If anything, I’m more disappointed that deep DP AAs are indirectly nerfed due to the change. Adapting to the change is fine, but they made the game plan of zoning indirectly worse for shotos(with still some hefty recovery), which proposes lost momentum via blocking/trade/stuffed DPs to occur at a higher chance in-game.
bringing back DPs would at most stop Laura, Rog, and Urien from running a train on 4 characters. 3 of which (cammy nec ken) mostly have manageable matchups against them anyways, as far as I know (correct me if I’m wrong)
I’m not a fan of the DP nerf either, but I’m confused about people talking about it as if it’s some massive change to the game’s mechanics, when it affects only about 1/5th of matchups
I do think Ryu was hit particularly hard by the DP nerf, but even if they reverted it he’d still get bodied by rog and laura given their buffs and his (other) nerfs. not to mention characters like nash and sim who don’t even have a metered DP to bail them out. I think rog/laura/urien dominating has far more to do with their overall power level compared to rest of the cast than it has to do with the lack of DPs. rog/laura don’t even have metered DPs themselves, and urien’s metered DP is the worst in the game, yet all three of these characters are supposedly broken
don’t forget that mika, nash, karin, and chun were widely agreed to be top 8 in S1 despite their lack of a meterless DP. I seem to remember a few people even called chun the best character in the game? 
the problem isn’t that DPs were taken away, it’s that a lot of characters just suck
I think the main issue is indeed that without that DP Ryu doesn’t really have much going for him compared to the other 3 characters. Cammy has amazing normals and walk speed, Necalli has strong pressure, CCs for everything and high damage, Ken has great conversions, corner carry and a hellish corner game. What has Ryu going for him? His fireball game is outclassed by Guile; his normals are okay but now they are slower and have worse hitboxes for almost no reason; he gets nothing off throws and his pressure is limited. Since he doesn’t excel neither in offense nor in defense, what’s the point of playing him? Unless they give him new tools or they give him back some tools (donkey kick?), meterless DP might be the only way he has to stand out and be a viable pick over Akuma, Guile or Ken.
yeah. if there’s 1 character in the game who should have a meterless DP it’s ryu. I wouldn’t mind that being his niche as a character.
Actually the dp character has always been ken. The fireball character has always been ryu.
I’m not talking about legacy, I’m saying that from a balance and playstyle perspective it makes the most sense for SFV ryu to keep the meterless DP
maybe akuma should have one too now that I think about it, dunno
I don’t think any of them deserve it. I think they deserve to spend meter just like everyone else
I think they deserve slightly more ranged pokes as well, but that’s all I think they deserve. I don’t think ryu himself should ever be high tier. Middle of the road is a great spot for ryu imo.
says the urien/laura player 
ryu is not middle of the road right now. he’s bottom 5.
I know you’re going to disagree with that but answer this question first: what reason is there for tournament players to pick S2 ryu, apart from character loyalty?
he doesn’t excel at anything. he has a crap matchup against at least 2 top tier characters (rog and guile). even as a ‘jack of all trades’ he sucks because there are better jack of all trades characters like cammy and necalli. they left virtually no aspect of ryu untouched: nerfed his oki, nerfed his pokes, nerfed his frame traps, nerfed his damage, nerfed his DP, even nerfed his fireballs. meterless DP was particularly important for ryu because he was essentially a character built around making a comeback with super - something that was necessary given his lack of control of the ground game. now he controls the ground game even less due to s.LK getting nerfed to the ground (among other things) but he also has less control over the air now that DP is unreliable against deep jump-ins.
given that his throw loops, DP, and reliable meaty setups have been destroyed, and given that his VT is not scary enough to mount big comebacks by itself, there’s just no reason for ryu to have such a gimped neutral game.
he only real compensation he got for all of the above nerfs is an ‘improved’ b.HK that’s now second-hit cancellable but also went from 0 o/b to -2. it’s too slow and whiff punishable to be of much use in neutral, so it’s mostly just a blockstring ender that gives you pushback and a tiny amount of gray damage. I might actually prefer the old version since its active frame count made it reliable in situations where you had to manually time a meaty. now you just end up frame trapping yourself unless you have a setup that ensures only the 2nd hit connects. or are willing to spend a bar to cancel into +2 o/b EX fireball (which only leaves you close enough for a follow-up in the corner).
s.HP being cancellable in VT doesn’t amount to anything impressive, and certainly doesn’t make up for his other defects. he could have access to this outside of VT and would still suck.
also: blanket statements about which characters should be high or low tier are silly. being a certain archetype doesn’t entitle you to be better than other characters (or restrict you to being worse than other characters)
I’m not going to fully go into it because that would require more writing than I am prepared to do and it would fall on deaf ears anyways. As a truncation/tldr I will say this however:
Ryu is perfectly fine in this game as he is.
