Primal Rage Tier List 1.0

DISCLAIMER:

Based on the Midway Arcade Treasures 2 version, or the Japanese board revision.

Based that I log now lots of years playing and studying this wonderful game, and actually quite a bit of vs matches, so is not all theory.

Sauron

Good proyectile zonning game with Scream and AA Cranium Crush. That alone make him good. Has an Air Throw. Most damaging combos in the game and also the easier to land. Has no equal while rushing up close using d+4, 3+4 (Tail attacks) because is nearly impossible to Block Interrupt.

His normal moves are awesome and you will need no more than a few of them. Crouch 1 or 4 for poking or starting combos. Crouching 2 or 1+2 for Anti Air (cancellable into Cranium Crush for a 2 hit AA combo)

Incorporating jump cancels into his combos just adds to the carnage. He has easy bnbs that go from 40% onwards. Easily he can dish 70% and stun you. He is kind of broken or op.

His Cranium Crush SRK has no landing frames and has to be punished while airborne. It juggles from a Tail Sweep and covers almost all the screen.

Sometimes, maybe by luck, I have managed to stop it cold. His other AA special is very good and it hits on its first frames. Primal Shield covers him up from crossups and has proyectile and upper body invincibility. Has some recovery when blocked tho.

Can exploit the Dizzy Resets. Can zone from afar ending block strings with Primal Scream. BTW his proyectile while doing low damage, it really adds to the stun meter.

His Earthquake move is great since it launches the opponent airborne and can be followed by 2 more hits (max). He can do Air Earth Stomp at low height to confuse even more or to finish long combos. This move has to be blocked low.

Deadly high/low game, but can more brute force his wins. Absolutely NO bad matchups. His big size make him a combo target tho.

Blizzard and Armaddon may be his “worst” matchups. Has no normal overhead (thankfully). Has a special throw and an air throw.

Chaos

His Battering Ram is an almost abusable move. Set ups juggles, up to 3 more attacks (max) and punish blocked moves. Can be used as wakeup. Has easy, confirmable combos from a d+4 (backhand loops), D+2 is a great AA and can be folowed with a juggle Battering Ram and 2 more hits.

Fart of Fury is a giant cloud proyectile that slowly travels almost one full screen before dissapearing. It stuns opponentd and its not easy to avoid (hard to setup too, because of its long startup).

Both Power Pukes are awesome proyectiles for zonning. He can throw a slow Power Puke and follow it with a Battering Ram to close distance. This setup works very well after a knockdown and can put an opponent in a 50/50 situation. You cam mix a overhead, a throw, a low starter combo, etc

His small size helps him to avoid some combos. He can do an Air Ground Pound close to the ground wich is very useful and fast. This also allows him to juggle afterward. Awesome high/low game after a knockdown and 2 overheads that can be cancelled into specials!

Quick footspeed only beaten by Talon. He can footsie like SF2 Vega (Claw) and is deadly on opponent wakeup. Air Quake allows him to do some nasty mixups, but due to the Auto Level Block, the threat of a crossup is not that much. Has a command throw wich also helps him to mixup things.

Blizzard

Second most damaging character in the game. Long reach on his limbs helps him to start many combos from afar. His Ice Geyser is good to extend many combos. On Chaos and Talon, he has to be carefull on his c.4, 1+2 loops cause the backhand misses sotimes.

Has easily confimable long strings into devastating combos. Standing 4 is a decent AA wich can lead to Ice Geyser juggles. Also d+2 or d+1+2 are good Anti Airs too and poking tools. Can fight Sauron but is VERY hard. Super lethal high/low game. A long combo can go from 40 to 60% life.

2nd character with the longest juggles but the most damaging ones. DONT use Ice Geyser as a wakeup move or try to interrupt with it! Instead use Megapunches! Can mixup awesomely up close! His other freezing proyectile is not that useful, and keeps a weird property of the previous PR revision: when hit out of it, it will put Blizzard on juggle state.

His Air Throw is an excellent combo ender, and when freezing from a Slide (D+3+4 ~ Ice Geyser) can do other damaging combos, like close 1+2, Backhand ~ Megapunch. In the corner do better 2 close 1+2 and then a crouch 1+2 for the same damage but better positioning.

His Megapunch comes in 4 different ways. Quick, Long, Super and Fake. All of them have upper and proyectile invincibility. Use the Long for travelling the screen thru proyectiles. Quick for combos after a slide. Super is tricky because you need all four buttons, and while it is the faster, it has the worst recovery.

You can use the Super Megapunch to escape blockstrings easily. The Fake Megapunch is a beauty of a move. Maybe the first of its kind on the FG genre (?), You can do blocked moves into fake and then throw, jump, low starter, etc. Is a great mixup tool.

From his normalnoverhead you can freeze with the Geyser, and this is a deadly tool on knocked opponents, simce they have to guess/observe if you are going for a low, overhead or throw.

It all happens so fast! And resets mid combo are a GREAT tool to dish damage. Backhand loops and suddenly stipping into Overhead and Ice Geyser is one of the deadliest and nastiest options!

