Ya’ll want it fu****g strait? SF4 was my first fighting game (used to play 3S Makoto in the past but not super competitively), and I played Abel from the start. As an O.G. Abel, go look up the best Abel vids there are–ones of Shiro, the only well-known (and commonly found Japanese placing Abel as far as most of us outside of Japan are concerned).
Recently, maybe a few months or so back, I believe he was knocked out of pools (POOLS!) by a albeit good Sagat, but one which played the match-up correctly–little to no specials were used, little to no TU’s were even made/canceled except when Shiro left open a big punish, as only pokes to TS blockstrings were going on. Now as I see it a win’s a win, but what you have to deal with when you chose a character you like should be balanced (responsibly by the developers), and what Abel had to deal with back then was rediculous.
I’m insulted by many players for using a supposed “top-tier”, when coming from vanilla, he was in the bottom to arguably top mid (no higher!) category, as he was a gamble character who fluctuates depending on risk & playstyle, not to mention fs being useless outside of ending a combo, pokes being slow, TT being a gamble (balanced yes, but still it is not a solid move such as scissor kick/hadou), almost useless wheel kick, since FS did more damage in combos, and you’d have to psycic it vs a good player, CoD not being useful outside of combos/punishes since slow startup, and negative on block, bad sweep, made matchups such as Zang 8-2, later on 6-4, but 7.5-3.5 IMO…
many things.
The trade to Ultra, Sagat’s FMK insult to injury T-Destruction, Bisons’ St.hk, st.mk, scissor kicks and many get-aways (teleport unpunishable escape outside of Soul-less), Blanka (though supposedly 6-4 Abel) was a bitch to deal with for almost every tourny Abel player I talked to. The Dhalsim matchup, Ken’s mix-ups, speed meter-building for SRK-cancel guesses outside of pressure, Gen’s EX Kick on wake-up giving Abel zero wake-up pressure. I know I’m wasting my breath (opt to not make a Breathless pun, but feel free :D) but I figuire I’d get to maybe hear some sentiments from a few intelligent Abel players who know how it was and is.
We got EX Falling Sky.
We got Breathless, better than counter ultras, but still, not combo-able–just a good Ultra.
Sweep? Doesn’t change much on his list of problems
We didn’t get acclaimed improved pokes such as St.Lp, or a faster start-up st.Hp. Cr.mk’s application outside of AA is useless due to it being 3 pixels longer than cr.mp, and dealed less damage, so he still has a small list of ground pokes, especially against Balrog matchup (what do you do when you’re in the corner? Cr.lk? What else? Pray… / 1/2 sarcasm).
/end rant
EDIT: DO feel free to nominate for an article! haha…ha…sigh…