The “problem” is the shit design of the game and that some characters get around his fireballs (including himself) way to easily.
Giving some characters really shit ways around fireballs that all require upclose spacing and timing that is very close to being the same as when the fireball was done, versus characters that can get around the fireballs in an extremely delayed fashion from much further ranges away.
This creates huge meta/matchup problems for ryu that he doesn’t deserve. He’s supposed to be a jack of all trades master of none so when you give characters like cammy and rog and juri etc etc some of the easiest ways around fireballs known to man, you make ryu worse than he probably should be in certain matchups, which makes ryu players whine about things they really shouldn’t be whining about and asking for things he shouldn’t have.
The real buff that ryu needs is for the characters that easily get around fireballs, to no longer get around fireballs so easily.
Once that happens there is only 1-2 real balance contentions to be concerned about:
- Now guile is hyper dumb since he’s also a character that uses plasma to get shit done (guile would have to be toned down somehow)
- Non fireball characters will need better upclose offense in the form of better damage or better pressure or better follow ups once in.
But yeah I don’t think ryu is the problem. I think the game balance and design is the problem. I think if you try and make ryus square peg fit into a round hole (by buffing ryu) the game will be even worse off than it already is.
Ryu was always going to eventually go down here for the same reasons he was middle of the road in 3S - bad fireballs in a game where everyone has an anti-fireball tool.
that and they love nerfing him. they did it in 4 too
Oh noes Laura/Urien/Rog are going around doing crazy shit and nobody can stop them.
When you take out the failsafe for making inherently strong offenses…
P.S. please don’t nerf Laura/Urien/Rog, they are the ones really making this game have a strong identity.
How about dat patch coming up?
:giggle:
He was really only a few tools away from being good in 3S. Ken proves that nobody needed a good fireball to be good in 3S. In Second Impact he had double denjin which was pretty ridiculous on its own. In SI everyone had some broken shit though.
The only shoto remotely designed around a fireball game in 3S was Akuma and that’s just because his air fireball comes at an angle and with frame data that makes it tough to parry punish.
Alpha 3 is also another game where fireballs aren’t that strong within the shotos. V Ryu is high tier and doesn’t really revolve heavily around fireballs. If you watch a typical V Ryu vs V Akuma they are jumping around and hitting buttons most often. Rarely ever actually engage in fireballs wars especially with CC’s being so dangerous. Not to mention air blocking which forces a lot of improvisation to AA with a fireball or DP
In SFV it’s really just about Ryu needing better buttons considering everyone else who has a good fireball in this game also has better buttons than him. Urien, Nash, Guile all have better buttons than him and all have good fireball games that work well even against the anti projectile options. Guile’s fireball game with the V Skill and V Trigger creates patterns that you basically can’t do much about even if you have anti projectile options. Although Rog probably beats Guile, he still has to respect his fireball game enough.
If ryu gets better buttons he will have to lose something very strong and integral to his success to get it.
Or else he will literally be a 7-3 matchup for like nearly every other fireballer in the game.
Making the iconic poster boy of a FG bottom 5 probably isn’t the best way to grow your game in terms of popularity…
But oh it’s so good to not have to fight 60% of Ryus in matchmaking.
What else can he lose? lol He already lost his throw pressure, st lk range,meterless DP,normals being slower etc. Saying he would be a 7-3 MU against every other fireballer is just theory talk. There are two popular opinions on Ryu in season 2, One side says he is mid tier and fine while the other side says he is closer or is just bottom 5 in season 2. Majority of players here already say he is closer to the bottom 5 in season 2 and there is a good reason for that. Go use the character and see for yourself
I’ve used him a lot, he’s quite easy. Didn’t use throw loops when he had them. I see no reason for them tbqh. Throw loops should be on the upclose characters, not the zoner.
Next thing you know the command grabbers will be complaining about not having strike invincible dp’s…
Ryu feels quite midtier now. Basically exactly where he needs to be. Still has some of the easiest super confirms in the game, really good AA, really good fireball, really good dash and cr.mp is a very solid poke.
0 frame command grabs? What game has grabs like that?
Why would you do this? You can’t air block grounded normals or supers.