PC Tier List (Meltdown, No Legendaries) - Version 5
Previous Tier List: https://www.reddit.com/r/Battleborn/comments/4r17r6/pc_tier_list_meltdown_no_legendaries_version_4/
After a long dought of no scrims / tournaments, we finally got a few scrims in since the balance patch on Thursday. I was able to play a bunch on Paradise and the new map. In general, this tier list is for draft pick on Paradise, however you can mostly apply it to any other Meltdown map with a few changes- In general on Cold Snap and Outskirts, Melee are more viable due to it being much more enclosed. In addition, on Outskirts, brawlers / team fighters like Whiskey, Shayne and Aurox, Ghalt, and Boldur are much better than on Paradise because of the very quick rotation time.
So as I mentioned before, this is for draft picking- Unless I put a character in D tier, I feel that they are viable. I'll write down what I mean by each tier later, but keep in mind not every character can be in S/A/B tier. This is a list of who is the highest priority to pick first- which usually follows pretty closely with how much impact that character has on the game.
In general, draft picking goes as follows in the current competitive meta:
Team 1 Bans > Team 2 Bans > Team 1 Bans > Team 2 Bans
Team 1 Picks > Team 2 Picks > Team 2 Picks > Team 1 Picks > Team 1 Picks > Team 2 Picks > Team 2 Picks > Team 1 Picks > Team 1 Picks > Team 2 Picks.
As such, I segregate my list into the following: Tier S are the characters that tend to always get banned. Tier A are the characters that are usually picked up in the first rounds of picks. Tier B are the characters that get picked up on the second round of picks. And tier C are the characters that tend to be last picked. Tier D include characters that should probably never be picked for reasons I will state.
Keep in mind this is for the PC. With the inclusion of gaming hardware such as 'mice', it is much easier to aim.
S Tier: ISIC, Marquis, Alani
A Tier: Thorn, Ghalt, Oscar Mike, Caldarius
B Tier: Boldur, Whiskey Foxtrot, Miko, Mellka, Reyna
C Tier: Kleese, Kelvin, Shayne and Aurox, Toby, Orendi, Galilea, Montana, Pheobe, Rath
D Tier: El Dragon, Attikus
Unknown: Ambra, Benedict, Deande
S Tier: ISIC, Marquis, Alani
Do note, with this S tier rank, I believe that these guys are more in line than ever before- but they're still pretty broken. We got nerfs on all three of these characters, but in my opinion they aren't enough- They're really not enough. These three need to be banned every single match, and if they aren't? Congrats, you're on your way to a very easy win if you can snatch them up.
ISIC - ISIC has ridiculously high damage for how tanky he is. He has no damage falloff, and 2/3 of his damage is AoE. On Paradise, you can stand at your supply station, shoot into lane, and if anyone decides to dive you- just pop either your shields, reflecting wards, or your dash- and you've got a free out of jail card. And if they're not focusing you? Keep doing that 194 DPS + AoE.
They did nerf him by getting rid of his slow- however his slow was just icing on the overpowered cake. He's still broken for other reasons- just he isn't horrendously overpowered.
I maintain that unless you're overextending because you're getting bored, you should never die as ISIC. He's still disgustingly overpowered and it hurts me on the inside when I see people not understand how to use him.
Marquis - Marquis actually got two nerfs- first, his passive does 25% less damage. Second, his quick melee isn't the dumbest, most overpowered shit in the game. Unfortunately, he's still broken as fuck. He's capable of doing shittons of damage from range with no damage falloff. He can kill thumpers while barely walking up past mid. He single handedly shuts down half the cast. He's still disgusting in the hands of someone that can quickscope aim- he's just not overbearingly overpowered because of the quick melee nerf.
Alani - They accidently buffed Alani. I don't really know why, but they decided to give her 9 DPS less than Oscar Mike. She's really, really strong right now- Sure, she lost her -CD on hit from level 3 to level 7, but that doesn't change the fact that her kit still does everything, from CC, to wave clear, to healing, to doing actually really good DPS now (From something like 110 DPS to 140 with the last patch- thanks for the buffs!)
