Borg Tier List

[loopy]

Nov 21, 2009 22:13:17 GMT @juggernaut said:

I too think a lot of borgs are good, especially considering their cost. The thing is, how fast/resilient/strong a borg is doesnt make up for being able to get 1 shot at the start of the match, from across the arena, from an attack that registers exactly where youre pointing it at.

Remember that you dont want borg preference, or effectiveness vs. a cpu to influence where on the tier list it belongs.

I actually want to talk about planet heros placement. I think he could handle death borg sigma II and slow valkyrie easily.

Planet hero is very quick and has incredible melee, with a decent shot but its not the best. I think he is capable of running down wing borgs like slow valkyrie and dbsII and dispatching them quickly.

I think slow valkyrie shouldnt even be in top. There is too much reliance on landing that one, dodgeable attack. Its hard to hit anything thats watching for it, and her b shot cant keep up with the better shots most high tier borgs have. In 1v1 i dont think she is very strong, what do you think?

(I should really read this topic more)

Wait a sec... Who put Slow Valkyrie anywhere near the top? She's agile and can once in a while slow borgs down but thats it. She has rubbish HP and weak attacks.

[yuurei]

Slowing them down over and over again, like once every 10 seconds or so. Then chipping their HP away until they die.

[juggernaut]

Yes, that is how you would use a slow valkyrie. The problem is that before she can do anything, she must land 1 attack that only has 2 ammo with a slow recharge. The attack itself is slow and can be dodged at least by anything with a sidestep.

I think she is too rigid and open to counters to be considered a top tier borg.

We must remember that this list is for players who are at the top of the game in technical ability, and also for 1v1. If it was for team games, or for lower levels of play, it would be different.

[njayhuang]

Slow valkyrie's slow spell has infinite ammo since it's a charge attack.

[Devil's advocate]For slow valkyrie, all it takes is one slow spell that hits to potentially trap them in a never ending cycle of slowness. She also has wings and good speed, meaning she has great mobility around the field. At best she hits them once and it's basically over for that borg. At worst it becomes a stalemate. [/Devil's advocate]

Slow Valkyrie being in top was one of my problems with the current list. The thing about slow valkyrie is that she has to stop to pull off the slow spell and doing so basically means free hits for the other person. Being so flimsy, a few hits means death for her. If she doesn't use the slow spell and avoids those shots, her strat becomes the same as the other valkyries. Because she does have a potential infinite trap, she deserves a place in mid or maybe even high.

I think planet hero was one of the borderline borgs that just barely got demoted from top. Early versions of the list included planet hero in top iirc.

[Devil's advocate]There's no denying that planet hero's strong, but that's only when he's transformed. Untransformed, he's a pretty mediocre borg, and it's not hard to hit him out of transformation with a strong attack. [/DA]

Dragons aside, Planet Hero is probably the biggest threat to flying borgs. He can actually go up to their level and let loose a giant tornado in their face. If you want to search through that giant gamefaqs topic, you can find where someone tested out Planet Hero against db sigma II and planet hero won easily. In general, he covers large distances easily and all of his melee attacks have huge hitboxes and multiple hits that charge up the Y meter fast. He deserves to be in top.

I'm tired so this post might not have made that much sense when read when awake, but I hope you can understand it.

[juggernaut]

I think i agree with moving slow valkyrie down. The potential is there, but the trap is only ever going to get consistent results on borgs that are slow or have to stop to attack. Borgs that can constantly move and shoot should be very difficult to hit, and barring human error on the other borgs part, slow valkyrie shouldnt be able to hit anything. I think mid or high, but im leaning towards mid.

After posting, i realized planet hero possibly has a huge disadvantage in his transformation. If it is possible to consistently stop planet hero from transforming, or viable to hit him out of transformation, he should be moved down as well. If he can transform safely, and stay transformed, then i still think he should either stay where he is, or be moved up. I use him a lot, but i havent tested this.

These are two more borgs that i think could have dramatically different results depending the skill of the players. You gamble on one very strong element of these borgs. If that gamble doesnt pull through, or if the enemy has a way to stuff your gamble, they become much weaker.

Im actually really curious about fortresses. Admin loves them, its too bad he doesnt seem interested in contributing anymore. You get A LOT for what you pay for. Huge damage, the highest health, the highest defense, weapons that shoot through terrain, weapons that come at different angles.

