1441

The Japanese value 3 frame jabs and invincible reversals and Nash has neither. Good luck with your persuasion

1442

I’m not convinced it’s a solid argument either, but I think he is definitely up there. Maybe he will get worse over time due to missing the 3f jab + reversal, but I’m not sure I’m convinced of that either

1443

The characters that LOOKED the most top tier to me were ryu and cammy. I used to have Nash up top, but what I saw between infiltration and tokido looked like tokido just needed more time. Nash was being put in some very sticky situations and had to fall back on gimmicky v reversals and and v triggers to get out of the danger zone, ALOT.

Cammy looked top tier because she can bully her way in with ex divekick, ryu looked top tier because of damage and all aroundness. Like seriously I took the character I ti training mode and after having also played a few other characters it’s just very obvious that ryu gets certain damage tools that others just don’t.

As an example, though maybe I just suck, Laura can’t cancel her elbow into super… Don’t ask me why, but I figured it was because elbow was 1 hit and so it wouldn’t scale super much, so it would be very high damage.

But then I take ryu into training mode and this dude can do a 140 damage dp into a 320 damage super… Like… Yeah. Ok. Damage for no reason.

But hey it’s all good. But ryus damage reminds me of… Sorry to say it… Vanilla sf4 sagat. Yep. He ain’t that character of course, but ryu was at times in the tournie was melting lifelbars with 60% combos.

Then add in the great fireball, the great AA, the great meterless reversal, and a v skill that with ridiculous potential and yeah, he’s my new top tier. I think he fights both Nash and cammy well as well. But that still remains to be seen. Cammys v skill does counter a lot of his fireball timings.

1444

The problem with Ryu is that he’s honest for a top tier. He’s good all around, but still has to outplay his opponent rather than letting his tools dominate a match up (see Cammy and Chun’s best match ups), which makes it really hard to differentiate between Ryu being good and a good Ryu player.

1445

I don’t believe his damage is honest in any way shape or form. He hit hard in sf4, but was eventually nerfed damage wise. This incarnation hits even harder than his sf4 counterpart did though.

He isn’t the most damaging character in the game. But the only characters that easily out damage him have command grabs.

1446

True, but “has a command grab” is kind of vague and misleadingly describes a list that includes Zangief, Birdie, and Necalli. Birdie has an even farther effective range than Ryu, Zangief has good normal range and armor, and Necalli is pretty mobile when he wants to be.

After a bit more time with the game, my revised top 5 is, in no order: Chun, Cammy, Ryu, Dhalsim, and Nash. Some of you may disagree with the last two, as most people see a small gap between the top 3 and the handful of characters that can round out a top 5 like Dhalsim, Nash, Karin, Bison, and Necalli.

1447

Yeah that Ryu damage is crazy. He can get like 250 off a basic confirm and his CC damage is on par with Gief’s and maybe even higher than Birdie’s(for no meter). When you add that to the fact that he really doesn’t have much reason to spend bar (unless he has you in the corner, in which case 2 bars will get him like 450 damage), you have a really scary character.

1448

That is to be considered, to be sure, but it was enough of a performance that I have to reconsider my valuation of FANG.

What would those flaws be? Every character has weaknesses, or things they don’t excel at, but I can’t think of much right now on Necalli that I would outright call a flaw.

I think it’s more that it’s easier to assemble a solid game plan with him, even this early into the game’s life. As to what makes him strong, I think that’s pretty straightforward, too:

  • Good fireball that he can use to zone or cover his approach.
  • Very solid normals for poking, and just in general. Good reach.
  • Can AA very well despite not having a true Flash Kick. That c.MP is silly. EX Scythe does great AA damage.
  • Relatively high damage. Can burn meter to get more.
  • Meter makes him better, but he isn’t dependent on it, so he doesn’t feel bad saving for super.
  • Super is pretty damn good and easy to combo into. Discourages fireballs.
  • V-skill discourages fireballs.
  • Moonsault is safe on block, so unless they’re quick on their DP game, you can get away with them every now and then. Oh, and you can combo from it. And discourages fireballs lol
  • Good v-reversal. Get out of jail free card that somewhat makes up for his lack of a true reversal other than super.
  • Good v-trigger. Good for escaping, getting fat damage, or mix ups.
  • Good punishes from Crush counter, especially with meter.
  • VERY mobile with dash.
  • He can very easily control WHERE the fight happens, which is a very underrated ability. Positional advantage is something a lot of folks don’t consider in actual games, nor in evaluating characters. His specials and BnBs can all move his opponents in different ways. He has so many ways to corner someone from random places on a stage.

