Character Competitive Impressions

[TTTTTsd]

So, I'm going to give some Stage Impressions with Ryu based purely on layout and testing

Miiverse/BF - Both of these are decent for Ryu. Shorthop Bair autocancels but on Battlefield it ALSO PLATFORM POKES! This is AMAZING for Ryu because that's a giant 16% Bair that covers tech rolls when spaced right. Ceiling blastzones here are also ideal for Shoryucheese.

FD - Probably Ryu's least favored stage in certain MUs (mostly disjoint or keepaway). Otherwise it's ok.

Smashville - A decent stage for Ryu, I'd opt to this against certain chars mostly because more options to approach vs. some will help a lot.

Town & City - Unsure, but I feel like it's a decent stage for Ryu for the same reasons Smashville might be.

I think FD hurts Ryu the most in his worst MUs, personally. Even then , his worst MUs could transform into good ones once we figure out how to get in better with him, cause right now, when Ryu's in, he wins, guaranteed.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I actually thought FD was Ryu's best stage. The thing is that Ryu's ground footsies are top tier but his vertical game is pretty bad (unless "guess with Shoryuken that has a way weaker hit higher in the move" counts as good). On FD you can just play those flat stage footsies and people have to take risks to get past you. On BF people use the platforms to help their evasive game a lot. I dunno how much you played tournament level Brawl, but my experience definitely was that you kinda played like you were playing Brawl when Ryu was out and that it was the best way to win.

If I were to rank stages based on my experiences overall using Ryu, I think FD was his best stage, Lylat is a very close second (the low platforms don't really help run-away but let you safe Shoryu a lot), Pokemon Stadium 2 is probably third because neutral form is really good for him and he can use the transformations to trap people really well, T&C/SV/DH are all "okay" as are Delfino/Halberd/Castle Siege/Skyloft, Dream Land 64 is mediocre, BF/Miiverse/Wuhu Island are bad because people can run too much, and Kongo Jungle 64 is just awful and should be auto-strike and auto-ban for any Ryu player.

Clearly we've had some different experiences.

 

[bc1910]

The theorycraft is strong with this post, but anyway...

Greninja can run from Ryu, crouch under Hadouken (and probably backwards crawl), annoy him with shurikens and keep him out with a safe disjointed Fair. Ftilt also outranges all of Ryu's useful moves in neutral and is safe. Hydro Pump is one of the best ways to gimp Ryu's recovery.

All of this helps offset the fact that Ryu decimates Greninja up close and kills him really early for hitting his shield with anything but the moves I mentioned. Overall yeah, Greninja has more tools to combat Ryu than most. Having a decent Ryu MU and an actual tool against Sheik in neutral should do wonders for his viability and make him a worthy threat in this patch.

I agree Greninja's buff is closer to "tiny" than "big" in the grand scheme of things but it's certainly not trivial, and tiny isn't the right word, because it addresses a very major problem he had with poking. Also since Ftilt was inferior to Fsmash in almost every way before, it was almost never used, so we basically got a new move.

 

[Big O]

Does anyone see any particular function or utility to be gained from the DK cargo throw buffs?

Basically they just made DK's grab game a little scarier since the buffed throws allow him to convert grabs into kills and better followup potential in more situations than before. Dtoss stage spikes much more safely (safe on tech), sets up his tech chase/offstage game way better, and can even gimp people by just throwing them while falling low. DK can recover after Ftoss stage spiking people now and Ftoss is a lot easier to KO with offstage. Btoss is now able to KO people off the top at around the same % as Marth's/Link's Uthrow and is his most damaging throw. Utoss doing more damage is probably a nerf overall, since it makes comboing into Uair at KO %'s harder or impossible. Against characters that are floaty and hard to combo anyway, it's not much of a loss though.

It's also a little harder to suicide with the Punch due to the edge mechanics change. I don't know why they still haven't fixed Punch suiciding on block though...

