I think fake fireball and hopkick would be great additions. Fake fireball (QCF+LK) would help him out with his mid-range/zoning, especially with his fireballs being so great in V-Trigger. Great for baiting out a jump or punishable normal. Likewise hopkick helps as a footsie tool that allows him to get closer if need be. Honorable mention would go to him having a cancelable sweep like in ST/A2/SFxT/
I don’t really see Joudan improving his game but so much. EX Joudan has damage potential via combos/resets, but doesn’t do as much for his neutral as the tools mentioned above would.
Ryu’s damage is pretty high as is. Does he really need Joudan in this game? To be honest, if Joudan caused a hard knockdown, then I can see a use for it. But if the opponent gets quick rise from it, then what’s the point? As it would function exactly like the Tatsu, expect you wouldn’t be right next to your opposition. As for Ryu himself, he’s looking like any other incarnation of himself. His V Trigger does remind me of Denjin Mode in UMVC3.
Always hits crouchers when canceled from a normal(assuming at least on version combos from cr. MK or st. MP for example)
Corner carry(although I admit tatsu serves the same purpose)
Safe pressure(assuming one version is safe). Allows you to annoy your opponent with a move that leaves you at possibly + on block or only -2 at worse and keeps you close to them to continue following up on that pressure
More damage and mix up potential. Basically I’m talking about the EX version. It could allow for resets into side switching or just finish off with fierce SRK for max damage. And the damage and mix up potential could come from footsies instead of a punish combo so Ryu can still be pretty scary from low forward range.
I mean shit, if everybody gets a anti Ryu fireball move then I think Ryu should get something else to help him not rely on fireballs so much. Denjin mode isn’t going to mean shit when Nash or Cammy is sitting on full bars. And just about everybody else has ways around fireballs which will probably be nearly the entire cast.
There are two major points that I want to try out before passing judgement on ryu:
denjin and meaty v-trigger fireball setups. Because this shit seems OP and fun.
Shinkuu frame data. If that super is as fast as it seems, it’s gonna work like SFIV chun’s super meaning you can punish ANYTHING on block and a lot of stuff on hit. With meter being so free in this game, you’re garanteed to shave off 30% of their health per round.
I can’t see the cancelable sweep happening. Not to speak on whether it would be a good idea, but Capcom has shown that they want different things from the design of the game.
It’s been stated that they want you to use multiple buttons in mid-range, and their decisions support that. They seem to want you to use the standing short and strong buttons sometimes instead of always doing fireball cancels from low forward. Adding back the sweep cancel would return it to a state where you always want to sweep -> fireball if possible.
I could see them adding back joudan, but only as a fanservice thing because it doesn’t accomplish anything the current tatsu can’t do. It definitely wouldn’t be safe on block - you already have fireball if you want that.
Denjin fireballs losing their edge against certain moves does seem like an issue, but then a dash cancel wouldn’t really help that point. Unless Ryu can cancel his charge into parry/shoryu, most likely it would just turn into a matchup strategy thing, where if your opponent is sitting on full meter, you also sit on your v-gauge, maybe using some ACs if you want, and only V-trigger after a knockdown or on reaction to jumps.
Honestly I’m not even sure fake fireballs would help much. The modern SF doesn’t have fireballs that recover fast enough that you have to react to Ryu’s animation. You can react to the fireball being on the screen, and still hit him, so the fake would only help at close range.
The biggest thing is that supers aren’t ultras, and you have to pay a real cost to keep them available.
We’re all only theory casting right now, but if we’re going by X Tekken or UMVC3, Ryu won’t have a safe Joudan. Every version is a minimum of -7, with EX being the safest at -3, (Street Fighter X Tekken).
Personally, I’d rather him have a version of Axe Kick and Evil Ryu’s Cr/St.Mk, if his fireball game is going to be so lackluster.
I do want to see how people’s V-Skill’s will affect Ryu when the game is fully developed. I do think with everybody, as you’ve already stated, having a way around fireballs, he should get better recovery and startup frames on his zoning game. I do suspect that Capcom are afraid to give him strong fireballs due to his ability to build V-Trigger with parry. And with fireballs getting stronger everytime you successfully V-Trigger, Ryu could end up being a strong zoner.
