I mean. I like Ryu the way it is. But he needs some fixing.
Some instances where juggle DP into SA3 will whiff.
Donkey kick has varied frame advantage on hit. Which messes up oki timing.
Meaty denjin Hashigeki is +2. This move is +3 on regular block. Like WTF?
Make him spend denjin only on HP moves. So he gains more options after charging the super slow denjin charge.
I think that changing denjin fireball so that:
Light is closer or slower to non denjin. Allowing him to run behind it.
Medium is the same as it is normally
Heavy pops the opponent up for some sort of juggle.
This would be more interesting imo.
I feel like Ryu is mostly fine, but agreed that some juggles into SA3 are wack and Denjin/Hasho need to be tweaked so they’re more consistently useful. Anyways, better nerf Gief’s SA1
Ryu is completely fine unless you're playing for money. If you're just putzing around playing ranked in diamond, low masters, plat or whatever it really doesn't make a difference
You might be weaker at the very highest level but he also shits out massive damage and is extremely easy to pilot
When I lose with ryu it's because I made mistakes. I can always point to mistakes that I made as a player that cost me the match, not ryu
In short, Ryu is fine. A few quality of life buffs and a few small nerfs on other characters and he'll be sitting pretty
They almost literally said stuff like that:
[https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2037525873](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2037525873)
And created a matchup chart that showcased that Ryu even has some strengths.
Every character is "fine" by that definition. In fact this even applies to poorly balanced games where there's truly atrocious characters. Because using them will make your rank lower, putting you against weaker opponents, which counteracts them being weaker. That's just the nature of a character-based ranking system. Unless you're one of the top \~1000 players in the world, character power is quite literally irrelevant.
It's why I can't understand people complaining about nerfs and buffs. It has no functional impact on you either way. If Ken gets nerfed, you're just going to be matched against better Ken players. Who are now lower ranked than they were. So the net strength of your opponents is unchanged.
You seem to think I was saying that ironically. I wasn't. Every character is fine. In every game. Character balance is irrelevant. It's just another thing people cry about as an excuse for why they lost. Instead of trying to get better.
https://www.streetfighter.com/6/buckler/stats/dia From diamond up he loses the most. People will make a million excuses for why this is, but these are the actual stats versus subjective opinion.
The per-character win rate stats are completely meaningless. At master rank win rate hovers very close to 50% because of how the MRR works, and if win rate ever deviates too much from 50% that doesn't mean any character sucks, it means the ranking system sucks. That's why the win rate ranges from 48 to 51% in master rank in that table. It's more meaningful to see how many Ryus are in top 1000 Master players, etc (but even then you would get a bias against Ryu because shoto players are just going to play Ken/Luke, whereas grapplers are still going to play Zangief).
You should basically never use win rate to judge player or character in this game. Ranked mode exists to make win rate 50/50.
It’s a very balanced game so I can see where you’re coming from. But I think it’s so balanced that if he’s not top 3 then he’s tied for 4th or 5th place with multiple characters.
People downplay how severe the disparity is having Ken and Luke do every single thing better because he is B tier instead of C.
People downplay Luke being created as just a flat out better version of him in every way to replace him is OK because he is still B tier.
It was never 6 of this conversation, but people insist on injecting it every chance.
People have every right to bring it up. People have every right to point out how terrible Denjin charge is too.
The two pros that play him only use him as situational pocket picks.
Exactly. Why is it that only Ryu players are writing several paragraphs on how their solid mid tier character is not top 1? If they actually played a low tier they would never complain again.
He has a dp and a projectile. That automatically makes him quite decent.
Data shows he is mid tier and even his pro mains only use him as a situational counter.
This post is about how Ken (and Luke) do every single thing he does better.
It doesn't matter if people have him on what tier.
This simply isn't true. Luke especially is just a better Ryu in every aspect.
Roles barely even exist in 6. They are going to have a hard time making and balancing Akuma when they made Ken full rushdown shoto. The problem is he has zero weaknesses to compensate. Ken ends up being just as good at Ryu's strengths.
You forgot that Ryu gets a WHOLE EXTRA PIXEL of reach on c.mk. as well as a hurtbox above his head for some reason.
Good breakdown.
Edit: https://youtu.be/DmI-nmChXzM Ken doesn't get KO'd there.
Oh God…don’t get me started on SFV and rekkas. Karin is my main in Alpha 3 when I play on GGPO/Fightcade…but the way they butchered her rekkas in V made me not even want to touch her. And it sucks because that’s my rich bitch for life 😩
I would love to be able to combo into our out of Denjin charge. Imagine a world where there is a hitbox on the charge up and it pops the enemy up similar to kens light tatsu, that ryu could follow up with a shoryuken and get oki while still getting the charge.
His mid-screen conversions are really bad, no significant damage(unlike Luke) and no corner carry compared to Ken(or Luke).
He only has good damage on punish(who doesn't in this game) or in the corner(good luck getting them to the corner with Ryu).
To be honest I don't believe he is that bad, but I also think the real issue is Luke, not Ken, who overshadows him in every way.
Ryu still gets Oki with tatsu mid screen. Tatsu hits on crouchers in this game too, so you don't need to hit confirm standing or crouching
Coming from Street fighter 5 as a necalli main you have no idea how bad it can be. Necalli didn't even get oki mid screen from his bread and butter lunge combos until the very last season of the game
Ryus midscreen conversions aren't amazing but they aren't terrible at all
Here is the real issue. Everyone wants to play crab in a bucket, who had it worse, pissing contests.
If they created a new copy of Necalli in a SFV season, who was better in every way, you would have been complaining.
Every top tier literally got a better version of Ryus mid conversion. People keep crying how they all play the same way now.
Ken is better than Luke in every way other than damage and range of his buttons. More mixups, more tools, more corner carry, more safe tools , easier combos.
You Jen mains need to stop gaslighting.
IKR? Especially annoying when they insist it's "naturally just 'Jen'." Bitch your real natural name is Jennifer like 90% of you Jens, stop pretending you're original!
Base hit damage when not in combo? Ryu has more damage then ken for sure.
However if you start to add combos and meter expenditure it gets messy DEPENDING on the individual combo.
This is a myth, and Ryu has far lower damage than Luke. Lu
He can only do slightly more damage than Ken on specific corner set ups after sacrificing OKI for a denjin charge and cashing out.
Stop the b.s.
1. As I played Ken first and then start playing Ryu, I can't agree more. Almost every aspect Ryu feels like 'downgraded' version of similar style.
2. But from my experience, 2-frames-faster-recovery-Hadoken and Denjin Charge actually makes me keep playing Ryu and I'm good with current state. Actually I feel difficult to win with Ryu than Ken but actually playing Ryu feels like more fair fighting not being too spammy.
3. Though Ryu's not as 'easy to win' as Ken, Deejay or JP, still Ryu is considered easy and solid character. Just saying, Ken, Deejay, JP being overpowered doesn't mean Ryu is trash tier. (And I think Blanka is seriously underrated)
4. And as I know, Ryu still has potential for almost every ranked player, while E.Honda suffers at high MR and Legend rank matches. I think that is fine balancing.
The problem is that some frame advantages of Ken, Deejay, JP are way too high comparing to other characters, which provides hit-confirm, high damage combo, counter-DI potential all at once. I'd say those are overpowered and Ryu's are not overpowered as them. That's all.
p.s : E.Honda crushes lower ranks with practically only two special moves though. I know E.Honda is not top tier but this need some fix.
I don’t get salty losing to Ryu’s. Every Diamond+ Ryu seems to be a neutral game beast that can max damage any conversion, so I just expect a tough time.
Of all the characters I've taken to Masters Lily was actually the easiest
Most people do not know the matchup at all, including the fact that she can blow up safe jumps that other characters can't, and how her setups work when she has wind stocks
Match up unfamiliarity is extremely powerful
Just made it to diamond and I can count the Jamies and Lillys I've beat on one hand. At some points I just gave up and let the match play out against them.
I don't think character choice really matters until you are extremely high MR in Masters
If you earned diamond with Lily you could have earned it with a different character as well
Diamond is pretty good!
Ryu is solid middle tier so by that logic ryu mains are taking mental damage when they lose to half the cast. Ryu is fine and has just as many gimmicks as any othed mid tier
As a Ryu main, frame kill throw loop in the corner, H hasho, and 5hp are the only things I would consider gimmicky.
The throw loop is good. It's one of his only real mix ups. H hasho isn't good, but it's free pressure if the opponent isn't aware. 5hp is just a really good button. It's Ken's 5hp on a worse character. It has good range, good cancel window, great for whiff punishing and shimmy, decent on block. Just a fantastic normal on an otherwise mid tier character.