So, pretty much what we have is a character with good zoning, and safe high pressure offense, with a powerful ability to dictate pace and position. His weakness is that he doesn’t have strong defense, but he has a few get out of jail free cards that reset the position, which seems to make up for this.

We’ll have to see how lacking a 3f jab and an invincible reversal plays out for him in the long run. Off the top of my head, they only characters who have both without needing meter are Ryu, Cammy, and Necalli. Chun and Karin both have 3 frame jabs, but need meter to have an invincible reversal.

1449

I don’t understand how tha is misleading. Those are the characters that I was thinking of when I made the statement.

You could have been a bit pedantic and said Laura and vega… But yeah.

Ryus damage is obscene. There is no real getting around that. So the question becomes:

Is his damage balanced given his toolset?

I would argue “no” at this point in time. But perhaps with more technology from other characters then ryu will drop for me. But right now, If you pick up ryu and learn his confirms you have a character that can do ridiculous damage that other characters are going to have a hard time covering for.

This “having things that they shouldn’t” is generally what has made characters top tier in the past.

Only time will tell whether ryus damage is something he shouldn’t have, or something that just allows him to compete once more things are found out.

1450

I think the idea with Ryu’s damage is that it’s fairly low if you don’t get a point blank or standing confirm due to having to either blow meter or just end on a fireball. But he does get that confirm from a fairly long distance due to being able to go st.mp -> cr.mk or CH st.mp -> cr.hk. Then there’s his 2 bar corner combo…

His footsies are really weak. Necalli has a bit of a deadzone where other characters would poke with their st.mk and he has trouble converting off whiffs without charge or VT. If someone can dance around st.hk range they can whiff punish it fairly easily, or if they can stay right within it to stuff most of his moves. Much of Haitani’s footsie game was just dash inside, hit a button to delayed cr.mp xx Slash to catch them putting something out. If they don’t put something out that it can catch he gets whiff punished though.

Now, Haitani’s an incredible player and years of Makoto have taught him exactly when to dash in but that’s mainly a strength of his helping to overcome the flaw of a character.

Other flaws; needs to blow meter to convert off of lights. Loses his chance at pressure after a Slash ender if it doesn’t corner them. Only 6’3" so his chances of converting his great dunking game into an NBA career are slim.

1451

A+: Ryu/Cammy/Chun
A: Nash/Necalli/Sim/Birdie/Karin
B+: Ken, Vega, Bison
B: Rashid, R.Mika, Laura
C+: Zangief, FANG

Just something randomly I put together from my time with the game and studying tools. I’m sure it’s off, but since this is an open discussion and nothing official, might as well throw my 2 cents in.

Honestly, I feel people are too focused on figuring out tiers rather than appreciating the fact that this game is so well made and balanced. Would ANYBODY be shocked if Laura won a tournament? Oh wait…SHE DID! R.Mika? OH WAIT…SHE DID. BUT…ZANGIEF…OH WAIT! This game has a wonderful roster and everybody is scary.

Anyways, IMO the A+ are the least flawed characters and have the most powerful tools that consistently lead to success when utilized well. Tier A is a little more flawed and/or have more stipulations(Karin’s anti air game without meter, Birdie and Nash having trouble getting people off of them, Birdie’s sluggish normals, Necalli’s suspect neutral and requiring trigger to truly stand out) on how to get their game running properly, but are still amazing. B+ has more flaws but still dominate with their gameplan run properly. Same with B but now the match ups become significantly difficult in some situations(R.Mika vs Cammy, Laura vs Chun Li). C+ is strong but require the most work, have the hardest time running their gameplan, and have some extremely oppressed match ups.

PS: I wouldn’t be surprised if Ken is really Tier A, as I think he is less flawed and has a more reliable gameplan than Bison or Vega.

1452

Well it’s fairly low for every character at that point (standing confirm not withstanding)

And ryu still gets fhp or st.mp into obscene amounts of damage which are arguably safe ranged options to get damage.

