The Thrill Kill Tier List
Updated April 11th, 2024.
Thrill Kill is still very much in its infancy as a competitive game, and opinions about what tier a character is fluctuate week to week as players continue to lab and develop strategies for each character. That being said, here is the general community consensus as to who the best characters are right now:
GOD TIER
- Cleetus is in a tier of his own. Not only does he have a very easy infinite combo in the form of
that can win rounds off of a 5 frame jab, but he also has other incredibly good special moves that allow him to control and dominate the game when your opponent holds crouch to avoid your infinite. His best move is Round The Barn (
), which is a mid hitting launcher that has frame 0 full invulnerability making it the best reversal move in the game. On top of that, he's the 2nd fastest character in the game with an above average dash distance and cooldown time. Nobody else in the game compares to Cleetus.
S-TIER
- S-Tier characters have incredibly powerful specials that can completely control the game, particularly with their reach and damage potential. are at least "two touch" characters from anywhere on the stage, and/or have touch-of-death combos in the corner.
- Cain: Cain is a special move monkey. His disjointed flame jets lead to very high damaging juggles, even mid-stage. His range mages up for his slow movement speed and pitiful dash distance, and if he does need to close gaps and get in close, he has good mid and low dashing attacks. Additionally, his crouching combos consist of a very fast low > mid launching string that can be tough to counter, he has some useful partial invulnerability moves, and his jab is his main combo starter. While you can high counter most of his flame jets, Incinerate is actually long ranged enough that if an opponent high counters it, they're not actually close enough to you for the body slam to connect.
- Marukka: In skilled hands, Marukka can seem utterly unstoppable. While she doesn't posses the same damage potential as Cain does, her blazing fast dash cooldown allows her to escape anyone or anything. She also has a lot of excellent buttons that can be extremely hard to punish due to their active frames, reach, and recovery time. Uppercut Slash is a very fast launcher, Stomach Stun Kick is very disjointed and leads to big damage, and Low Sweep is equally as disjointed with the benefit of ducking under high and even some mid attacks. Her biggest downside is that a lot of her basic combos switch between high and low almost every other attack, giving your opponent ample opportunity to counter out of your attacks. She's best played using a hit-and-run playstyle, using her best buttons to convert hits into juggles.
A-TIER
- A-Tier characters have very good special moves, great damage from un-counterable BnB combos (~34-45% midstage), and/or extremely high damaging corner combos. What prevents an A-Tier from being an S-Tier may include a lack of combo routes, being a "three touch" character instead of a "two touch" one, or having unimpressive mid-stage options.
- Judas: Judas is a rushdown expert, using his incredibly high-damage punch stance to dominate fights in potentially two touches. His crouching punches in Punch stance make for excellent staggers against crouching opponents trying to high counter your launchers, and Multi Head Spin (/) has frame 0 partial invulnerability giving you a way to regain control of a match if your opponent is being aggressive. While his Kick stance offers a lot of utility, its damage output is pitiful.
- Judas: Judas is a rushdown expert, using his incredibly high-damage punch stance to dominate fights in potentially two touches. His crouching punches in Punch stance make for excellent staggers against crouching opponents trying to high counter your launchers, and Multi Head Spin (
- Mammoth: Mammoth is a hard character to evaluate because of his incredibly slow movement speed and the very slow startup of his attacks, but he is undeniably a scary creature in the right hands. Rolling Boulder has stupidly fast startup and can be mixed in with Running Boulder as an almost cross-stage 50/50 mixup, Grab Coconut has an almost-infinite that requires very good mashing to get out of, and his crouching Gym Kick has good startup while creating space between you and your opponent. While they require a lot of practice in order to consistently land, his super launcher strings can instantly win rounds if you're well-versed enough with his buffer combos. His Rag Doll grab (
) has the longest grab range in the game and does 31 damage, and because of its range allows you to grab basically any opponent out of anything as long as the move they're using doesn't have partial or full invulnerability.