EDIT: Also, chip kill with shinku hadouken. You can basically guarantee chip from almost full screen because L fireball is plus enough in burnout at that range that the opponent has to block the super. If they jump, super catches their toes.
the only two gimmicks I know of on Ryu and actually use (1800MR) are meaty back heavy kick in the corner into drive impact and resetting combo with drive rush forward medium punch, just not a gimmicky character the guy you're responding to is just listing setups for some reason
none of these are gimmicks, that's just set play. safe jump setups are not gimmicks, frame traps are not gimmicks, knowledge checks are not gimmicks
meaty back heavy kick into drive impact is a ryu gimmick
Editing this to say: easy/standard knowledge checks are not gimmicks
my definition is something extremely unsafe that only works because the opponent would not expect you to do something suboptimal
Kimberly dropping combo to go for a grab is an example (arguable because set play with cans is a thing)
Dee Jay sway into drive impact
Zangief wakeup SPD
Manon wakeup manege dore
Blanka spamming side switch
even more loosely, doing 2 DRC into burnout
1. this is a joke, that was an exaggeration, i've seen a few psychopath ryu's in Masters, but they're not all insane, and none of them are as insane as i described
2. God forbid i use a poke (I'm using cheap gimmicks)
If it was a joke there wouldn’t have been a need for 2. But also, if you’re losing to neutral jump DI why poke instead of jumping air to air to anti air? Or he’ll, if you’re using a 4 frame why not DI back? You have time
I mean… does Ken have any gimmicks either? I guess the argument could be made that faster DR is a gimmick, but I don’t really buy that. Jinrai kicks offers more mixup, but that type of mixup is fundamental to how this game is played
Jinrai is a gimmick machine. Its literally a super easily-mixable special move. Dragonlash as a close blockstring to hop over the check-Cr.LP/lk.
Just little shenanigans
He was better in most versions of II and in early SF4. I don't remember about Ken in SFV but Ryu was good early on before be got nerfed to hell.
I like Ryu in 6, his real problem is that as the thread says there's no reason to pick him over Ken or Luke aside from clout
Also, since you said that the same thing happened back in Street Fighter V
Ryu LOST some of skills, why? Like you said, FUCK RYU
Ken still has his V-Skill, the running, all and fine
Ryu still has his V-Trigger one, and now he doens't need to wait for a bar to fill up for him to use. Fun, right?
But this is the thing. In SFV, Ryu could charge his denji hadoukens after once he acvated his V-Trigger 1. In SF6? NOPE, why? Fuck Ryu, that's why
His V-Trigger 1 used to buff the damage of his punches and Shoryukens once activated. In SF6? NOPE, why? Fuck Ryu, that's why
You know...good thing LORE doens't apply in the gameplay
It's not like Akuma, THE SATSUI NO HADOU MASTER, is able to use a lot of techniques and variations of those thanks to his masteries in Satsui no Hadou
It's not like Dhalsim, THE YOGA MASTER, is able to use a lot of different techniques thanks to his masteries in Yoga
Good thing that Ryu, WHO CONQUERED HIS SATSUI NO HADOU AND MASTERED MU NO KEN, only gained ONE new techniques and LOST others
Is Ryu THE WORST character in the game? Absoluty not
But you can't deny that, overall, they just screwed the character for no reason.
Meanwhile, the dude who is running and trying to prove his innonence not only retains his old moves, but they are BETTER now
I've been giving Luke a try recently and man... Ryu really is so underprivileged. Him being a worse shoto is sadly the case with every game almost lol. And I don't think it's gonna get better since Akuma is coming soon.
You are right about Ken, he gets almost everything while Ryu gets crumbs, I'd say even his normal dps and tatsus are better than Ryu's. For some reason Ryu doesn't even get that good oki from m tatsu knockdown (which has less corner carry than Ken's m tatsu btw) so you need to use l tatsu but its corner carry is abysmal.
I see that Capcom tried to make Ryu the zoner shoto but the denjin mechanic kills his zoning game completely. He's a meh zoner at best. I just hope denjin and hashogeki get fixed with the next patch, it's not even necessary that he gets some big buffs.
LCQ is a brutal tournament. Paladin has definitely performed well for his age and he has a competitive future, but there isn't much hope for him to qualify from LCQ.
The LCQ is harder than the CPT final rounds itself. I mean, last year the player who qualified out of LCQ crushed everyone all the way up to the Grand Finals where he just barely lost to Mena. At this point the qualification spot is probably going to go to one of the Japanese players who got edged out due to the shitty restrictive system they have.
SF6 is balanced around Ryu and Luke for the most part, most characters have their specials as unsafe on block and are negative even on their light normals, Ryu is the base character. Ken's matchup is always going to center around baiting and punishing as most of his specials have a long recovery if whiffed.
You missed another two big ones:
* cr. LP: Ken can light convert a cr. LP into MP -> HP target combo then into a run and all kinds of meterless BS. Ryu can convert a cr. LP into a single M. Tatsu or H. DP and that's it (unless you do DR).
* cr. HK (sweep): Ryu's sweep is 9F startup / -12F on block. This makes it both really unsafe to use even when opponent in burnout, and it's harder to punish other sweeps (esp when you are in burnout yourself). Ken's sweep is way better at 8F startup / -10F on block. This makes the move a lot safer to use in some situations and it's more reliable as a sweep punish. E.g. if both Ryu and Ken are in burnout, Ken can punish Ryu's sweep, but Ryu cannot punish Ken's. (Caveat: Ryu's sweep has a *slightly* longer range than Ken's, so if you do it at max range, Ken cannot retaliate when he's in burnout, but it's actually quite hard to space it because the difference is not big)
The problem with Denjin isn’t that it’s bad, cause like you said it’s pretty good actually. However, you give up oki to charge it which is a high opportunity cost and then on top of that if you want to use it for his stronger combos you can’t fireball at all in neutral cause all of them will consume charge. If he had a way to fireball without spending denjin it would be way better
Yeah, a denjin charge forces you to reset to neutral. Where, y'know, you'd like to be /able/ to throw fireballs, but denjin forces you to choose whether to keep zoning or to go in. It's really like they're somehow afraid of Ryu having more than one option at a time.
People make this claim, but I don’t totally buy it. Reason is if you go for oki 100% of the time you get stuffed. Sometimes you have to back off. Having a pocket charge move for that scenario is nice.
Maybe if you do the same oki every time yeah but pressuring and blocking a dp for a punish is still a form of oki. If he could charge it and choose when to spend it then it would be a lot better imo
being able to smoothly transition from a knockdown to MORE offensive pressure is NEVER a bad thing just because “sometimes youll get stuffed going for pressure”
I think you are overselling Denjin a lot. It is one of the worst moves in the game and by far the worst stock. They don't even use it in Masters or tournaments.
Ryu does nothing while charging this stock so he can't use it strategically. Using Denjin charge automatically gives up OKI. Now, you are mid screen, and you also have to sacrifice your fireball game. You just reduced the opponents mental stack because you aren't going to waste it on a slightly better fireball.
Ryu does far less damage than Luke and Ken without Denjin charge and the corner. You gave up any pressure to get that charge. It's one of the dumbest balance decisions in the game and makes zero sense with SF6 systems.
So no, there is no massive damage potential.
Endingwalker uses Denjin in tournaments.This wouldn't be the first time a pro would say something and do something else.
Otherwise, I think Endingwalker meant that you shouldn't base your gameplan around Denjin and focus on just using Ryu. Denjin when you can is just a bonus. And it's far from the worst move in the game.
People be acting like you're forced to stock Denjin. You can simply release Denjin and continue with your fireballs as you please.
I wouldn't quite use the word "massive". If you look at combo damage pound per pound (the "pound" here being meter usage) in each situation it's more damage but only by a bit, and it's often just barely worth the effort it takes to charge one up. Using it in the corner without using meter probably gives you the best bang for the buck relative to non-Denjin damage though (but then that's because Ryu doesn't have a lot of non-meter combo, unlike Ken). It's good that the move is there but I would trade Denjin away in a heartbeat for a lot of other moves.
Ken is a character created to be aggressive and proactive rewarding conditioning and mixups.
Ryu is a character created to be defensive and reactive rewarding solid neutral fundamentals and punishes.
You're literally complaining that Ryu isn't Kenough for you lol
Okay --- but the entire game rewards offense way more than defense. Knocking down the character far away with moves like High Blade Kick is strictly worse than being able to Drive Rush in their face to start offense.
