Double post. Over an hour.
That video Bubba posted demonstrates nicely that Ganon can make freakish comebacks. At the same time, it's also very misleading, I think. That is to say, that his power is almost a gimmick. He's as low as he is for the same reason I feel Seth is not a top 5 character in AE: variable efficacy a strength does not make.
You're going to be
hard-pressed to convince me that Seth is not a top 5 character in AE (we're talking 2012 patch, right?). In just SSF IV, I would have agreed with you, 'cause that was the age of the charging turtles...
However, it became clear in AE 2012 that mix-ups, especially highly-damaging, offensive ones, are the new dominant force. IMO, Seth proves that low life means nearly nothing in a traditional fighting game as long as the character with it has all the fundamental tools needed to circumvent it and otherwise function as a 'perfect' character. What does Seth not have? He has
- a good projectile
- great long-range spacing moves
- a DP
- an extremely fast teleport
- a command grab
- highly damaging attacks
- even more highly damaging combos
and MORE! Akuma
also has nearly all of those things. Just replace the long-range spacing moves with Demon Flip mix-ups and a great grounded overhead move, the good projectile with several EXTREMELY good projectiles, and the fast teleport with one that gets him out of tight corners (Edit: Almost forgot Raging Demon, lolz!
). They're both clearly top 5 material, and I'm prone to believe that they're actually the two best characters in the game, despite also being two of the characters with the
lowest health in the game (Seth being arguably the better character, despite having the LOWEST health in the game).
Also, to drive the point home about variable strengths, Youtube Infilitration vs. Poongko for you AE players. People get all worked up over how Seth's mix-ups are impossible to deal with, then we see Infiltration learn the MU and consistently stuff Poongko. In particular, there's a match from the SF 25th qualifier where Poongko fights him, and barely uses ANY mix-ups, and is reduced to the fundamentals which Seth is so lacking...and naturally loses.
This just proves that Akuma is (almost) just as good as, or better than, Seth. Infiltration destroyed Evo because he used Akuma's mix-ups combined with that trigger-finger Raging Demon craziness to streamroll everyone. I'm sure that if he had put similar time into developing an on-point Seth, he would have had similar results. Both characters have no life but an incredibly
vast number of mix-ups and heavy punishments.
Akuma can advance on you steadily, covering himself, chipping you out, and pushing you back, with well-placed fireballs, and then pin you down in the corner, raining down mix-up after mix-up, many of which can hit-confirm into Raging Demon. Seth can zone with Sonic Booms and well-spaced long-range attacks and then instantly teleport in (under cover of a Boom) with ridiculous mix-ups that land crazy damage. In my eyes, numerous effective mix-ups ARE a "fundamental", in SSF IV: AE 2012 at least. This is why all the charge chars plummeted from Top Tier to High/Mid Tier in the transition over from SSF IV to AE 2012. They severely lack mix-ups, even though they have very strong defensive games (another great fundamental) which were previously rewarded in the more defensive metagame of SSF IV. IMO, the only "fundamental" that Seth (and Akuma) is actually lacking is the ability to win trades. That missing strength is why Poongko personally feels (or at least used to; I don't know about
right now) that Seth's worst MU is T.Hawk (arguably the
worst character in the game). T.Hawk can just do what he normally does (aim for trades) and win matches, because lolz, most health in the game trading with least health in the game = omega fail.
Tl;dr - Mix-ups are why AE 2012's Top Tier is filled with the crazy mix-up powerhouses (Seth, Akuma, Cammy, C.Viper, etc).
This
does not win games.
I don't disagree with your points regarding Ganon, though, only the points regarding Seth in AE 2012.