A Tier: Thorn, Ghalt, Oscar Mike, Caldarius
As I've said before, these are the dudes you want to first/second pick. They're extremely solid, but not so overpowered that they single handedly win you the game. You want these guys on your team, pretty much no matter what team composition you have. This is your foundation that you build your team on, then you add the rest of the people as they fit on your team. Make sure your team has 3+ people that can play these battleborns.
Thorn - We got a thorn nerf on Blight, but she's still crazy insanely good. She has great burst damage with Volley. Her Blight cleans house, and she hands down has the best ultimate in the entire game. Once she gets hexsanguination, she also becomes an extremely potent harasser as well.
As a note, Thorn is also commonly banned, but I don't feel like she's a 100% must ban right now compared to Marquis and ISIC and Alani.
Ghalt - He's the best bruiser in the game. His Scrap Trap + Pull + Shoot you in the face is enough to kill anybody except a tank. And without it, just by existing his scrap traps shut down a lot of rotations (GL rotating under the bridge if the enemy has a Ghalt on their team). He punishes overextensions hard, and his hooks can get your team a lot of picks that nobody else in the game would be able to get you.
With the last patch, they took away his retarded sniper rounds, but they made him a buttload tankier. Our team considers him as getting buffed in that regard.
Oscar Mike - God of wave clear and doing objectives, and they decided to buff him. With Oscar Mike, you're the second best minion wave clearer in the entire game (Thorn's better). However, you are hands down the best objective do-er in the game. With Napalm, you can shoot down a Thumper turret as early as level 2 by just breaking the shields > Throwing a frag grenade > Leaving. There's no counterplay to this. This gives your team a -lot- of wiggle room, letting your team dive, steal shards, attack their supply station, and so forth.
His second helix got buffed, but nobody takes that anyways so for the most part he's been unchanged.
Caldarius - Third best wave clear behind Oscar Mike and Thorn. He's much more mobile, and while he's worse at killing enemy objectives, he's better at doing bitch duty like getting your own shards, punishing over extensions, and so forth. He's more mobile and has much more burst than Oscar Mike- once he gets to level 5, he can use his ultimate + flash grenades and punish people hard for being in lane.
Do note, there's a lot of low roofs on the new map- so be careful about those. I still think he's A tier even on the new map though- his rotation times let him join pretty much any battle that you want.
B Tier: Boldur, Whiskey Foxtrot, Miko, Mellka, Reyna
These dudes are super solid, but they aren't as high priority as the A Tier. These guys usually go 3rd-4th- so they're still really good and you're still going to most likely see them in every match, but they just aren't as high priority as A / S tier.
Boldur - With the recent Kelvin nerfs, I think Boldur is in a better spot than ever right now. If you know what you're doing with Boldur, he's still unkillable. His damage is great. He has a good slow and he still pretty much permamently moves at +30% move speed. This guy is insane. Best melee in the game by far.
Picking Boldur punishes the enemy for picking squishy people like Miko, Thorn, and so on. If you can catch Caldarius (which is pretty hard admittedly), he goes down too. Boldur is just all around a great pick.
Whiskey Foxtrot - I know everybody thought Whiskey was awful before the patch, but I thought he was actually pretty decent. Prepatch, he was one of the better 1v1 brawlers/harassers. Now, he's probably one of the best in the entire game at brawling / harassing. He feels really good this patch. In the current meta, I can see him going 3rd-4th pretty reliably.
Miko - Nerfs to Miko with the introduction of Wound- I have started to really not like Miko. I'm half tempted to moving him to C tier, because I've stopped seeing him as a threat due to his low health pool and oversized head. (Marquis can legit 3 shot him).
That said, Miko is still good at healing people, and his DPS is still on par with Oscar Mike, so it'd be fraudulent to say that Miko isn't any good.