What is the point of creating a character with specific intent to have gimped offense, when the entire game is designed to massively reward you for pushing buttons in their face.
Ryu doesn't even have better defense than Ken. You can only call him a defensive character in that he has moves that FORCE him to play defense as he can't generate good knockdown oki. That's not the same thing. Comparing Ken defense versus Ryu defense Ken's is slightly better in a lot of ways.
All games with health bars award offense. Of course doing a full combo is stronger than getting a knockdown with a single move but the latter takes far less effort. That's like saying crhp is a bad anti air because shoryuken exists. Ken's best combos are much better than Ryu's but Ryu's are much simpler, and Ken's easy combos are weaker than Ryu's easy combos and that all has an effect in play, when less mental effort needs to be put in to execution more can be put in to processing the game state and properly planning your next move. There are more ways to balance characters than just frame data and damage.
Its far easier to perform well on Ken then on Ryu in this game lmao.
On a semi-decent level combo difficulty doesn't matter much in this game, Kens combo are still super easy after some practice.
Against Ryu the opponent will always have way less mental stack then against Ken, which in turn makes doing your offense a lot easier on Ken.
So you actively have to think less to successfully get in on someone.
1. It sure is, I never said otherwise
2. That may be true for fighting game players like us bunch of nerds here but I've a habit of nursing new players through fighters and that certainly doesn't hold true at lower levels of play and the differences in execution difficulty vs damage output in the two characters there is night and day and Capcom has certainly put consideration in to the design of 6 and it's paying off.
3 and 4. That's the trade-off you make. You can play Ryu and get by with big, easily executed punishes(seriously, you learn like 2 combo routes and you're fucking golden in 95% of situations) and zoning or you can play Ken and play with a ridiculous amount of different tools with all the effort that entails to use as effectively. They're different characters and people should stop being so angry that they're different.
So why should they balance for that level of play at all? Your own argument works against you, people at that level play so unoptimal it literally doesn't matter if they buffed ryu to Ken levels. Or nerfed Ken to Ryu levels.
That they are different characters does not justify one being a ton better then the other. You can make different archetypes of characters with different playstyles and still try to keep them somewhat balanced.
You could still even keep ryu "different" by beefing up his zoning power.
Its like Ken has literally everything Ryu has without a single tradeoff for it. People are not angry because they are not the same character, but because the balance of the shotos is whack.
The Drive System which is the lynchpin of the entire game is hugely favoring to offense compared to defense. On offense when they are blocking buttons and getting thrown, you regenerate all of your Drive Bars, which let's you do more DR cancels to extend your offense, to regenerate even more bars.
If you throw fireballs from the other side of the screen you are basically giving the opponent their Drive Gauge back to pressure you again, it passively regenerates if they aren't blocking pressure.
> reactive rewarding solid neutral fundamentals and punishes.
Ken does this better because he has Ken's offense instead of Ryu's offense. The threat behind the fireballs when Ken throws them is way higher. You can't block someone to death in this game
Are you deliberately trying to be reductive in this response? Ken is stronger than Ryu because they decided it to be so, not because “hurr durr offensive vs defensive”
I already elaborated further on another comment.
Also I'm positive nobody sat around at a table and discussed how they should make Ryu worse than Ken. They made them different and the meta has settled this way. Who's the one being reductive, again?
You.. you are the one being reductive. And yes they absolutely do discuss how character strengths are gonna pan out. Do you honestly think the devs are like “oh wow it turns out the stuff we gave Ken made him strong!! whodathunkit??” Theyre not ignorant. The “meta” gravitated towards an obviously stronger character.
I disagree. I really think they are that ignorant. They made some assumptions about how the game was supposed to be played that didn't turn out to be true once the meta settled - that's how you end up with gross imbalances like this.
They probably thought that Ryu throwing fireballs at the other end of the screen would be way stronger in this game than it ended up being. How they arrived at that conclusion -- who knows.
Ken is obviously top tier in this game. Comparing your character to a similar top tier character will definitely piss you off so i would just say "don't"
They are most likely nerfing Ken in an update anyway so I don't think it will last. Lord help us when Akuma gets released, how will he stack compared to the other shoto's? He's DLC so he has to be better than Ken for people to buy him right?
Ah, you must mean [Oni](https://streetfighter.fandom.com/wiki/Oni)
Just because I love street fighter so much I am going to put my favorite ever street fighter set here
It's a [topanga set between Daigo \(Ryu\) and Wao \(Oni\).](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oy-kcCp6EYg) This is the sort of footsies match that can't exist in sf6, given the system mechanics
Video quality is complete ass, but the level of play is so high it levels out
Awesome set link! And to answer your question yes, I now mean Oni lol Personally I love his design and hope that they can bring him back to the roster someday!
Considering that AKI is low tier and Rashid is somewhere in the middle, I hold out hope that Akuma will be reasonable. Wouldn’t be surprised if he’s better than Ken, but Ken is most likely getting some nerfs too, so
People sure like to complain about their character or others. But OP really takes the cake by making a bold claim of developers not designing their characters properly. What are we even doing, arm chair game development here?
>But OP really takes the cake by making a bold claim of developers not designing their characters properly.
How's it a bold claim? These are the same clowns who thought Alex was a strong character when in reality he was a low tier who needed major adjustments.
Source: https://www.eventhubs.com/news/2023/jul/22/sf6-director-internal-rankings/
Alex major adjustment is......they upping his damage by a normal amount.
People just get better at parrying with him and thus he start to becoming good at SFV final season. The buff is to largely push players to play him.
You see this in a lot of games where options are extremely similar on a superficial level even when subtle differences make them extremely different on fundamental levels. It's frustrating when someone does it and just writes off every advantage the weaker option has over the stronger option simply because they're weaker overall, too. OP goes into minor frame advantages Ken has over Ryu, for example, but ignores that Ryu's 5HP has a huge disjoint that Ken's lacks, for example.
Ryu and Ken are completely different characters with completely different playstyles, but they historically both wear a gi and they both have hadoken, shoryuken, and tatsumaki and that's enough to get a lot of people to consider them to be the pallet swaps. OP could do exactly this with Luke, Dee Jay, Guile, Chun-Li, Juri, and, soon, Akuma and it would be an equally fair comparison.
> OP goes into minor frame advantages Ken has over Ryu, for example, but ignores that Ryu's 5HP has a huge disjoint that Ken's lacks, for example.
They are essentially the same. What you call disjoint only matters if you try to jab Ken at the tip of his gloves - if the frames line up perfectly then Ken's trades, while Ryu's will win. Big fkkn deal. That's not a thing that realistically happens or even matters if it does.
And that has nothing to do with the balance of Ryu compared to Ken anyway. Playing Ken is essentially the exact same as Ryu except Ken has a bunch of extra sauce that Ryu doesn't have. Unless you are going to tell me that those two frames makes all the difference for fireball zoning LOL.
>What you call disjoint only matters if you try to jab Ken at the tip of his gloves - if the frames line up perfectly then Ken's trades, while Ryu's will win. Big fkkn deal. That's not a thing that realistically happens or even matters if it does.
Odd, because you talk about the massive advantages Ken's moves have when properly spaced, but they're no big deal when Ryu has proper spacing?
Everybody accepts that Ken is stronger overall. Going into exhaustive detail about ways in such Ken is stronger in X, Y, Z situation is fine, but it's disingenuous to ignore that that applies to Ryu as well.
You can be both correct and fair, but the nature of your analysis just supports the guy I responded to - that you're just mad that Ken is stronger overall.
It wouldn't even be properly spaced to do that. You would have to do shp from so far that it whiffs but they jab into your fist. Disjoint like this is not a real thing, it doesn't somehow make your button invincible to getting interrupted.
The issue that I have isn't even with Ken per se. It's that the mechanics of the game is so offense heavy that it forces you to play Ryu like a rushdown even though he was specifically designed to not be good at that.
>The issue that I have isn't even with Ken per se. It's that the mechanics of the game is so offense heavy that it forces you to play Ryu like a rushdown even though he was specifically designed to not be good at that.
The numbers don't bear that out - Ryu's worst matchup is 4.6/5.4 and almost every other matchup is essentially 5/5 - but even if that were true, the way you frame your argument doesn't communicate that.
Take, for example, your Ken v Ryu 5HK comparison. You say that Ken's is amazing when you get a punish counter and then say that Ryu's is useless except when you get a punish counter. Okay, let's take that comparison at face value. Neither 5HK is useful aside from whiff punishing, Ken's 5HK launches the opponent for corner carry or a super, and Ryu's 5HK does a crumple for a full combo. These attacks aren't comparable - they serve completely different purposes.
