I think the tiers are still going to end up far more defined. People think that Spider-Man is being slept on but he's not. What distinguishes a top tier rushdown character (like Wolverine) from a low-tier (Spider-Man) is the ability to pick up combos off of literally any hit that you land. Wolverine can do big damage off air throw (with assist), anywhere in the air (dive kick), aerial opponents (jump loops/dive kick/big hitboxes), instant overhead (with assist usually), left/right crossup (with assist). Spider-man's best combos all revolved around landing a clean hit on a grounded opponent. His hitboxes are not great and he can't land his complex combos off airborne, and especially smaller, opponents. In vanilla, he could not combo off air throw (unless in corner with Wesker/Deadpool). He has no left/right mixup game. The only thing he can do is crossup with web zip/air dash midscreen, but it's negated by advancing guard. All he does is constant high-lows and good players will defend against it all day.
And now he doesn't even do huge damage anymore. If he gets an UWT reset he can, but if that ever became prominent, people would learn to beat it, because in reality, like, 90% of the cast can beat UWT resets, they just have to know how.
The only real buff that advances Spidey's tier position (as top level of play) is his new ability to combo off of air throws. This is the biggest advantage from his new OTG. Also, it probably doesn't work in the corner, but it's something. Otherwise, he's got a better pressure game now with his web cancels (slightly, web zip doesn't do godlike hitstun anymore), but his other buffs like an OTG really don't add very much.
I mean, the game isn't officially out yet, but I'd bet money that in 6 months there will be no Spider-Men in Top 8 of any large tournament.
How have you done online? Play anyone from GAF before?
