Wao dropped Oni because he doesn’t feel the character is as strong as he was in AE2012. He said this on two occasions now. Once on eventhubs and the other time on twitter. He didn’t pick up E.Ryu because he’s bandwagoning. He picked up E.Ryu because he thinks Oni sucks now. You can go over how amazing Oni’s buttons look on paper but their application in practice seems to be a different story.
It almost makes you wonder how bad Wao thinks Oni really is considering he used Ken in Vanilla when he was (without question) at his absolute worse
I think it says that Evil Ryu is more effective at a high level and that Oni got worse in Ultra, hence why more people play Evil Ryu, even character loyalists like Wao who stuck with Ken in vanilla and Oni since he was introduced.
What do you guys think is different this time for so many people to jump on the Evil Ryu train ?
Why didn’t it happen with Cammy in 2012 ?
Did it happen as bad in AE with Yun ( wasn’t around )
For the way the current meta game is shaping up E.Ryu is the best suited for it. High damage from poke situations and also a great throw/anti-tech game with his Kara throw+f.MK
He’s a Shoto, so his basics are easily accessible to the masses while still having really rewarding tools for higher level players.
Plus as Loyal mentioned the current meta is shifting to rewarding his playstyle a lot more than before with oki pressure not being as rewarding as before.
I’m not going on paper, I’m going on practice. You can see how good they are in a number of matchs. Go watch Mago vs Sanford Kelly at EVO this year. Oni’s buttons are solid, only liabilities were Sanfords over reliance on F+HP and sweep. However when Sanford wasn’t overly using those buttons the footsie matches were always about even. Sanford lost to Mago first match both times due to a high risk gamble that lead to Mago punishing with DP - FADC - CW - Ultra 1 for big damage. The 3rd match Sanford got super impatient and fell apart on his defense.
As for why Wao dropped Oni, yeah that is because he thinks he is weaker than AE2012 (he is weaker) though I totally disagree that he is bad. However that doesn’t mean Wao isn’t bandwagoning the Evil Ryu train. The two things aren’t tied together. He could have dropped Oni and gone to Dudley as his main (a character Wao already is known to play.) or go back to his original main of Ken.
Sure looks like Oni has a variety of buttons that control space well and convert into good damage. The biggest issues Sanford and Chris Hu have are hitting buttons on wakeup resulting in getting counterhit, risky ground slams in focus range/punish range in neutral, and in sanfords case a bit of impatience and overreliance on F+HP and sweep when it’s been punished more than a couple of times already
F+LK, sLK, sMP, B+MP, crMP, crMK and F+MK are all shown to be versatile strong buttons that cover a variety of situations and ranges. F+HP shown to be a solid but risky button.
I wrote this long response and I am honestly not interested in having a discussion on why a character with below average walkspeed that relied on Oki isn’t as good anymore.
Either his buttons need to be buffed a little (i.e cr.MK start up, F+MK hitbox, B+MP start up) or his forward walkspeed needs to be changed to .045 to make up for the loss in vitality and threat of him on knockdown
Since when did Oni rely on Oki? he always has been a Yomi oriented character. Playing him like a shitty Akuma is why people failed for so long. Wao came along and showed people “Hey, you should play him based on footsies, frame traps, and converting pokes into big damage.” and had success.
Sorry eternal, but didn’t you say you were a training mode junkie and someone who rarely plays people? Also you don’t even have Ultra yet right? SSo going off pure theory crafting and observation then? Do you know that tools aren’t looked at in a vacuum but in contrast to opponents tools? Also didn’t you use Momochi dropping Cody for Ken as one of your arguments as why Cody is horrible? Hypocrit much? BTW Wao had been doing that footsie shit since AE vanilla, maybe he showed people who don’t play the character when he made his big splash last year. Damn, man a little research in the actual Oni forums or on Wao’s matches pre Oni is god hype could tell you that. BTW his forward walkspeed was tied for 9th worst in AE 2012…which is a little worse than meh. Again do your research, that is supposed to be your specialty right?
Also Eternal don’t you end every other post with a Cody bitchfest, yet you complain when others do it? Again…hypocrite much?
About your X and Y sample. You’ve also used that same argument with Cody. Sakura and Cammy are much better frame trap characters, Cody is horrible. Again…hypocrite.
