strongest lf2 original character

[the mad maskman]

Hello, everyone consulting this thread.
i wanted to collect every opinion possible ont this matter. who do you think is the strongest between the original characters, (excluding bosses). please give your reasons too.


me: i really don't know, but if i had to pick, it would be rudolf.
reasons:
1: transform. makes him really op because it offers many combos and versatility.
2: shuriken lock in DoP. of course, this is a cheap strategy, but i'm counting those too.

[Bupkis]

Rudolf because of spams and Hell of a character he is!

[STM1993]

Given that there are no limitations and no specific situations, Rudolf is the best, no contest.
* Vrest dash attack(hit multiple enemies).
* Easy stunlock infinite combos.
* 3rd highest mobility + beer + clones.
* D>A multishot injury bounce bug massively increases his damage for 1v1.
* Transform-specific combos & bugs.
* Transform allows him to scale to the level of his opponents while effectively being a better version of them(can escape being frozen for example), the lack of "DJA" from the moveset he steals from is a minor issue that only affects Julian/Henry.
If you don't count transform or beer though, I would consider Rudolf to be around #6 just because of his vrest dash attack but his full potential is otherwise kind of lackluster.


Would be boring if I just said Rudolf and moved on, so I'll go down the list:
2) Henry
Flute is overpowered due to its fast startup time & large AOE, and in low hp you can recover MP fast enough to use it again quickly. He can just run away and flute all the time - the only thing that can really pressure him against using this strat to its full power is chaseballs or an invisible Rudolf.
Without flute, he's still effective for crowd control due to his D>J critical shot, though for PvP tournaments he'd be considered low tier in HKC. Anyway only without flute he'd be around #5 - just give him room to run away & pixel-perfect controls and Henry can be untouchable.


3) Freeze
Ice Sword. Excellent zoning/crowd control and team synergy. Potentially infinite freezing combos mostly made possible by throwing the ice sword. His only real problem is fighting Julian because he can't freeze skulls and his non-whirlwind attacks aren't very good for breaking defense - but a skilled Freeze can still get around that. He's also a bit slow so he can't chase some of the faster characters, but eh.


4) Woody
He's a very versatile fighter by his own right without any glitches - there's a reason why he's considered top-tier in any LF2 1v1 tournament. He basically doesn't need mana for his combos, and even if you flipped his combos he can potentially reset the combo if correctly guessed your flips. While he's not the fastest char by raw movement speed, he is the most agile due to his ability to dash about rapidly & teleport. His moveset is very good for improvised team combos and his D>J Tiger Dash is a good crowd control. His only problem is that he's not particularly good against crowds compared to some of the other heroes, especially since he lacks a vrest dash attack, but even then he can be considered in the middle of the pack.


5) Deep
Fast vrest dash attack with a uniquely wide angle. Deep excels at punishing mistakes by his own right without exploits, has a leap to escape bad situations and his dash attack is actually what makes him so particularly good in crowd control. The main reason why I ranked him lower than Woody is because he is slow - you can outrun him easily, and also because he is a bit less team-combo-friendly than Woody overall (though he has some specific team combos that are much stronger than what Woody can do due to leap attack).


6) Firen
Burning people & specific burn combo exploits. This allows him to easily keep a big group of enemies downed, and less noticeably the burning lets him do massive combo damage either with his regular punching(groundfire punch/icesword) or with teammates(especially with Freeze - try Inferno + Icicle). What makes him lower on the list compared to Woody & Deep is primarily because the burning weakens his ability to cooperate with teammates and his tendency to burn himself. It doesn't help that his basic abilities are below average and his special moves cost quite a lot of mana and even HP for his explosion. It should also be noted that Firen is very effective against chars who rely on a lot of state 7 or Julian-style armor due to the flames hitlag-locking them, but this is a pretty rare situation.


7) John
John's ranking is the most debatable.
Energy Shield. The shield allows John to have a very powerful infinite combo, and on top of that its VERY effective for controlling the enemy AI - it makes them gather around John quite harmlessly and stops them from stealing weapons including milk. He'd basically be untouchable if he just stayed behind a shield all day and he's no slouch in 1v1, and he'd probably be the only character who can survive the last 10 waves of Survival without transforming(if he can even make it that far and not have Firzen crashing the game). The big problem is that his ability to ATTACK groups of enemies is very weak.