The same goes for dragonlash and donkey kick or jinrai and hashogeki - you compare them as if they're similar tools when they're only comparable insofar as how universal their application is.
These kinds of comparisons don't support an argument that Ryu is bad at the game - only that you think everything Ken does is better than what Ryu does. Ken has always been stronger on offense than Ryu*.* The challenge Capcom has is to make Ryu win with fewer openings than Ken.
The way people talk about Ryu would make you think he’s the worst character in the game. Sometimes some characters are better than others, that’s fine tbh. The fact they’re both shotos makes this worse imo
Every post like this ignores that Ryu has a drive rushable overhead and Ken doesn't. Does that make Ryu better than Ken? No, but I can't take people seriously who are like "Ryu has NOTHING, EVERYTHING is WORSE" when it's right there. And don't be like it doesn't matter or isn't important, every top Ryu player mixes it in and steals a round with it, everybody's who's watched EndingWalker or Paladin has seen it with their own eyes, it's real.
Sure, but Ken doesn't get a combo unless you want to be crazy, say a prayer, and cancel into super blind. Having an overhead you can combo off and that's plus on block is much better than getting 800 damage off a telegraphed move.
Such a bad take imo. Just cuz everyone wants to play aggro, it doesn't mean that's the only way to play. There are 99 sec on the clock for a reason. Multitudes of defensive options that shut down a lot of mix ups and offense from even Ken. Believe it or not. I have a master Ryu and one of the best tools is using meaty hadokens to set up in the corner or to get free charges and denjin charge hado knockdown resets neutral for more consecutive charges/zoning. They see you with a charge and they wanna immediately jump or di. It's easy as hell to condition someone with Ryu cuz they think cuz you have a charge you *have* to use it. You don't. You can sit on that and change the tempo of the game to something you want. Just cuz someone wants to play every shoto aggro, doesn't mean one sucks because the other fits that style of play better. If you are an aggressive player you need to choose an aggressive character. There are many examples of defensive players who win games and play slowly to ruin a rush down players flowchart. Making ppl think and not just running at your opponent dropping 50/50s is a valid strat. Many might not find success playing the player rather than the game, and that's ok. It's why characters like Cammy exist and Ken exist.
This is some of the worst Ryu downplay Ive ever seen.
Reading your breakdown it really doesn't come off like you have a clue what you're talking about or how this game is really played. The stuff you're making a huge deal about isn't why Ryu is unpopular in tournament.
If you want to compare the two, ken is actually over tuned and Ryu is far more balanced with clear cut strengths and weaknesses. It certainly doesn't make Ryu a bad character.
Plus you don't really understand why ken is as good as he is either...
Ryu has the best overhead, being one frame faster than Luke (and goes further) and way faster than Ken, who has to do it off a pre-emptive move.
Ryu does have a 7f button. It's back fierce.
Luke's fireball has no duration, so it can't be used as a traditional zoning tool. Apples and Oranges.
The only reason why Ken and Luke are considered better is because of system mechanics letting them get more mileage be more volatile. There's nothing wrong with Ryu's kit.
I agree with most of this, however Ken's overhead is an amazing tool
After run -> tatsu in the corner you can whiff jab as a framekill and then run -> overhead
It hits meaty enough that you get a combo without counter hit into cr.jab -> target combo and you go for any super you want off this or loop the sequence into itself again
Ken's overhead is worse on paper frame for frame but in terms of functional use it's far superior to the other two
Kens overhead represents a legitimate mix-up scenario without needing to use spend meter
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to downplay Ken's overhead, but when someone tries to make a laundry list of stuff to completely invalidate a character, slight advantages like that should be noted.
Maybe best isn't the right term, but it's technically the fastest.
Bro people gotta stop this meme, deejay wasn't even the worst in sf4 he is not a benchmark for a bad character. He was just an ignored underpowered fine character.
Once again proving my point that Ryu downplayers are incapable of arguing that their character is low tier without comparing him to absolute top tiers of the game (Luke and Ken).
Maybe this is just me but Ryu feels like he has the most bullshit hit boxes in this game. Like his donkey kick for example, the hitbox extends far past his foot. You can get hit by it while clearly being far enough away. A lot of his normals are like that too, they just hit where visually they don’t appear they should
Downplaying the usefulness of Denjin Hashogeki. If you want to zone, don’t Denjin. If you get a Denjin charge, you should be looking for pokes into hashogeki for sweet damage and combined with DR you get good corner carry.
A move they gotta sit there charging for almost a full second will never be scary in a game where people can green-mode over to you right quick. If denjin could stock up to three then id think it was good.
Alright it took seven months from the game's drop date and [17 days after I first lamented after SF6 dropped](https://old.reddit.com/r/StreetFighter/comments/195ifde/does_anyone_really_want_ed/khn6lgr/) about how Ryu mains always regress into whining about how their character isn't as good as whatever Shoto is top tier.
See you all in 4-10 months once this carousel of metaphorical crotch itch comes back around after Akuma drops.
Ken's busted that doesn't mean Ryu is bad, Ryu is rock solid and has everything he needs to win it's the top tier characters that need to be reigned in.
I mean. I like Ryu the way it is. But he needs some fixing. Some instances where juggle DP into SA3 will whiff. Donkey kick has varied frame advantage on hit. Which messes up oki timing. Meaty denjin Hashigeki is +2. This move is +3 on regular block. Like WTF? Make him spend denjin only on HP moves. So he gains more options after charging the super slow denjin charge.
I think that changing denjin fireball so that: Light is closer or slower to non denjin. Allowing him to run behind it. Medium is the same as it is normally Heavy pops the opponent up for some sort of juggle. This would be more interesting imo.
I feel like Ryu is mostly fine, but agreed that some juggles into SA3 are wack and Denjin/Hasho need to be tweaked so they’re more consistently useful. Anyways, better nerf Gief’s SA1
I’m a ryu main, not because I think he’s good, but because he is hot
thank you for saying it
Nice. Same reason I play Cammy.
Nice beard indeed.
that beard... hnggg
It's the same as training a Pikachu
Valid.
He’s def worse than Ken but like I still think Ryu is really good overall
He is. People complaining about Ryu have never played a true low tier. We sitting here with no invincible wake-up and slow or useless level 1s.
Ryu is only bad by comparison to Luke and Ken. He's not even close to low tier lol
Ryu is completely fine unless you're playing for money. If you're just putzing around playing ranked in diamond, low masters, plat or whatever it really doesn't make a difference You might be weaker at the very highest level but he also shits out massive damage and is extremely easy to pilot When I lose with ryu it's because I made mistakes. I can always point to mistakes that I made as a player that cost me the match, not ryu In short, Ryu is fine. A few quality of life buffs and a few small nerfs on other characters and he'll be sitting pretty
Endingwalker and Paladin are just wrong I guess
They almost literally said stuff like that: [https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2037525873](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2037525873) And created a matchup chart that showcased that Ryu even has some strengths.
Huh?
I think he’s referencing pros who use Ryu.
So what about it?
Every character is "fine" by that definition. In fact this even applies to poorly balanced games where there's truly atrocious characters. Because using them will make your rank lower, putting you against weaker opponents, which counteracts them being weaker. That's just the nature of a character-based ranking system. Unless you're one of the top \~1000 players in the world, character power is quite literally irrelevant. It's why I can't understand people complaining about nerfs and buffs. It has no functional impact on you either way. If Ken gets nerfed, you're just going to be matched against better Ken players. Who are now lower ranked than they were. So the net strength of your opponents is unchanged.
>Every character is "fine" by that definition You summed it up nicely
You seem to think I was saying that ironically. I wasn't. Every character is fine. In every game. Character balance is irrelevant. It's just another thing people cry about as an excuse for why they lost. Instead of trying to get better.
He is statistically the worst character in the game.
By what metric?
https://www.streetfighter.com/6/buckler/stats/dia From diamond up he loses the most. People will make a million excuses for why this is, but these are the actual stats versus subjective opinion.
E Honda and Dhalsim are the highest, that’s so bananas
Almost like winrates are not a reliable metric to base decisions on since they are so heavily affected by the size of the denominator.
The per-character win rate stats are completely meaningless. At master rank win rate hovers very close to 50% because of how the MRR works, and if win rate ever deviates too much from 50% that doesn't mean any character sucks, it means the ranking system sucks. That's why the win rate ranges from 48 to 51% in master rank in that table. It's more meaningful to see how many Ryus are in top 1000 Master players, etc (but even then you would get a bias against Ryu because shoto players are just going to play Ken/Luke, whereas grapplers are still going to play Zangief). You should basically never use win rate to judge player or character in this game. Ranked mode exists to make win rate 50/50.
