Yeah anyone who can’t see that Fuerte needs help just hasn’t played SFIV competitively at all. Fuerte is pretty much all gimmicks with nothing solid. A weak Viper would be the best way I would describe him. At least Viper has a few ok normals that can cancel into big damage and what not. Fuerte pretty much has to cross you up as his only way of dealing big damage outside of baiting with his Ultra. Which doesn’t do much but fuel bullshit into Ultra for characters like Rog, Ryu and Sagat.
While I agree with most of what you say, I would like to point out a few more things (or put my spin around them)
Right now, Fuerte is one of the weakest in the game, but he has some basis of a potentially very solid character if a few tweaks were made to him. What he has right now is very good anti-air options, some good ultra setups and damage from it, and speed. Those three aspects form a good basis, and put him slightly above Vega and Guile (imo). BUT, those are not enough to make him competitive, what he lacks is consistency of dealing damage and making comebacks. He has a 4:6 matchup against a lot of characters, not because his tools are bad, but more because of his inability to match thier damage output. For example, I honestly think that his tools are good and in theory should put him in an even matchup against characters like Ryu and Sagat. But because Ryu and Sagat has a lot more chances to cause damage and make quick comebacks, Fuerte is in disadvantage.
Fuerte right now has disadvantage in a lot of matchups, but on the bright side, its never too unbalanced (not a single matchup stands out as being insanely difficult for Fuerte). He is right now hovering on the borderline of being competitive, that leads me to believe that all what Fuerte requires is a few but key tweaks that will make him go even with most of the cast, making him a very well balanced character. He is a risk/reward character so what he needs is some enhancement to the reward aspect to match with the risk. Some examples of those key changes imo are:
- Fajita Buster to cause more damage and stun.
- mk. guac to have longer range, this will help in catching jump aways and more importantly give him a better option of escaping pressure.
- Enhanced normals
- Qbomb is a fantastic move but its current input hinders a lot of its potential, it needs to be changed from the current button charge.
- Gordita Sorbat to be replaced by something more useful.
- remove the negative edge issue that prevents him from stopping his run at the edge of the screen.
There might be other tweaks that I want, but the ones that I listed should defenitely help making Fuerte a lot more competitive.
I’m fairly sure that Fuerte was never very good. I remember pretty vividly when he was unveiled I was really stoked to play him, and then stories from loc test came back about how he wasn’t very good and I was pretty bummed.
Ultra 2 = fast 360 + PPP command grab
so we got an ultimo dragon like 3rd oufit for our favorite kuchadore and his second ultra…do you guys think its a run then grab ultra or just a standing grab ultra?
second ultra will tons of playtime from me…
Yeah, I’m curious about it too. I wonder if we can combo into it from a run+mk. That’d be interesting, maybe a less damaging ultra but one that can be landed on something other than an opponent’s mistake.
I’m pretty sure it’s an homage to kinnikuman’s Muscle Spark, with the masked wrestler and all.
Seems like a fitting move, but I wonder if there’s the chest bumping part.
Can’t wait to try it out. =D
I just Youtubed that because I cant make out what it going on in that last picture. But I think you are right it looks very similar (and fucking awesome). I hope they include the upside down slam part as the final blow, because looking at the screens, it doesnt look like this new ultra does much damage.
From the famitsu article, his new ultra is a close range grab.
To be precise, it says “An ultra which allows you to grab close range opponents. Grabbing the opponent’s neck between the legs and spinning quickly, throwing them into the air to land the finish hold.”
So basically, Propeller Tortilla into the air and some kind of slam.
“Finish Hold” is how Japanese refer to any finishing move in wrestling.
Can’t quite make out what he’s doing in the picture, but it does not look like Kinnikuman’s Muscle Spark(Incomplete or complete, it looks quite different as the incomplete version has Kinnikuman’s leg around his opponent’s neck, and the complete version has Kinnikuman upside down on top of the opponent)
so now we have to suggest either Ultra ! or Ultra !! for match-ups
I wonder how they will play into effect for strategy’s
I like Giga Buster a lot, but the problem is that its mostly a defensive ultra used only after successful baits (and good players don’t fall easily). I really hope the Ultra Spark is going to be more of an offensive option for Fuerte where he can apply a bit more pressure with it.
to try and kill waiting time:
out of the new characters which one’s do you see in particular would be the toughest match-up?
im seeing Hawk and maybe Juri
Cody and Adon you can apply pressure and use baits
Guy and Dee Jay do not carry that much weight on them
i would say its juri out of the new cast. her different fireballs and speed seems difficult to overcome at first.
but we will learn that matchup aswell as the other new characters and destroy them as usual 
WHAT?! WHERE? ON VIDEO? orgasm
http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/5517/newultra.jpg
Leg around neck. Although I do hope that’s not the end of the ultra and fuerte slams the opponent down like the complete version of muscle spark.
The new ultra looks really awesome, but I have no idea how it will be applied. Any guesses?? It seems like a grab from the bottom or something…
gief is going to be a lot harder now with his new ultra, I hope the fuerte ultra spark is a good counter for it to even things out. Giga buster against a gief with new ultra will be sort of impossible now.
About the new matchups, hawk might be trouble, unless his wakeup options are really bad. Juri might need some getting used to, but I think she won’t be too much of a threat once figured out. The others are hard to judge, they look like normal matchups, but I have a feeling that Cody might be a pain because of him throwing dust on you on wakeup to escape the mixup pressure.
El’s new Ultra looks to be the Ultra of choice against characters who have an easy way of changing their air trajectories to avoid his vanilla ultra eg. C.Viper.
From current info so far, the new ultra looks to be a short range grab. If the start-up is 3 frames or less we’re looking at a new punisher for backdash against safe tortilla!
I wouldn’t worry about gief. His new ultra is air activated, just keep him pinned down with presses and tortillas and he wont get a chance to use it. He’ll land it against fuerte as often as he currently lands his headbutt…so not often
I also read on NeoGaf, a playtester for capcom is saying fuertes ultra is really good in that it’s very fast (1 frame grab fingers crossed) and has great range.