I know Capcom has tried to push a mostly aggressive style of gameplay here. But not everyone really likes to play rushdown. I am personally a turtle, keep away style player. I haven’t found a character who really seems viable in this mode. I know Dhalsim probably will be a good keep away character. But it appears that some of the more prolific names tend to play him more offensively, even Arturo who is usually a lame player. I have always pretty much played Guile in all Street Fighter games, and Nash seemed like an obvious choice. But his zoning isn’t as good as Guiles, and he doesn’t have great anti-airs to keep people off of him. Most Nash players also seem to want to play him rushdown style. So my question is whether or not keep away is actually a viable style here. I know keep away really wasn’t that strong in SFIV either due to dive kicks, and punishes really not being all that damaging. I would even settle for a 3s style Chun who can turtle it up and counter poke and whiff punish all day.
I think everyone needs to go in at some point. But dhalsim and fang can generally play keep away depending on the match up. Vega can sort of play a ranged footsies “zoning” game too.
FANG is an obvious choice but overall I think yeah you absolutely can be more of a defensive/reactive player.
I think in all the excitement over how different the game is from 4, people are exaggerating ‘rushdown’. Because it’s different than the style of aggression in 4. So there’s a bit of a focus on that quality right now but nothing about the game makes keep away and reactive playstyles specifically worse. It’s just not what people are excited about right now.
You mention Nash and Guile. Guile is coming so we will have to see how he plays. Nash is kind of like Remy imo. He’s stronger when he’s using his space control to advance on someone rather than keep them out.
You can play Chun pretty similarly to 3S if you want. Really 3rd Strike Chun wasn’t THAT defensive. She had a kara throw with the range of other characters’ pokes and retarded buttons in a game where you could also parry and make those retarded buttons ignore other buttons if you had the right read. That can lead as much to offense or defense depending on how you wanna play it.
Fang is probably your best shot so far at playing that lame “buy time from a distance” type of gameplay. Yet, he also has tools to get aggressive.
The problem like you bring up in SFIV is that even though you could play some OG style lame characters, they would end up losing matchups to other characters that are stronger in the meta any ways. Think Capcom just said to help everyone out as they’re trying to cater to a wider audience and just make it so every character is capable more of offense and less so on fireball keepaway.
Still think Fang would be your best shot at a character where you buy a lot of time can keep your opponents at a range to win. Rather than feeling having to go in is always most important to win the match.
Oh btw I realize you’re the old SFIV Guile player that used to post here regularly LOL. Guile is coming soon so wait to see what they do with him also. Maybe he’ll have a command grab and a command dash LOL.
No if the opponent it is Necalli. Its V Skill makes attempts to zone fail in the most ridiculous way since it punishes fireballs from full screen.
Dhalsim
I’ve definitely had games as ryu where I’ve had stretches of the match that line up with throw fireball, dp people jumping in, etc. It feels like more a phase than an actual full gameplan for him tho!
Just like Viper, it doesn’t actually go full screen and unlike Viper if you block it you can’t cancel it and make it safe. He’s slightly negative on block, it has 25 frame start up and lots of recovery on whiff.
Or you could deal with MVC3 Viper who can cancel her seismos on whiff. That’s cool.
For some odd reason I seem to be shelling it up ok with Ken. I guess because Ken has such a good AA game, his fireball isn’t the best but it’s decent at a distance, and his foot speed makes him a tough moving target. And Ken is a really good punish it turns out, he does a consistent 200 dmg meterless. I only wish I was stronger in hit confirming since that seems to be a big strength for Ken. Turtle Ken may not be viable, but at least I can keep people from jumping in on me all day.
Keepaway is less viable in most new school games. Runaway though is alive and well. People get the 2 mixed up alot but holding your ground as a wall doesn’t work very much anymore because get in tactics are super RPS.
But with the huge stages in newschool games that makes it so that simply running away is highly effective now. And there are a few characters that have very effective runaway because they have effective means of getting out of the corner they put themselves in:
Nash v trigger crosses up and so he can run himself into the corner (slowly) then v trigger out and do it again. Watch infiltration sometime, Nash has AA for days, you just have to set the AAs up is all. Set them up by backdashing into ranges wher your AA’s are effective.
Dhalsim can port himself out the corner anytime and so his runaway game is super on point.
Other characters that can runaway well generally have to have some offense going on… Like Bison. His runaway is good cause he can runaway to outside footsies range and then just do specials to get in, and then runaway some more.
But generally keepaway, not runaway, is mostly gone. There aren’t many strategies that cover the ground and air simultaneously well enough anymore for keepaway to work. Sf4 guile was one of the last exceptions to the rul and even he had major problems doing it cause of all the invincible/slide under/armor moves in the game.
I’m still learning to play with F.A.N.G so I forget that is a zoning type of character. I’m so used to playing with rush downs.
Men’s normals are much better for landing counter hits. Ken gets a lot of mileage on a single counter hit. Most of the better Ken players I’ve seen weave in and out of an opponents range to create those opportunities.
Trying to catch runaway Rashid and Nash as R. Mika is like trying to catch a slippery fish with your bare hands. At least it is at my current skill level.