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Well, there's going to be a Xanadu on Tuesday, right? I hope Pink Fresh will show up to at least showcase what's transferred from Brawl and from his labbing with Smash 4 Lucas... Plus, it's nice to see people's mains come back or characters they're finding to be mains like Ryu.

Eh, MDVA is bad so I'm not very hyped about it -.-

Then again I don't think any top class player seems interested in playing Lucas so we likely won't see him played on a high level in quite some time.

 

[Ryu_Ken]

But she ain't got dem thighs ZSS has.

Nah, ZSS just has those rocket jets attached to her heels. That actually makes her Ryu's C. Viper.
Gosh, I need to make a thread for this on the Ryu boards.

So, I'm going to give some Stage Impressions with Ryu based purely on layout and testing

Miiverse/BF - Both of these are decent for Ryu. Shorthop Bair autocancels but on Battlefield it ALSO PLATFORM POKES! This is AMAZING for Ryu because that's a giant 16% Bair that covers tech rolls when spaced right. Ceiling blastzones here are also ideal for Shoryucheese.

FD - Probably Ryu's least favored stage in certain MUs (mostly disjoint or keepaway). Otherwise it's ok.

Smashville - A decent stage for Ryu, I'd opt to this against certain chars mostly because more options to approach vs. some will help a lot.

Town & City - Unsure, but I feel like it's a decent stage for Ryu for the same reasons Smashville might be.

I think FD hurts Ryu the most in his worst MUs, personally. Even then , his worst MUs could transform into good ones once we figure out how to get in better with him, cause right now, when Ryu's in, he wins, guaranteed.

Ryu has a really solid ground and footsie game, so Omega stages and FD aren't too bad even for his worse MUs. I think Ryu does pretty well on small stages like Dreamland since the player can't really out-camp Ryu.

 

[TTTTTsd]

I actually thought FD was Ryu's best stage. The thing is that Ryu's ground footsies are top tier but his vertical game is pretty bad (unless "guess with Shoryuken that has a way weaker hit higher in the move" counts as good). On FD you can just play those flat stage footsies and people have to take risks to get past you. On BF people use the platforms to help their evasive game a lot. I dunno how much you played tournament level Brawl, but my experience definitely was that you kinda played like you were playing Brawl when Ryu was out and that it was the best way to win.

If I were to rank stages based on my experiences overall using Ryu, I think FD was his best stage, Lylat is a very close second (the low platforms don't really help run-away but let you safe Shoryu a lot), Pokemon Stadium 2 is probably third because neutral form is really good for him and he can use the transformations to trap people really well, T&C/SV/DH are all "okay" as are Delfino/Halberd/Castle Siege/Skyloft, Dream Land 64 is mediocre, BF/Miiverse/Wuhu Island are bad because people can run too much, and Kongo Jungle 64 is just awful and should be auto-strike and auto-ban for any Ryu player.

Clearly we've had some different experiences.

I'll take this into consideration as well! I'm just posting impressions and thoughts haha, this could ALL change! I'll consider trying out your recommended stages more in-depth and see what I can do with the char. He's very, very interesting, and definitely really good. I was of the thought that he got camped/lamed really easy but I'm not so sure anymore, he seems to have just enough tools to get in, and his reward when he gets in is ABSURD, I had a harder time getting in with Dr. Mario than I did with this guy once I started doing proper Fair spacing and baiting. I feel so untethered with this character, it's amazing. Sorry Doc, until they fix you up, you'll always just be in my pocket.

Did some testing with Ryu Fair. This move is stupid. Rising Fair at 0% combos into itself vs. some chars (notably Sheik and ZSS) and it's FRAME 6 and SUPER LONG. Seriously, Rising Fair into DJ Fair is a combo on a long Frame 6 move that sticks out. This combo does 30% in training (might do more/less with Fresh bonus/stale moves). The fact that you can toss this move out on REACTION to beat like, a ton of options is quite frankly amazing. Good thing Ryu has no air control, holy.