Now by “ranged” I’m not talking og gat fullscreen range, I’m talking about safe confirmable range. Lots of characters don’t have these options at all. The most you are getting from chun at that range for that amount of safety on a confirm is by blowing st.hp on a guess Into v trigger cancel. Into super. So it’s not really a confirm since the v trigger has to be blown (unless the st.hp can be confirmed into v trigger… Something I should have a look at actually. But even still, v trigger cancels scale the followups to them just like yrc does in GGxrd.

In fact, a lot of this game takes after GG if you understand how GG works. But that’s going OT, sorry.

Point being that ryu doesn’t have to go through v trigger scaling a lot of times and that being able to cancel a 1 hit, 140 damage move super is well… Kinda ridiculous, at this point.

But yes, he does lack in certain combo areas such as against crouching opponents, or confirms from light attacks. But I don’t think those are as important to his game as others might. To me a confirm is a confirm. Whether it’s from light attacks or even easier from medium attacks.

Hell, even his medium medium xx fireball combo probably does around 150 damage. Which is comparable to what some other characters get for the same thing.

-edit

Also, if you are good ryu can totally do st.mp and then hitconform into fierce srk into super, which works on crouching opponents and does ridiculous man damage.

1453

He’s got a manly beard now, so he needs some ridiculous man damage to match :wink:

1454

Well you know it will eventually happen. We competitive player are outnumbered largely actually.

1455

I wouldn’t focus too much on tiers and play your character the best you can.
Nash might be one of the best character in the game if not the best.

He just doesn’t seem like it but in this game’s engine he is really strong but deceptively strong.
His zoning and movement can carry him very far.

1456

I think Nash is going to lose to Cammy and Karin.

1457

To the OP @d3v :

The spreadsheet on the first page is missing F.A.N.G. Is it already known?

1458

Ehhhh…I don’t really see him as having weak footsies. He just operates a bit differently. A huge part of footsies is getting into your ideal range and staying there, while also keeping your opponent there. So yes, that is a bit of a deadzone for him, but I don’t see that as a flaw. All characters have ranges that they are not that strong in. It’s a necessary aspect of the game. He doesn’t have a s.MK like Karin or Chun, but he’s not really the same type of character. His s.MP is actually not that bad in terms of range, either, and you can get some good mileage out of it. His s.HK is his main poking tool, and it’s up to you to utilize it properly, and make sure that you’re spaced well enough so you don’t get stuffed. The trade off he gets for conceding that specific space is that he has great frame advantage on block for many of his normal attacks (7!), as well as a variety of crush counters. Way I see it, Necalli either wants to be further back to safely give you shit with V. Skill, to be in s. HK range, or he wants to be inside. Mostly he wants to be inside, and can get in very easily with his high mobility, or by using stuff like c.MKxxMK stomp (If he hits with v. skill he’s in, too). Once he’s there, a lot of characters don’t have much of a way to deal with him. While Chun’s game plan is to play footsies practically the whole round, Necalli’s is to just force his opponent to the corner and then brutally dismantle them with his strong frame traps and resets. So yes, he does have a space that he doesn’t really do much in, but that’s very typical, and is hardly a flaw.

His light confirms are a bit lacking (he can do c.LK, s.LPxxLP DP without meter from the right distance, very close), I’ll give you that. Then again, light confirms aren’t all that great in this game anyhow.

Slash gives up pressure in exchange for insane corner carry. I don’t know if anyone else in the game can corner an opponent from as far away as Necalli can. Even if Necalli doesn’t corner the opponent with the attack, this tends to mean that he was almost cornered himself, and just gained the positional advantage.

You’re very right on this. I feel like this game is very much like Super Turbo where it really comes down to the match up and player knowledge/skill than tier. Unlike Super Turbo, however, they seem to have recognized that non-fireball characters struggle with fireballs very hard if they don’t have some sort of tool to get around them, so it feels even more true in this game. Zangief vs Ryu was horrible in ST, but now he has the tools he needs to execute his game plan. Takes some work, no doubt, but the tools are in the box.

1459

A tier: Ryu, Cammy, Chun, Dhalsim, Nash, Karin, Ken, Bison, Mika
A- tier: Necalli, Laura, Vega, Zangief, Rashid
B+ tier: Birdie, FANG

my thoughts right now

1460

My take away from FR is that Chun isn’t as far above the other characters as I thought. My tier list right now is

S Everyone except Laura, Fang, and Gief
A+ Laura, Fang
A Gief

I don’t think anyone is bad, and outside of Laura, Fang, Gief, you could argue everyone else as best character and I’d be inclined to listen.