8) Davis
Dragon Punch. DP is what allows him to escape bad situations with an invulnerable counter, and his crowd control & team combo ability. Without it Davis can't do much against a crowd and only has good dueling skills.


9) Dennis
Dennis excels in duels largely due to his overpowered Grab combos with DvA or D>J along with chaseball spam. However, his crowd control & team synergy is absolutely abysmal, hence his low overall rank even though he is very much a high-tier character in 1v1.


10) Louis
Louis is simply way too slow & is plagued with a lot of negative bugs and his armor cannot make up for it. He is very reliant on his air thunder punch for crowd control, while for PvP he is more or less forced to make the enemy attack first before countering.
Do note this rank is strictly for Louis. If you count in LouisEX(which really should be considered another character on its own), he could be around #3 due to LEX's very high physical stats, instant jump attack and very overpowered rapidfire D>A airpush.

---

Bonus - this would be what the tiers would roughly look like for 1v1 in competitive settings(i.e. rules are in place like no milk/beer or no infinites):
1) Woody - there's very little you can do against his raw combo potential & effectively being able to dash attack twice in a row.
2) Deep, Dennis, Davis - they are very powerful melee fighters and relatively easy to use too.
3) John, Firen, Freeze - they aren't as easy to use as the Tier-2 guys, but they can be just as powerful in the right hands.
4) Henry & Rudolf - very reliant on your patience & mind-reading abilities.
5) Louis - he has very poor attack priority which makes it very hard for him to win.

[the mad maskman]

so, seems like everybody agrees that rudolf is op.
my ranking:
1: rudolf
2: henry (loses to rudolf because he isn't good in hk coliseum, and unlike him can't easily lock into DoP)
3: davis (Dragon punch. enough said.)
4: firen (amazing crowd control with fire state, hitlag against julian, and that inferno)
5: louis (some will find this strange. but in non online fights, without fps drop, transforming into louis ex might be the same as winning)
6: freeze (that evil ice sword. easy combos, easy stalling. also, whirwlind is pretty good too)
7: dennis (OP unbreakable grab combos. maybe best char at 1vs1, but amost nonexistent crowd control)
8: deep (the only problem about deep is his slowness and his lack of range. step into his range, and you're likely to die in seconds.)
9: woody (lots of people will not agree to this assuming they even read it, but i never liked woody. just can't figure how to play him well. can't say much, except that tiger dash rocks)
10: john (worst character for me. can't even figure any good damaging combos, and his energy ball is one of the worst. only good things about him are the disk and the shield. heal isn't that useful)
@STM1993 : i meant who's strongest in 1vs1 , but it's ok. also, davis, 8th? why? maybe he must rely on dragon punch too much, but it's still an OP unbreakable sudden move without initiation time. that alone is enough to make davis really strong. not to mention fastest punch between normal characters, and d>a lock into DoP . also, what is the infinite combo with the shield for john?

[STM1993]

Ah 1v1 without rules.
Do note my opinion may be biased largely due to fighting within general tournament rules(I generally follow the Taiwanese rules).

@STM1993 : i meant who's strongest in 1vs1 , but it's ok. also, davis, 8th? why? maybe he must rely on dragon punch too much, but it's still an OP unbreakable sudden move without initiation time. that alone is enough to make davis really strong. not to mention fastest punch between normal characters, and d>a lock into DoP . also, what is the infinite combo with the shield for john?

I ranked Davis poorly on crowd control because DP is terribly unsafe on recovery. Yes, its a solid 115 damage and it has a very fast & a brief period of invincibility... but it generally only works if you manage to gather most of the crowd in the immediate area you use it. Otherwise, you quickly realize that your enemy has blocked/has armor, and then you realize you aren't moving on the z-axis, and you're gonna fall right into any enemies who are a bit farther away from your initial DP. Oh, said person who blocked your DP can potentially turn around and punch you before you land(though it can be hard to do because the game reads your inputs as wanting to do D>A).

John Shield "infinite".
You get the idea - requires some positioning & timing but its entirely possible. Not a true infinite as you can see Davis gradually being pushed into the shield, but it can very well become a 500hp combo when you stack that many shields. And John can also do an infinite just by using normal punch just out of range of super_punch's trigger(anyone who can punch can do that actually, but I suppose difficulty is what counts here eh?). Shield is also good in case enemy tries to defend. Even if you don't know how to use shield combos you can just settle for AAA Super JA - do it quickly enough and the enemy can't flip.

