User blog comment:Comrade SS/Should we reestablish a tier list?/@comment-31661832-20170608160809

I think we may be approaching tiers wrong. They're for newer players to know what units are useful and why. How many newer players play Boss Rush? How many play WT? Dokkan events? No one can say.

So my first proposition is we instead classify units based on how useful they are for different types of events. Boss Rush, Dokkan events, and WT all require different strategies, so if we're making one and only one tier list I think all of those play styles need to be considered. Maybe it doesn't have to be a separate list for each type of event, but if someone is going to say "this unit shouldn't be S because it doesn't work well in Boss Rush" should also be considering if it's useful anywhere else.

I also think we should be downplaying linking with PARTICULAR cards. I'm not saying we should ignore them, but I think focusing on that brings the discussion too much into making "the perfect team." New players can't make perfect teams. They may strive for the perfect team, but realistically won't have it for a long time, and by that time they'll have played enough to form their own opinions and not need the list anymore. Let them know that a card has some of the good Ki and attack links, but don't rank a card higher because it links well with a certain other card. For example, SS3 GT Goku has been unquestionably S tier because of his linking ability with SS4 Goku, but is he still S if the player doesn't have SS4? Maybe he still is (I don't own him so I can't say), but if he isn't a new player needs to know "keep this card because it will support SS4 if you ever get him, but otherwise he's only A tier on his own." What I'm getting at is that certain cards increase or decrease in usefulness based on what you do or do not have, so I think we need a more generalized/formulaic approach to usefulness.

Mind you, that's an example (not bashing SS3 Goku, only one I could think of), but my point is a new player doesn't care if their team causes slightly more damage because they have 3 supports versus 2 supports. That's about team building, which is an entirely different (opinionated) meta from the cards themselves. I say rank certain link skills on a scale of 1-5 based on usefulness and how common it is, then consider that for tier placement instead of linking with certain cards the new player may not have.

TLDR: There's no easy way to predict how useful a card is because different events require different team formations and players may not have certain cards required to link with it.

Remember, all of that's an opinion on how to best help new players, not attacking how any of you play the game.