim. And if he doesn't have his shield up, he dies really, really easily.
That said, he still does a shitton of damage. And if he hits you with the bomb, you're probably dead. And he can still kind of clear waves relatively safely. So he isn't on the bench yet.
Montana : I'm a little split.
On one hand, if you go on a Montana, he's really really good. On the other hand, if you force the Montana to go on you... he's kind of really really bad besides his mediocre DPS. Great at counter initiating, really shitty at initiating.
Still decent at stopping people that are super agile with his cold rounds. And he actually functions decently well without a Miko or Reyna.
Shayne and Aurox : Moved out of Unknown tier. They're surprisingly tanky. They don't really bring anything to the wave clear front, until she gets her ult.
I find they can't really do that much damage unless you have like a Galilea/Kelvin/Boldur stun. Then the opponent is probably dead with Shayne's damage. Solo assassinwise, though, highly vulnerable to quick melee. Like every other melee in the game.
Only way I'll ever see Shayne and Aurox picked is 5th, so into C tier they go.
Kleese : Same as last week. I find you need to baby him too much. At level 5 he turns out to be super good at sustain healing, but not really in fight healing. His hitbox is similar to Toby's, but on the other hand he does have the highest DPS in the entire game with Railgun. I think the only way he's going to move is Up, but I have no evidence for this yet.
Benedict : Same as last week. I think he's worthless if he doesn't land his Q. If he lands his Q, you will probably die. Especially if he has his ultimate.
I don't like that his ultimate stuns him for the duration.
Benedict is weird because if you're really good with him, you can do miracles. If you're not really good with him, you're useless.
That said, there's zero competition in the Benedict picking department. So tier 3 he goes.
Orendi : I still think she's a bad version of Thorn.
She can very easily, reliably clear lanes at level 4. Before that, if you split up the group even a little she can struggle. And she has to blow Pillar > Nullify > Pillar before that, which just isn't good when compared to Thorn or OM or (etc).
I find that I struggle killing the far thumper with Orendi. And the close thumper is rough unless you go deep on their ramp or deep near their accelerator. Not that big of a deal though.
At level 5 she gets a bad version of Thorn's ult. Luckily at level 6 and 7 her damage explodes with two +15% damage to Shadow Pillars. There's not that much demand in the Orendi picking department though, so tier 3 she goes.
Deande : Uppercut is really good. Uppercut without attack speed, less good.
It seems like she doesn't really do that much aside from solo chain stun locking. If you have map control, she can be super deadly and great at getting picks. She won't actually contribute to getting you any map control though.
I think her ult is really good when you're coordinated.
El Dragon : Same as last week. He's really good after level 5. Golden says he's actually pretty good at clearing waves at level 2 with his lightning helix. But I feel he's way too squishy to be that great of a pick.
Fortunately, he doesn't really have the same issue that every other melee in the game has with Quick Melee, probably because you're fucking stunned and super slowed when he goes on you.
If you let him get to end game, though, he becomes a monster. So maybe he'll get better with time.
D Tier: Rath, Ambra
Keep in mind, I consider D tier to be not very viable. Everyone above D tier is perfectly 100% pickable, usually something like S tier- usually banned, A tier - First/Second picked. B tier - 3rd/4th picked, C tier, good 5th pick. And you don't want to pick people in D tier.
Rath : Super DUPER vulnerable to quick melee. Rath decides to ult you? Hit that quick melee button and he no longer does any damage to you.
If you're dying to Rath, there's really only four reasons for it.
-
He's being a vulture and is picking off people at 500 HP.
-
It's not actually Rath killing you, it's his teammates and he's just following up.
-
He has a disgusting level advantage over you
-
You're bad.
As for his actual problems, he's way too squishy and he doesn't bring anything to the table. Seriously, just quick melee him. Congrats, you just made him completely useless.
Ambra : I liked Ambra, but with the last patch they completely neutered her.
She used to have good damage and wave clear, and they just shat all over it. Her left click's range has been reduced by around 30%. Her right click no longer does any damage with heat. There's no more reason to pick Ambra anymore. Sorry guys, she's just in a really really bad spot right now.
I mean, I guess you could pick Ambra so she can Solar Wind the wave as a vulnerable melee range wave clear that will do around 1/3 the enemy HP. and I guess after level 5 you can start ulting the wave
but what's the point? Just pick someone else.
Unknown Tier: Attikus, Pheobe, Whiskey Foxtrot
Attikus : I have a feeling his big hitbox is going to be really bad for him. His charged initiation is pretty solid, and god damn his jump is the most disorienting thing I've ever been hit by in the entire game.
I haven't seen him in comp play more than once, so I don't know where he should be.
Pheobe : She's pretty tanky and her ultimate is really good, but I haven't really seen Pheobe shine yet. If I placed her now, it would be somewhere inside of C.
Her 6 second slow is disgusting and having +shields and +shieldregen is really good. Phase gate is really good too.
But I haven't seen anyone really pick her. I'm pretty sure she's viable, because 6 seconds of slow is actually really good. When I play her in pubs, I find that she's pretty vulnerable to quick melee though- especially if you're using true strike.
Whisky Foxtrot - Probably around the bottom of B or high in C.
Nobody's picked him since last week so I don't know.
Haven't scrimed against yet because she's banned until everyone can play her: Alani
Alani : Lets be real here. She's going to be in S tier. Is she as broken as ISIC? Probably more broken.
She has two flaws. One- She has shit mobility (If you pick the surf helix you're shooting yourself in the foot). Two- She has no sustain/aoe healing without minions (So she can't heal you at your healing station for example)
Those are literally her only downsides. In battle, she's a very effective healer. She does great damage. Great wave clear. Stupid amounts of control. Her hitbox is super funky. She can pretty much 1v1 anyone in the game and win.
She's broken as fuck. Fortunately, she's hard banned until it unlocks for everybody and not just season pass holders.
Let me know if you have any questions about placements on the tier list. As I've stated before, I believe that everyone in this game up until D tier is viable. And in general, the way it goes is- S tier = Usually banned. A tier = Usually first/second picked. B tier = Usually 3rd/4th picked. C tier = Usually 5th picked. D tier = Never picked because they are flawed / don't bring anything to the table that another character can but better.
and as I've stated before, this is for PC. If I'm not mistaken, PC players have a more ranged meta than you XBONE/PS4 people do. There are also no items allowed as of writing this, but that may change by the next tier list.
I am 100% comfortable with: Ambra, Caldarius, Marquis, Thorn, Oscar Mike, and Reyna. I can also play Orendi and Pheobe (in pubs). So if you have any build questions for these people, I can help.
Posted May 30, 2016, 8:04 AM UTC · edited