Ryu was never high tier he along with deejay and guile have always been mid tier and fake fb helps him a lot more then you think especially in matchups he does poorly in for example the reason it was added was to get over sim’s drills.
Ryu was high tier in ST i.e Upper tier.
EL is correct. hid-mid tier. like Chun.
…although the uber-buffs to the likes of T.Hawk and Blanka will shift the tiers around a bit.
I always had a weird idea of ryu’s tier. I saw him as mid…not because he has lots of bad matchups, but because he seems to have a good chance in all matchups, but never really dominate. I may be wrong, it’s just always been my impression.
Uhhhhh…Ryu had like…3 bad match-ups.
And only one was a solid disadvantage, which was Dhalsim.
So upper tier is accurate for him.
His other two bad match-ups were O.Sagat and and a very slight disadvantage to Gief I think.
He also had slight disadvantage to Claw and Boxer, but it was REALLY slight. Like 45/45 I believe. Same with Gief.
Not just sim but also o.sagat, claw, and boxer were his bad matches they were definitely not slight.
vega isn’t a totally bad matchup; he’s just frustrating to play against. :s
it helps if you’re shooting D or Daigo, though. 
I won’t pretend to be an expert on Ryu.
But Ryu has won his fair share of tournies and I’m pretty sure he still does.
Ryu could not do this if he was a weak character. Upper tier seems damn accurate.
…And that’s the reason those 4 are the god tier in ST, and Ryu is just below them along with Chun/Bison
You can “come” to a conclusion, however people who are playing it can be more accurate about it then just “theory talk”. That’s the reason why I always ask, because it’s better to get real info from people who’ve actually played the game, then to just simply guess “well in this video so and so did this, so he/she has to be this good”. Has more footing then just guessing.
I’ve been playing a lot with Fei Long and I definitely feel that he’s better than he was in ST. Although they’ve removed the chicken wing trap, the ease to input the chicken wing makes it a viable anti-air move for a lot of occasions. Now, I’m not saying you pit a chicken wing against a shoryuken, but against a player jumping in from farther away, you get a solid two hits. I also think that the chicken wing is much more useful now for jumping over fireballs, and closing the gap on an opponent whose across the screen. If you couple that with his improved ease of use for the rekka ken, I think you’ve got a different character (as far as how you play him), especially with the invincible startup of the lk, and mk, flame kick.
As far as Akuma goes, I think he’s definitely going to wind up in the top tier. With the a better fireball game than Ryu, the ability to lock down certain players with air fireballs (like gief as ultradavid explained) and his overall strength, adaptable play styles (rushdown, turtling, etc) and dizzying ability, Akuma is pretty beastly. So far, I think I’ve played more Akuma’s online than anything else…
I definitely think that the top tier and high tier will get bigger. So will mid tier, but only a bit.
I think only Fei long and Cammy can still be called bottom/low tier.
Take your pick as to who is in low and who is in bottom out of the two of them.
The way I see it now at least 6 characters are top tier and maybe 5 are high tier.
*resists the urge to create a tier list based on what we know now
I’ll make DeeJay top tier. Please believe.
On subject: The only reason people are 'gasming over Fei-useless and cammy is because their main tools aren’t a bitch to pull off so chickwing/hop kick locks and holligan mixups are easier to do thus harder to deal with. (this can also be said about T.Hawk and Zangief as well.)
The game has only been out a few days. Give people time to finger what beats out what, how can you counter this, etc…this is a brand new game. Treat it as such.
I think sorting out tier list nows for fun is useful. When talking about characters now people are going “OH MAN THEY’RE SO GOOD!” that it’s hard to grasp their relative power. When you’re forced to order the characters you’re forced to to really think “who’s NOT good?” or who, relatively is only mid? You can’t have a bigger top tier. If half the characters are in top tier, you gotta reorder the list.
I just whipped out…
S: Sim, Balrog
A: Chun, Sagat, Ryu, Claw, Honda, Akuma(?)