 

[Ryu_Ken]

Question: you can't cancel from an aerial to a special in the air, right? That'd be way too op if that was the case.

 

[LightLV]

Is that true?

Haha, no.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Question: you can't cancel from an aerial to a special in the air, right? That'd be way too op if that was the case.

You can not, no. That would be WAYYYY too much lol. ESPECIALLY with how good Ryu's Fair is. Or Uair, even. Jeez, Uair into Shoryuken would be bonkers.

Also, to go on about Roy, yeah he's really good. Roy is REALLY, REALLY good too! I think both him and Ryu are going to find a nice spot in a viable area (likely High Tier IMO). Roy has really dominant movement, good frame data even on his "laggy" aerials for someone with a sword, amazing jab and ground game, MORE THAN ENOUGH kill moves so he can preserve Freshness really good (Why does Ftilt kill at the edges). Easily the best Swordsman in the game IMO, going by current meta. F-Throw is awesome for 50/50s and D-Throw is awesome for guaranteed Utilts depending on the victim's weight. Character is super solid.

 

[mimgrim]

I still can't figure out how to combo with Ryu. ;-;

Even looking over threads in the Ryu forums and stuff and I still can't figure out how they are linking some of this stuff together.

 

[Ffamran]

Anything with Ryu being able to setup into his Dair? His ledge trump game? Or his edgeguard game in general?

 

[Ryu_Ken]

You can not, no. That would be WAYYYY too much lol. ESPECIALLY with how good Ryu's Fair is. Or Uair, even. Jeez, Uair into Shoryuken would be bonkers.

That's funny, because Uair is Ryu's Jumping medium punch in SF4. If you juggle the opponent with the sourspot, it true combos into EX Shoryuken and Ultra 2, Shin Shoryuken.
I'm not sure how good Uair is in Sm4sh since it's pretty short ranged.

 

[Ffamran]

That's funny, because Uair is Ryu's Jumping medium punch in SF4. If you juggle the opponent with the sourspot, it true combos into EX Shoryuken and Ultra 2, Shin Shoryuken.
I'm not sure how good Uair is in Sm4sh since it's pretty short ranged.

Uair hits twice, though, and they said it has deceptive range; it's disjointed. Welcome to the disjoint club, Ryu. You'll meet Captain Falcon and Ganondorf.

 

[LightLV]

Samus did not get a big buff. I don't know where people are getting that information from. Up-smash killing 20% earlier and failing to link correctly 80% of the time vs. failing to link correctly 90% does not offset not being able to missile cancel tether trump nor CS from neutral pushing you offstage to avoid reflector. It was a nerf. Again.

I snuck over to the Samus forum out of curiosity, and had to shed a tear of pity when i read the changes and see they nerfed her again. Removed missile cancel, buffed Usmash, but refused to address the fact that Usmash is a terrible move, and so she's really just left with a nerf.

It's as if they want these characters to be bad.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Anything with Ryu being able to setup into his Dair? His ledge trump game? Or his edgeguard game in general?

Ledgetrump Bair is alright. Edgeguarding with Ryu is a bit weird. You can ledgedrop Tatsu and if you do it low enough Ryu will glide next to the ledge which throws a giant hitbox over it. Dair is pretty easy to setup and throw out quick for a punish because it's a Frame 8 meteor that's as strong as Falcon's. It's best used onstage since it knocks them at a horizontal and downwards angle, which is perfect. Offstage only if you're sure because Ryu's vertical recovery is like no.

Ryu's Uair is, as my homie with the newly buffed and AWESOME Falco (grats) @ Ffamran said. It's deceptively good at hitting people vertically, anddd it kills at high %s.

 

[FullMoon]

So Falco ended up being buffed instead of nerfed?