Mellka - It's funny- they buffed Mellka by doubling her grenade DPS, but by doing that they nerfed her because she used to excel at harassing down people's shields.
She's still hypermobile, probably second most mobile character in the game outside of Caldarius. She's not as good at wave clearing and her ultimate sucks dick compared to Thorn or Caldarius, but she's still very usable. Her Spike has a very good slow, and they've added onto it by throwing Wound on it. She's still pretty good.
Reyna - Reyna hasn't been touched (Additional pushback on her ult is nice, but not that much of a change), but I feel like she's still super solid. If you use her secondary as her primary weapon, her DPS is very respectable (Especially if used in conjunction with her level 3 mutation). Now that ISIC lost his slow, Reyna has the best single target slow in the entire game.
The biggest weakness for Reyna is that she can't do objectives or wave clear worth a damn. But she will single handedly make you win every single brawl that she's a part of with her shield, slow, and damage amplification.
C Tier: Kleese, Kelvin, Shayne and Aurox, Toby, Orendi, Galilea, Montana, Pheobe, Rath
Seem long to you? That's because all of these characters are viable. I would just never pick them 1st-3rd, maybe picking them 4th / 5th. Do note, in any given match you will probably see one or two of these characters. They usually have some serious flaw to them- usually being melee.
Kleese - Kleese got heavily, heavily buffed in regards to survivability, but he's still got issues. He's super mega immobile, and they nerfed his damage output on his railgun.
They heavily nerfed his healing chair too, which kinda sucks. That said, he is really, really god damn tanky this patch. It's kind of ridiculous.
I think Kleese is a lot better on Outskirts and Cold Snap than he is on Paradise because Paradise is so wide open. That said, though he's really good at holding sustain up in a lane, I think the plethora of wave clear (Oscar Mike, Thorn) kind of makes it... not that scary.
Kelvin - Our big ice man got a nerf. His stun isn't as super good as it was before- It's much harder to follow up with. He's still an all right pick in my book, but prior to the patch I was already thinking he wasn't that great- this just cements him down from B to C tier.
I'm hyped they fixed his ultimate though. Fuck minions getting stuck.
Shayne and Aurox - These two are very tanky for a melee brawler. They're self sustaining, and their boomerangs surprisingly do more damage than I thought they would.
Their biggest issue is that they're melee, and that's scary. Luckily, their insane shield regen mitigates that somewhat. Combined with a stun/pull (although a little finnicky), they're in a pretty good spot.
Toby - He's basically what Marquis should be. He's great at ranged, but if you hit his shield, he becomes scared. He's big and squishy, but he has combo potential with his stun bomb. They buffed his ultimate, but I don't think that really changes anything because you don't really want to be anywhere near an enemy to use it.
That said, he can lock down a lane pretty well, especially if they picked a melee heavy "run at you" teamcomp.
Orendi - The more I play Orendi, the less I like her. Her damage isn't very good until she gets to level 4/5, and even then she gets overshadowed by people like Thorn and Caldarius... until like level 7 (After the two +15% damage perks) and then level 10 (Pillarstorm is overpowered, but it's a level 10 mutation so who cares? The game is over by then)
She's not good at wave clear until level 4. She's not the AoE god. She's actually really mediocre, and her autoattack is pretty whatever. That said, if all the other wave clear are picked, she will do. Just don't expect clear speeds like OM/Thorn/Caldarius.
Galilea - They nerfed her level 3 helix, and her attack speed mutation. She's not really scary to me anymore damagewise- she still has near the lowest damage in the game with that.
But besides that, her stun is very scary. And her pull/wound field is also scary. Her damage has been neutered, but if you aren't really picking Galilea for damage- you're picking her for the battlefield manipulation.
Montana - I've never been scared of a Montana. His stun is nice, but unreliable. He's a lot better if you initiate on him, but if he's doing the initiating... he's pretty worthless.
His cold rounds snare the quick members of our cast really well. But other than that and his charge, he's really whatever. He's kind of like Kleese in the sense that he can't push the advantage to get things done on the map.
