My playstyle is defensive and I main Balrog in SSF4 and I was wondering who is the best defensive character in this game? Balrog is pretty bad compared to his counterpart in SF4 (speed,normals,etc) but what characters or even teams can fit the defensive playstyle? I know this is pre-patch talk before the DLC drop on the 31st. Is being Defensive a good playstyle for this game?
Guile and Raven are definitely up there.
Then Chun Li, Sagat, Vega, Dhalsim and Julia maybe.
Ryu…
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Bison one of the best at getting out of pressure on knockdown, as he has many options. I don’t even think you can do much about roll>warp vs him.
You can run away and build meter at the same time with his devils reverse and if your opponent walks into it, it’s a free knockdown combo (stand forward< crouch roundhound)
His best AA is reaction hell attack or a neutral jump normal like jump forward. If you are spaced, stand hk or crouch fp works too. But air to air reaction is the best for him. Ex psycho also stops jumps ins. He can zone with his fast walk speed and stand forward.
also, generally speaking this game is more rewarding to the offensive player, but to say there aren’t (many) times when you need to lame it out would be wrong.
balrog is defensive in this game imo! but add atleast 1 defence gem to each char of your team! also characters that can do good with balrog and play ALOT of defence are guys like .hugo.marduk,guile.vega etc but i dont know what type you want like a hit and run team or a PB team
-Hit and Run teams
-Both characters - 2 immense power, 1 divine speed.
This team setup needs you to have a character who can fight grapplers and deal with certain problems. The point char must have some damage like Ryu, Ken, Jin, Steve, Hwoarang, etc …
The second character must be able to run and play keep away while the main can recover a little. The whole idea is to use the attack gems to enable the first character to do heavy damage and tear apart the other team. When the first character is hurt and in danger you resort to the 2nd character to use his attack and speed gems to keep the other team at bay and to run away so that you can bring your main back in. The second character must be a good at keep away like Dhalsim, Sagat, Raven, Vega, Yoshimitsu etc.
**-Perfect Balance teams **(PB for short)
-Point character -1 life force, 1 immense power, 1 iron wall
-Second character -1 immense power, 1 divine speed, 1 proficiency.
This setup allows you to always be able to combo into high damage and to handle nearly ANY problem. This is probably the best choice! The point character needs to be able to do handle any problem and to be able to do many things such as keep away and rushdown etc… A balanced character like Ryu, Ken, Jin, Kazuya, Raven, Steve, etc… Be creative.
The second character must be able to hit HIGH damage to follow up after the point character. These characters have to be really strong like Marduk, Abel, Zangief, King, Hugo. The idea is to be able to do a lot and to always do high damage.
Oh yeah, him… Let’s just pretend he doesn’t exist for this thread. :shake:
Right, this is before the patch so who knows? I am really hoping they balance a lot of the cast as I am in the middle of trying to revive this game in my local community.
I love Balrog, he is my favorite character of all time! He just sucks in this game 
I love Hugo too but, without meter I get blown up ALOT. Trying to get away from the big man.
Vega sounds interesting though… 
Julia is a defensive character?! You should see my Julia 
Every charge character is defensive, isn’t it?
I’d appreciate if you took julia off that lame character list :).
gief and guile is probably one of the best defensive teams out there. Guile gets the life lead and gief holds it. Def try that team out. Plus gief has super armor on his command grab. Def give him a shot.
You should give Balrog a second try imo. He’s not a super strong character but he is actually quite good. The problem is that he is just set up much differently frame-wise than in AE and it leads to a different gameplan.
From what Ryan Hunter told me, Balrog has some incredibly strong pokes in this game, especially st.MK and also st.lp and st.HP. When footsying buffer Jab with st.MK or HP, when using st.MK buffer st.HP or HK, and when fishing with st.HP always make sure a Turn Punch is ready: st.HP crumples on counterhit and TAP wallbounces off crumple, and the hit confirm for this is really easy. Lastly, c.HP is a very strong Anti-Air to prevent jump-ins.
Balrog will waste a lot of time playing these footsies and can keep control of the pace of the match this way.
Also, never be afraid to use Launcher because Rog kinda needs it for stronger combos. Since you will be playing another defensive character as anchor I do not think frequent tags should be a problem. Like I said, Balrog is different, but I think he is also one of the top 3 least utilized characters. Give him another try, he might surprise you.
I’d also like to second Vega as a character for consideration. That S.O.B can do practically anything if he has at least 2 bars.
Vega def. He has so many get out of jail free cards.
The most defensive players I’ve seen have generally been using Guile or Raven with Heihachi. Guile or Raven zone and defend the air to establish lifelead, then when the opponent gets reckless they punish into Hei. Hei can combo off of anything for about three days so not only do you do damage/preserve lead, you drain serious amounts of clock just by doing what Hei does. Then, when the game goes back to neutral, Hei can be pretty hard to open up plus he has a counter. And again, if they do anything unsafe and you get a punish, that’ll be another three day combo.
Julia’s fairly safe and can work well defensively though…
Agreed. After playing a few more Rogs recently including Ryan’s (my god)… he is seriously underused and underrated, and if I were a more selfish man I’d hope he’d remain that way for my damn sanity lol.
Guile/Hugo
Fucking… Shit… Why…
Get out of jail free cards? In what game? Maybe you mean Bison(Dictator)? Usually one hit confirm leads to a combo that carries to the corner and then suddenly Vega(claw) is no more.
I don’t know Vega that well, so I’ll bow to your character knowledge. All I know is I have a bastard of a time pinning him down and when I do he generally gets an EX jump away from my pressure. If I knew the matchup better I’m sure this wouldn’t be the case but without knowing Vega well I find it hard to keep him under pressure.
Also, Sh!n I’m not sure I agree with you about Hugo. He’s annoying in that he can lariat through pokes and punish jump ins with Shootdown if he has meter but other than that he’s very easy to keep under pressure and open up. In fact, due to his size some specific combos and cross up shenanigans are unique to him.
About two legit block strings and he loses his claw, he does really have any reliable reversals besides alpha counter. His ground game dominates, so long as he isn’t touched. He can’t take pressure.
I think for a good defensive team, it would include anyone that doesn’t flinch under pressure or characters with incredible runaway abilities. Frankly, runaway is far too strong in this game.