 

[Ffamran]

Hmm, the only issue with Ryu's Dair is the short range, but really, it's strong as Captain Falcon's? Gee, Falco would love to have a faster Dair even if it was weak as hell, right? ... Anyway, I wonder how it could be used for on-stage combat since if they miss a tech, Ryu might be able to tech chase or something.

Is Ryu's vertical recovery that bad? It seems like Marth or Lucina's. I just watched shofu's FG adventures with Ryu and he mentioned that canceling Focus Attack could be used to boost this recovery, but not knowing the startup and when you can cancel it, I'm not sure.

 

[TTTTTsd]

So Falco ended up being buffed instead of nerfed?

Yes, greatly. Less damage but more reliable options overall. Nair combos proper so it's like, a real combo breaker now and it also does REALLY good damage for doing that (it's also a combo tool as well, jesus his Nair is REALLY good as of this patch).

Uair is 4 frames faster and only has one way of hitting, meaning it consistently combos and can be used in strings more due to its newfound speed + reliable hitbox now. Doesn't kill off the top as well but Falco's kit feels so much more proper with this stuff.

I think Nair is the biggest buff. He had bad disadvantages in the game on hit but now he can properly escape thanks to autolink, with good damage to boot. Seriously, I thought he was like, pretty garbage before but he's a LOT better now.

 

[Zorai]

I came back in here just to say that @ san. was right about Roy's dash being garbage. I never really noticed this until having just played like 50 games vs. a competent ROB player today with Roy. His shield takes ages to come out from a dashing animation and it can greatly affect matchups such as Roy vs ROB. So far I haven't seen anyone else comment on this. It might hurt Roy in the long run unless players start working around it...

Anyway, what kind of mechanic is this? I'm pretty sure the other 50 characters can shield out of their dashes just fine.

 

[san.]

I came back in here just to say that @ san. was right about Roy's dash being garbage. I never really noticed this until having just played like 50 games vs. a competent ROB player today with Roy. His shield takes ages to come out from a dashing animation and it can greatly affect matchups such as Roy vs ROB. So far I haven't seen anyone else comment on this. It might hurt Roy in the long run unless players start working around it...

Anyway, what kind of mechanic is this? I'm pretty sure the other 50 characters can shield out of their dashes just fine.

He has Marth's data for that, but he runs even FASTER, which means he covers more distance before he can shield.

Reasons why I think and ground mobility are in different leagues.

has many options from a dash: best dash->shield in the game, good fox trot, fast dash attack, fast grab, really fast rising aerials, needle charge, bouncing fish, and more.

takes a really long time before shield comes up, so he can't use his other grounded options easily. has to rely a lot on dash trotting for movement, or that sudden burst of speed during the beginning phases of his walk. Once he dashes, other than the slow shield, he only has a slow dash attack, a dash grab that stops in its tracks once it starts, committing specials, and jumping. Out of a jump, none of them autocancel out of a short hop, but nair comes out fast with decent end lag, and you can double jump to avoid a rising fair's lag. doesn't apply direct pressure with his ground mobility, but uses it to bob and weave and position himself for better attacks. 's dash just isn't all that threatening until kill % where dash attack can kill and a grab can lead to an upB kill. can rely a lot on his nair and his ground attacks are pretty great overall. I just think he loses a lot if he initiates a dash for a while.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Is Ryu's vertical recovery that bad? It seems like Marth or Lucina's. I just watched shofu's FG adventures with Ryu and he mentioned that canceling Focus Attack could be used to boost this recovery, but not knowing the startup and when you can cancel it, I'm not sure.

It's decent-ish normally. However, if you do a True Shoryuken (the traditional SF inputs) relatively close to the edge, you're gonna be coasting through most attempts to snag you thanks to the invincibility on start-up, its massive hitbox, and raw speed. I don't wanna say it autosnaps, though.

Boosting your horizontal recovery with FADC is shenanigans, especially since you can still use your extra jump and/or Tatsu on top of that.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Ffamran]

So Falco ended up being buffed instead of nerfed?

