IMHO, Akuma is the best character in the game. Hands down, he has the best possible toolset. Yes, even better than Sagat.
He has the best offensive toolset, AND the best defensive one as well. His low health does not matter when he can do the things he can do. Also, his damage output is HUGE if you can hit his more extravagant combos.
I guarantee you if they buff him, the Japanese SBO results (assuming SSF4 is even part of tougecki) will look like this:
Akuma
Akuma
Akuma
Akuma
Akuma
Sagat
Sagat
Ryu
Sagat
How in the hell is Akuma the best in the game? He takes more damage than anyone else, and most of his stuff deals fairly low damage and he has an ultra that’s hard to pull off save if you have a stupid opponent using focus attacks or jumping a whole lot.
What, air fireballs? Walk under and sweep. Oh, you hit me with three? I just comboed into a fucking SRK and evened it up.
Uh, it’s the same in this game. I’m saying when you jump over a fireball at a smart Ryu, and you get SRK’d, you’re getting punished. If they fuck up, they’re not going to be able to SRK. They won’t have time.
What you’re asking is that a DP not trade and go into Ultra. Well that means making the ark of someone getting DP’s drastically lowered. Which in turn means that FADC Ultra is gone-- or harder to pull off and you get something like Ken’s ultra(which should be comboable in the next game.)
A lot of this shit you guys are stating is avoidable. When you get hit by some of this shit, it’s because you’re not playing smart, not because Ryu has overpowered shit.
If you get hit by a Trade DP, you were going to get DP’d anyway, the difference is you hit them a little bit. The way the game code works, you’re still in a juggle state like the DP always puts you in.
And if we’re talking about stupid shit in street fighter games, how about random stuns, and T HAWK throw loops.
When I talk about Buffing Akuma, I’m talking about shit like making his ultra easier to use. I’m talking slight buffs. I’m not talking-- “Raise his Damage on everything to Ryu proportions” because that’s ridiculous.
His Red Fireball is REALLY easy to avoid unless you use it to juggle, and a lot of the stuff you get from him is mindgames.
Alright, so maybe I’m wrong on this Akuma thing, but I still stand by the idea that if you nerf Ryu, you’re doing something really stupid, because the characters ENTIRE purpose has been: “I have even match ups with everyone, I’m the most balanced member of the cast.” Which he is. He’s not overpowered, he’s not underpowered, he’s just even.
On top of this his demon flip and jump Tatsu mixups are so good if he gets you in a setup it’s almost free damage for him. He can also do very damaging (and demoralizing) HK loop combos to larger characters such as Sagat. These combos end in a sweep untechable knockdown that opens up his vortex.
The only one I would understand is trade dp ultra, but even if they keep that…it doesn’t matter to me, cause only CRAZY people jump at ryu when he has ultra or meter.
Since the beginning, my stance has been: Ryu and Boxer represent perfectly balanced characters with answers and tools for every situation. Capcom should strive to keep these two characters as the bar that they try to raise the other characters to.
To me, ideal balance is for every character to have mostly 5-5 matches, a few 4-6, a few 6-4, and no 3-7 or 7-3 matches.
Making Akuma’s Ultra easier to use is a HUGE fucking buff. That shit takes off 70-80% on some characters fully charged. It’s a great tool to scare people into playing safe. Akuma has ultra? Well, shit better not horizontal ball roll anymore ever if I’m blanka.
Changes for ryu: Jab SRK into ultra for no meter. Its kind of a stupid thing. I’d take it out. With so many characters that don’t have any ways into their ultras, and ryu already having so many ways to combo into his, this one’s just excessive, and he doesn’t need it to win.
Hmmm… What else? Allow him to link low roundhouse after his overhead again, like in ST. So he loses anti-air Jab SRK -> Ultra and gains Fw.MP -> Sweep. Seems fair to me.
Like i said in the Akuma thread. KKZ. It could exist as a good punish (but not as good as demon for punishing things he normally can’t, nor does it do that much damage.)
So you could do bnb -> Fadc from jab srk -> KKZ. But it only partially connects and does less stun but 1 or 2 fierce punches more damage than a fierce shakitas fadc when it’s fully charged (think Fei Long’s FADC ultra damage.)
So you tradeoff making your opponent scared of doing certain moves, for being able to do a little bit more damage on his combos when he has meter
Frankly, I think many of the good characters in this game need to get toned down before the bad charcters get brought up. Think for a moment if everyone was brought up to the “balanced” ryu level guys. The game dissolves into a situation where you force any sort of tick throw setup and have a completely safe 50/50 option to throw out a super invincible FADC’d attack into big damage. I’d much rather see ryu’s FADC’d blocked shoryu be put at about -3 or -4 or give the shoryu less horizontal range so backdashes are a more viable option to get out of pressure. Hell I’d love to see a return to the 3rd strike mindset of needing to EX many moves to make them viable reversals. That would fix many problems with many characters.
So ya, I do say he needs to get nerfed.
An extra frame startup on 90% of his normals.
Fix EX tatsu bug.
Change the hitbox on c.mk to where it can’t duck fireballs, or cause certain attacks to whiff, like certain jump-ins or guile’s f.mk.
Change something about SRKs. Slower startup, less priority or the need to spend meter on EX shoryu to make it useful. In the EX shoryu vein, make normals shoryus have a single frame of vulnerability on the lower part of the body, allowing normal shoryus to still be effective anti-airs but not broken offensive/defensive pressure. Changing reversal timing or absolute guard would also fix certain issues with his design. Give it about 2 frames less block stun making a blocked shoryu xx FADC forward moderately unsafe. Note that almost any single one of those would be sufficient, by no means should ALL of those suggestions be implemented.
Ever so slightly slower walking speed.
Leave the super cancellable from a fireball, but make it so you can’t throw a super out after a normal fireballs recovery. Being able to punish someone for jumping a fireball at max screen is pretty rediculous, albeit neat.
Nerf him for sure as far as all of his moves cancelling out anything you try to hit him with. He is a boring character in my opinion. Hell take him out of the game for all i care, honestly. Nerf his sweep too, its rediculous how much that connects even when you are blocking it.
So you’re suggesting that you either speed up his sweep EVEN MORE, or you make his f+mp +5 on hit… Hmm… I’m no Ryu player, but if I had +5 after my overhead, I would probably go with Shoryu FADC over sweep…
Probably not a good deal here…
Uh… Hmmm… Why Shoryuken FADC if it’s still unsafe? I guess you could always just backdash if you knew you were just fishing with it…
Do you even realize what your last sentence says? It can’t possibly connect if you were blocking it… I mean… Really? What game are you playing? Like Para said, just sit back and let the big people talk.
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