USF4 | Tier List Thread (updated October 2015)

Classic Fighting Games Ultra Street Fighter IV
1321

Abel is forgotten tier. I dunno if he’s slept on, or just meh in this version. I kinda like Abel, closest thing we will get to Alex in this game. Divekick characters do eat him alive though, and they’re so common. I’m sure Bison isn’t fun either if you’re an online player, despite still having the same issues in this version he’s hella popular.

Online made me quit her. I was learning her during the time I could play online only. When I lost to a laggy dp masher and he taunted me, I took his points with Blanka!

Who does Ibuki even lose to? I know Yun, and Bison. I was told Akuma is even. It would be nice if eventscrubs tierlist actually wasn’t scrubby so you could get a rough idea.

1322

ex rekka. 7 frames and reaches a lot farther than regular rekkas

1323

I can’t speak for the other characters but I’m pretty sure Akuma no longer beats Ken. This has to be even now.

Gone are the days when Akuma could walk up to Ken to throw and walk backwards to stay out of Ken’s jab range. It’s a bitch when Akuma would do this because I would have resort to step kick to move forward to catch up to Akuma and risk eatting a focus attack. I would even try the fake thunder kick and he would sweep that because I can’t block in the middle of a 24 frame move.

Given that Ken now walks forward significantly faster than Akuma can walk backwards the pace of the match has changed…playing footsies with Akuma and E.Ryu’s backward walkspeed was very difficult because they also have better fireballs than Ken.

In terms of delayed wake up, Ken gained very little from knocking down Akuma in AE2012. That was if Ken could even catch up to him to throw him. I’m pretty sure DWU hurt Akuma a lot more than it hurt Ken

1324

Sagat Gief I would have called close to 8-2 in previous versions. Not sure about now as I haven’t seen the match up since the changes.

When you look at a match up you not only need to look at “helplessness” but also risk and reward. Sure Akuma might have a few tools to use against Yun, but when you look at it Akuma’s damage output against Yun is shit in this version while Yun’s output is insane.

If you thought Yun beat Akuma in AE 2012 then now the match up is even more slanted. Akuma only had one real situation where he could control Yun and that was on knockdown. Every other situation Akuma was playing off his back foot. Now with DWU that situation is weakened and yet Yun’s offense is better against Akuma thanks to the nerfs to Akuma. Akuma’s DP nerf really hurts because now challenging dive kicks is increasingly risky. Before being able to hit confirm the DP allowed you do challenge Yun if you blocked a dive kick. If you guessed correct you didn’t need to burn the meter and could get him off of you again later. Now you are committed to the meter and still unsafe on all options! That’s right, Yun can punish all 3 options out of DP FADC. So much so you may as well bet it all on red focus if you are going to try to DP Yun after blocking so you can at least justify the risk you are taking.

And we haven’t even mentioned the one thing that everyone knows about: Red focus. Yun doesn’t need 4 bars to put Akuma near stun, he only needs 3. You can put Akuma in a position where getting hit by a command grab or dive kick will stun. Follow it by j.HP > Ultra and Akuma will lose close to 80% of his life in a short time. If Yun has 4 bars he can do the full combo which will put Akuma a medium punch away from stun. This can result in Akuma losing 100% of his health . This also leaves out the fact Yun could already do this in a host of situations.

Also the thing is because Yun doesn’t need to do the full combo to get Akuma near stun, he can actually go for less optimal combos that will carry Akuma from anywhere on the screen to the corner AND he still leaves Akuma near stun.

Overall Yun’s tools against Akuma got better, Akuma’s tools against Yun got worst. Yun stuns Akuma like crazy now.

Chun Li was a perfect storm. No single character benifited from Akuma’s nerfs more than Chun. Because everything she had problems with got nerfed. The match up in the last version was about zoning her out till you got a knockdown and then vortex the living hell out of her. The problem is that now she has a guaranteed sweep punish if she is sitting on charge, she has an easier time dealing with zoning, she’s harder to mix up now, etc. Pretty much if you go down the list of problems she had against Akuma they all got better. Akuma now has almost no consistent punish for her focus attack either. She can literally beat everything if she spaces it correctly. The only way to punish is either early s.HK > U1 or hit her as she releases it.