To Highland I played Sagat for a while, really liked him. Such a dominant zoning and keepaway game, good damage, and like Ryu having an Ultra that you can land just about every round. Winning with him was a cakewalk in comparison. Maybe you should take your own advice, and play Oni for more than five minutes, see it is not all peaches and cream like you seem to currently believe. (BTW Sagat was considered universally better in AE 2012…and considered better in Ultra even though he was made worse). Yet…you complain about Sagat all the time. Oh yeah and you play Fei too right? Weren’t you saying he was going to be mediocre in Ultra…how did that work out? Again hypocrisy.
Also Eternal on fei…surely a research guru like yourself could break down why Oni matches Fei in mid range game and footsies better than showing a few videos right? I mean you know all the frame data right? I guess the frame data wouldn’t help your argument much though.
I too remember eternal admitting to being more of a training room monster than a regular player. Theory fighting is fine, help that’s how a lot of the tech is discovered but it can skew perceptions on what’s realistic, it has to be backed up by routine play at high levels. Not hatin just sayin
Why are you even here blufang? You don’t play this game. Or do you just come here every time someone claims a character you used to play might not be bad?
Welp, then everyone here should just shut the fuck up. Because 95% of you don’t play regularly at high levels. Meanwhile, you ignore Veserius who often DOES play at high level, and you ignored Alioune who does play at high level AND training rooms it up.
Ok, so any time a character chooses better positional advantage and comparable meter gain over a slight damage increase they are an Oki character? Is Chun now an Oki character because she ends her LLs sequences in sweep instead of sHP, EX SBK, or crHP MK SBK which do more damage?
Let’s say you do one of Oni’s main BnBs’ crLP - crLP - B+MP - sHP. At this point your scaling is 60%. A LK stomp would do 78 damage and build 48meter and give you a much better position, regardless if you go for a mixup or not you have the OPTION to do so. A HP SRK would do 96damage a solid 18 more damage and would build you 56meter but offers you a much worse positioning. Just because you go for Oki over NO mixup whatsoever doesn’t make you an Oki based character. Oni’s main source of damage comes from footsies and frame traps. Not fake crossups and real crossups. How can you argue in the same breath that a character has mediocre to poor oki but is an oki character.
Once you get to some extended combos the advantage of a hard knockdown starts significantly outweighing the tiny damage difference. crLP - crLP - B+MP xx sHP - LK Slash - FADC - crMP - B+MP - sHP. At this point your next move is only doing 20% damage. HP DP would do 32 damage and build you 32 meter while LK Stomp would do 26damage and build you 36meter (meter gain on startup is not affected by combo scaling, stomps build 30 meter while MP/HP SRK only build 20 meter on startup.)
So you build more meter back, get a hard knockdown and you only sacrifice 6 damage.
O also, crMP - crHP - HP DP whiffs on most characters while crMP - crHP - LK Stomp does not and you often see the HK Tatsu as well because it does as much as HP DP.
Anyways:
Last I’ll talk about this character, believe whatever the fuck you want. You want to believe he has terrible footsies and 60F recovery fireballs and is bottom 5 go for it. You want to believe he is top 10 with every conceiveable option and has a free win button? Go for that too. I don’t care how far off your facts are anymore about Oni. Feel free to sit on it and spin.
eternal as much Shit everyone is giving you I have to applaud you. I honestly thought you were gonna put on the rose tinted glasses and sing praises to all of onis perceived strengths and none of his weaknesses. instead you showed deep insight into game mechanics and even offered suggestions as to what buffs he should have got , bravo.
I have a suggestion take it however you want.you have a habit of ignoring good points in others posts and just address what you want to/ have raw frame data to back it up. I admit when I’m wrong and retract my statements if it’s really bad. you should at least try to address more things in the counter arguement it makes for a better debate.
I appreciate you making the effort to construct an argument unlike William Wallace face guy I forget his name who just gets super butthurt and over exaggerates the other sides arguments in caps.
-edit
I really disagree with oni fei being even. Fei dominates oni and bullys him into the corner. There is a range where stand mp controls fei from rekkaing but thats it. up close but out of your jab range fei out buttons you, and farther out feis rekkas punish your medium buttons or he could just focus a lot of them.