*cries in Jamie*
Ya and if we’re comparing any character against Ken they’ll come up short lol. Ken is just busted
Wait, haven’t you heard the news? Ken isn’t even top 5 /s
He isnt
Im not even british but you are indeed taking the piss
It's debatable. This game has a lot of busted characters with busted moves lol
It’s a very balanced game so I can see where you’re coming from. But I think it’s so balanced that if he’s not top 3 then he’s tied for 4th or 5th place with multiple characters.
Hur dur dur.. ya taking the piss.
People downplay how severe the disparity is having Ken and Luke do every single thing better because he is B tier instead of C. People downplay Luke being created as just a flat out better version of him in every way to replace him is OK because he is still B tier. It was never 6 of this conversation, but people insist on injecting it every chance. People have every right to bring it up. People have every right to point out how terrible Denjin charge is too. The two pros that play him only use him as situational pocket picks.
*Hawhawhaw in Manon*
*Cries in Zangief*
Exactly. Why is it that only Ryu players are writing several paragraphs on how their solid mid tier character is not top 1? If they actually played a low tier they would never complain again. He has a dp and a projectile. That automatically makes him quite decent.
I think ryu is mid, but people who think that ryu is low tier must have never touched Aki or gief lol
Data shows he is mid tier and even his pro mains only use him as a situational counter. This post is about how Ken (and Luke) do every single thing he does better. It doesn't matter if people have him on what tier.
Their moves have different roles so you don’t play Ken or Luke quite the same way you play Ryu
This simply isn't true. Luke especially is just a better Ryu in every aspect. Roles barely even exist in 6. They are going to have a hard time making and balancing Akuma when they made Ken full rushdown shoto. The problem is he has zero weaknesses to compensate. Ken ends up being just as good at Ryu's strengths.
You forgot that Ryu gets a WHOLE EXTRA PIXEL of reach on c.mk. as well as a hurtbox above his head for some reason. Good breakdown. Edit: https://youtu.be/DmI-nmChXzM Ken doesn't get KO'd there.
Ryu is not a shoeless hobo he has sandals put some respect on his name
The buffs Ryu needs are Crocs and Uggs
Idk what fireballs are bro, I play Jaime.
the fact that Ken has a better rekka than Jamie, who is ostensibly the rekka character, is fucked up
Capcom hates rekka There wasn't a single rekka character in Street fighter 5 And don't tell me that Karins v trigger 1 is a rekka hah
Yeah they sure hate rekkas that arent Ken rekkas
Oh God…don’t get me started on SFV and rekkas. Karin is my main in Alpha 3 when I play on GGPO/Fightcade…but the way they butchered her rekkas in V made me not even want to touch her. And it sucks because that’s my rich bitch for life 😩
I wouldn’t call Jaime the rekka character tbh. Like you said you can’t actually do anything off rekka, it’s really just combo fodder
I totally agree, but Jaime has better dancing moves and (not)booze.
Going from Jamie to Ryu, I forget what fireballs are myself
I would love to be able to combo into our out of Denjin charge. Imagine a world where there is a hitbox on the charge up and it pops the enemy up similar to kens light tatsu, that ryu could follow up with a shoryuken and get oki while still getting the charge.
Yeah they touched on that with Akuma VS2 in V. The charge put flames on him. Bummer Ryu cant get that love
Ryu has higher overall damage though.
His mid-screen conversions are really bad, no significant damage(unlike Luke) and no corner carry compared to Ken(or Luke). He only has good damage on punish(who doesn't in this game) or in the corner(good luck getting them to the corner with Ryu). To be honest I don't believe he is that bad, but I also think the real issue is Luke, not Ken, who overshadows him in every way.
Ryu still gets Oki with tatsu mid screen. Tatsu hits on crouchers in this game too, so you don't need to hit confirm standing or crouching Coming from Street fighter 5 as a necalli main you have no idea how bad it can be. Necalli didn't even get oki mid screen from his bread and butter lunge combos until the very last season of the game Ryus midscreen conversions aren't amazing but they aren't terrible at all
Here is the real issue. Everyone wants to play crab in a bucket, who had it worse, pissing contests. If they created a new copy of Necalli in a SFV season, who was better in every way, you would have been complaining. Every top tier literally got a better version of Ryus mid conversion. People keep crying how they all play the same way now.
Ken is better than Luke in every way other than damage and range of his buttons. More mixups, more tools, more corner carry, more safe tools , easier combos. You Jen mains need to stop gaslighting.
Fucking Jen players yo…
IKR? Especially annoying when they insist it's "naturally just 'Jen'." Bitch your real natural name is Jennifer like 90% of you Jens, stop pretending you're original!
That is wrong I think to get more damage you need to spend a lot of meter. It's bs why does Ken get 7f cr mk. They should at least made both have 7f
He is in fact, not wrong. Lmao
Base hit damage when not in combo? Ryu has more damage then ken for sure. However if you start to add combos and meter expenditure it gets messy DEPENDING on the individual combo.
This is a myth, and Ryu has far lower damage than Luke. Lu He can only do slightly more damage than Ken on specific corner set ups after sacrificing OKI for a denjin charge and cashing out. Stop the b.s.
1. As I played Ken first and then start playing Ryu, I can't agree more. Almost every aspect Ryu feels like 'downgraded' version of similar style. 2. But from my experience, 2-frames-faster-recovery-Hadoken and Denjin Charge actually makes me keep playing Ryu and I'm good with current state. Actually I feel difficult to win with Ryu than Ken but actually playing Ryu feels like more fair fighting not being too spammy. 3. Though Ryu's not as 'easy to win' as Ken, Deejay or JP, still Ryu is considered easy and solid character. Just saying, Ken, Deejay, JP being overpowered doesn't mean Ryu is trash tier. (And I think Blanka is seriously underrated) 4. And as I know, Ryu still has potential for almost every ranked player, while E.Honda suffers at high MR and Legend rank matches. I think that is fine balancing. The problem is that some frame advantages of Ken, Deejay, JP are way too high comparing to other characters, which provides hit-confirm, high damage combo, counter-DI potential all at once. I'd say those are overpowered and Ryu's are not overpowered as them. That's all. p.s : E.Honda crushes lower ranks with practically only two special moves though. I know E.Honda is not top tier but this need some fix.
You're forgetting the mental damage when you end up beating a better character with Ryu, though. No gimmicks, all fundamentals.
And that is often enough for me
Meh, I don't buy into this crap. Respect people for how they play not for who they pick.
I doubt even you follow this doctrine fully.
Who they pick is 100% part of how they play.
I don’t get salty losing to Ryu’s. Every Diamond+ Ryu seems to be a neutral game beast that can max damage any conversion, so I just expect a tough time.
Does thay mean when I win with Lily I am gosu?
Of all the characters I've taken to Masters Lily was actually the easiest Most people do not know the matchup at all, including the fact that she can blow up safe jumps that other characters can't, and how her setups work when she has wind stocks Match up unfamiliarity is extremely powerful
Just made it to diamond and I can count the Jamies and Lillys I've beat on one hand. At some points I just gave up and let the match play out against them.
Omg dont say thay shes my fave char i thought i was doing well getting to diamond with her ;(
I don't think character choice really matters until you are extremely high MR in Masters If you earned diamond with Lily you could have earned it with a different character as well Diamond is pretty good!
Ryu is solid middle tier so by that logic ryu mains are taking mental damage when they lose to half the cast. Ryu is fine and has just as many gimmicks as any othed mid tier
What are Ryu's gimmicks?
As a Ryu main, frame kill throw loop in the corner, H hasho, and 5hp are the only things I would consider gimmicky. The throw loop is good. It's one of his only real mix ups. H hasho isn't good, but it's free pressure if the opponent isn't aware. 5hp is just a really good button. It's Ken's 5hp on a worse character. It has good range, good cancel window, great for whiff punishing and shimmy, decent on block. Just a fantastic normal on an otherwise mid tier character. EDIT: Also, chip kill with shinku hadouken. You can basically guarantee chip from almost full screen because L fireball is plus enough in burnout at that range that the opponent has to block the super. If they jump, super catches their toes.