The problem I find with Dudley is that just like Chun, U1 punishes everything in the neutral game now and doesn’t need charge. Once Dudley has U1 the only thing Akuma can do is c.MK, but doing 60 damage a poke is not going to win you the match because if Dudley gets one good hit he can get in and mess up Akuma.

Akuma’s biggest problem now is that his risk reward is all messed up. His damage generation has become much worse in addition to his neutral game getting worse. They nerfed too much of it. Here is where Akuma is still good. If you can zone with airfireballs you can still win and if s.HP or s.HK is useful in a match up you can still do damage. If those buttons don’t connect and you can’t zone, good luck with that. And against many of the characters who can punish Akuma’s zoning can also punish his sweep now. So basically you have zero buttons that are actually safe in several except c.MK. But c.MK doesn’t lead into damage consistently.

They nerfed way too much about Akuma in this version. This is literally the first version I think Akuma is really mediocre. Some characters just exploit the living hell out of his neutral game while still having the damage differential they had before. It was acceptable to play a 850/850 character when you had all the tools and the situations work for you, now you are playing a character who doesn’t control the neutral game as well any more while still having all the downsides.

Anything Akuma does in this version other characters do just as well or better along with more health an stun. Or pretty much the exact problem I pointed out when everyone was yelling for nerfs.

XBL though I haven’t been playing online as much lately.

1325

What? The only specific nerfs on him were the sweep and the back jump fireball, far less than other high tier characters and he even got the awesome far HP buff at the last minute. Having only one 3 - 7 matchup and like four 4 - 6 ones isn’t the end of the world when he still dominates a big portion of the cast. I’m not saying he should be nerfed more (he shouldn’t) but the level where he currently is quite fine, he doesn’t has any clear design flaws (health has never been one) and it is perfectly possible to win a tournament with him without having to bet everything on the brackets like Zangief or Dhalsim.

1326

As mike mentioned, during the last 2F the hurtbox is based just on the model so it’s actually more likely to work well. They didn’t buff the hitbox but the hurtbox is smaller now in some areas.

1327

Specific nerfs? Who cares if the nerfs are specific. Even universal changes can affect some characters harder than others and Akuma I’m finding got screwed over by them.

Akuma I think has more 4-6s than the ones I listed, those are the ones though that I am pretty sure at this point are bad. That and also his dominant match ups aren’t very dominant any more. Hell Gief isn’t that bad any more.

The sweep nerf was way bigger than people realize. There are too many god damn characters who can punish the sweep now especially with Ultra. When all of your best buttons are unsafe or lead to little damage on top of the fact and you can’t zone as well either what the flying fuck do you do? Akuma’s neutral game is starting to look like unless you can consistently hit with s.HP you aren’t going to get anything without risking 40% of your health bar.

People don’t realize how bad some of these nerfs turned out to be. I was optimistic at the start of Ultra, but damn this character is not as good as people still thinks he is.

1328

Chun li shits on Akuma now.

He can’t sweep once she has u1 and dwu fucked his vortex. His defense is not scary to her and she dominates every other area of the match.

Anyone who thinks Akuma beats chun in ultra doesn’t know anything about the matchup.

And I agree with loyalsol. Akuma is mediocre in ultra. He is not top tier nor would I put him in the top 10.

1329

Let’s discuss a world where pro players thinks Honda vs Juri is a 7-3 in Juri’s favor. That’ll be fun.

1330

I’m more surprised at the fact that he didn’t list the Honda/Yang matchup 7-3 in Honda’s favor.

1331

welcome to 4 years of playing a mid tier character.

anyways i cant feel anything besides joy when i read post like these.

You can always drop his ass, learn e.ryu. Then go back to gouki because derp.

1332

that match might be slightly better now that honda cant just ex headbutt without threat of real punishes whenever yang gets in and starts frame trapping. also his cross up works every time no matter what against honda now.

thats how i visualize it anyway. honda is a bit rare these days

1333

The problem is if you played a character for 4 years knowing they have problems that’s your fault. No one put a gun to your head and forced you to play them. You knew it and you chose to continue playing them. I played a character for 5 years knowing he was good.

