If you want to talk balance in fighting games, the most balanced is Guilty Gear XX and its many variants, followed by Soul Calibur 2 (and probably this one not far behind.) Guilty Gear has a tier system, but its not used very often because almost everyone in the game is equal in playstyle. I was at a pretty good tournament a while back, using a B ranked player (May) and while I gave my opponent a fight, lost to a C ranked character (Ky.), But every character in GGXX is usable, you just have to be able to make use of your high risk high reward moves.
the only characters I have seen as cheap are kilik
You then either need some practice (No offense) or should watch a good Cervantes player. Kilik is the least of anyones worries as he's a beginner character with a lot of punishable moves, but can be punished with healthy GI'ing and efficient frame advantage. I'm not saying he's bad, but he's a very predictable character in the hands of a newbie, and while the easy moves are powerful, they are easy to get around. I could punish a newb Raphael or Kilik all day simply by sidestepping and slapping them with Cassandra's Shooting Star. (I saw a lot at Ohayocon and a lot of them got owned by my Sophy.
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Yoda isn't cheap, ya you can't really grab him and he is hard to hit but he is in the air a lot of the time and he dies pretty easily
He's like Gon from Tekken 3. You have to rely mostly on cheap tactics and skilless abilities to even hit him, which I think is really ridiculous.
the online characters are: asteroth, cassandra, cervantes, kilik, mitsurugi, rapheal, siegfried, taki and there is actually a few people that are awsome with apprentice
I agree with a lot of this list, though I haven't seen enough of new Raphael to really understand how good he's become.. IMHO, Amy's a ton better than he is, but thats just me. I'm surprised Sophitia and Xiangua are absent from this list.
asteroth i hate, if you come up against some who knows asteroth well, you've lost
A good Cass/Sophy can stop a good Astaroth dead. Punish him all over the field with quick pokes.
with soul calibur characters are actually better than others, instantly making it unbalanced. like zasalamel, who the **** is gonna play him? he sucks!
Zasa actually improved in the transition between SC3 and SC4, where in SC3 he was relatively balanced, and became a lot more efficient in 4. All of the cruddy characters in 3 got their momentum back and became relatively good again, this including Talim and Tira, and apparently Raphael. The only one I really notice lost anything was Yunsung because he lost Land Walk, but thats fine, he still seems good anyways.
And Tekken? You call a game in which Nina and Jin own everyone a balanced game?
But I swear I am getting sick of whenever I play against a mitsurugi all they do is span x or y (don't know what the attack is) and you can't compete with it
Time their attacks carefully, sidestep them or GI them. The more you learn how to beat your opponent, the better you'll get against scrubs.
dude smash bros. aint balanced. 9 of 10 of the top players at the smash bros. worlds used snake, and the other was metaknight. like for instance olimar is pants! personally my best character is mr. G&W...
Last I heard, 8 out of the top 12 in the world play Dedede. It does seem though like Brawl is becoming Melee as far as tiers go, where Space Animals ruined all else. Really, you cannot call Smash at all balanced, especially not Brawl or Melee.
I want to get my hands on SC4 sometime soon so I can jump online and show some of the scrubs who's boss, but I've got Tales of Vesperia coming out here soon, but I want to try some Tales of characters in the custom creation, so I won't be without it forever.
Just keep practicing, go to some of the competitive websites and learn your character better, learn about frame advantage, good timing, character matchups, etc.. Maybe even play Kilik to find out how he flows exactly. The best way to beat your opponent, is be your opponent. I've won a fair share of Soul Calibur tournaments (most local, one at a large single elimination convention) and I only did that through practice and playing humans. Utilise training mode to learn what you're doing.