This has been disclosed in the first post- the PVP tier is about what is OBJECTIVELY powerful. When you use him right, Flameslinger could be as potent as an S-Tier character, but he is not inherently powerful. Assuming new players of the two, do you really think that a Warnado would stand a chance against a Stealth Elf? While every character has a chance in the right hands, in the right Arena, or with the right luck, the list is purely designed for placing characters simply by how easy or difficult they are to abuse or use.
A word of advice based upon this, given by Bean Sprout, from an argument over this guideline.
Quote: Bean Sprout
But this tier list is for how easily Skylanders are to abuse. I believe that any skylander could beat any other skylander if the player had the maximum amount of skill with him, making a skill list worthless. You are arguing tiers based off of your skill, when it has been clearly stated that this is about how easily someone could use and win with a skylander. If we based it purely off of one players skill, nearly everyone would disagree on it because their skill with Skylanders is different than yours.
Your last two arguments have clearly broken the rules for tiering. We aren't going to listen to you if you don't follow the guidelines.
2. "X character needs to be lower on the list because they suck at Story mode."/"X character needs to be higher on the list because they are great at Story Mode."
If you wish to make a Story mode tier, please do so, but to put it bluntly, this is a BATTLE list, so your opinions counting this will be totally ignored. Almost anything blasts through Story mode, which is a totally different level of play, with bad AI, and few enemies, and a lot of characters good at Story are also bad or mediocre in Battle mode. For example, Shade Master Hex is an excellent character in Story mode, but in Battle mode, she is too slow to escape and can't deal enough damage, Spyro is one of the best characters in Story but is mediocre in Battle, and Brawler Terrafin, while clearly better at Story, is an obviously worse choice in Battle compared to the Sandhog path.
3. "X character's Y attack is really powerful- move them up."
A powerful attack does not equal a powerful character. While the best characters are obviously based on being powerful, most of them are due to their attacks being good and usable as well. In fact- if we are going off of pure damage numbers, then technically Drobot would be the worst, as his lasers max out at 7 damage, but fire extremely fast and more than once per "hit". Wind Master Warnado is probably the best example of a character with a strong attack that is bad- even though the Tornado will do 40 damage on this path, he needs to stand still to aim it, his other attacks are incredibly weak here, and he doesn't have a reliable option for a LOT of stuff.
4. X Character is really powerful, even if they aren't as powerful as Y Tier, so please put them there.
Okay, admittedly I don't see this one very much, but nonetheless, it IS something that occasionally comes up. The Tiering system is designed for just this- to see who is more powerful than everyone else. If this was about what can get powerful over time Warnado would be considered broken. But it's not. Quite simply the higher the Tier the faster the character in it deals more damage.
Tier Clarifications
- G Rank: The G Rank is special, because it is not a Tier in itself. G Rank characters are surefire bullets or have extremely good chances of killing Giant Skylanders due to simple effectiveness of playstyle. A G Rank character is not always powerful or broken, thus why this is an extra mark rather than a whole Tier. Due to Giants being lumbering packs of power with the exception of Swarm they're very slow for the most part- G Rank Skylanders can counter this and are strong enough to defeat Giants before getting hurt.
- S Tier: Characters of the S Tier are so broken that you can often only counter them with other S Tier characters. These characters are notably powerful due to the fact you can abuse a single attack with most of them and it constantly or horribly damages the enemy. The S Tier is about pure strength- S Tier characters have virtually mindless playstyles against anything else, are easy to abuse, and deal hellish numbers of damage hellishly quickly. If you can't get another S Tier character and you aren't good with anything in particular, your best hope is honestly to choose a character with an Elemental Advantage.
- A Tier: Characters in A are very powerful, but unlike S Tier characters, are somewhat possible to counter. Most Skylanders in A, while very powerful, aren't so mindless they're S Tier. A good example is Series 1 Voodood (Marauder). He has strong stats and moves to abuse, but to be S Tier power, you need to use him well. Characters in A tend to be the ones that are all round powerful, but not quite so much as S Tier.
- B Tier: The B Tier is basically a borderline between average characters and powerful characters. The Skylanders in this Tier have good moves that are too strong for the C Tier, but not ridiculously powerful like A and S, or just have stats that aren't quite there. B characters tend to rack up just as many wins as losses.
- C Tier: C is for generic average characters. This Tier is strictly a middle tier. Characters in this Tier tend to have plain stats and power, or something with their attacks isn't as powerful as possible, or, in the case of Series 1 Flameslinger (Pyromancer), Series 1 Drill Sergeant (Megadozer), and Series 1 Warnado (Eye of The Storm), are characters that require mastery to be more effective. Characters in Upper B tend to decimate most stuff below them, but may have trouble with high-Tier contenders.
- D Tier: The D Tier is mostly for the characters who are simply weak like E Tier characters. However, unlike the E Tier, most of D does have a niche or two, where as C Tier characters are simply bad and unusable. Series 1 Chop Chop (Undead Defender) is an example of a character who is seemingly as weak as an E Tier character, but he has high enough stats to abuse the Shield Bash Stun, and has a decent speed and power to back it up and hit. It could also be considered a borderline between simply bad and weak characters like B. Most characters in this Tier are weak, but have usable moves.
- E Tier: The honorary obligatory "lulz" Tier. Characters in E Tier are either useless to attack with or countered by pretty much everything above them. The worst characters possible, most of the characters here will struggle even in the hands of experienced players.
Character Clarifications
- Warnado(Wind Master): Wind Master is placed as low as he is for being incredibly one-sided to use and not very good at it. He has trouble with almost anything so most victories with him will be flukes. His tornado aiming is interruptible and attacks slowly, he has no reliable option for escape, and he fails at using anything other than the attack he was named after- which, as an attack, just wasn't that great in the first place. Against equally skillful players, every ranged character defeats him like a wet paper towel and most Meleeists are easily able to close in on him without getting hurt at all.
If anyone has anything else to add please post it.