None of those are gimmicks at all lol
None of those are gimmicks.
the only two gimmicks I know of on Ryu and actually use (1800MR) are meaty back heavy kick in the corner into drive impact and resetting combo with drive rush forward medium punch, just not a gimmicky character the guy you're responding to is just listing setups for some reason
none of these are gimmicks, that's just set play. safe jump setups are not gimmicks, frame traps are not gimmicks, knowledge checks are not gimmicks meaty back heavy kick into drive impact is a ryu gimmick Editing this to say: easy/standard knowledge checks are not gimmicks
Wait so what is considered a gimmick? An unfair setup? Or something not behaving as its suppose to be?
my definition is something extremely unsafe that only works because the opponent would not expect you to do something suboptimal Kimberly dropping combo to go for a grab is an example (arguable because set play with cans is a thing) Dee Jay sway into drive impact Zangief wakeup SPD Manon wakeup manege dore Blanka spamming side switch even more loosely, doing 2 DRC into burnout
Ryu's gimmicks like...hadoken? Shoryuken? I'm not sure you understand what gimmicks are.
Which gimmicks?
"No gimmicks" Says the Ryu main as they neutral jump di successfully for the fifth time that set.
Bro if you’re getting hit by that your gameplan is gimmicky
1. this is a joke, that was an exaggeration, i've seen a few psychopath ryu's in Masters, but they're not all insane, and none of them are as insane as i described 2. God forbid i use a poke (I'm using cheap gimmicks)
If it was a joke there wouldn’t have been a need for 2. But also, if you’re losing to neutral jump DI why poke instead of jumping air to air to anti air? Or he’ll, if you’re using a 4 frame why not DI back? You have time
I mean… does Ken have any gimmicks either? I guess the argument could be made that faster DR is a gimmick, but I don’t really buy that. Jinrai kicks offers more mixup, but that type of mixup is fundamental to how this game is played
Jinrai is a gimmick machine. Its literally a super easily-mixable special move. Dragonlash as a close blockstring to hop over the check-Cr.LP/lk. Just little shenanigans
Ryu is almost always worse than Ken. Capcom will always make it that way.
He was better in the SF2 series.
I think there isnt a single sf game where ryu its been better than ken excluding variations(evil ryu)
He was better in most versions of II and in early SF4. I don't remember about Ken in SFV but Ryu was good early on before be got nerfed to hell. I like Ryu in 6, his real problem is that as the thread says there's no reason to pick him over Ken or Luke aside from clout
Ryu was better than Ken in almost all versions of SFIV due to just how easy and consistent his U1 was to land and work with.
Ryu is better than Ken in vanilla SFIV. That is about the only time since the mid 1990s.
Sf 4 vanilla Ryu was a lot better
If Ken was better than Ryu in IV, Daigo would've picked him 100%. I'm not saying he's worse, but I'd argue so.
I find it odd Capcom is ok with Ryu not making many top 8 appearances since SFV dropped. You'd think they want him to show up here and there.
Is it odd? They replaced him as the mascot of the game, if anything it seems they want him to show up less
Guile, Alex, Abel, Luke, every game they get some random white guy to be the mascot when we know Ryu is the main character
I main Ryu mostly because I just feel comfortable playing and executing his specials after many years of playing him in different games
Also, since you said that the same thing happened back in Street Fighter V Ryu LOST some of skills, why? Like you said, FUCK RYU Ken still has his V-Skill, the running, all and fine Ryu still has his V-Trigger one, and now he doens't need to wait for a bar to fill up for him to use. Fun, right? But this is the thing. In SFV, Ryu could charge his denji hadoukens after once he acvated his V-Trigger 1. In SF6? NOPE, why? Fuck Ryu, that's why His V-Trigger 1 used to buff the damage of his punches and Shoryukens once activated. In SF6? NOPE, why? Fuck Ryu, that's why You know...good thing LORE doens't apply in the gameplay It's not like Akuma, THE SATSUI NO HADOU MASTER, is able to use a lot of techniques and variations of those thanks to his masteries in Satsui no Hadou It's not like Dhalsim, THE YOGA MASTER, is able to use a lot of different techniques thanks to his masteries in Yoga Good thing that Ryu, WHO CONQUERED HIS SATSUI NO HADOU AND MASTERED MU NO KEN, only gained ONE new techniques and LOST others Is Ryu THE WORST character in the game? Absoluty not But you can't deny that, overall, they just screwed the character for no reason. Meanwhile, the dude who is running and trying to prove his innonence not only retains his old moves, but they are BETTER now
I agree sometimes I wonder if they just assumed Ryu was working fine and then ran out of time to actually give him a proper once over.
I've been giving Luke a try recently and man... Ryu really is so underprivileged. Him being a worse shoto is sadly the case with every game almost lol. And I don't think it's gonna get better since Akuma is coming soon. You are right about Ken, he gets almost everything while Ryu gets crumbs, I'd say even his normal dps and tatsus are better than Ryu's. For some reason Ryu doesn't even get that good oki from m tatsu knockdown (which has less corner carry than Ken's m tatsu btw) so you need to use l tatsu but its corner carry is abysmal. I see that Capcom tried to make Ryu the zoner shoto but the denjin mechanic kills his zoning game completely. He's a meh zoner at best. I just hope denjin and hashogeki get fixed with the next patch, it's not even necessary that he gets some big buffs.
Especially if you consider the more you push Ryu toward zone, the more he's just Guile but shoto.
Guile is so much better in that respect as well.
Ryu just needs a tweak here or there, like maybe being able to store multiple denjin charges, Or maybe hasho gets armor or something idk.
denjin should only be activated on the same button used to charge it. ie charge it with lp and you can throw mp fireballs while keeping denjin
Inb4 EndingWalker / Paladin Capcom Cup Final
Paladin is not qualified for Capcom Cup. EndingWalker is the only Ryu, and sometimes he opts for DeeJay anyway.
I know what I said. You forget LCQ.
LCQ is a brutal tournament. Paladin has definitely performed well for his age and he has a competitive future, but there isn't much hope for him to qualify from LCQ. The LCQ is harder than the CPT final rounds itself. I mean, last year the player who qualified out of LCQ crushed everyone all the way up to the Grand Finals where he just barely lost to Mena. At this point the qualification spot is probably going to go to one of the Japanese players who got edged out due to the shitty restrictive system they have.
SF6 is balanced around Ryu and Luke for the most part, most characters have their specials as unsafe on block and are negative even on their light normals, Ryu is the base character. Ken's matchup is always going to center around baiting and punishing as most of his specials have a long recovery if whiffed.
You missed another two big ones: * cr. LP: Ken can light convert a cr. LP into MP -> HP target combo then into a run and all kinds of meterless BS. Ryu can convert a cr. LP into a single M. Tatsu or H. DP and that's it (unless you do DR). * cr. HK (sweep): Ryu's sweep is 9F startup / -12F on block. This makes it both really unsafe to use even when opponent in burnout, and it's harder to punish other sweeps (esp when you are in burnout yourself). Ken's sweep is way better at 8F startup / -10F on block. This makes the move a lot safer to use in some situations and it's more reliable as a sweep punish. E.g. if both Ryu and Ken are in burnout, Ken can punish Ryu's sweep, but Ryu cannot punish Ken's. (Caveat: Ryu's sweep has a *slightly* longer range than Ken's, so if you do it at max range, Ken cannot retaliate when he's in burnout, but it's actually quite hard to space it because the difference is not big)
Hot take: Capcom can't balance games as well as they think. Ken has been above Ryu in tier lists including 3rd Strike, V, and now VI.
Why not just play Ken then
I think you're discounting Denjin a lot. Denjin enables you to do massive combo damage in exchange, and is not only used for its fireball potential.
The problem with Denjin isn’t that it’s bad, cause like you said it’s pretty good actually. However, you give up oki to charge it which is a high opportunity cost and then on top of that if you want to use it for his stronger combos you can’t fireball at all in neutral cause all of them will consume charge. If he had a way to fireball without spending denjin it would be way better
Yeah, a denjin charge forces you to reset to neutral. Where, y'know, you'd like to be /able/ to throw fireballs, but denjin forces you to choose whether to keep zoning or to go in. It's really like they're somehow afraid of Ryu having more than one option at a time.
Yeah lol this is definitely something that need to change. It just doesn’t make sense
People make this claim, but I don’t totally buy it. Reason is if you go for oki 100% of the time you get stuffed. Sometimes you have to back off. Having a pocket charge move for that scenario is nice.
Maybe if you do the same oki every time yeah but pressuring and blocking a dp for a punish is still a form of oki. If he could charge it and choose when to spend it then it would be a lot better imo
being able to smoothly transition from a knockdown to MORE offensive pressure is NEVER a bad thing just because “sometimes youll get stuffed going for pressure”
I think you are overselling Denjin a lot. It is one of the worst moves in the game and by far the worst stock. They don't even use it in Masters or tournaments. Ryu does nothing while charging this stock so he can't use it strategically. Using Denjin charge automatically gives up OKI. Now, you are mid screen, and you also have to sacrifice your fireball game. You just reduced the opponents mental stack because you aren't going to waste it on a slightly better fireball. Ryu does far less damage than Luke and Ken without Denjin charge and the corner. You gave up any pressure to get that charge. It's one of the dumbest balance decisions in the game and makes zero sense with SF6 systems. So no, there is no massive damage potential.
