Ryu should be in tier 1, he did force oro to use both of his hands. While ken, urien and gen should be in tier 2.
by the way why does everyone think Ken slacks off? He trains his ass off!!Yes he has a wife and a kid but it’s not like the guy works. He trains almost as hard as Ryu. in my opinion he should probably be the higest person or tied for the highest person in tier 3.
Ryu trains 24/7 365 days a year.
Ken trains maybe 16/7 300 days a year.
Ryu has a slight edge, enough to notable but not as decisive as they have on Alex.
Adon did defeat Sagat, techincally, however Sagat left him in the hospital following their match. So yes Adon has a win against Sagat but it’s one with a large asterisk(*).
Ever had a hobby or a lifestyle that made a significant part of your life? Then marry and have a kid? Even if it was Ken made a living out of fighting (which I doubt, I’m prety sure he has a day job) he’d still have to tear away a lot of time from that to pay attention to his family. I mean, look at Guile’s. His preoccupation with revenge has made him neglect his family. In Ken’s case, it appears that he makes time for his wife and kid, plus train Sean (no, this doesn’t count as working as hard as Ryu, not even close). At best I picture him still fighting/training but not nearly with the same devotion he had prior to getting married, and definitely less after his son was born.
I understand waht everyone is saying but i still disagree. Ken is rich he has no day jod…well outisde of being the United State Martial arts champion. Just like boxers have families and still are great at their jobs i think it’s the same for Ken. I think he has all the same devotion. Like they said in the Sf comic ( and yes i know it’s not canon but the characters are dead on) He’s a fighter thats what he is.
Really good point about Ken, guess I never thought of it all like that. Who all has he actually fought storyline wise?
He’s still not a god character.
Yeah maybe hes not a god character, but I still think Urien, Ken and Gen should be ranked higher. But lets here your opinion on this Dasrik.
Let’s not talk about Ken’s potential, and how good he could have been if he didn’t have a family. Because Ryu’s potential > all.
And as someone pointed out about Charlie being more powerful than Guile because Charlie can do Sonic Booms one-handed etc, Guile does his Somersault with one leg, as opposed to Charlie, who uses both. I agree Charlie is more powerful, just saying.
Anyway, like in the games, you’d have to take counter-characters into accuount. Just because two people are in the same group, doesn’t mean they’d split 10 matches against each-other 5-5, and just because someone is in a lower group, doesn’t mean they couldn’t beat someone who is considered to be more powerful (Ken vs Ryu, Adon vs Sagat, where both fighters know each other well, etc). Someone said, probably TAS, that Hugo was more powerful than Zangief…but I wouldn’t be surprised to see 'Gief go 5-5 or close in either direction, just due to experience.
^^^I thought Oro beat Ryu easily, and he didnt have to unseal his other arm?
I think Urien and a healthy Gen could be second tier, but I dont think Ken should be that high, maybe third tier.
I agree on the Urien arguements that he should be higher (isn’t he only slightly weaker than Gill) also:
-Shouldn’t Yun be in the same tier as Dudley since they both had to have enough strength to impres Gill?
-Shouldn’t Dee Jay be slightly higher? Though stuff has been retconned, I thought that the big deal with the SF2 fighters was that they were known as the world’s finest? Dee Jay (at least in canon) doesn’t have a revenge motive against M.Bison. Also, wouldn’t he be higher than Dan simply because his Air Slasher is (presumably) self taught?
Oro used both of his arms I’m sure of that, but replay 2nd impact with oro to find out.
I don’t think 2i Oro’s ending is canon. He was impressed with Ryu, but still beat him soundly.
in 3S, Oro said that Ryu would need 15 years of training under him before Oro would even consider unsealing his arm.
Doesn’t Charlie use both legs in his flashkick because he does TWO flash kicks in one go? At least, that’s what I recall from the animation, although I haven’t looked at it in a while.
It should indeed be noted that just because one is in a higher tier doesn’t mean they always win (unless you’re matching up Akuma against Dan or something, although I fail to see why Akuma would bother fighting at full power against Dan :P). Ken actually wins quite often against Ryu. Ryu just has the (as quoted by him) “Better win record” in their matches against each other.
Although in SF3, Ryu’s been officially stated to be feeling lonely when he sees that he’s starting to surpass Ken a lot. Ken after marrying Eliza probably didn’t get the opportunity to train that much (another official statement is that Eliza barred him from participating in any tourneys that didn’t have Ryu in them).