Beam satellite doesnt seem very good, i cant hit anything with it, and his gimmicky x move is... well gimmicky. For 200 GP more you can grab death saucer or sirius which i think are much better options. Beam satellites x beam does a lot of damage, but im pretty sure youll only hit other fortresses with it.

Sirius seems like a great choice. The large beam can be moved while firing, so it appears you can get a guaranteed hit with it like dragons breath, im not sure though. The small beams come at all sorts of different angles meaning any borg will have to be moving a lot to dodge anything. Iim not sure you can force hits with it. If you can indeed force hits with sirius, i think he deserves top. If not, im not sure where hed go. His big beam does damage between death saucers and antares.

Death saucer appears like another good borg. His movement means his green beam will be an instant counter to any slow borgs. If he can force hits with his purple beam with movement, i think he should be on top too. Again though, if he cant force hits im not sure where hed go. His purple beam does the weakest damage it seems compared to antares and sirius.

Antares does the most damage with his big beam, so you get what you pay for at 1300. The alpha wings seem to have their own AI, once again, maybe its another opportunity to force hits. We would need a fortress guys expertise.

[Admin]

A lot of Borgs have high potential to be great on various situations depending on the skill of the player and current adversaries.

However, if you're looking for the best possible deal, a Borg that is great (not just good) in a lot, if not all, possible situations this game can possible dish out for you, only five Borgs are left on my list:

• Sirius (Death Arc)
  
• Flame Dragon (Blizzard and Plasma should be mentioned but they're more expensive so...)
  
• Death Saucer
  
• Neo G Red
  
• Flame ninja
  

These Borgs are the ones that have definitely proven their supremacy on the battle field, however, Neo and Flame Ninja still have weaknesses, such as being knocked-down, annihilated by Dragon Breath/ICBM/Hyper Beams etc, however their overall great performance on the battle field truly makes them top-notch worthy.

Death Saucer is a little slow on the "constant attack" front, so it looses points in comparison to Sirius on that aspect.


The only two really perfect Borgs that I've found are Sirius and Flame Dragon.
I can bring either of these in any battle with 100% chance of victory, unless the stage is full of big dragons, then Sirius' % falls, but he still beams ***.

Sirius really does what his description tells you about him, that he truly wears down enemies whereas the dragon(s) quite literally annihilates the field, any field, in a matter of moments.

Sirius is like the big bully, no one wants to oppose while the dragon(s) are the big bully with a gun.

[Dogmantra]

Nov 22, 2009 20:04:21 GMT Admin said:

The only two really perfect Borgs that I've found are Sirius and Flame Dragon.

I never got why anyone thought big borgs were a good idea. Fortresses more than the others, they can't dodge at all. Please enlighten me as to why I'd want to waste all those points.

[juggernaut]

Why dodge when you can have pound for pound the most health and defense in the game. Getting constantly knocked over and shot at from anywhere on the map means you wont have much chance to bite into that health, especially when your borg does most of his damage up close.

[yuurei]

I think bias has appeared in alot of these "Heated Discussion's".

[njayhuang]

Nov 23, 2009 0:19:15 GMT yuurei said:

I think bias has appeared in alot of these "Heated Discussion's".

True, but without numbers or any sort of competitive scene, it's hard to base arguments on anything other than anecdotes, bias, and assumption. And it's not like the tier list is going to change the fate of the universe if a borg is placed in the wrong tier. It's just designed to get more Gotcha discussion going.


Beam Satellite - X attack is slow and hard to aim. Coupled with Beam Satellite's slow speed, it'd be a miracle if it hits anything. The B laser is slightly better. Since it seems to have a fixed time of appearing, it could actually be faster than most projectiles when shot from far away, and it's strong. The problem is, BS is so slow that it wouldn't be hard for a borg to get up close and run circles around it. The camera thing is a slight advantage for BS if they get too close, but that's pretty small. BS gets annihilated by Mid Tier save Imperial Knight and Cyber Hero (both of whom I think should be lower), but I could see it being one of the lesser borgs in Low.

Death Saucer - IIRC, it's just a Beam Satellite with slightly faster speed, larger body, and 200 more cost. Going from slow to slightly less slow doesn't matter that much since it's still slow and even slightly homing attacks (almost every single range attack in the game) will hit it since it's so huge. Because of the 200 cost increase, I would put it in low with BS or off the list completely.

