Wolf is overtuned.
This is undeniable.
This does not make the character broken by itself, just obviously very good.
What pushes Wolf over the edge of reason is that the counter-play to a character like him is pushed aside by the stupendousness of one single move in his kit. Can you guess (or more like, do you know already) what it is before you reach the end of this post?
An apt comparison for Wolf would be to Ryu, and for good reason, he's the OG shoto(?) and people with traditional fighter backgrounds see the archetype being represented well by Wolf's kit.
Ryu has big attacks - pretty fast start ups for the most part, favourable animations for a lot of them (hurtbox shifting and all of that) that are mostly safe on block plus has a horizontal projectile that's meant to dictate neutral a bit. The other "Smash" similarities of obscene KO power, vulnerable recoveries and 'poor' mobility also are shared by the two.
So why is Wolf doing so much while Ryu has fallen into obscurity? (as in, one's seemingly top tier while the other is seemingly low tier)
Well, Wolf has a lot better aerial mobility for one - while Ryu can go nyooom in the air from a jump he can't weave, this is a big factor in neutral and disadvantage but this still can be played around and Wolf can still be taken advantage of (he still has a pretty bad disadvantage).
Blaster is also obviously doing a lot more than Hadouken, but again, neither of the two moves are game changing. Ryu probably would be very happy to have Wolf's blaster instead of Hadouken though (a 'body' covering hitbox that stops people jumping into him on hadouken reads would gooo verrrrrrrrrrrrry far for him).
Ryu's technical requirements should be noted too, but I won't go into that here.
But the main thing that Wolf has that Ryu doesn't, the thing that makes his neutral feel overbearing and allows him dominance of mid-range (should be obvious now) is his burst option of DASH ATTACK.
Why does a character who should be forcing you to approach with blaster and beats just about everyone in reach, power and safety in close range normals once you do get close also dictate and win in the area similar characters are weak in (not just Ryu, but fox/falco "lose" to being baited in mid range).
His dash attack has ridiculous distance traveled (is there a longer traveling dash attack in the game????), it is practically safe on block [it doesn't just cross over shield, it's basically rolling through them], it combos and then eventually it kills, while not the strongest KO option in his kit, for a dash attack it's monstrous.
It's the best dash attack in the game bar none, and by far ("revenge stacked incineroar though!!!" - Browny).
Have you ever noticed how Wolf can just stand there, that he never needs to really shield at all? He's the character who against practically everyone (Zero Suits an exception~ YAY) never has to go further in neutral than just waiting for a reactive button trigger.
I'm not saying that if you're just standing there in shield and he dash attacks it you can't punish, but if he reads/anticipates a commitment, then the risk vs the reward of him going for a dash attack is hilarious. You playing to avoid said dash attack sets him up to freely hit your commitment with his aerials, tilts or even his pretty safe smash attacks.
When attrition comes and you're both at 120% - he's got the half-stage wide KO option that cannot be reacted to nor barely can be punished, and he's constantly forcing you to be moving or acting amidst lasers, who should be winning between two evenly skilled players a hyper majority of the time?
While Wolf would still be obnoxious in many people's eyes if they neutered that move, he would most assuredly not be able dictate the game vs other mid-rangers like he does right now (it's what the "basic fundamentals goes so far with him" means). Destroying the move wouldn't be necessary - it either just needs to stop KOing, or reduce the distance it travels (that would effect how it can be baited / how it can be punished).
While I have issues with other things Wolf has (why is his sweetspot down smash a faster, safer and easier to sweetspot Marth tipper fsmash??), I hope they don't go the way they did with S4 Sheik and nerf all the wrong things before touching the actual moves causing pragmatic problems.
Long story short, give Ryu Wolf's Dash Attack and have a flock of players suddenly realise Ryu "clicks" for them and start amassing results matching a high tier at minimum. Ryu's burst attacks are "good" in some senses, but they really are trash in comparison.
