I know I made a thread earlier, but the fucking power-cord just slipped out and turned off my computer; ruined my intention for the thread: a poll.
Anyhow, please discuss on the single most important aspect.
I think recovery is most is in defensive play because it’s harder for people to punish you.
Has quick execution, no recovery, covers lots of vertical space, and can be rushed behind for mixups. Sol’s FRC’ed gunflame is pretty close to the best fireball.
Dudley.
Sounds good, but if only you could enhance one aspect, which would it be?
Well…awesome fireballs like Sol’s FRC’ed Gunflame or Ryu’s EX fireball take meter. If I could enhance one aspect, it would be no meter drain. Then they’d be broken.
AHVB. So fast it combos into itself. Travels instantaneously across the screen and pretty much covers everything (hence no need for high/low variation). Can kill outright.
ST akuma’s air fireball. The angle is such that it pretty much isunavoidable. Instantaneous recovery.
Really, no single aspect can be worth it at the sacrifice of the rest without being broken in half/becoming useless. And you also have to consider the other moves the character has. For example, giving Ryu the same recovery rate as Guile is insane – because Ryu has a DP. Giving Guile Ryu’s recovery time would make Guile worthless.
Perhaps I used to wrong word: “enhance”. I really meant which aspect would you capitalize on.
WW Guile sonic boom
O Sagat fireball
St Akuma air fireball
Ky fireballs
O. Chris’ fireball is annoying as fuck. Deletes other fireballs, it’s multihit, and it stays on for a bit. Chris recovers fast afterwards. IMO that’s the best non super on kof.
I think I’ll stick to the Sonic Boom for life.
fucking LOL 
The Japanese in your sig is wrong. =/
ON-TOPIC
2002 Rugal’s Kaiser Wave is the best projectile I’ve seen in years. Almost 3 frames of startup(exaggeration, although practically all of that time is doing the motion), you can’t do anything on reaction as it travels full screen before he’s finished thrusting his hands out, has good guard stun, knocks down, eats all other non-DM fireballs, can be tossed out while his Reppuken is on screen, and can be charged up to 2 more levels, the second isslow, but good to catch rollers, and the third is equally as fast as the first, but UNBLOCKABLE. It doesn’t take long to get to UB status either.
Kula’s Diamond Breath and stand follow-up
Mature’s Ebony Tears
Ky’s FRC’ed Charged Stun Edge
Charlie/Guile’s Sonic Boom
EDIT: Didn’t feel like explaining, but I might as well…
Voted quickest recovery time and most space covered, hence the choices (recovery time for the sake of pressure and/or following up, space to minimize offensive efforts).
It’s amazing how many people can completely miss the point of the thread thanks to one derail.
I say recovery is most important. Most of those things can be sacrificed if you can follow it up for a pressure, so recovery is a necessity.
like bowiegranap said, it depends on what moves the character has and what the rest of the cast can do. if Ryu had a sonic boom, he’d probably be broken. and any sort of projectile isn’t gonna be very useful in Tekken.
I don’t think the topic of this thread was to discuss the qualities of a good fireball, per say. I mean, if I had to say, “What makes a good fireball,” I would have just checked off the entire list in the poll. In combination, that’s the best fireball to use, hands-down.
I think it’s better to discuss what the “best” single aspect of a fireball is, which might have been the true point of the poll, even though the thread title is a bit misleading.
Personally, I voted recovery at the end. That’s the most important of all the important aspects. It doesn’t matter if my fireball has good vertical coverage, the ability to mix high or low, or even if it comes out really fast… if the recovery time isn’t decent, then the fireball becomes much less useful.
Covers more space is my vote. Wouldn’t care about recovery too much if they can’t do anything but block it.
ryu’s fireball in xmvsf
no recovery or very little (sonic boom and o sagat low tigers come to mind) the less recovery the harder it is to punish on a jump.