Take the sanford vs mago match for example, the first round of the first game went as how the match usually plays out, fei bypassing your fireball, reka stuffing one of your normals(it was crouch hk i think sanford read a back dash but really it could have been any normal at that range and rekka would stuff it) and bullying oni into the corner. Oni sticks out his hk into feis focus and gets crumpled per usual. A bunch of scrambles later sanford takes a dumb gamble and tries to meaty cross up slash mago. mago who picked up oni after losing to wao just to learn onis shenanigans and see what he got beat by i think bonchan picked him up too. its not like the cross up slash wouldlve killed mago anyway and theres no follow up besides if mago quick rises and sanford jump tatsus or air dash tatsu into back mp air reset into another slash mixup, but thats like 2012 last year shit its so played out i guarantee mago knows about that one and wouldnt have quick rose or just blocked right again. high risk low reward mixups for oni.
The next round sanford came back with a good read catching mago trying to focus back dash out and he baited out the uppercut, and AGAIN he throws the fuckin match away by going for cross up slash mixup you can see the slash coming out. I ask you why do that keep this crap in the game? its so bad its just a waste of memory space.
Next game first round same thing fei gets in utilizing his focus (see a theme here?) feis rekka stuffs something, and sanford is in the corner again per usual for the match up, fei controlling space with his normals+rekkas and denying your normals with his focus pressure, it doesnt even need to crumple hes up frames for reaching lvl 2 on you even if you blocked. Again sanford gambles going for a almost point blank stomp, looks like it was lk as well, had mago stand blocked it he couldve punished. Next round he makes a good read and baits flame kick off of the fwd throw meaty set up, but he gambles again in the corner doing 2 hk i think stomps which couldve been focused by mago and crumpled into ultra. Sanford catches fei with something risky but smart i guess a poor mans kazunoko fa cancel but drops the punish, he wins the round regardless with that risky grab off feis lvl 2 focus. 2nd round 2nd game good hk stomp by sanford to beat the crouch fierce by mago, but risky because if mago had been focusing in this range he could crumple or if he had simply done nothing he could rekka punish. Sanford gets a lot of mileage out of back mp back mp frame trap, when really all you need to do is delay tech that and youd tech the throw and block the incoming back mp, or just follow the rule of not pressing buttons within 2 normal presses in a block string against an oni especially with 2 bars. Good confirm from sanford with the wake up crouch mk which is the correct answer to someone walking back and forth outside of your dp fadc range on wake.
last game first round mago lands 2 random rekkas but doesnt finish, then gets a chicken wing into rekka for the corner carry and big damage. I give sanford credit he fights his way out, but mago fights back and starts controlling space with normals, rekka pressure, and focus pressure. mago also picked up on sanfords habit of trying to corner escape with tatsu so he spaces himself correctly and dps it. risky fireball fadc forward block string into stomp by sanford. sanford cant make up the health advantage n loses. Next round mago goes in and focus crumples the risky double fire ball, but really it couldve been any normal fei was gonna get in regardless what he focused, just so happened to be a risky fireball not spaced right. Mago sees sanford going into the fireball fadc block string and reads sanford doing something other then block and mashes dp to punish it just so happens to be the fireball fadc stomp string sanford has a bad habit going into(he dips into that well one too many times, mago couldve blocked or focused and punished but it just so happens to be the 3rd option that beats stomp), sanford falls into the trap of you mash no i mash syndrome and gets baited.
I give props to sanford but just look at that match, the risks you have to take as oni to get any damage on the board, vs the solid fei play by mago. And honestly I think that anytime mago wasnt bullying sanford into the corner(how the fei oni matchup usually plays out imo) is because he picked up on his habit of throwing out f+hp and sweep at the obvious ranges so he walks himself back and baits with focus to try and get an easy crumple.
–double edit, you are right eternal oni is not an Oki based char, he doesnt have the jump in tech to do anything. the times that he could capitalize on knockdowns are on his corner unblockables and you bet wao made very very good use of them against bonchan in topanga(i think oni has like 3-4 unblockables on sagat). Other than fraudulent unblockables you have a manually timed maybe safe jump mk off of stomp but thats it, his main wake up game is just meaty or not meaty pressure or kara throw. Meaty fireballs if you feel like being super safe and building meter/chip.
People fight about how good Akuma is or how shitty Oni is. The only thing I know for sure is both of them got nerfed a little more than they should have.
Also I never said Fei Long was bad, I said he was boring, selective memory my man. I’m done complaining about Sagat, I’m manning up. Also this aint about saying Oni is great, what I’m personally trying to say is that he’s at least solid mid tier. What’s the problem, you believe he’s one of the worst characters in the game? I just call bullshit when I see it.
…yeah…whhhaaat. His TS game got worse and lost damage. If you mean DWU - then No. Sagat is still a solid character though, not super strong but not weak either, I’d imagine Oni is in a similar position.