Both of his throws are good. The Punchin Bag one leads to some juggles but if the opponent wiggle the stick, its escapable. Also hard to include in combos due to its startup. Regular throw has an amazing range. Its like 1 frame startup!

Armadon

A tank. 3rd place in dizzy damage and life damage in the game, but a bad guess at one of his tricky crossups and its a stun + free 50% combo. His combos are affected on small size characters like Talon, Chaos or Vertigo, so he has to opt for less damaging variations.

He is the Shoto of the game. Can zone with Spikes and if they jump at him, just Horn SRK. Basic but very effective. Use the tip of his sweep to cancel Spikes frim there and zone better. His Horn SRK is also invincible on the way up but sadly has landing frames, and can be punished hard.

Rolling Death is a good move for transport or corpse crossover and tricky stuff. Its also a good combo ender but not as damaging as the Horn Upper. When blocked, enters on juggle punish mode.

He has a Spike Bed move and a fake version of it, but both seem useless and slow. The regular Spike Bed has proyectile invincibility.

Has a launcher special (Horn Charge) that allows 2 more hits (max) and can be linked from a sweep, wich have enourmous range. Can go under some proyectiles wich is awesome.

His jumping game is DEADLY and leads to long and damaging combos. He “advances” in the air when you do his Jump 2 into 1+2. So as it is 2 hits only on block, cant be block interrupted, so you can jump again and attempt another 2 hit block string without fear of a counter. If it hits, its very easy to confirm into his more damaging combos.

Has one overhead, wich leads to mediocre damage but it is cancellable on Horn Charge and a command throw.

Vertigo

She is Guile and Dhalsim. Deffensive game with long limbs and awesome keepaway with the 2 different Venom Spits. The Scorp Sting is the perfect combo ender and whiff punisher when in need. From afar she can play shoto/Dhalsim keepaway game too, using Scorp Sting as an AA.

Her normals are fast and good. Her jumping moves too. Sadly her sweep has a lot of recovery, but try always to cancel it either in one of the Spits or the Scorp Sting.

Has long combos but her damage may be the lower in the game. Has no overhead nor command throw, but almost all her attacks are good pokes. Her best antiairs are jumping back bites. She does good vs the Gorillas.

Sadly she has no “get off me” moves but jabbing (biting) on wakeup sometimes is good and leads to combos. Come Slyther is the combo extender move, that also has upper body invincibility, so that helps a bit. The Vodoo Spell is kind of useles and cant be used in combos. Also shaking the stick makes it escapable.

After a sucessful Come Slyther, if tou want to maximize her damage, you can jump and hit the opponent, but the timing for this is difficult and character dependant.

Her teleport can be used for some mixups but dont become predictable! She can appear up front, up behind and behind ground. All Teleports are fast and can be done in combos or in blockstrings. They have some recovery to them tho. Quick Jump + 4 is an awesome crossup and can be cancelled into Teleport for mixups.

Her hurtbox is weird and her animations when hit, makes her lung backward and foward, but while most of the long combos can be done on her, the animation is distracting and misguiding, and you can use that on your favor 😈 She can crouch under all proyectiles without harm.

Diablo

Probably the character with most potential due to his Torch Cancels. You have to think very fast and have lots of execution to be playing safe with him. And also to come up with the right combos on the fly. He with time may climb up one tier.

His normals are good but not on par with Sauron. Again, his gameplan has to be cancelling and making safe any individual hit. Remember the 3 move blocked rule, the Torch Feint is considered one move, and can be punished this way. On combos, he can go crazy and cancel Fierce into Fierce, up to the game counter limit. It is hard bu he can rack up 50% combos and up like this.

His damage doing this is insane, and he can play keepaway too with fireballs and using as AA the Hot Foot attack. His Teleport is weird and I have not found a way to use it well. His head ram passes down fireballs and leads to juggles, can be used at the end of combos. Ending his blockstrings on slow Fireballs is good.

Hot Foot on the corner can be followed by D+1 and 2 more attacks. He seems to do the same combos on everyone regardless of size too. Again, he can be DEADLY… If you know how and have the hand execution for it. Hot Foot also evades most fireballs.

He sadly has no command throw nor overhead to help him a bit. It is difficult for him to get out of pressure and his Flameport dont helps much (but I have escaped one or other sometimes with it, mostly after 3 blocked hits, but it is no sure escape).

A high risk, high reward character with a high execution barrier.

Talon

The fastest critter in the game, sadly the least damaging. His combos are difficult to extend to award 40% life. Also his combo extender moves are difficult to perform, but this move has proyectile and upper body inv.

If one could manage to jump cancel mid combo, he would become more deadly. Has 2 overheads but his command throw can be blocked. Poor combo enders aside of the classic D+4, D+3+4 then Frantic Fury. His claw pokers are awesome combo starters tho!

And his jumping attacks really annoying. His getup animation is weird so learn it because it can throw off your strats. He can play hit and run games thanks to his run fwd or back command. Has no proyectile.