As the January PVP Tier List update blog post was missed, this one will cover the most important changes during January and February.

PVP Tier List Update

It is time for regular PVP tier list maintenance. The primary objectives of this update are to:

• Rate newly released units/operators. Most of the new additions are already reviewed and won’t be covered in this blog post.
• Adjust ratings for characters and operators to reflect shifts in operator meta
• Adjust ratings for characters with new alternium reactors. Check the updated reviews for those units.
• Adjust ratings for underappreciated rangers touched on the recent SSR ranger stat buffs

The CounterSide PVP tier list has been updated and changes were made to reflect the current state of PVP meta. This blog post provides some commentary on changes made to the ratings.

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Operator Commentary

Sasha Gagarina

SS🡒S

Sasha is still the dominant PVP operator but, in addition to meta shifting to more striker frontline, cheap rangers that enable her absurd command skill (e.g. Rivet, Laika) are systematically unavailable on most weeks due to the BAN system. 

Asha

A🡒S

Asha’s substantial damage boost has proven far more versatile and impactful than originally assumed. While she was initially perceived as a niche operator only compatible with Awakened Regina, multiple other use cases have been discovered since her release (e.g.Curian, Ais, and Solovey). As these team compositions find their place, Asha’s strategic value grows organically — her ability to enable otherwise impractical strategies has cemented her as a rising cornerstone of the meta. 

Sysop

SS🡒S

Sysop’s 2 DP refund struggles to outpace massive offensive power provided by Sasha and Asha. In a metagame that hates defenders, Sysop’s reliance on defender frontline ultimately becomes his downfall. The only teams left using Sysop are Rearm Titan leads and Lin Xien awakened defender stall teams.

Batty Mitchie

C🡒B

Batty carved a small niche mostly in teams involving Shepherd & Lurcher or Awakened Chifuyu. She allows those units to obliterate teams that aim to counter them through anti-striker damage dealers, but without Sasha the same units often lose to the awakened defender frontline.

Kim Hana

A🡒B

Kim Hana was overrated for a while and we finally moved her to a more appropriate rating. She sees fringe use in Awakened Regina based teams, especially with CDR-oriented builds.

ASSR Commentary

Red Witch Felix

SS🡒SSS

Originally Felix was rated for her performance on damage gear. While outstanding in its own right, she was inconsistent as many units could reach her deployment position and potentially kill her before she executes her gameplan. 

Since then it was discovered that you could solve most of Felix’s consistency issues by changing her gear from damage to tank skill haste. As her summons inherit gear, this build floods the board with waves upon waves of durable bodies that absorb valid hits and stall for time. This enables most backline hypercarries to be played as a win condition alongside Felix.

Compounding her dominance, few viable counters exist to this strategy. Tank build solves her vulnerability in early stages of the game, Awakened Lyudmila gets obliterated by teams running Swan Claire and even units that benefit from dying enemies (e.g. Awakened Eve/ Replacer Queen/ Ministra/ Griffin Rider Chris) struggle to outpace her kit.

The only consistent option against Felix is Awakened Na Yubin, but, in addition to being essentially permanently banned, sustain supporters can largely invalidate his anti-tower burn aura.

Awakened Strikers

SS🡒S

S🡒A

Many Awakened Strikers benefited disproportionately from the 120 update. As frontline-damage dealer hybrids, a single 120 striker could often run over entire 110 teams. As time has passed and players got access to more 120 units we are now able to evaluate their performance on more even ground. 

Awakened Chifuyu

A🡒S

Unlike most other strikers, Chifuyu’s entire kit works as a counter to damage-oriented teams. Her hard HP gates allow her to survive against operator-enabled burst better than dedicated frontline options, while dealing with most ground-based backline threats through special and manual Special->Ult trick.

Chifuyu is uniquely strong in the context of Sasha operator, as her kit protects her from Sasha burst while simultaneously allowing her to deal with sasha-buffed enemy rangers.

Awakened Naielle Bluesteel

C🡒A

Naielle got her much awaited buff and instantly became a competitive frontline option. Her Iron Wall defensive mechanic was massively improved, increasing the uptime and completely removing incoming healing debuff for the duration of the state. This made Naielle essentially unkillable… until she gets hit by any buff block effect (e.g. Anila, Awakened Regina, Awakened Yuna). Without Iron Wall Naielle is back to her pre-buff state, an expensive body with low impact kit and unimpressive base stats.

This crippling weakness to strong and popular units prevents Naielle from being rated higher. 

Aditya Surya

A🡒S🡒A

Surya had her brief surge of popularity before the January update in a dedicated “protect the Surya” team and we bought into the hype. Unfortunately her consistency issues are still a big problem and her struggles into many popular backline damage dealers (e.g. Awakened Regina, Awakened Seo Yoon) are worse than ever.

Griffin Rider Chris

S🡒A

Chris is just too expensive and slow to stay relevant in the modern Counterside. While not a 1 to 1 comparison, most of the play patterns Chris enables can be done better by Replacer Queen at a lower DP cost. Her being a flying unit and therefore being vulnerable to Awakened Lee Sooyeon does not help her case.

Chris’s fall into irrelevance also correlates with Sysop dropping down in power.

Awakened Lee Jisoo

C🡒B

Invested Jisoo is a legitimate way to combat stall teams on sustain focused weeks (e.g. Rearm Chinatsu free). She requires high investment and protection offered by awakened defenders, but was proven to be more playable than expected after her massive nerf.

Awakened Solovey

🡒S

Solovey is a backline damage dealer that focuses on killing enemy frontline. Unlike most other awakened rangers she lacks any defensive mechanics, which is a massive weakness against backline disruption tools (e.g. Gremory, Fatima, Awakened Yoo Mina).

Still, she outputs one of the best anti-frontline DPS in the game and unlike Mavka her damage isn’t anti-defender locked. She can be combined with Asha/Sasha operators to increase her damage potential even higher than it already is.

Her exclusive equipment set does not outperform good Ranged DMG Britra relics, but is quite accessible and can be mixed with any pieces you already have. We suggest using either ASPD or CDR sets.