Dandy J said:
wolverine, phoenix, magneto, wesker, dog, dante... sorry dude
Zero is no 6 although he is pretty interchangeable with the dog.
Looks like we have a discussion of Zero and Jill on our hands. I haven't played with/against Jill to comment so my Jill analysis is strictly based off of online videos and stream play.
Why Zero is top 5:
*No bad match ups except Phoenix. His worst is like 5/5 and that's against the top 5.
*Very high priority attacks. His buttons are generally unrivaled in this game especially stuff like cr.B and j.C. Very few characters can consistently beat out Zero's normals. Combined with his own small hit box it becomes very difficult to get a hit on Zero. A lot of his normals are + on block.
*One of the best if not the best projectile in the game (Mega Buster). Causes knockdown from very far ranges and leads to his TOD combos. It has a massive hit box and makes Zero a threat from long ranges.
*High damaging/high meter building combos that aren't that difficult to do except for the newly found lightning loop. With assists he can push his damaging capabilities to TOD level.
*One of the best users of meter in the game. Sogenmu has a lot of utility (including some self-cross up stuff and more powerful combos), Rikkoha is a solid combo finisher (and a decent Phoenix killer) and of course his trademark LVL3 "home" wrecker.
*One of the characters with the highest "happy birthday" rates in the game due to long ranged attacks and LVL3 hyper hitting assists too.
*Has some of the dirtiest cross ups/mix ups in the game. Teleports, j.H cross ups, "taser" cross up, Sogenmu cross ups, cross ups using assists + dashes and an instant overhead. His air throws can lead to characters dead but he needs assist for throw damage (and high combo damage too).
Only low health and assist reliance keep him from the toppest of top but I would say he is top 6/top7. You will never feel at a disadvantage when playing with Zero and in this game that says a lot.
Zero not performing in tournaments is the same reason why Dante isn't doing well at tournaments. Both of these characters have under performed but their potential is undeniable. They both require considerable work as compared to Wolverine. When people speak highly of Zero they generally mean in a potential sense. To be honest, aside from Marn there are very few great Zero players out there although there are some very good Zero players from Japan to watch out (including one that Tokido claims is better than him... uses Zero/Dante/Akuma).
What I feel about Jill (again, no actual match experience just observations):
I feel that Jill is essentially a watered down version of X-23 who is a some what watered down version of Wolverine. She has the mix ups (instant overheads/left right), she has decent normals and ways to get in. She has heavy reliance on assists to do high damage on some of her set ups. Her air throw game is no where near Wolverine's level. She does have a DHC glitch starter but so does X-23. Her LVL1 is ok as well, nothing godlike.
The main problem with her is Mad Beast. Biggest waste of 3 meter there is. It should be just like Wolverine's Berserker Charge, no meter gain but 1 meter. Yes you can gain meter during it but whenever you don't kill a character with it then you just wasted a bunch of meter for nothing. Yes it has some loops, infinite block strongs but so does Berserker Charge (some what).
You can't really play her anchor because her assists aren't godlike. It's really at anchor where she shines when she has access to a lot of meter and X factor. At point she is decent but there are a lot of better point characters out there.