Nerfed in raw damage per hit for 3 moves: Fair's landing does 2% less, Nair and Uair does 1%. Nerfed knockback on Uair. Changed knockback to Fair? Unconfirmed from what I remember.

Buffs would be: Fair gained another weak hit making it do 9% total now, Nair has autolink angles on the weak hits making it connect much better now, Uair is frame 7 now instead of frame 10, and Fair is faster, but nobody's figured out by how much.

Miscellaneous changes: Dair spikes on grounded enemies sends people up instead of spiking them on the ground and letting them tech. If Falco had a frame 8 or 5 Dair that was a weak spike, but still did this, his Dair would be a hella better and potentially not game-breaking or insane like his Melee/Brawl Dair.

So in terms of nerfs and buffs, Falco's "weaker" and lost a kill move: Uair, but he's faster - Uair and Fair - and safer - Nair and Dair. Weaker is subjective since Sheik's weak, but her damage output through combos is insane. Falco's damage output pre-patch was good, but it's even better now that he can Uair several times quicker than in the past when Uair knocked people way up which killed, but Falco needed to be at the right percent, right height, and right position since his horizontal mobility is poor and even then, it wasn't guaranteed. Now, Falco kills move at the sides now which is what Falco's niche was supposed to be in contrast to Fox who kills more vertically.

Falco's metagame just swerved and it's something new now, especially his air game which was punisher-like pre-patch, but is more combo-centric now.

 

[Zorai]

He has Marth's data for that, but he runs even FASTER, which means he covers more distance before he can shield.

That definitely explains a lot.

I agree with the rest of your post, Roy's ground game is definitely a lot different just because of that one mechanic. So despite having a pretty fast dash he can't rely on it as much.

Thank god for that initial burst of speed when initiating a walk, feel like it'll be key.

 

[Ffamran]

Wait... I thought all shields come up at the same time. Why's Roy's different then? Shouldn't shielding from a dash stop the dash immediately? Sonic, Captain Falcon, and Fox are all fast, but their shields come up normally and Luigi's traction doesn't do anything when he shields. Might be an oversight.

 

[Lavani]

Wait... I thought all shields come up at the same time. Why's Roy's different then? Shouldn't shielding from a dash stop the dash immediately? Sonic, Captain Falcon, and Fox are all fast, but their shields come up normally and Luigi's traction doesn't do anything when he shields. Might be an oversight.

You can't shield during your initial dash, which isn't a consistent timeframe between characters. Marth/Roy have a long initial dash before transitioning into their run.

 

[san.]

That definitely explains a lot.

I agree with the rest of your post, Roy's ground game is definitely a lot different just because of that one mechanic. So despite having a pretty fast dash he can't rely on it as much.

Thank god for that initial burst of speed when initiating a walk, feel like it'll be key.

I do too. That burst is pretty amazing IMO.

 

[Ffamran]

You can't shield during your initial dash, which isn't a consistent timeframe between characters. Marth/Roy have a long initial dash before transitioning into their run.

Of all the things to clone for Roy... Roy runs faster than Marth meaning he covers even more distance, and bleh. Welp, people'll have to learn his dash spacing then.

In other news: Lucas's Nair: https://youtu.be/c9TwXJoRDqE?t=16. Pretty good move, right?

 

[Terios the Hedgehog]

But she ain't got dem thighs ZSS has.

I don't normally care about that stuff but holy **** her lack of an ass is ACTUALLY distracting to me on the win screen. It's like she's ****ing Gumby or something.

I thought Ryu's uair might be cancelable as it was one of his Ultra sf4 buffs but nope. :C

Lucas' nair was and still kinda is 90% of my Lucas gameplay.

 

[san.]

Of all the things to clone for Roy... Roy runs faster than Marth meaning he covers even more distance, and bleh. Welp, people'll have to learn his dash spacing then.

In other news: Lucas's Nair: https://youtu.be/c9TwXJoRDqE?t=16. Pretty good move, right?

