MCU Skill Tiers Thread

But whenever she gets the upperhand there's usually context, i.e. Hawkeye and Widow talking in Civil War about them still being friends when Natasha continues attacking etc. I'm OK with Widow being slightly more skilled due to more having more feats in general to showcase her skill, but IMO Hawkeye hasn't taken a clear loss against her to make her outright superior to him in terms of film portrayal.

I think this is a pretty reasonable list. I would point out that Elektra was beating Stick in their fight, whatever that may say about their respective points on the rankings.

Stick is only there tentatively. Mainly due to his martial art knowledge transcending that of most of the people on this list I.E, being able to allow him to heal faster than a normal person and fight at a high level despite his age and hype of having more of such knowledge. Same goes for Madame Gao who only has one feat.

Assuming there isn't some unknown context behind the Colleen Wing fight (i.e. those two fighters are champions or established as being really tough in some unseen way), this is a pretty interesting comparison:

I think that this really highlights the difference between an elite combatant and a master.

I was rewatching some Daredevil recently and honestly I think I agree with @thor_parker82 now, Matt might be the most skilled fighter at this point.

I also think Daisy needs reevaluating, I'm not exactly sure where she should go, but she's just such a beast at this point, it' s just feat after feat after feat:

Yeah, Daisy is at the top of elite at the very least. She may even transcend that tier in the near future.

If the show can go another season I think she'll be in Master tier for sure.

What do you think of Colleen Wing? We haven't seen much with her yet, but based on that clip I'm not particularly impressed. I'm wondering if they're going to put more emphasis on her sword skills.

I really couldn't take the choreography seriously. But I'm pretty sure they're trying to pass Colleen off as an 'Elite' martial artists.

Bad stuntwork aside, Colleen's takedowns in the clip was pretty impressive and if she's consistent, she could be in the Master tier handidly.

Uhh, I´m not feeling Kaecilius in the Master tier.

Not after he failed to fodderize a "noob" Strange.

@payneintheass: It did say he was listed tentatively.

That speaks more to Strange's skill to be honest, I got the impression he'd been in training for close to a year at that point.

See the discussion between Buildhare and myself in this thread for reference.

@rogueshadow: Honestly after the recent AoS episode I could see her being top Elite or even low Master tier.

I didn't expect her to improve in H2H much, if at all, after getting her powers but it seems like they're providing limits to how many times she could use her powers without her gauntlets, just to remind the audience that she's still badass without them.

@dstreet45: She's already been upgraded to the top of the Elites.

@angeljax: Yeah I just saw that. But I also think that she could maybe go even higher.

@dstreet45: Oh I agree. It seems like Daisy is only just now getting recognition. Even before the LMD arc I had her as top Elite, it's nice to see people agreeing with the sentiment. I'd say she's a low-tier Master but I can see why it might be pushing it a little.

@angeljax said:

I mean, I already had her second in elite tier, she was only behind Clint.

It's also because she's OP at full power, she could solo those LMDs if she had the gauntlets.

Chloe Bennett really rocks the fight scenes, she's great at stunts.

Yeah, her fights are a genuine high point in the show for me. She's my favorite fighter to watch, just barely edging out Bobbi.

@rogueshadow: True on both points.

What about jessica jones? lol

@those_eyes: I would say Rookie.

agreed

@rogueshadow: Ok, but now I´m forgetting the scene where Kae beats 6 guys.

She's already in rookie.

Post #8 in that thread.

First, I must say this thread is gold.

But I have some thoughts about Cap's habilities. If you look at the other masters, most of them have trained their entire lives. Natasha is the top of the organization that can create children who fodderize SSR special agents. Elektra already fodderized professional fighters as a child. May studies martial arts since she was a kid. Barnes is training for almost a century. How much time Steve actually had to improve so much from that Brooklyn boy? If we count his time as a WWII soldier plus his modern missions, it wouldn't surpass five years. I think it's to much to put him as the very best master. His main feats involve his strengh and his shield in some way, and these are huge factors. Crossbones has never shown any good feats, and that armor only slowed him. It wasn't powered by any kind of electricity, it was just protecting metal, like Batman's mech suit. He wasnt stronger than Cap. That Iron Man feat is just PIS. Stark's suit was heavily nerfed, Steve had the upper hand mainly because of his shield and Bucky's metal arm. Fighting with Ultron was impressive, but again, he uses his shield and momentum all the time, and we don't know Ultron's strenght. He wasn't trying to kill him also. I feel that the best martial artist should be someone who doesn't trust in any weapon or power, and I just can't see Steve as a great master.

With that being said, I would rank the masters probably in that order:

• Stick
• Melinda May
• Matt Murdock
• Nobu
• Bobbi Morse
• Elektra
• T'Chala
• Grant Ward
• James Barnes
• Natasha Romanoff
• Giyera
• Steve Rogers

Haven't seen Doctor Strange, but The Ancient One should be somewhere up here by titles and implied feats, along with Gamora and Nebula.