And I imagine that Ken DOES have a job. Being the head of the Masters Foundation means he probably has to do lots of management on the side (his dad sent him to be trained under Gouken so he could be disciplined, so logic would have it that being head of the Masters Foundation isn’t an easy task). But… that’s kinda conjecture based on logic, admittingly.
Clearly, the most powerful character is Vin Diesel.
Oro is such a monster 
This comes from Tiamat’s SF plotguide:
Tier 1
Akuma, Gill, Oro - the strongest three out of the SFer’s. They outclass
everyone. These guys are in the godly range. Oh, and SFA3 M. Bison
probably goes here, too.
Tier 2
M. Bison, Sagat, Ryu, Satsui no Ryu (Evil Ryu), Q(hinted) - the next bunch
Tier 3
Ken, Gen, Rose, Charlie, Urien
Tier 4
Guile, Chun-Li, Hugo, Vega, Twelve (hinted)
Tier 5
Adon, Guy, Sakura, Cody, Balrog, Cammy, Zangief, Dhalsim, T Hawk, Alex
Tier 6
Everyone else but Tier 7 (things get really sloppy here, due to how most
characters below tier 5 do not have enough storyline info to tier on
noncircumstantial evidence). A pretty good guess, I think, would be this
(consider the rest of the characters in this tier and below to just be
hinted)
Tier 6
The Twelve Dolls, Rolento, Sodom, Karin, Birdie, Necro, Dudley
Tier 7
Blanka, Fei Long, Honda
Tier 8
Makoto, Ibuki, Elena, Yun, Yang
Tier 9
Dee Jay, R. Mika, Dan
Tier 10
Sean
Tier 1: This tier should be obvious. Gill, especially, with his fire and
ice creation, angel powers, and his last boss towering status. Akuma
should be, too. By SF3, the guy can destroy mountains, islands, and stay
in deep ocean for crying out loud. And Oro beat Ryu in the SF3 tournament,
and that was despite being handicapped by binding his arm. The guy’s
become powerful enough to live to 150 years or so… I won’t go into a
deeper analysis due to how obvious this tier is. Who specifically is the
best among Gill, Oro, and Akuma is up in the air, but eh, tiers aren’t
supposed to be THAT specific. Bison during SFA3 probably went into this
range, also. Being able to take on Ken and Sakura at the same time (only
forced to retreat due to Ryu coming to), then Rose, then all 13 Dolls, then
Guile, Chun-Li, and Charlie has got to say something.
Tier 2
M. Bison: Akuma can beat him in SF2. Whether Akuma could have beaten him
during SFA3 where he was stronger (and Akuma was most likely weaker), not
sure, but in his last state, he generally goes here from all KNOWN factual
evidence (unknown stuff like how he lost the SF2 tournament or even if he
DID since we don’t know when Akuma killed him aren’t being considered here
since… well, it’s unknown). He’s definately high up, though. His
weakened body wasn’t weakened to the point where he’d really really plummet
in the tiers, and during Alpha 3 it took a rather ludicrous amount of
consecutive battles against multiple opponents to finally take him down.
Ryu: Seen by Oro as the one with the potential to be trained, generally
considered a legend (see Makoto’s statements about him), whomped Alex
easily in Third Strike, only lost the SF3 tournament because he went up
against the godly Oro and even then impressed the old guy, etc etc. This
one should be pretty obvious.
Evil Ryu: A major point of Ryu’s SFA3 storyline is that he could follow
the path to warrior perfection without giving in to the Satsu no Hadou.
Even though Evil Ryu was really high up back then, the reason regular Ryu
is on the same tier is due to Ryu’s revelations since then. He has now
managed to reach what he could have been had he given in. Generally shown
by Ryu promptly telling Akuma that Satsu no Hadou is not the way in SF3.
Er… yea. It’s mostly implied as far as I know, but the implications are
more than enough to place the two into this tier with enough certainty.
Sagat: Although he was too obsessed with revenge and unfocused during
Alpha, by the end of Alpha 3, he has realized the error of his ways and is
now on the path to the true warrior. All statements and storyline
implications from there on are that Sagat is matching Ryu step for step in
progress as they await their glorious battle, so it’s really easy to tier
Sagat here. Note that this is Sagat in his most present state, not most
present state since when he was last seen in a game, since unlike other
characters, it’s easy to estimate where Sagat is even without seeing him
due to all the statements and implications.