Oh, if you pick him, please have a healer like Miko or Alani on your team. He's really bad without it.
Pheobe - She technically got buffed with the quick melee change- previously it was just knockback city against her. Now it's not so bad, since you can only get knocked back a max of three times.
Pheobe's issue stems from a lack of wave clear, being relatively squishy until you start getting her +shield helixes, and the fact that she's melee.
Her strengths come from her ultimate, her six second slow, and her high base DPS.
I moved her up from D tier because of the quick melee change, and the Deande nerf. She's an all right brawler now.
Rath - Rath has very similar issues to Pheobe, except take away base damage and add some utility (Stun). Then take away survivability helixes- he's as tanky as a wet piece of paper.
He's a combomaker. Rath + Alani is a very good combo, but Rath by himself is really whatever. They technically nerfed the Kelvin + Rath combo because of Kelvin's nerfs.
His ultimate is really good, but they nerfed the cooldown on it (because he really needed nerfs).
His wave clear is garbage, but he can contribute to lane control with his stun and slash and silence.
D Tier: El Dragon, Attikus
I consider these dudes 'not viable', as in you shouldn't pick them. They hardly ever get picked in competitive for very obvious reasons.
El Dragon - He got ninja nerfed by 160 HP for absolutely no reason. Because of this he is literally the most squishy character in the entire game.
To counter El Dragon, pick Thorn. Click your left mouse button, and click on Volley. Congrats! The El Dragon is now at 1/2 HP in two hits. Now watch him clothesline away or give you a free kill.
He's good at wave clearing though. And once he gets all his gear + levels online, he can probably survive to dive one or two people before he bites the bullet. Too easy to shut down though.
Attikus - Big dude, got nerfed even though he was pretty shitty before. Doesn't do anything besides run at someone slowly and then get kited to death. Needs levels to do anything, and even when he gets levels I'd rather you pick someone else.
Unknown: Ambra, Benedict, Deande
Ambra - I suspect Ambra will be in low B or high C. They buffed her a lot in terms of her sunspot healing, and her sunspot cooldown. However, I haven't seen many Ambras. I have hope for her though. Prior to the patch she was pretty useless, but these changes are actually pretty encouraging. She's still a relatively squishy melee, which hampers her though.
Benedict - I suspect Benedict will be in high B or low A. Prior to the patch, anyone you locked onto was pretty much dead (but it was hard to lock onto someone without overextending). Now, they're pretty much dead + 20%. They gave him survivability too, which is nice. Probably gets soft countered by good Thorn, Whiskey, Marquis, and maybe Tobys, so I need to see this dude more in action before I can decide.
Deande - Either low C or D tier. They got rid of the best single target CC in the entire game, in exchange for some attack speed, and more damage on her black hole. I heard there's some shinannegans going on with animation canceling on her ranged weapon. I still need to see her in action more to be able to really judge where she belongs.
So that's the tier list. If you have any questions about placements, I can answer- although you telling me Attikus actually belongs in B tier and Miko+Montana is a god comp will probably not change my point of view very much (Hint: They aren't that good). I can elaborate more on why they're there though.
If you need build / helix advice for the following characters, I can give you the protips. And if you need it for another character, I can get someone else on my team to answer. I am 100% comfortable with using the following chars in a tourney: Alani, Ambra, Caldarius, Galilea, Ghalt, ISIC, Kleese, Marquis, Mellka, Orendi, Oscar Mike, Thorn, and Whiskey.
Do remember, I consider everybody from S-C to be completely and totally viable. I also believe that in a pub, you can most likely do whatever the hell you want and stomp people. This is just for competitive, and these rankings are a combination of pick order (You want to pick S before A, A before B, and so on), and how effective they are in the game.
And if you want to scrim, hit us up. We've been playing on US NA, just message me and we can schedule something nice.
Posted Jul 24, 2016, 11:56 PM UTC