Sirius - The B shot is fast, but it only shoots one at a time and it's pretty weak. If it was some kind of machine gun, I could see it being a potentially powerful method of attack. But it's not, so that leaves us with the X beam. It's powerful, faster than most range attacks, and can sweep, but it flinches. Now, there's nothing wrong with flinching attacks themselves, but when you can't dodge attacks at all, making the enemy flinch means they get free hits. X charge is a joke. Remember how X shots make the enemy flinch? With this attack, you can waste all your slow reloading ammo for a hit. Unless two attacks hit the enemy at exactly the same time, the only thing that comes of this is 1 X hit and maybe 2 or 3 B hits. It could be used in Y mode to score hits, but most of the y mode is going to be waiting for the enemy to stop flying around from the blast.
Going against Sirius is just a who-can-last-longer battle. Sirius is going to be constantly shooting X beams, getting some hits occasionally and the other borg is going to be constantly dodging and whittling away Sirius' health. I can see Sirius being pretty solid against Low, but the other tiers can simply dodge long enough to drain Sirius health.

Antares - B attack is covered in above paragraph. It's not a bad attack, but the flinching really hurts when you can't move at all. The thing that distinguishes Antares from Sirius is the X attack. The alpha wings can shoot at strange angles and can't be locked onto. With other attacks, you know from where and to some extent when an attack is going to come so you can dodge it better. With alpha wings, you don't know where or when it's going to hit. Fighting Antares is basically the same as against Sirius, but Antares can slowly whittle away the other's health too. I'm not sure how big a factor the 300 cost increase is, but it seems like Antares has more of a chance than Sirius.

[Admin]

^ Antares is not as good as Sirius.
He doesn't have a lot of Beam Gun ammo, which means he will run out of knockdown opportunities way often, something Sirius never does. Very annoying, and can actually cost you some serious HP damage if it's a worthy opponent(s) around.

Alpha Wings are also only limited in effectiveness against smaller Borgs.
They don't pose much of a threat to bigger, more able opponents, other than to be an annoyance for them.

Not to mention they more often than not take too many precious seconds to actually engage the target after the attack button is pressed.

This coupled with a higher cost render him ineffective at too many battles, unlike Sirius who has ammo to spare even after the biggest battles.

Sometimes I wonder if not Sirius' and Antares' costs are reversed.

Nov 22, 2009 20:37:13 GMT Dogmantra said:

I never got why anyone thought big borgs were a good idea. Fortresses more than the others, they can't dodge at all.

Never judge a Borg from your initial impressions.
Even I did it once, but I gave Sirius a few more goes and now he's my favorite Borg, because he's so good.

Try him and you'll be surprised at what your dodge % will say in the end.
That is, if you actually press that X button of yours.

Even so, you still have these factors to your benefit:

• tons of HP
  
• super-high defense
  
• constant knockdown attacks
  

Individually, these factors might not seem like a big deal, but put them together and you have something really great to reckon with.

All for the lowly cost of a 1000 GF, something you get pretty much in the beginning of the game.

[loopy]

This topic is starting to scare me now O.o'

-Backs away slowly-

Uhh, im outta here!

-Legs it-

But just to add somthing to this topic, i agree with Admin. Against CPU's you can beat almost all battles with a single Sirius. Even on Play 1, a Level 1 Sirius can beat G Emperor =D

[Dogmantra]

Nov 22, 2009 23:04:03 GMT @juggernaut said:

Why dodge when you can have pound for pound the most health and defense in the game. Getting constantly knocked over and shot at from anywhere on the map means you wont have much chance to bite into that health, especially when your borg does most of his damage up close.

Why... why ummm... Why do you need that much health or defence if you can dodge every shot?

[juggernaut]

Dodge every shot? From a gatling gunner? Youll still get nailed by fast attacks. I still havent tried this, but if the player can use the big beam on sirius like a dragon can, it would put him on high or even broken, since its always a guaranteed hit.

Gigantic HP and defense also means a lot more room for human error. This isnt something to consider for a tier list, but is a practical advantage for any human capable of making errors.

What i think everything is riding on considering the placement of the fortresses, is whether or not you can hit the enemy reliably with the big attacks. If its possible to anticipate and dodge every shot, then theyre just a meat shield (shielding what? its 1v1). If you cant dodge them, or there is a way to force hits then their placement should skyrocket.