You have to consider how good those Denjin fireballs are, and I’m not even talking about the charged ones. They travel across the screen quickly and have great recovery; quick enough that you can fire one and still have time to DP if they jump. A fake fireball to bait out someone’s anti-fireball V-Skill or Super is just what the doctor ordered. I could even see it being useful on wakeup situations where the opponent is expecting a denjin setup, but instead you fake fireball and dash-up throw them. There are plenty of potential applications for a fake fireball in Ryu’s game.
Also, I think it’s far too early to give up on fireballs. Yeah, different characters have ways around them, but those methods can also be baited out and punished. This isn’t like 3S where you can nullify a projectile with a tap of a button.
Donkey kick isn’t necessarily bad, it’s almost always better to have things than not have them, but it’s literally his least interesting special move. Fireball, tatsu, and DP all are really interesting special moves. Donkey kick is just combo filler. The only reason people want it is nostalgia, it doesn’t actually make him a more interesting or versatile character. It’s kind of a style-over-substance move. Alpha hop kicks are cool, good fireball zoning is cool. Donkey kick, shrug.
It’s beyond early to estimate the value of parry. They could add 3 frames to the absorb window or drop 3 frames off the recovery and it becomes a much better or worse move, and it’s exactly the sort of move that benefits from practice and familiarity with the game. It’s a beta, and everyone is terrible. Who knows if it’s any good or not? It’s the sort of move that could turn around entire match-ups by making safe things unsafe, and it makes Ryu strikingly dominate in the fireball game. It beats a fuckin’ spin knuckle, or Bison’s anti-fireball pseudo-parry.
Ken’s run pressure is exactly the sort of thing that looks amazing at the beginning and gets worse as the game goes on, and Ryu’s parry is the sort of thing that starts out with people not knowing what to do with it and then people learn really great uses for it and commit them to muscle memory.
Are you sure about that? I’ve only heard that the MK version hits crouchers. And I figured the range might be kind of limited if that were the case. But if they all work then that’s good news. Having joudan just for the EX version would still be great though. Fake fireball or hop kick would also be great but I doubt they add anything to Ryu at this point. Just my pessimism from SF4 where they refused to give anybody a new special move.
Capcom dudes playing ryu. Some points that caught my attention:
cr.mk xx fireball does not combo from max range
blocked s.mp moves you out of range of cr.mk. I think only f.hp or cr.hk will reach.
Best and most damaging hit confirm seems to be s.mp, cr.hp, v-trigger cancel, cr.mk xx tatsu.
You can get ex dp after j.mp.
Parry doesn’t work reliably vs jump ins (really depends on the height they press the button and angle of jump).
Maybe you can link cr.hp after f.mp counter hit (one of them did a random cr.hp xx tatsu after an overhead hit).
If the opponent does not quick rise after a sweep knockdown you seem to get the perfect timing for a meaty charged fireball.
It seems you can combo a v-trigger fireball into super at around 3/4 of the screen or less.
My concerns is that the fake fireball just like the Parry could either become far too powerful, or else, not very reliable whatsoever, and finding the happy medium would be the most difficult problem.
In a game like ST, although it helped out against characters like Sim, it flat out made it almost impossible for characters like Honda who already had a severely bad match up against Ryu prior to that buff.
I just don’t want to see Ryu receive a Fake Fireball however have it so situational that it wouldn’t even be viable to the point that it is just another move that we Ryu players don’t even think about.
Without question I would like something that will make his fireball zoning game stronger (w/o a fake fireball option) due to all of the Anti-Fireball setups we’re seeing already, or else an improvement for his footsies, but why not both of these improvement options?
What I’m most fearful about SF:V Ryu is that he’ll cater to having to “get in” more so then anything else, in which he is a character who was always built to be able to work well in all lengths of the stage. Yes, even if the “rush in and land big damage” Ryu became Top-Tier, I don’t care, I want an effective zoning, footsies, fundamental Ryu which is what his foundation has always been built upon.
Lastly, I would Love to have Ryu’s SFII Stage back, but completely revamped with possibly older aging buildings that look more spectacular, along with the night sky and a much larger crescent moon.
Looking at how average his cr. mk appears vs how good his dash and st mp look. Outside of vtrigger, seems like he is gonna have to rush that shit down.
Without knowing how strong or weak his fb game, he just looks like he needs something. I am erring on the weak side.
So guys, you know how Rose gets her fireballs, super and ultra boosted when she absorb a fireball? If you don’t know, take a look at this (you don’t need to watch the whole video, lol):
How cool would it be if Ryu’s parry worked more or less the same way when he parries projectiles? I think that would make him scarrier and give him what he now seems to be lacking.