All that time and effort to developing match up strategies? Nope go fuck yourself.
All that time practicing my execution? Nope go fuck yourself
All that time practicing specific punishes? Nope go fuck yourself

If you put time and effort into a bad character you have no one to blame but yourself. If you put time and effort into learning a good character to have Capcom shit on you that’s a different story.

1334

I can see that, trying to get in vs Juri is a mess now.

I’d say Juri is Gief’s 2nd worst match after Sagat at this point, to be completely honest, Dhalsim and Seth aren’t as bad anymore but Juri definetly got worse. Back in 2012 my strat was to get into the range outside of her fuhajin release and try to wreck her not-as-dominant footsies but now far MP is great to counterpoke my stuff and if it lands it means going back to full screen, so it’s not a foolproof strat or a dead range for her anymore, M + H EX Fuhajin hitting crouchers means that she isn’t forced to throw L + M EX Fuhajin once she needs a fireball fast, L + M Fuhajin can be bypassed by Kick Lariat, M + H doesn’t and her st.LK being a 4 frame move means that it will mostly trade with Gief’s normals instead of getting beat most of the time. Gief can’t get enough meter for red focus unless the Juri player makes a crucial mistake and gets mixed up to hell and back, because he’ll need the EX GH’s to try and catch Fuhajins and get in, LP GH being faster hardly means shit considering banishing Fuhajins still leaves you on - and you’ll hardly get into range to threaten her with footsies without using meter and the hurtbox on st.MP means you can’t bully her with it once you’re in range like you could in AE 2012. I’d say it’s a clear cut 7-3 at this point and I could see how Honda loses to her in that fashion.

1335

thing is most of the ppl playing “good” characters are too damn spoiled. And for the record i have been playing chun this whole time and i have never play her thinking “im playing a a bad character” because she´s not so all that “shame on you” doenst reach me at all.

In the end is just a matter of mentality, you have 2 options look another main or find the way to make it work, nobody is going to buy that gouki is ass because like you said he was good for too damn long and for no reason imo. Is not the first time capcom does stupid nerf to strong characters from one version to another (ie. second impact sean to 3s)

so yeah maybe in ultra chun beats gouki… for now, i dont see it but im the one playing a shitty character so what do i know.

1336

Actually I’m kind of happy knowing that I’ve mained Chun since vanilla. She is very strong in ultra and nobody seems to realize it except a few. I feel like suffering since 09 has kind of paid off.

But I get where you’re coming from, I dont think Akuma deserved all the nerfs. Its unfortunate that Capcom listened to people who think the addition of DWU alone didnt completely screw him up, it seems that people dont value game mechanics as much as individual things a character has. I think Akuma is so nerfed that I have no reason to play him anymore. If I want footsies, I’ll go with Chun. If I want to zone, I’ll go with Ryu.

1337

Shrug I knew Akuma would be hurt the moment they announced DWU. He’s always been an oki character before everything else. What else could have happened with changing the timing on setups that required perfect timing to be executed?

Then again, these balance changes came from the same company that actually believed Yun players when they said the character had a “hard time getting in”. Fucking lol. Because a dive kick, a fast jump, a shoulder that goes through fireballs, a solid walk speed, and a focus attack aren’t enough. Fucking retards.

1338

This is pretty rich. “I play top tier because i play to win. Capcom shouldn’t punish me by nerfing my top tier character”.

If you really ptw, then just man up and switch to a new top tier. You can’t talk like you’re a hard core character specialist and spout PTW aphorisms at the same time.

1339

And a command grab. But it says something that Yun is still not as bad as some other characters from the recent past.

The cast is either more balanced than ever before, or more neutered. Take your pick.

1340

The biggest problem with this balance patch is that their balance ideas were mostly made for a game without DWU and Red Focus, then they added them, and you end up with an Akuma with worse mixups and worse footsies when their first idea was to make sweep punishable for the amount of reward he got out of it, they didn’t take into account that nerfing the reward makes the risk of throwing it a liability.

They wanted to fix vortex but the main offender since AE 2012 imo (Cammy) got out unscathed since her vortex lied around soft knockdowns, which is absolutely laughable. Meanwhile both Seth and Akuma got botched down as if we were still playing AE 2012.