- Mammoth: Mammoth is a hard character to evaluate because of his incredibly slow movement speed and the very slow startup of his attacks, but he is undeniably a scary creature in the right hands. Rolling Boulder has stupidly fast startup and can be mixed in with Running Boulder as an almost cross-stage 50/50 mixup, Grab Coconut has an almost-infinite that requires very good mashing to get out of, and his crouching Gym Kick has good startup while creating space between you and your opponent. While they require a lot of practice in order to consistently land, his super launcher strings can instantly win rounds if you're well-versed enough with his buffer combos. His Rag Doll grab (
- Oddball: Oddball truly lives up to his name. His strengths lie in his very fast dash cooldown and his wonky hitbox that allows some moves that would normally hit others to miss him in certain situations. He also has a great kit of special moves that double as mobility options, with two rolls, an approaching cartwheel, and a rolling launcher attack. Like Mammoth, his super headbutt launcher also allows for very high damaging stings, including a touch-of-death string if your opponent is back up against a wall. However, his wonky hitboxes work both ways - sometimes his strings fail to connect in certain situations.
B-TIER
Tormentor, Belladonna, Dr. Faustus
- B-Tier characters are usually "three touch" characters that have good enough special moves to compete with everyone else, but usually lack damage compared to the A-Tiers or have other issues holding them back.
- Tormentor: Tormentor is one of the most honest characters in the game, and in turn is only as good as the person playing him. He has possibly the most combo versatility in the game, with his main combos having several branches that can leave your opponent guessing how to counter out of them. He also has a powerful launcher with several ways to string into it, and his Charged Punch is a fast and disjointed hard knockdown move that can even lead to follow-up wall-splat combos for even more damage. Learning everything you can do with and is a must. His dash attacks are also fantastic and high-damaging, and his Lasso attack (
) can be instantly canceled with to abuse it's frame 0 partial invulnerability.
- Tormentor: Tormentor is one of the most honest characters in the game, and in turn is only as good as the person playing him. He has possibly the most combo versatility in the game, with his main combos having several branches that can leave your opponent guessing how to counter out of them. He also has a powerful launcher with several ways to string into it, and his Charged Punch is a fast and disjointed hard knockdown move that can even lead to follow-up wall-splat combos for even more damage. Learning everything you can do with
- Belladonna: Belladonna is as straightforward as a Thrill Kill character gets. She has an excellent BnB combo that does lots of damage and great special moves that utilize partial invulnerability, but the list sort of stops there. Her low attack game is incredibly lacking, and she has to rely a lot on staggers in order to get an opponent to uncrouch. Her grabs also leave a lot to be desired as well - while her side swap grab leads to good damage off of a Vegas Vertical juggle, her other grabs either leave her down on advantage or don't do much damage.
- Dr. Faustus:' The Doctor has one game plan and one game play only: get you into a corner, juggle you, and cancel into 1000 Stabs to win the round. While Stabs is a stupidly high damaging move on a pinned opponent, getting an opponent to the corner can prove difficult - his buttons are quite short ranged, and his hard knockdown moves are very easily punished if blocked. Some matchups can be a complete and utter struggle, and characters like Marukka can feel impossible to corral or even hit with one of your combos. That said, he's still a deadly character with very fast movement speed and a game plan that must be respected by your opponent.
C-TIER
- The biggest reason C-Tiers aren't B or A-Tiers is their lack of damage output, or lack of range to deal with the rest of the cast. C-Tiers are usually "four touch" characters who don't have good un-counterable strings, and have trouble bagging damage mid stage without relying on strings with lots of high/low mixups that can be countered.
- The Imp: The biggest reason Imp is so far down the tier list is because of his lack of range, the heavy reliance he has on his gimmick moves, and his lack of combo variety.
- Violet: Violet is the worst character in the game. Her movement speed is poor, her dash distance and cooldown sucks, her damage is near non-existent even with Dislocating Stun and Cherry Picker at her disposal, all her best buttons don't lead to damage, all the buttons that could be good either don't string properly into combos or get easily beaten out by your opponent's attacks, and her grabs either do low damage or can be escaped by mashing.
