Tiggarius Tier List — August / September 2018

Tiggarius Lancer Tier List — August / September 2018

• Notable changes from last month:  Oz, Quark, Meridian and Rufflebucket pick up some steam.  Elle falls out of the meta a bit as triple frontline isn’t quite as prevalent.  The fourlancer tournament really highlighted how many things are viable at high level.  Accordingly, making this tier list is very difficult.
• The A-tier is sorted roughly by power level.  The remaining tiers are simply by role (support – frontline – firepower) and alphabetical.
• Looking at the tiers, things “look” very balanced.  But here’s the caveat — 120 hp firepowers still aren’t doing well.  Oz’s buffs have catapulted him into A-tier, and some so-called “C-tier” picks such as Grey and Gremo have strengths that make them quite playable in the right circumstances, but by and large the 120 hp crowd is clustered down into C and D.  You can barely get away with 1 of those in a team, let alone 2.  In fact, I believe Oz, Gremo and Grey were the only 120 hp lancers to see play among the top players of the recent fourlancer tournament — and not in every comp those players ran, and never more than 1 in a single comp.
• 120 hp firepowers need to do more damage, I think.  Making them tankier just makes everyone this kind of tank mishmash and that’s obviously not what we want.  So how do we make the 120 hp firepowers “good” ?? — we either increase their utility (which is plausibly an option — see: Grey.  Like we could make healer Blackburn more viable or something), or make them do the damages.  I’ve suggested some Blackburn buffs (Reduce Grenade cooldown by 1.  Reduce dash cooldown by 1, reduce ult damage by 5.  Buff primary damage YET AGAIN.  Change some of his mods, e.g. Entrench, to be less shitty).  But here’s a thought — offer a “giantslayer” mod on some of their abilities.  For example, deals an additional ~3% of the target’s maximum hit points.  (+3-4 vs. squishies, +6 vs. tanks), or “deal 10 (or even 15!) additional damage if the target’s current hp is above 120.”  The idea here is that if you just buff firepower damage, it’s going to be a bit silly when they’re 3-shotting each other.  But you really really need them to do competitive damage to tanks and supports.  So these suggestions are aimed at that.  But this isn’t balance discussion, so on with the tier list.
• P.S.  Tol-Ren could probably use a nerf.  But I’ve been saying that for months.

AUGUST / SEPTEMBER TIER LIST

S — Must Picks
None

Dr. Finn (-1)
Orion
Oz (+1)
Asana (-1)

B — Good Picks
Aurora
Helio
Khita
Meridian (+1)
Quark (+1)
Phaedra
PuP (+1)
Rask
Rufflebucket (+1)
Elle (-1)
Juno
Lex
Vonn

C — Acceptable Picks
Su-Ren
Garrison (-1)
Isadora
Magnus
Titus
Gremo
Grey
Kaigin
Nev
Nix
Zuki (-1)

D — Weak Picks
Blackburn
Celeste
Lockwood (-1)