Nah, charge characters were overrated as hell. Guile and Honda may have laid claims to being very good, but Bison and some others were clearly not nearly as strong.
Having said that, Fei definitely did have pretty solidly even matchups, barring Guile, which I felt was like the only one he lost.
Overrated? Not really. All the charge characters were somewhere near the top in my opinion, except being Vega DJ and Blanka. Bison was pretty good in Super to me. He hardly had bad matchups if I remember correctly
I beat good Fei Long’s with my scrub ryu, but that’s only because I main Fei.
You have to be super lame, almost troll like in the match. Sitting there in defence throwing out the odd cr-mk, neutral jump etc etc. It’s pretty boring, but necessary, there’s not much else Ryu can do.
To the OP
Because Sagat has no decent normals to repel Fei Long up close outside of a guess with standing mk, or a Tiger Knee. Fei Long can beat Sagats TS up to a HP rekka length away. Which means anything closer than far - to mid-far , is bad news for Sagat, eventually he will get cornered and die. Sagat basically has to be spot on with kara TU, Standing RH and TK to keep Fei out. One mistake and he’s up for big damage, and he WILL make a mistake sooner or later. Getting hit by a Tiger Shot is no big deal, we can take those all day, neutral jump, rekka, focus through etc etc.
Fei was top tier in Super, just not S tier. He could still be lamed out by the charge characters or anyone with a fast walk speed (chun). The changes to AE made those characters weaker, coupled with the fact we could now knock them down from a jab, which meant for the charge characters, losing charge on a cross up, eating wake up pressure or getting set up for a tenshin trap.
The only character left that could truly lame Fei out was Akuma.
Well, maybe I just have him underrated in Super, but that’s my opinion honestly. I was thinking Low A as far as placement. Your thoughts? from Super that is
My very limited understanding was that Fei beat the twins more easily than most, due to their reliance on being close. Thus, he was the go to guy in the metagame.
Most people were just not competent with him, If you had a bag full of tricks and Option Selects to beat the charge characters you were set, there was nobody that could really hurt Fei. He was just in that sweet spot.
Its tough to say, the game seemed to be just approaching it’s peak when they decided to release AE. He was easily in the top 6 I would say, Mago was really starting to beast at the tail end.
Put it this way, Super Fei was/will be stronger than V 2012 Fei. Which is why I don’t think he’ll be top tier now. Looking at V 2012 , it’s tough to instantly recognise a winner. Some of the E ryu changes look a bit scary, if they sorted his dive kick…don’t even want to think about it …
I just don’t see how that retardo damage going away is going to all of a sudden making him an ineffective character.
I’m not saying he won’t be good, he’ll just have to work a bit harder. He won’t be the instant go-to top tier like in AE. Probably still top 10, but it’s all theory fighter really. He won’t be getting as much shit as he is now put it that way… 
I don’t see my own playstyle with Fei will change that much with Ver 2012. I never really got to abuse people with cross up chicken wings and delayed 3rd Rekkas just yet. I’ll just progress the “normal” route without really ever getting into the overpowered stuff people claim so much. 
So here is one of the many ways you can look to see what makes a top tier character; their match ups. In Vanilla, Sagat was top tier, and had like two less than great match ups, maybe. He simply stomped out the rest of the cast. In Super, Akuma was supreme, and had less bad match ups than Sagat did in Vanilla. They were top tier because they overcame almost all of the cast. Now calling Fei top tier in AE is debatable. He is powerful as he was in Super, but the difference is he does have bad match ups, both Yun and Akuma have less bad match ups than him at present. Also, when I watch Fuudo or Mago, I don’t really get the sense of ‘overpowered’ as you would watching Yun. Gameplay with Fei is just patience and knowing when to strike. It isn’t the beast fest that you see with Yun, or Akuma in Super vortexing the hell out of people, or Sagat in Vanilla taking a third to half your life with one combo. That shit was top tier. Fei’s game play by comparison is pretty reasonable, really the only nerf I would be fine with is for damage and call it good. You can’t deny Fei is pretty high up there in AE, but it is debatable whether he is #1 with Yun around.
Yun and Sagat = Broken. Fei was as close as you could get to S tier without being totally bullshit. I think most players would agree on that.
Fei took much longer to unlock. People instantly realised that Yun and Sagat were OP whilst Fei matured as a character. (like a nice whiskey…!)
I agree Yun and Sagat as S tier characters were not difficult to learn. Akuma was/is difficult to play right, but if you did get good with him, you had next to no bad match ups in Super, and only 2 in AE (twins, which are now getting nerfed down). At least you had to work for the S tier in Super, Yun is easy to play as is. Fei long is not.
I can’t really assess the strengths of characters other than my own (Akuma) by thinking about match-up numbers because I don’t think I have close to enough knowledge/imagination to be accurate enough. I mean, Fei vs. Cammy… is that 6-4 Fei? 5.5-4.5 Cammy? Hell if I know. My guess is that Fei wins because he’s just a better character in AE and has better normals, but I can’t really say. And I don’t trust match-up charts for games other than 3S and ST either because there simply isn’t enough knowledge for a consensus.