John is more of a tactical fighter than some kind of melee beast. Its all about punching with his wand's long reach effectively, pressuring them with discs and well-placed shields. And if he makes a mistake he can just heal himself and stay in the fight for longer to compensate for his lower damage, where other fighters would be long dead.

Regarding your opinion on Woody (Click to View)

I can understand why you feel that way - I once felt Woody was my worst character and to this day I think I can't use him as effectively for stage mode as I could with Davis. Woody's lack of fast special moves from the ground like a shrafe or leap escape and his weird DvA made him feel weaker than he really is.

Woody's real strength in 1v1 comes from having the best basic punch of all the heroes(better than Davis even - better range & less forward movement makes him harder to punish) coupled with the most versatile type of dash attack(can hit at both close & long range very quickly)... which can be chained to another type of dash attack up to a total of 5 times. On top of that, his combos can continue for massive damage regardless of whether you flip or not, as long as he correctly predicts what you do - and practically without costing any MP. In other words, he can easily land hits on you, and whether you flip or not you're gonna get combo'd hard. Even if you correctly avoided the combo, you are not exactly in the position to punish Woody, and remember Woody is good at getting the first hit.


AAA wait DvA D^A...
I didn't bother to chain into dash kick at the end.
Now keep in mind: flipkick & dash kick are 70dmg each. 3 punches or DvA is 60dmg.

AAA Grab Ax5 D^A D...vA.
My timing is a bit off because I was controlling 2 players at once, but yes this anti-flip combo into another combo is a thing.
I can even delay my D^A after the grab a bit if I predict that you flip immediately after I drop you from grab.


AAA <A D^A >J...A D^A >JA D>J
And if you decide not to flip when I do this? You're gonna get wrecked. And this isn't even the 500hp combo version and I'm not even including wall combos.
Or if I predict that you flip the 1st flipkick, I can just walk and punch.

All that said I can understand if you consider him below Davis or Dennis because they are easier to use and specifically have DP and Grab D>J or chaseball to abuse respectively, but Woody is by no means a weak character and he is considered top-tier in tournaments for a reason.

[empirefantasy]

They are all equal. But they are adapted for different types of battles (1 vs 1, 2 vs 2, different army combinations, etc)

Example deep is king of HKC in 1vs1

[the mad maskman]

They are all equal. But they are adapted for different types of battles (1 vs 1, 2 vs 2, different army combinations, etc)

Example deep is king of HKC in 1vs1

maybe this is your opinion, but i disagree. going by your logic, that each is adapted for different battle types, then rudolf is clearly the strongest. he can simply steal your strength and turn it to his own.
deep is king of HKC, yeah, maybe that's true since i removes his agility weakness. but still, what will you do if rudolf becomes you, then spams clones transformed into yourself? see what i mean?

[Silverthorn]

Example deep is king of HKC in 1vs1

Lots of 1v1 battles are just plain regular-punch festivals, and in that, John excels over Deep. 1 TU less chargeup time and a ridiculous area of effect.

Technically, I wouldn't equalize them in general, either. In my opinion, Louis is the weakest (slow, mp consummation for basic attacks), while Rudolf is certainly among the top (fast, high damage in basic attacks). But really, everything is situation-dependent with the most obvious one being Henry who is at a massive disadvantage on small backgrounds.

At higher levels, AIs certainly do not hold up, so anything like clones wouldn't be much more than a waste of 350 mp.

[the mad maskman]

anything like clones wouldn't be much more than a waste of 350 mp.

Spoiler (Click to View)

clones cerainly are not a waste, mainly because you can use them as a decoy to place a high damaging combo, or, alternatively, don't let your opponent approach them and let them support at mid range.

[Silverthorn]

anything like clones wouldn't be much more than a waste of 350 mp.

Spoiler (Click to View)

clones cerainly are not a waste, mainly because you can use them as a decoy to place a high damaging combo, or, alternatively, don't let your opponent approach them and let them support at mid range.

Not going to work in PvP. AI can be fooled easily (vanilla LF2-AI, that is) but a human player (experienced) will know how to handle this.