Fighting game fans love a good tier list, and for newcomers, it's a neat resource to figure out who they want to play based on different factors. Despite Street Fighter 6 being out for a few days, there are plenty of opinions regarding its roster already. To work out the best characters to use, we've put together a Street Fighter 6 tier list.
With a total of 18 characters at launch, the gameplay variety is amazing. You have classic grapplers like Zangief or Manon, bruiser powerhouses like Marisa, the classic shoto-style fighters in Ryu, Ken, and Luke, charge characters like Chun-Li or Guile, and many more.
- Read more: How to Drive Rush in Street Fighter 6
We figured, why not have some fun ourselves and put an early Street Fighter 6 tier list.
Street Fighter 6 tier list - Best characters ranked
For this list, we'll consider ease of use a bit more than others, since there's little point in declaring characters as the absolute best at this time since the meta is developing by the hour with pros finding new tech every time we pop on social media.
Having said that, some fighters are clear standouts for a variety of reasons we'll explain and we feel confident enough to somewhat accurately try to predict how things will pan out in the coming months.
Still, it's always worth noting that tier lists are highly subjective and sometimes we get it wrong. Let's begin.
click to enlarge
+ 2Let's quickly run through why we believe each character belongs in each tier.
S tier characters
- Marisa
- Kimberly
Marisa has quickly become one of the most used characters in Street Fighter 6. Mechanically less demanding than almost everyone else in the roster, with some powerful tools to break Drive Impact, which can be abused at lower ranks, and massive damage output, it's easy to see why she's at the top.
As for Kimberly, she has plenty of mixup potential with tons of tools at her disposal, her combos are flashy and simple to execute, making her a great candidate to pick up and play while trying to grasp the core concepts of the game.
A tier characters
- Zangief
- Cammy
- Ryu
- Guile
- Juri
- E. Honda
- Ken
- Manon
Plenty of characters here so we'll quickly run through why they're in A tier. Essentially, we believe they are fighters with enough potential to climb to S tier based on different factors including combo potential, how good their normals are, and how hard are they to use.
Classic shotos like Ryu and Ken have been beefed up with some new mechanics, like Ryu's Denjin Charge. Similarly, Guile and Cammy retain their classic gameplans with enhanced capabilities, so SF6 makes them feel fresh while letting legacy players retain some useful muscle memory.
If you're into that grappling life, Zangief is the best he's ever been in our opinion. Drive Rush mitigates his movement speed disadvantage a bit and he has plenty of ways to deal with jump-friendly opponents, instilling fear and forcing them to play the ground game, which is where he excels at.
Newcomers like Manon have a very unique playstyle that makes grapplers more interesting than simply fishing for command grabs and abusing armored moves at lower levels, so give her a shot if you're looking to branch out into a completely different playstyle.
How can we forget Honda. Did you know you can bait players foolishly trying to Drive Impact your headbutt with one of your own? As it stands, Honda is not only one of the easiest characters to play in Street Fighter 6, but he's also one of the strongest ones, especially at lower ranks.How can we forget Honda. Did you know you can bait players foolishly trying to Drive Impact your headbutt with one of your own? As it stands, Honda is not only one of the easiest characters to play in Street Fighter 6, but he's also one of the strongest ones, especially at lower ranks.
B tier characters
click to enlarge + 2- JP
- Lily
- Luke
- Chun-Li
- Dhalsim
- Blanka
- Dee Jay
There are characters in this tier whom many believe can become top-tier in the future, like JP, Dee Jay, and Chun-Li. However, if you're just starting with Street Fighter 6, they have a harder learning curve than others.
We won't discourage you from trying them, by all means, just be prepared to have a tougher time than your friend mashing headbutt with Honda.
As for the rest, for many players, they seem to lack that special sauce that fighters in tiers above do have.
Take Lily for instance. She's a very strong character that has a lot of frame trap potential with her powered-up condor spire being +1 on block, allowing her to throw out a three-frame move to catch mashing opponents, or maybe condition them into blocking so she can take advantage of her command grab.
However, her combo potential seems lacking, which could become a detriment to the character due to how many more interactions she'd need to win to secure a round.
C Tier
- Jamie
Seeing the hype die for Jamie from the closed and open betas to now is interesting. It seems that he relies too much on his drinking level being high, and getting there can be extremely hard in some cases.
He's got cool stuff like rekkas and command grabs that deal a ton of damage. Jamie even has a super install that buffs him up, and still, it seems he's headed for irrelevancy,
And that's it! We have way more content for you to check out, including some Street Fighter 6 beginner tips!
For more articles like this, take a look at our Guides and Street Fighter 6 page.