Q: Q is marked as ‘hinted’ because there’s no way to really gauge his
tier, what with him having no interactions with anyone else in the
storyline. But he’s robotic and can somehow zip around the world, and
those are typically always powerful, and the effects of his moves sure look
darn powerful. So as a guestimate, he gets to be in this tier. Though
again, it’s mostly a guess.
Tier 3
Rose: She’s M. Bison lite. She’s the only character in Alpha that was
actually able to give Bison a somewhat decent match one-on-one. But… she
still lost, so she’s a tier lower. Rose could put up a fight against Alpha
Bison (well, actually, she WON in Alpha 2. Only ‘lost’ in Alpha 3) while
Chun-Li got owned for free in Alpha 2, and since there really isn’t much to
indicate that Chun-Li improved THAT much since Alpha, Rose gets to be a
tier higher. Chun-Li only started being called the strongest woman in the
world since SF2, after Rose was gone.
Ken: Ryu states to Ken in SF3 that he still has the better win record.
But the way he says it indicates that it’s still pretty close. Thus Ken
gets this tier. Pretty obvious, I think.
Gen: I think it’s hard to decide whether he’s in tier 2 or tier 3, but
he’s definately up there. Gen was able to fight Akuma to a standstill in
Alpha, after all. He’s definately not as good as the further trained Akuma
of SF3, though (Gen of course being most likely unable to further train
because he’s most likely dead). I’d be really surprised if he (and thus
even Akuma during that time) was as strong as “I take on tons of people by
myself” SFA3 Bison, so… generally tier 3 for him. On a random note, Gen
uses ki in his attacks with lots of skill. It’s just not as obvious as
Akuma (not all ki usage manifests as fireballs or something visual).
Charlie: Charlie is the US Martial Arts champion. Took down Bison in
SFA3, albeit with a little help. What mainly puts him here with certainty
instead of circumstantiality though I believe is how he’s better than Guile
(even SF2 Guile). Charlie’s ki manipulation is implied to be right up
there with Ryu and other top-notch fighters. He can shoot sonic booms from
any of his limbs, even his feet (something that Guile needs LOTS of
concentration to do. It takes Guile two hands and officially stated all
his focus just to throw one sonic boom). Since Guile, at least based on
what we can think of, comes into the tier below, and Charlie is definately
above Guile, even without the circumstantial evidence, we can generally
place Charlie in this tier.
Urien: Like Gen, I’m personally not sure if he should be in Tier 2 or Tier
3, but he’s up there. He’s better than Chun-Li (he’s only toying with her
in SF3 Third Strike after all) and definately lower than Gill (Gill doesn’t
even have to take him seriously and his power compared to Urien’s is one of
the many things Urien is jealous of, of course). Anyways, Urien’s
abilities include earth and lightning manipulation and an iron body (as
part of his earth manipulation). He’s blinded by jealousy, though.
Tier 4
Guile: Most likely winner of the SF2 tournament. If you decide to ignore
that, then there’s also the way in how he’s storyline-wise more interwoven
and more ‘important’ than most of the other SF2 characters, and they
typically get favored in the storyline power tiers. And I believe he’s
meant to be the same power as Chun-Li, but I forget^^; Whatever the case,
he’s been training really hard since SFA3, though Charlie in SFA3 was still
most likely better than him (see Charlie in Tier 3 for reasons). He isn’t
progressing any more because he gave up fighting after SF2 to be a family
man.
Chun-Li: Weaker than Rose but after Rose died then come SF2, is called the
strongest woman in the world, thus gets to be above the other female
characters in the next tier. That was easy. …er, going further, Chun-Li
isn’t any higher because she quit the ICPO and generally retired from
fighting and training after SF2 (course, after SF3, she trains OTHERS, but
that’s another story). Anyways, Capcom has stated that she’s the strongest
woman in the world during SF2, so it’s not just the opinion of the SF
tournament audience (or whatever) that she is.