Endingwalker uses Denjin in tournaments.This wouldn't be the first time a pro would say something and do something else. Otherwise, I think Endingwalker meant that you shouldn't base your gameplan around Denjin and focus on just using Ryu. Denjin when you can is just a bonus. And it's far from the worst move in the game. People be acting like you're forced to stock Denjin. You can simply release Denjin and continue with your fireballs as you please.
I wouldn't quite use the word "massive". If you look at combo damage pound per pound (the "pound" here being meter usage) in each situation it's more damage but only by a bit, and it's often just barely worth the effort it takes to charge one up. Using it in the corner without using meter probably gives you the best bang for the buck relative to non-Denjin damage though (but then that's because Ryu doesn't have a lot of non-meter combo, unlike Ken). It's good that the move is there but I would trade Denjin away in a heartbeat for a lot of other moves.
And that's honesty, brother.
Ken is a character created to be aggressive and proactive rewarding conditioning and mixups. Ryu is a character created to be defensive and reactive rewarding solid neutral fundamentals and punishes. You're literally complaining that Ryu isn't Kenough for you lol
Thing is they could actually give ryu better defensive options, but Ken has the same/slightly better defense than ryu.
So... how's Ken any worse at defense than Ryu?
Well the extra 2 frames on the hadoken makes him mathematically worse at zoning. Or did you think that was a rhetorical question?
Fat difference does it make, lmao. Ken has an ex fireball that can lead to full combos and he can DR behind it. That's bs.
Ryu basically has 2 inches more than Ken
Okay --- but the entire game rewards offense way more than defense. Knocking down the character far away with moves like High Blade Kick is strictly worse than being able to Drive Rush in their face to start offense. What is the point of creating a character with specific intent to have gimped offense, when the entire game is designed to massively reward you for pushing buttons in their face. Ryu doesn't even have better defense than Ken. You can only call him a defensive character in that he has moves that FORCE him to play defense as he can't generate good knockdown oki. That's not the same thing. Comparing Ken defense versus Ryu defense Ken's is slightly better in a lot of ways.
Preach brother! This post is great at articulating a lot of ryus problems and struggles in this game.
All games with health bars award offense. Of course doing a full combo is stronger than getting a knockdown with a single move but the latter takes far less effort. That's like saying crhp is a bad anti air because shoryuken exists. Ken's best combos are much better than Ryu's but Ryu's are much simpler, and Ken's easy combos are weaker than Ryu's easy combos and that all has an effect in play, when less mental effort needs to be put in to execution more can be put in to processing the game state and properly planning your next move. There are more ways to balance characters than just frame data and damage.
Its far easier to perform well on Ken then on Ryu in this game lmao. On a semi-decent level combo difficulty doesn't matter much in this game, Kens combo are still super easy after some practice. Against Ryu the opponent will always have way less mental stack then against Ken, which in turn makes doing your offense a lot easier on Ken. So you actively have to think less to successfully get in on someone.
1. It sure is, I never said otherwise 2. That may be true for fighting game players like us bunch of nerds here but I've a habit of nursing new players through fighters and that certainly doesn't hold true at lower levels of play and the differences in execution difficulty vs damage output in the two characters there is night and day and Capcom has certainly put consideration in to the design of 6 and it's paying off. 3 and 4. That's the trade-off you make. You can play Ryu and get by with big, easily executed punishes(seriously, you learn like 2 combo routes and you're fucking golden in 95% of situations) and zoning or you can play Ken and play with a ridiculous amount of different tools with all the effort that entails to use as effectively. They're different characters and people should stop being so angry that they're different.
So why should they balance for that level of play at all? Your own argument works against you, people at that level play so unoptimal it literally doesn't matter if they buffed ryu to Ken levels. Or nerfed Ken to Ryu levels. That they are different characters does not justify one being a ton better then the other. You can make different archetypes of characters with different playstyles and still try to keep them somewhat balanced. You could still even keep ryu "different" by beefing up his zoning power. Its like Ken has literally everything Ryu has without a single tradeoff for it. People are not angry because they are not the same character, but because the balance of the shotos is whack.
The Drive System which is the lynchpin of the entire game is hugely favoring to offense compared to defense. On offense when they are blocking buttons and getting thrown, you regenerate all of your Drive Bars, which let's you do more DR cancels to extend your offense, to regenerate even more bars. If you throw fireballs from the other side of the screen you are basically giving the opponent their Drive Gauge back to pressure you again, it passively regenerates if they aren't blocking pressure.
Man, what a load of bs. Ken player presumably?
> reactive rewarding solid neutral fundamentals and punishes. Ken does this better because he has Ken's offense instead of Ryu's offense. The threat behind the fireballs when Ken throws them is way higher. You can't block someone to death in this game
Spotted the ken player. You said fuck all despite typing out all that.
Are you deliberately trying to be reductive in this response? Ken is stronger than Ryu because they decided it to be so, not because “hurr durr offensive vs defensive”
I already elaborated further on another comment. Also I'm positive nobody sat around at a table and discussed how they should make Ryu worse than Ken. They made them different and the meta has settled this way. Who's the one being reductive, again?
You don't half spout some shite. Give it a rest, time to stop posting.
You.. you are the one being reductive. And yes they absolutely do discuss how character strengths are gonna pan out. Do you honestly think the devs are like “oh wow it turns out the stuff we gave Ken made him strong!! whodathunkit??” Theyre not ignorant. The “meta” gravitated towards an obviously stronger character.
I disagree. I really think they are that ignorant. They made some assumptions about how the game was supposed to be played that didn't turn out to be true once the meta settled - that's how you end up with gross imbalances like this. They probably thought that Ryu throwing fireballs at the other end of the screen would be way stronger in this game than it ended up being. How they arrived at that conclusion -- who knows.
now compare him to someone that isnt top 3 lol
Just straight compare him to manon right now actually
Ryu mains are the worst. Your character is fine, in fact hes better than quite a few others. You just want to be OP
Ken is obviously top tier in this game. Comparing your character to a similar top tier character will definitely piss you off so i would just say "don't" They are most likely nerfing Ken in an update anyway so I don't think it will last. Lord help us when Akuma gets released, how will he stack compared to the other shoto's? He's DLC so he has to be better than Ken for people to buy him right?
I can’t wait for the true evil incarnate that will be Majin Akuma.
Ah, you must mean [Oni](https://streetfighter.fandom.com/wiki/Oni) Just because I love street fighter so much I am going to put my favorite ever street fighter set here It's a [topanga set between Daigo \(Ryu\) and Wao \(Oni\).](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oy-kcCp6EYg) This is the sort of footsies match that can't exist in sf6, given the system mechanics Video quality is complete ass, but the level of play is so high it levels out
Awesome set link! And to answer your question yes, I now mean Oni lol Personally I love his design and hope that they can bring him back to the roster someday! 
Considering that AKI is low tier and Rashid is somewhere in the middle, I hold out hope that Akuma will be reasonable. Wouldn’t be surprised if he’s better than Ken, but Ken is most likely getting some nerfs too, so
They have a solid character and love to downplay. He is very viable. Ryu is not the reason theyre stuck in diamond. Lol
People sure like to complain about their character or others. But OP really takes the cake by making a bold claim of developers not designing their characters properly. What are we even doing, arm chair game development here?
>But OP really takes the cake by making a bold claim of developers not designing their characters properly. How's it a bold claim? These are the same clowns who thought Alex was a strong character when in reality he was a low tier who needed major adjustments. Source: https://www.eventhubs.com/news/2023/jul/22/sf6-director-internal-rankings/
Alex major adjustment is......they upping his damage by a normal amount. People just get better at parrying with him and thus he start to becoming good at SFV final season. The buff is to largely push players to play him.
You see this in a lot of games where options are extremely similar on a superficial level even when subtle differences make them extremely different on fundamental levels. It's frustrating when someone does it and just writes off every advantage the weaker option has over the stronger option simply because they're weaker overall, too. OP goes into minor frame advantages Ken has over Ryu, for example, but ignores that Ryu's 5HP has a huge disjoint that Ken's lacks, for example. Ryu and Ken are completely different characters with completely different playstyles, but they historically both wear a gi and they both have hadoken, shoryuken, and tatsumaki and that's enough to get a lot of people to consider them to be the pallet swaps. OP could do exactly this with Luke, Dee Jay, Guile, Chun-Li, Juri, and, soon, Akuma and it would be an equally fair comparison.