Roy has a really good dash trot, so you'll have to rely on that more. Makes him even more of a Melee-like character, lol.

 

[Physics]

Of all the things to clone for Roy... Roy runs faster than Marth meaning he covers even more distance, and bleh. Welp, people'll have to learn his dash spacing then.

In other news: Lucas's Nair: https://youtu.be/c9TwXJoRDqE?t=16. Pretty good move, right?

You accidently put Falco in the video name instead of Lucas. Also, that won't work if someone DI's, I'm pretty sure that can be jumped out of, and some characters with a fast nair can nair out of that I believe...

 

[FullMoon]

You accidently put Falco in the video name instead of Lucas. Also, that won't work if someone DI's, I'm pretty sure that can be jumped out of, and some characters with a fast nair can nair out of that I believe...

I'm sure you noticed that the first half of the video is about Falco.

 

[TTTTTsd]

So I was messing with Ryu Fair and....(sorry for the execution botches and 30000 rolls + lame voice BUT W/E)

Spoiler: GRIME

This is pretty major. Even doing this straight upwards or neutral OoS as opposed to forward, it's a LONG punish.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Yes it is, @ TTTTTsd . It's extremely ****ing good, especially off of a powershield.

Smooth Criminal

 

[mimgrim]

Ok I'm on mobile righ now so yeah. Sorry if this looks bad, can't get on comp atm.

Anyway.

what is going on with Roy. If you are really early with his Fair from a short hop he can DJ before hehits the ground but if he hits the ground without DJing he still has landing lag. I t 7s really ****ing weird. Why, just why. It is a tight wndow but damn it seems like a really good thing for him.

 

[LonkQ]

You can go straight from a short hop Fair into DED without the landing lag because of that, kinda like Marth can. I'm not sure how useful it'll be though.

 

[Ryu_Ken]

So I was messing with Ryu Fair and....(sorry for the execution botches and 30000 rolls + lame voice BUT W/E)

Spoiler: GRIME

This is pretty major. Even doing this straight upwards or neutral OoS as opposed to forward, it's a LONG punish.

That's pretty insane for an OoS option. Dang that frame 6 Fair comes out so fast.
Is FADC>Rising Fair a thing, or does the opponent crumple too low to be hit by it? That sounds like it'd be a really good combo.

 

[LightLV]

I came back in here just to say that @ san. was right about Roy's dash being garbage. I never really noticed this until having just played like 50 games vs. a competent ROB player today with Roy. His shield takes ages to come out from a dashing animation and it can greatly affect matchups such as Roy vs ROB. So far I haven't seen anyone else comment on this. It might hurt Roy in the long run unless players start working around it...

Against competent Link players this is even worse. The answer is to not dash at all unless you know there's an opening. Walk and Pshield is your answer. Dashing will get you hit in the face.

In Roy's case, Walking, Pshield and Jab. It comes out fast enough to simply clash projectiles.


And in the case of Falco, they should just remove his spike property entirely and give him a drillkick like Kirby. Then i can finally have use for it, and they can stop trying to give him a spike without actually giving him a spike because of Melee/Brawl falco.

 

[TTTTTsd]

That's pretty insane for an OoS option. Dang that frame 6 Fair comes out so fast.
Is FADC>Rising Fair a thing, or does the opponent crumple too low to be hit by it? That sounds like it'd be a really good combo.

I think it works? The crumple hitbox doesn't put them too high (tested on Marth)

BTW Fair OoS is mostly in range of most of Marth's stuff barring like, the tip of Ftilt. Oh my god, who cares about disjoints now?! This character is so good.

 

[Ffamran]

You accidently put Falco in the video name instead of Lucas. Also, that won't work if someone DI's, I'm pretty sure that can be jumped out of, and some characters with a fast nair can nair out of that I believe...

All the videos I link aren't made by me. The point of the Lucas Nair was to talk about his Nair and not what Nair chain he was doing.