[njayhuang]

After using dragons and fortresses with coolfreez, I have to say they went up in my list.

Dragons didn't turn as slow as I thought they did and the B blast was faster than I remembered. They got wrecked by planes and Cyber Ninja, but destroyed the rest.

Fortresses were pretty good. Only one that could survive was Cyber Ninja due to his speed, but I think an experienced user could sweep beams far better than I could. I found Sirius to be better than Antares due to his 20(or maybe 10?) X beams compared to Antares' 5 B beams, but an experienced Antares player would probably be able to pull off good sweeps and not run out of B beams all the time.

As far as I'm concerned, dragons and fortresses go to top. Any objections?

[juggernaut]

After we get most of the meat of this tier list done i would like to go back and take a look at those 2.

I want to test if its possible to force a hit, i shouldnt right now though, i shouldnt even been typing.

[njayhuang]

I think it may be possible to force a hit with good sweeping, although there are angles where it's hard to hit.

Anyways, this is the newest tier list.

Changes:

• Big dragons moved to Top
  
• Planet Hero moved to Top
  
• Small dragons added to Undecided
  
• Slow Valkyrie moved to Undecided
  
• Antares and Sirius moved to Undecided
  

***Top Tier***

Neo G Red -500
G Black -600
Anubis Wing/Garuda -750
Proto Mars -900
Proto Red -850
Cyber Ninja -640
Sapphire Knight -630
G Red -300
Gold Hero -420
Ruby Knight -590
Beam Wing Red -400
Death Borg Sigma II -180
Cyber Girl -440
Blade Wing -650
Eagle Robot -1000
Flame Dragon -1500
Blizzard Dragon -1550
Plasma Dragon -1600
Planet Hero -530


***High Tier***

Proto Atlas -850
Beam Gunman -650
Barrier Girl -500
Cyber Girl Hyper -620
Beam Wing Blue -350
Command Girl -330
Teleport Ninja -400
Accel. Ninja -380
Panther Robot -1000
Cyber Girl Super -590
Star Hero -520
Dark Knight -610
Victory Baron -850


***Mid Tier***

Flame Ninja -590
Proto Blue -800
Imperial Knight -550
Cyber Hero -450
Demon Wing -610
Victory King -1000
Death Borg Sigma -100
Death Borg Lambda II -150
Ring Valkrie -280
Cosmic Dragon -1700
Proto Eagle -850
Panther Vehicle -620


***Low Tier***

Titan Robot -1000
Drill Robot -500
Beam Tank -780
Jet Hero -350
Chrono Samurai -600
Death Wing -550
Blue Striker -200
Orange Fighter -200
Victory Duke -850
Wire Girl - 220
Ghost Knight -590
Elemental Knight -540
Proto King -800
Hammer Knight -450
Proto Titan -800
Proto Panther -800
Powered Gunman -350
Tao Master -300
Time Bomber -220

***Undecided***
Slow Valkrie -350
Sirius -1000
Antares -1300
Fire Dragon -1000
Ice Dragon -1050
Thunder Dragon -1100

[juggernaut]

Acceleration ninja, does anyone have thoughts on him?

He can turn on a dime if you cancel dash into a jump back into another dash... but hes not racing anyone.

Hes fast but with a weak projectile and weak melee. What is speed without a way to deal damage.

I think its hard to evaluate borgs that rely on precise input on the part of the player to be effective. Does anyone use him extensively?

[njayhuang]

Accel. Ninja can outrun almost all attacks, so even though his attacks aren't that great, most of the time he'll win, however long the match may be.

[juggernaut]

Well is there no way to cut him off? There is only so far you can run.

Flame Ninja -590
Proto Blue -800
Imperial Knight -550
Cyber Hero -450
Demon Wing -610
Victory King -1000
Death Borg Sigma -100
Death Borg Lambda II -150
Ring Valkrie -280
Cosmic Dragon -1700
Proto Eagle -850
Panther Vehicle -620

Apart from flame ninja, imperial knight and maybe cyber hero, id imagine those borgs do fine against him.

With acceleration ninja you trade a good projectile for speed right? So it becomes a balance of a good projectiles getting dodged by good speed, while crap projectiles get dodged by normal or above average speed. Thinking about it like this, i dont see acceleration ninjas advantage.