I can say, though, from playing against Fei, watching high level Fei matches, very briefly playing as Fei and my general understanding of Fei and how the game works that he is an exceptional character. It’s really not just because of Mago… yeah, Mago’s Fei makes a difference, but here is why Fei is top tier in AE:
-exceptional normals including several three frame normals (no normal in SF4 is faster than 3 frames and having a 3fr normal is huge) and crouching fierce which has ridiculous range and does 100 damage
-a very good focus attack
-very damaging combos
-rekkas, which, if you know what you’re doing, are an outstanding way to apply pressure very safely when you’re on the ground. First hit of LP rekka is extremely safe and top players can hit confirm, and if it’s blocked you can bait something out before going for the second hit (or you can wait a bit longer and throw out another first hit)… EX rekka is COMPLETELY SAFE on hits one and two… if you’re low on life in the corner and Fei has three bars, your options are random DP/jump back and pray or die… also rekkas push you really far into the corner, where you are perfectly positioned to eat more rekkas.
-very very good DP move that can be FADCed to safety… EX flame kick might be the best DP in the game - the hit box is RIDICULOUS, it does 200 (!) damage and has a ton of invincibility (as do his non-EX flame kicks)
-a command grab that isn’t like Abel’s or anything but it’s still extremely useful, especially the EX version, and obviously leads to big damage as you get a free combo
There’s more (awesome neutral jump kick and I didn’t even touch on ex chicken wing), but I think that’s plenty…
Is he broken in AE? Not in my opinion, but he’s close. He has a tremendous amount of tools at his disposal. His walk speed isn’t awesome, but obviously he can close space with LP rekka very quickly… his Ultras are “just good” (I think U2 is quite good and very much underutilized and misused by the people who choose it), but he does massive damage all the time so again this is a minor issue.
I think AE Fei is pretty ideal for a “best character” in a game. He doesn’t have any super “cheap” stuff (but plenty of moderately cheap stuff, which any top tier character by definition must have), he is just ridiculously solid. Any character significantly better than AE Fei would need to be nerfed, though, considering how so many characters are lacking not just one or even two but MOST of the high quality tools Fei has.
These are my exact thoughts. Unfortunately for us, it came 1 version too early, and a particularly bad version at that.
Well, I think Fei will definitely be near the top and possibly even #1 in AE 2012. He lost combo into sweep and a little bit of damage, but considering Yun and Yang are being nerfed quite hard and Akuma was also nerfed (arguably hard depending on whom you ask and the results really remain to be seen) along with Viper and Makoto a bit, I don’t see who will really surpass him. Ken, Sagat, Zangief, and the above mentioned characters aside from the twins will be candidates for top tier, but I don’t think any of them will be better than Fei.
I don’t know man, I’m not mad about the damage nerfs, but the rekka nerf still lingers in my mind. I just don’t think the pressure would be the same. 2nd Rekka that’s not on hit confirm is like ASKING for death according to the frames, but hell I’m no frame data warrior. The idea of Fei’s pressure being altered, or becoming weaker or having to spend a bar for some safe EX rekka pressure kind makes me wonder. I can honestly say I think someone else will claim the top spot
I have to sort of disagree with you there. My impression of his Flame Kicks are that they’re fairly average. Despite being a move with 5 invulnerable frames (6 for EX IIRC), it seems to be much more prone to being stuffed or traded than most other Shoryu-style moves. The only real advantage I see is his being a reversed input. Sure EX Shienkyaku consumes life, but so does Sagats EX Tiger Uppercut. It can cover much more ground, has 11F Invulnerability and if he catches you well enough on the anti-air with it, can do a full ultra (One?) follow up on your descent. I think Tiger Uppercuts hitbox is also greater than Fei Longs.
As for Fei Longs’ shift in Tier. Currently, I think I’m with Big Boss Vince. In my mind, I feel like Akuma is the likely candidate for Top Dog status, because I don’t use him, his AE2012 tweaks don’t seem like they will hold him back from taking top spot. Not to mention the Twins getting spanked, that will make Akuma’s life easier, and I feel he can already more than hold his own against Fei Long. Fei Long losing some damage will help him not die as suddenly.
I don’t know if akuma will be top.Akuma players think his nerfs are awful and I can see why.+2 frames recovery on his forward throw is big because it probably takes away his dash x2 safe jump setup after it…which means they will be having to figure out new setups after it.Not to mention his Demon flipp palm is no longer an overhead.As for top tier I’ve been hearing a lot of different characters according to top Japanese players so who knows.As for Fei I think he will still be pretty good even with the rekka nerf but it may take time to get used to hit confirming the first rekka for some players.We won’t really know until we play it ourselves though.
I’m not sure why they made the Demon Palm overhead in the first place—I always thought that was the purpose of the Demon Flip Throw. With the palm plowing through armor, having virtually no recovery, scoring a hard knockdown and hitting overhead, what purpose does the Flip Throw have?
I’m sure there are Akuma players out there as we type, who are in the laboratory working on the +2 throw recovery alternative. I’m sure Tokido is, and maybe Eita. I don’t forsee it being a really problematic change for long.
I can see Fei Long maintaining a Top 3 spot, maaaaybe at the Top 5 charts at the very least. Some characters who give him trouble got some buffing, but I’m not quite certain how big that will shift things again.
I am not sure the tiers are going to change a great deal. I don’t agree with the second rekka for Fei either, he could still be punished for second rekka, making that worse is silly methinks. Aside from that, I think the top tier will look something like this;
Ken
Akuma
Fei
C Viper
Sagat
Yun
Yang? (though too many nerfs for no good reason)
Honestly, Akuma had his reign as S tier in Super. I would rather not see that again. If they are going for a true balance, it should be close among these characters.