Hugo: Actually rather surprising he’s up here, but all the facts point to
it. Hugo is officially stated to have withstood the shin shoryuken against
Ryu, which is officially stated to be one of the most powerful moves in the
world, so right there you know he’s a really strong guy. He is also
officially stated to have made ‘an amazing performance’ in the SF3
tournament, which probably means he’s generally above the majority of the
SF3 characters (he lost the tournament due to going up against Ryu, of
course. Oh, and to those who think Hugo is all stamina and nothing else, I
highly doubt he would have been stated to have made an amazing performance
if he didn’t at least put up a somewhat decent fight against Ryu. So no,
he’s not just a big punching bag with lots of endurance). As for who is
better, Hugo or Alex, well, Hugo withstanding the shin shoryuken means that
he probably put up a better fight against Ryu than Alex did. He withstood
an attack that officially could kill someone (Yea, Ryu’s style isn’t
designed to kill, but that doesn’t mean it can’t kill due to the sheer
damage alone) compared to Alex, who Ryu didn’t even break a sweat fighting
against. That would probably earn him a tier spot higher. Ryu still beat
him somewhat soundly, though, so he’s definately not up in Ken’s tier.
Note, though, that many of these tiers are at best, educated guesses and
estimates. Maybe Alex made a huge comeback after Ryu was beating him (the
fight wasn’t completely finished in Alex’s TS ending) but from all
available evidence, this is the best that can be estimated.
Vega: Cammy’s love-hate rival is generally better than her, and almost
positively let her win in their fight in SFA3. Therefore, Vega’s a tier
higher than Cammy. Easy. He’s also a better fighter within Shadaloo than
Balrog, I believe (not sure if it was officially stated. I think it was,
but I forget). He doesn’t go any higher because that would place him on
Gen’s level, which seems pretty darn silly. Capcom doesn’t go around
praising his ability like they do for Charlie. Course… a harder more
definitive proof might just be simply that Rose beats him in A3.
Twelve: Again, there’s lack of storyline interaction. But Twelve
officially feels no pain, and he can morph into other characters, so he’s
probably up there somewhere. He’s at least tier 5, because all lab reports
from Gill’s organization indicate that he should be superior to Necro in
every way (not that that means it’s fact, but it’s the best thing to go by
so far. Course, you never know how far ‘spirit’ could go, I suppose).
Tier 5. Everyone else who managed to cut it.
Guy and Cody: Hard to tier, IMHO. They can beat Sodom and Rolento,
obviously. They can also beat a whole bunch of the Mad Gear gang, but it’s
important to remember that they did not fight through Final Fight alone and
also that it’s wholly possible and likely that the SF universe follows the
laws of anime (IE, any generic bad guy is really weak and easy to beat up
by most any semi-important character), thus the fact that they can take out
most of the Mad Gear scrubs isn’t a very good gauge, either. Guy, even
though he is a Bushin master, is still equal to Cody even during SFA3,
though, so we at least know they are on the same tier. But storyline-wise,
neither has ever really gone up against any of the really high tier Street
Fighter characters, so this is the best guess we can get to place them
unless more comparative info ever comes in. Actually, though, after
getting Juni’s official power ratings that she scans in SFA3, I’m thinking
that Sodom, Rolento, Guy, and Cody are probably a lot higher than this.
Probably around Charlie’s level during SFA3, actually.
Adon: Strong enough to beat Sagat in SFA2. Sagat may have been unfocused,
but he was still powerful. There aren’t many other matches to use to tier
him with hard core certainty, but beating SFA2 Sagat and being the new Muy
Thai Emperor should be enough to give him this tier.
Sakura: She’s better than Karin. It’s officially stated that her chi
manipulation is equal to Ken’s during SFA3. The girl’s ridiculously gifted
and able to learn Ryu’s moves just by watching him. If Sakura continued
training on and on after SFA3, she could really be something.
Unfortunately, since SFA3 was so incredibly long ago, and Sakura’s future
still highly up in the air (highschool is really a bit too early in life to
get that hard a bead on one’s future, I think), the tier can really only go
by her last seen position (unlike Sagat, where it’s shown that he’s still
in the game after SF2 and his determination to stay on level with Ryu is
further emphasized). Anyways, Chun-Li is the strongest woman in the world
so Sakura is below her, regardless. Oh, and judging from SFA3, she can
beat Honda, so she gets to be higher than him.
Balrog: Can kill an elephant with his bare hands. Generally among the top
fighters in Shadaloo (not sure if it was officially stated, though I think
it was… it’s implied, at least) and thus higher than the Dolls. Oh, and
judging by SFA3, he beat Birdie. Probably weaker than Vega, so here he
goes. Even if he’s an idiot, he’s still armed with ‘the world’s strongest
punches’…
Cammy: She’s better than the other Dolls but weaker than Vega. …wow,
that was easy.
