Ryu Q&A: Ask simple questions here!

There are lost of things you can do,sweep sets up a very easy safe jump so if you are fighting someone with a 4 or more frame startup reversal you can do a safejump option select.You can do empty jump throw,delay tech,SRK,EX tatsu.If your safejump attck gets blocked you can frame trap or tick throw ect.

What is the safe jump for 4 frame reversals off the sweep? I haven’t messed around with that yet.

When you sweep just hold up forward,perfect timing on every char except sagat and cammy,maybe blanka because they wake up 1 frame(2 in blankas case) later,and the setup is frame perfect.

Alright, thank you. Does this work on Adon as well due to his fast wakeup?

Adon wake up has been ajusted , its the same as other characters, so safe jump work on him too.

Excellent, thanks a lot people. So I’ve been learning to be more conservative with my meter management, what matchups are there that are going to require regular meter expenditure.

There ones that come to mind are Guile, Sagat, and Cody for different reasons. What are other peoples thoughts?

You don’t need much meter against any of those matchups. In the guile matchup, you’d be typically conserving your meter except for some occasional ex fireballs. The moment you get guile to the corner, and knock him down is when you will be dealing the damage. For example, I would push Guile to the corner, and play footsies with him while eating chip damage from his booms. When I manage to hit confirm a cmk, I will immediately cancel into fireball and then FADC into sweep for a knockdown. From there, I’d go for a jumping roundhouse, and move a slight bit forward immediately after for either a grab or for some frametraps. A grab will reset the situation and allow me to safejump again. A frame trap with CMP will land some decent damage and I can go back to playing footsies right after.

For sagat, it’s essentially the same as guile except you’ll be need a bit less meter for ex fireball. You can do empty jump sweep at a distance where TU will whiff when sagat fireballs (though, please note that sagat can use his normals to beatout your sweep - daigo does this frequently unless he sees that the sagat player has adapted to it)… Ryu also has better normals, so this matchup also has to do with punishing your opponent to the corner. I would go for occasion, risky jump-ins. All I need is one mis-spaced fireball for jumpoing roundhouse, crouching med, crouching fierce, heavy dp. Tatsu ends great as well since it pushes sagat into the corner. Not to mention that standing jab in the corner beats out a lot of his options.

Cody’s all about frame traps and tick throws. The only meter I’d think I would use in this matchup would be for either super, DP FADC (to get out of shit or just for an occasional frame trap/anti air into ultra), or an occasional fadc into sweep since Cody’s pretty free on wakeup. That’s about it.

One of the matchups where I think you need very conservative meter management would be against Akuma, Dhalsim, and Seth. Ryu Vs akuma is definitely 6 - 4 in ryu’s favor, but he easily beats you in a fireball war with red fireball. Not to mention the mixups and unblockables he has on you…Meter management for Dhalsim is either spent on meter used to maximize punishes, or to throw out ex fireball for breathing room. Seth, as said before, like akuma, has a ton of mixups. You really have to think about when to fadc a dp just to get out of shit…

They took away his 5 frame faster wakeup but I think some chars wakeup faster depending on if they are face down or face up,I think adon gets up 2 frames faster if he is face down.Doesn’t matter to Ryu though,all his UKDs leave him on his back.

Thanks Mak0t0 and Zombieguts for the tips on knockdown but I was wondering if there are any combos that lead to ultra 1 if you punish someone by jumping in or a blocked special move or should I use the combos that are written by pieton

Well it just depends on how far away you are really,you can do SRK FADC U1 to punish most stuff,and depending on the move do various things into SRK FADC U1 to punish,anything like c.HP xx SRK or c.MP,c.HP xx SRK or even Solar Plexus,c.HP xx SRK and end it in FADC to U1.If you have your opponent close to the corner you can do all that same stuff basically but replace SRK FADC with EX Tatsu to U1.

Thanks I actually took a few of your tips and have gotten a few wins online but I got a long way to go before I can use Ryu in high level play

How do you handle the Akuma matchup?
He’s difficult to footsies well against with his excellent sweep which then leads into the vortex. I generally look to keep just outside his sweep range.

So there is a setup I use occasionally to bait out a jump in. If your back is to the corner and you land a back throw with your opponent fully in the corner. Do a half cube (training room) step back and throw jab fireball immediately followed by a fierce.