@rogueshadow: Ah, I missed all that stuff. I´ll take a look.

Peter Parker shouldn´t be last, and Scott Lang & Hope Van Dyne should be higher than Fitz in my opinion.

Proficient and Rookie aren't ranked.

Oh, my bad then, hehe.

I don't think Steve should be top of the masters tbh if you reduced his physicals he'd get beat by some of them like matt and may I feel like BP is more skilled than him and once the film is out we'll see his skill cemented more. We haven't actually seen Cap train or anything we don't know how he learned to fight, the others have trained their whole lives. I think maybe he should be max 3rd and May and Matt be moved up one each

The Russos stated that he trained extensively with S.H.I.E.L.D. experts between A1 and TWS (two years). His borderline eidetic memory and superior processing likely increased his progression exponentially. I like to think it results in him peaking quickly, so he learns far more rapidly than others, but his actual ability still plateaus, whereas I don't think we've seen Matt's best yet.

I agree about BP.

@rogueshadow: Ahhh okay that makes sense still the agents he learnt from can't have been the best in the world when they have agents like May, I can get how he would learn way quicker than everyone else but I don't see other shield agents being able to train him more skilled than May or Matt even with his advanced processing etc.

N yea I think after Panthers film he'll be clearly more skilled, I still currently think if Cap didn't have the shield BP would beat him h2h

Where do you think Iron Fist is going to be on the list top of master or maybe grandmaster?

Funny, as I was writing that I thought about the idea of May having been one of his trainers. That would have been cool. She was actually retired from field duty at the time though because of killing Eva Belyakov. In universe explanation would be that Fury asked her but she was so mentally scarred that she didn't want to be involved in fighting at all, even training. It's entirely possible, if not likely even, that he trained with Hawkeye and Black Widow, maybe Crossbones too. There are probably plenty of other high-tier S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents we just don't know of.

Yeah, I think either peak Master or Grandmaster for Iron Fist. Lei-Kung (Danny's master) should be a Grandmasters for sure though, as well as Fat Cobra and the Prince of Orphans.

Me personally, I think the Ancient One was a Grandmaster, we just didn't see that much of her.

@rogueshadow: Hmm yea true could've been Ward too there are a lot of high tier shield agents tbf. Still I feel if Cap and May/ Matt had physicals equalised he couldn't beat them imo.

Yea that sounds about right if he's not the most skilled hero in mcu I'll be disapointed, and yea his master should definitely be a grandmaster, wonder if we'll see more from Gao aswell to put her up there.

Yea I agree the Ancient One had the potential to be one we just didn't see enough but then I guess we haven't seen much of Gao but just speculating I guess.

Gao's tentatively in Grandmaster because she still has the capacity to show more feats and she basically oneshotted Matt in S1. The Ancient One however, is unlikely to appear again, at least in a physical form.

Rewatching DD fight scenes recently and I personally think Matt, by the end of Season 2, is probably more skilled, but Cap has a lot of great feats like beating and/or contending with T'challa and Bucky as well as whooping Batroc and contending with people well above him physically, like Ultron, War Machine and Iron Man. I think Matt is going to receive further training from Stick and will be very impressive in the Defenders.

It is actually possible for Matt to get a boost in Iron Fist, if the Hand show up and get better feats, it will provide further context and make him more impressive. Same goes for Elektra, Stick and Nobu.

@rogueshadow: Yea Ancient One can't get anymore feats which is sad because she was a beast from what we saw.

Guess you're right about him contending with people above his class that does make his skill seem more valuable tbf.

Matt will probably become more skilled yea, he'll need to be impressive with Iron Fist on the team he can't be way below him. Yea true if the hand ninjas get better feats that boosts the DD crew feats a bit.

Steve Rodgers that high is an abomination.

@rogueshadow: Don't you think Coulson is a bit high shouldn't Loki and Sif be above him

@thorthunder98: He got the better of Kara Palamas:

Who gave May a rough time. Plus there's his fight in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor's hammer where he fodderises armed gunmen with a bag of flour IIRC.

I feel like people are downplaying Cap's skill...

Where's Black Widow?

Master tier

How? He's the highest-ranking fighter here.

@angeljax: No he's not

@js_the_beast: Steve is ranked #1 in the Masters Tier. He's literally the top skillful fighter here based on a consensus.

@angeljax: Consensus? No, I don't think so. Plenty of people would argue Matt, May, Bobbi are more skilled then Cap including myself. Cap is not the most skilled at all.

@js_the_beast: If the consensus that Cap isn't the most skilled then he wouldn't be number 1.

I don't think Cap is number 1 either, but a lot of people do and justifiably so.

I am not entirely on board with the ordering of the master tier but this is an awesome tier system overall

Its not a consensus, but its also true that he's not, in any way, underestimated

Steve being #1 is fine. IMO it's between him, Matt, May, and Bobbi.