Zangief: A bit hard to tier, but being implied to be Russia’s greatest
warrior should account for something. He’s better than R. Mika (it seems
he goes easy on her in SFA3 and all), and R. Mika is most likely better
than Dan, so Zangief gets to go here. On a random note, I have no clue
where Haggar (or any other Final Fight exclusive character, really) fits
in, here. Even Cody and Guy, who weren’t exclusive to only Final Fight,
are hard to tier. Can’t even decide whether or not Haggar is on Zangief’s
level because the two never even met in person, after all, so there’s no
interaction to use to compare.
T. Hawk: He can beat (and most likely actually has beaten) the Doll
Noembelu. …another easy one.
Dhalsim: Loses to Ryu (at least, implied by one of Ryu’s SF3 win quotes).
A bit hard to tier, but he’s been going around doing lots of good things
for the world and has that fire power granted by the gods and such. There
might be more that I should poke Saiki for, but overall, this is a pretty
good guess, I think. He retired from fighting after SF2, by the way.
Alex: Alex is better than all the other SF3 characters (besides heavy
hitters like Ryu and Oro, who he never had to fight) as can be seen by him
winning the SF3 tournament. However, he’s still not really that high up
since Ryu beat him VERY easily in Third Strike. Thus he only gets to be a
tier higher than where the other SF3 characters go. He’s below Hugo even
though they never fought because Hugo actually put up a fight against Ryu.
Tier 6: The extras
Basically everyone else but Dan and generic Shadaloo soldiers (who are
officially stated to be skilled but weaker than the Dolls) go here. Hard
to tier among them exactly mainly due to lack of existance of factual
comparative data for a large majority of them. At any rate, though,
they’re definately weaker than everyone else above them. Karin loses to
Sakura, the Dolls lose to Rose, Cammy, and T. Hawk, E. Honda loses to
Sakura, every SF3 character not above this tier loses to Alex or Hugo,
etc. Moving along, good reasons for guestimates from here on IMHO are…
Tier 6: All the characters listed have been stated to beat other skilled
people, even if none of them were actually non-nameless goons. Or…
something to that effect. The twelve Dolls are each stronger than each of
the other 2000 skilled martial artists in Shadaloo (They aren’t called
elite for nothing), Rolento and Sodom rise above all generic Mad Gear
members to be bosses, Karin loses to Sakura but still puts up a good fight
so she’s probably only a tier lower, Birdie fought hard enough to impress
Bison in order to join Shadaloo (and thus is also probably above the other
2000 skilled martial artists. Eh, he got to be playable and get a name
while they didn’t :P)… Necro is implied due to all his genetically
enhanced abilities that probably give him an edge, and Dudley beat lots of
guys in his boxing career to earn money to buy his dads’ things back.
Tier 7: ‘Grown-up’ nobodies. Not much else to say. Well, E. Honda rose
to become a good sumo wrestler at least, but not sure if that says enough
for him. He beat Sodom in SFA2, but that’s because Sodom was fighting as a
sumo wrestler and thus not using his primary fighting style, so…
Tier 8: ‘Teeny-bopper’ nobodies. Poor Yun, Yang, Makoto, and Elena just
don’t have enough official statements implying their good abilities to go
higher. Er… no offense to these characters with the ‘nobody’ remarks, of
course.
Tier 9: Characters that Capcom of Japan just doesn’t seem to like 
Well,
okay, Dan’s probably weak on purpose.
Tier 10: Judging by where Capcom seems to be going with Sean, it seems
like he really IS weaker than Dan at this point. It’s like a joke in
itself, almost. Almost like when Sean says “Hey, I’m not Dan!”, he’s
right. He’s not Dan. He’s worse! Even Dan doesn’t get his ass kicked
THAT often in the official storyline. Sure, it was to Ryu and Ken, but the
only time Dan got his ass whupped as an ending joke was to cyber Akuma in a
VS game. Sean gets portrayed as getting kicked around a lot more than Dan,
even, so…
It’s canon, check out Udons SF:Eternal Challenge book everything is there.
Is that book official? I thought Udon was just the guys who made the comic, and had no bearing on official SF canon.
Someone OTHER than 1806pimp answer, please.