Due to the spacing and timing this is very safe, generally 1 of 3 things will happen.
1: They sit there and do nothing - outcome: good, you got some free chip and built meter and are at optimal distance to apply pressure
2. They try to do something such as throw counter fireball or other special move to get out, the timing of the fierce fireball is such that it should stuff their move - outcome good, they just ate some chip and a fireball to face and your still in a great position (Be warned though, fast startup supers will beat this out Example would be Ryu’s super)
3. They try to jump out of the corner - outcome:great by the time fierce fireball reaches them and they think they can jump you are recovered enough just to DP them, this is when you use the anti-air DP FADC U1. If your lacking meter a deep Fierce DP punish their jump in and put them right back in the corner.

AVOID GETTING KNOCKED DOWN. If he gets you with a shoryuken and goes for j. lk, then you can dp him. If not, then you are going to have to eat very nasty setups from him. Especially his unblockables in the corner. He’ll be mashing sweep and trying to pressure you with his normals. Play a zoning game and mixup ex fireballs (but not too many) to get him to fear focus dashing through your fireballs. A solid ground game is key. Learn his setups and see the different options and different ways to block each and every setup. There isn’t too much other than that. It’s straight forward and in your advantage until you get knocked down.

Wow! I need to try this setup on training mode then. The best I am doing is seeing what moves I can punish from the entire cast into Ryu Ultra 1 setup

After a sweep most Akuma players need to walk a little forward to set up a jumping attack. Watch carefully if you see them walk forward be prepare to block high a normal jump in attack or a Tatsu cross up. If you see a Tatsu block the cross up and be prepare to punish with c.mk or c.hk if you see it whiff.

If they go for the Demon Mix up , they dont walk forward and Akuma make a sound. When you hear the sound block right away down since nothing is going to hit you overhead. If they go for air fireball just block down right away.

This a good basic to block the ‘Vortex’ Some stuff you could Shoryuken I am not sure exactly what. Usually I am just concentrating on blocking.

If you block a Srk , you have time to punish with a Solar Plexus. If he does Ultra 1 , jump back and punish.
If you were focusing you can break his Ultra by realeasing the Focus in a timely manner. If he activate ultra 1 while
your jumping you may be able to break him by a jump in attack.

When he goes his 2 hits moves st.hk , be prepared to punish if you see the second hit whiff and it often does.
Be careful he can cancel it in Ultra 1. His Sweep is punishable by Super. If he does to much air Fireball
you could punish it with Super or Ultra 1. Look for trading with Akuma with c.hk when he does a lot of air fireball.

You can try to mind his teleport with meaty c.mp , jump back. or c.mp OS tatsu if you predit teleport the other way.

s.lk is extremely important in this matchup for many reasons. The obvious is for faking fireballs. You can also use it to avoid sweeps and low forwards and punish with a sweep of your own. It also stuffs Akuma’s s.hk.

If Akuma hits you with the first hit of his s.hk and you are crouching, the 2nd hit will whiff and you can punish it. Even if you block standing and block both hits, he is still -2.

A good setup to use against Akuma is one that I think was listed in this thread or the match-up thread. Forward throw, walk back, whiff s.lk, jump forward hp. It is very ambiguous and it will cause his uppercut to whiff. You can option select hk tatsu to catch his teleport as well.

When he throws air fireballs, you can ex uppercut through them every time even if he is high in the air. If you dont have meter, you can wait till the fireball is just about to hit you and mp srk.

If Akuma does a demon flip setup, try not to uppercut. The only followup from a demon flip that isn’t safe is the grab. The only time you should ever uppercut is when you are reading empty palm into low attack or grab.

But overall, the only thing you have to really look out for in this match is his sweep. Beat that by using your own sweeps at max range (safely), using s.lk to force his to whiff and you can punish, or punish him on block. His sweep is -9 and the startup for Ryu’s sweep is 5 frames so you have some time. Ryu’s sweep has a lot of range so you can punish him on block almost every time unless he is at absolute max range.

I believe Ryu wins this matchup pretty free.

Keep in mind the jab fireball should be a nice meaty one, that’s the only way this works.

Thanks. Although I have another question and please if anyone can give me the answer thats fine. I was wondering when you play with ryu what is the general strategy. Should you be more offensive or more defensive and play zoning/ footsies? Also when you do a sweep combo do you go for a safe jump or do you step back and throw a meaty fireball. I only ask because since I switch from Gouken to Ryu I am not use to being offensive unless I perform a throw on my opponent either then that I am usually zoning.

The general Ryu strategy is to zone and play footsies then when you get a UKD go for mixups/pressure on their wakeup with either safe jump OS or other mixup options with crossup tatsu or empty jump throw/low/DP or EX tatsu.You can also mixup a bit on the ground with throw or EX tatsu or even DP if you wanna be riskier.On safe jump OS where the jump in attack is blocked you can either go for throw/frame trap mixups or push them out with blockstrings to go back to footsies.