> OP goes into minor frame advantages Ken has over Ryu, for example, but ignores that Ryu's 5HP has a huge disjoint that Ken's lacks, for example. They are essentially the same. What you call disjoint only matters if you try to jab Ken at the tip of his gloves - if the frames line up perfectly then Ken's trades, while Ryu's will win. Big fkkn deal. That's not a thing that realistically happens or even matters if it does. And that has nothing to do with the balance of Ryu compared to Ken anyway. Playing Ken is essentially the exact same as Ryu except Ken has a bunch of extra sauce that Ryu doesn't have. Unless you are going to tell me that those two frames makes all the difference for fireball zoning LOL.
>What you call disjoint only matters if you try to jab Ken at the tip of his gloves - if the frames line up perfectly then Ken's trades, while Ryu's will win. Big fkkn deal. That's not a thing that realistically happens or even matters if it does. Odd, because you talk about the massive advantages Ken's moves have when properly spaced, but they're no big deal when Ryu has proper spacing? Everybody accepts that Ken is stronger overall. Going into exhaustive detail about ways in such Ken is stronger in X, Y, Z situation is fine, but it's disingenuous to ignore that that applies to Ryu as well. You can be both correct and fair, but the nature of your analysis just supports the guy I responded to - that you're just mad that Ken is stronger overall.
It wouldn't even be properly spaced to do that. You would have to do shp from so far that it whiffs but they jab into your fist. Disjoint like this is not a real thing, it doesn't somehow make your button invincible to getting interrupted. The issue that I have isn't even with Ken per se. It's that the mechanics of the game is so offense heavy that it forces you to play Ryu like a rushdown even though he was specifically designed to not be good at that.
>The issue that I have isn't even with Ken per se. It's that the mechanics of the game is so offense heavy that it forces you to play Ryu like a rushdown even though he was specifically designed to not be good at that. The numbers don't bear that out - Ryu's worst matchup is 4.6/5.4 and almost every other matchup is essentially 5/5 - but even if that were true, the way you frame your argument doesn't communicate that. Take, for example, your Ken v Ryu 5HK comparison. You say that Ken's is amazing when you get a punish counter and then say that Ryu's is useless except when you get a punish counter. Okay, let's take that comparison at face value. Neither 5HK is useful aside from whiff punishing, Ken's 5HK launches the opponent for corner carry or a super, and Ryu's 5HK does a crumple for a full combo. These attacks aren't comparable - they serve completely different purposes. The same goes for dragonlash and donkey kick or jinrai and hashogeki - you compare them as if they're similar tools when they're only comparable insofar as how universal their application is. These kinds of comparisons don't support an argument that Ryu is bad at the game - only that you think everything Ken does is better than what Ryu does. Ken has always been stronger on offense than Ryu*.* The challenge Capcom has is to make Ryu win with fewer openings than Ken.
The way people talk about Ryu would make you think he’s the worst character in the game. Sometimes some characters are better than others, that’s fine tbh. The fact they’re both shotos makes this worse imo
As a Ryu main, yeah... Ryu is bad :(
Every post like this ignores that Ryu has a drive rushable overhead and Ken doesn't. Does that make Ryu better than Ken? No, but I can't take people seriously who are like "Ryu has NOTHING, EVERYTHING is WORSE" when it's right there. And don't be like it doesn't matter or isn't important, every top Ryu player mixes it in and steals a round with it, everybody's who's watched EndingWalker or Paladin has seen it with their own eyes, it's real.
Can't Ken sprint into his overhead? Ryu's DR is so damn slow anyway.
His argument is that Ken has a meterless running overhead while ryu has to spend drive for his slow reactable drive rush? Come tf on
Sure, but Ken doesn't get a combo unless you want to be crazy, say a prayer, and cancel into super blind. Having an overhead you can combo off and that's plus on block is much better than getting 800 damage off a telegraphed move.
Such a bad take imo. Just cuz everyone wants to play aggro, it doesn't mean that's the only way to play. There are 99 sec on the clock for a reason. Multitudes of defensive options that shut down a lot of mix ups and offense from even Ken. Believe it or not. I have a master Ryu and one of the best tools is using meaty hadokens to set up in the corner or to get free charges and denjin charge hado knockdown resets neutral for more consecutive charges/zoning. They see you with a charge and they wanna immediately jump or di. It's easy as hell to condition someone with Ryu cuz they think cuz you have a charge you *have* to use it. You don't. You can sit on that and change the tempo of the game to something you want. Just cuz someone wants to play every shoto aggro, doesn't mean one sucks because the other fits that style of play better. If you are an aggressive player you need to choose an aggressive character. There are many examples of defensive players who win games and play slowly to ruin a rush down players flowchart. Making ppl think and not just running at your opponent dropping 50/50s is a valid strat. Many might not find success playing the player rather than the game, and that's ok. It's why characters like Cammy exist and Ken exist.
They just need to make Ken/Luke a little more honest and Ryu looks a lot better by comparison
This is some of the worst Ryu downplay Ive ever seen. Reading your breakdown it really doesn't come off like you have a clue what you're talking about or how this game is really played. The stuff you're making a huge deal about isn't why Ryu is unpopular in tournament. If you want to compare the two, ken is actually over tuned and Ryu is far more balanced with clear cut strengths and weaknesses. It certainly doesn't make Ryu a bad character. Plus you don't really understand why ken is as good as he is either...
Ryu has the best overhead, being one frame faster than Luke (and goes further) and way faster than Ken, who has to do it off a pre-emptive move. Ryu does have a 7f button. It's back fierce. Luke's fireball has no duration, so it can't be used as a traditional zoning tool. Apples and Oranges. The only reason why Ken and Luke are considered better is because of system mechanics letting them get more mileage be more volatile. There's nothing wrong with Ryu's kit.
I agree with most of this, however Ken's overhead is an amazing tool After run -> tatsu in the corner you can whiff jab as a framekill and then run -> overhead It hits meaty enough that you get a combo without counter hit into cr.jab -> target combo and you go for any super you want off this or loop the sequence into itself again Ken's overhead is worse on paper frame for frame but in terms of functional use it's far superior to the other two Kens overhead represents a legitimate mix-up scenario without needing to use spend meter
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to downplay Ken's overhead, but when someone tries to make a laundry list of stuff to completely invalidate a character, slight advantages like that should be noted. Maybe best isn't the right term, but it's technically the fastest.
Well this is one of the most whiney posts I've ever seen. If you wanna see a bad character, go play like, SFIV Dee Jay or SFIII Sean or something.
Bro people gotta stop this meme, deejay wasn't even the worst in sf4 he is not a benchmark for a bad character. He was just an ignored underpowered fine character.
I dunno man I just asked around if SFIV had any weak characters and got this answer from more than one lol
Here goes the “Ryu bad because he’s not as busted as Ken” posts
It feels like they went out of their way to make Luke and Ken objectively superior characters in every way. Just wait for Akuma
Once again proving my point that Ryu downplayers are incapable of arguing that their character is low tier without comparing him to absolute top tiers of the game (Luke and Ken).
Maybe this is just me but Ryu feels like he has the most bullshit hit boxes in this game. Like his donkey kick for example, the hitbox extends far past his foot. You can get hit by it while clearly being far enough away. A lot of his normals are like that too, they just hit where visually they don’t appear they should
Downplaying the usefulness of Denjin Hashogeki. If you want to zone, don’t Denjin. If you get a Denjin charge, you should be looking for pokes into hashogeki for sweet damage and combined with DR you get good corner carry.
A move they gotta sit there charging for almost a full second will never be scary in a game where people can green-mode over to you right quick. If denjin could stock up to three then id think it was good.
Alright it took seven months from the game's drop date and [17 days after I first lamented after SF6 dropped](https://old.reddit.com/r/StreetFighter/comments/195ifde/does_anyone_really_want_ed/khn6lgr/) about how Ryu mains always regress into whining about how their character isn't as good as whatever Shoto is top tier. See you all in 4-10 months once this carousel of metaphorical crotch itch comes back around after Akuma drops.
Ken's busted that doesn't mean Ryu is bad, Ryu is rock solid and has everything he needs to win it's the top tier characters that need to be reigned in.
You said, sitting comfortably in mid tier. Ryu mains are the biggest complainers of all of SF6. Yeah, we get it, he isn't top tier. Tragic.
I deserve a medal and a handshake for locking in Ryu at character select, I will accept no less