B: Dee-Jay, Gief, Ken, Guile, Blanka, Bison
C: T-Hawk, Cammy, Fei
I DON’T THINK THIS IS RIGHT, but it’s as right as I can predict with the knowledge I have and some predictions I’ve made on how people will learn to deal with some characters. Some things are going to be highly wrong but it helped me grasp some of the changes while making it. I had one with 6 tier placings but that seemed even clumsier and more likely to be off.
so I think some more tier talk would be fun. It’d be nice to see more lists without people whining about it being ‘too early’. The point isn’t necessarily to tell people the current tiers(impossible), but to to try and sort out some of the changes and kind of wrap our minds around what the future might look like.
I mean, whats the harm as long as no ones super serious? 
Hah, I think Dee-Jay might be a lot higher than I placed him (I hope so), but I don’t think his buffs are that insane. MGU for combos is technically a nerf. Japan has been ranking him as someone who can kill off a crossup already. He’s just more accessible. My guess is still out on how good MGU for fireball nullification is, but I don’t think it’ll be that great. Hop kick is the big buff, but I still think it pales in comparison to a lot of characters. He’s still solid as ever though.
I agree with Fei and Cammy. I’ve played a lot of Fei and never had a problem with CW and while I feel like he’s gotten ‘better’, he’s still lacking compared to a lot of the cast. I feel the same about Honda and Blanka too. People aren’t used to dealing with them in the ways they have to now. People are encountering problems they’re not used too and are having to really adjust their matchup strats.
What the hell happened to C?
And why can’t you have a bigger top tier?
If more characters are within that power level then that’s where they belong.
Anyway…this is mine.
Top tier: Blanka, Sagat, Sim, Boxer
High Tier: Akuma,Claw, Guile, Chun, Ryu, Dictator
Mid Tier: Ken, Dee Jay, E.Honda,T-Hawk, Zangief
Low Tier: Fei Long, Cammy
I feel like the gap between power levels is much closer in this game compared to ST. I’m very pleased with the changes to each character.
For the record I think T-Hawk and Zangief might be higher, but I didn’t want to overrate them as I haven’t heard as much hype about them as I have about Blanka and Guile. Plus the buffs that Blanka received are pretty big and really helped him out. And Akuma or Guile could definitely hit top tier IMO.
My tiers aren’t ordered BTW.
I am all for discussing on WHY you think said character will end up said tier. But to make a tier list at this point is kinda stupid. And yes, there is a difference.
Hahah, fixed. Maybe I was just hating on the Fei changes. Anyways the reason you can’t have a bigger ‘high’ tier is because middle tier is supposed to be where the bulk of characters are. If theres only 3 characters in mid and 2 in low and everyine else is upper and high, then mid isn’t really the ‘middle’ of the tier list.
Letter rankings are nice because that doesn’t matter!
But letters don’t have the same impact as words. 
Anyway…if you want me to explain why I think so and so is such and such tier just ask.
And I’ll get back to you later. Time to sleep, lol.
I think every char has at least 3 bad matchups now:
Honda has a bad matchup with Ken, Chun, and Dee Jay for example.
That’s how I’d look at tiers, how many bad matchups does a char have, and how many good ones.
There’s only one matchup that’s “for free” right now in this to me, and that’s Honda/Cammy.
Cammy spin knuckle should avoid headbutts, that might help some.
In response to Chen, everyone I know thinks Honda is top tier or better. No one’s sleeping on him. I think he’s good but not all that (See who I think gives him hell)
Yeah, Honda is easy wins online in many cases, but not vs some chars.
It’s odd to me that so many people seem to be sleeping on Honda. I think Honda is actually going to be REALLY good in this game (though I originally thought he wasn’t). He isn’t that much worse against non-fireball characters, and he is better against Fireball characters. He seems to be, by far, the character I win with the most easily online.
I need to stop playing these Ranked Matches with Random Select and go look for some good quarter match rooms and play there for a time with only a few characters, just to get a better feel for a lot of the characters.
- James