• Welcome to Smashboards, the world's largest Super Smash Brothers community! Over 250,000 Smash Bros. fans from around the world have come to discuss these great games in over 19 million posts!

    You are currently viewing our boards as a visitor. Click here to sign up right now and start on your path in the Smash community!

Robin vs Ryu Matchup Guide

Yoite

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Dec 5, 2015
Messages
202
Location
London
NNID
Ryudo212
Intro

I was requested to create a machup guide on how to beat Ryu from Robin's perspective. I decided to post this on smashboards, even though I have not used this in a while, because it's a good place for people to slowly share thoughts over a collective medium. Keep in mind that I do co-main both of these characters, with Robin being my original main and am an admin in the Robin discord - and Ryu somebody who I picked up about 5 months ago now (maybe longer? Forget). If you have any problems with anything here or feel anything should be added onto, feel free to reply here with your thoughts to build upon them.

Ryu is the street fighter character of smash in a literal sense. His shoryuken/DP like in street fighter has invincibility on startup, serving as a combo breaker, and panic button in some cases. DP also has little to no landing lag on it so when you punish it you need to hit him before he lands the majority of the time (can grab it too but be careful the timing can be strict and if he does another one you risk getting hit by it again). His tatsumaki has armour on it on the startup, made to go through projectiles like in street fighter, but in smash isn't that amazing for that purpose as it's only on startup. His framedata is one of the best in the game on the ground, and a lot of his moves are safe on shield or plus on shield too, allowing him to pressure incredibly well up close. This is all at the opposite negative of having a very hard time getting in on people, but if he gets in, on some characters, it could possibly just be gg's from there - Robin being one of these characters. I'll start with general positives/negatives of this character, then do a Robin specific anti for Ryu.

Ryu's Positives

1. FRAMEDATA.
Most important thing to keep in mind. His perfect sweet spot neutral air when descending is amazingly plus on shield (+6). Literally every character in the game has to take up tilt or down tilt on shield after that into mixups minus invincible up b's. Keep in mind that the sourspot is still +5 if you drop shield but acting OOS it is -2 and you can usually grab it OOS. His back air is plus as well (+3) and he can turnaround up tilt/down tilt again. If Ryu gets in, he's gonna be applying a lot of pressure and putting the opponent in a lot of mixups, and it is very hard for any opponent to get out. up tilts and down tilts on shield are all good pressure that can mixup into collarbone breaker (a shield breaker), grabs, or just rapid tilts to get the opponent to drop shield and get hit. His forward air is also safe on shield and can be spaced.

2. Pokes/Combos/Killpower.
I think it's pretty obvious how good his combos and kill power are. Rage shoryuken being one of, if not the best, comeback mechanics in the game due to being able to kill people sub 50% dependant on some characters and 70% being the norm. Combos are really good, and his pokes on their own are good with a 16% fresh back air, 13% forward air, heavy up tilt, down smash etc etc and many many combo potentials, especially if we get to the technical footstool ones. But even basic ones such as down tilt, heavy down tilt, tatsu doing a good 23 or so percent. His most other notable kill confirm other than shoryuken being the nair chain into down air confirms. When Ryu carries people across the stage into a down air at about 30 and possibly killing people. Basically, try to avoid this character getting in on people.

3. Focus Attack
May as well make this a separate positive. Focus attack is another unique mechanic of Ryu's in smash 4. Frame 1 armour that absorbs one hit and puts people into a crumbled state from level 2 onwards opening people up into combos. It's good for the momentum cancel when dash cancelling it, and for getting out of some normal mixups with opponents's throw combos. Basically, if you have a combo that's one hit, make sure you know exactly when it should kill less the Ryu focus attacks out of it or, as a callout, DP out of it.

Negatives

1. Landing

Ryu has THE worst aerial drift in the entire game. Taken from Street Fighter, this guy has little to no mobility in the air, and as such can get ****** on in the air, he has focus cancelling to sort of help him in this regard, but that has lag on its own, so always take advantage of getting Ryu into the air.

2. Recovery

Whilst not the worst in the game, without a jump, Ryu should still practically be dead without a second jump. With a second jump he can sort of mix between focus cancelling into his tatsu and up b dependant on where he is, but without a second jump he HAS to use his tatsumaki before up b'ing as his shoryuken does not have much vertical distance to it at all, and Tatsumaki has a 96 FAF, meaning he is completely open to getting hit over and over again. As well as this many down airs can just hit the tatsu for free as well. His up B is a bit harder to gimp but his hurtbox is extended so it is possible to down air this hurtbox from the ledge to 2 frame him.

3. Neutral

By far his greatest weakness. This character is such an oxymoron in that, his strengths are so big when you see them pressuring up close and his weaknesses are also so big when you see him struggling to approach people. It's incredibly easy to camp out Ryu by making him approach and stopping his aerial attacks by hitting him or just running away and punishing what is punishable on shield or on whiff. If a Ryu does not ban duck hunt and you see him fighting someone who knows the mu there, you can see for yourself how much of a struggle it is when on a deficit for Ryu to approach say, a Rosalina. Hadouken/Shakunetsu is his only projectile and in Smash 4 is absolutely garbage. Jabs beat it, it is punishable on hit up close at any percent, and it is slow with a 58 FAF. So it's not as if Ryu has a decent projectile to help him approach either. The way Ryu's usually do play neutral is a lot of walking, shielding, and searching for up tilt or down tilt hits, or pushing people to the corner.

Robin vs Ryu

First of all keep in mind this is coming from someone who originally was a solo Robin main, and picked up Ryu later and now co-mains both characters. So I would like to hope that this advice is taken well by people. Now, let's get to it.

The Neutral Game

So when the announcer goes 3, 2, 1 go, what is it that Ryu is going to do first? And what is it that Robin is going to do first? Well first of all the aims of both characters I think are fairly obvious. Ryu wants to get in on Robin's ass, and Robin wants to build a wall to keep Ryu out, and set up traps to start his/her combo game on him. So what tools do both characters use to accomplish this?

Well - Robin may want to start charging to arcthunder to keep that trap available for later to make Ryu worry about shielding.

But Ryu may read that Robin wants to charge and start by running in - a strat that I myself like to do on Robins a lot - as I know Robins charge a lot at the start of the round. On smashville for that reason as Robin I sometimes like to jump on the platform to charge - which may sound like I'm putting myself in a bad position at first but sometimes is worth it for the arcthunder in any case.

So what do I recommend that Robin does at the start of the round? Well I would mix between throwing an arcfire down if I think Ryu wants to run in, then charging if he waits for it to go, or forward air if he attempts to jump - or alternatively run up myself as robin and SH Fair into a jab 1 to see if it will hit, to get him offstage and start the pressure right at the start (and then charging to arcthunder if you get time). And now you have Ryu in the disadvantageous state as he is on the ledge being edgeguarded.

The general neutral game against Ryu as Robin is going to be SH fair a lot, arcthunder as a mixup when you condition him to shield, or to get him to make a commital jump. You always want to be at midrange against Ryu, you do not ever want to be put in a position where you have to shield Ryu's up tilts up close as that's automatically putting yourself into a negative position. Having an item on hand and being versatile with your item game also can help with the neutral.

The main thing you have to remember from the general Ryu weaknesses is how bad his jump and aerial mobility is, which means he has to shield a lot. And Robin is incredibly good at beating shields with arcthunder, wavebounce arcfire to be up close for the same purpose, and general grabs (though riskier).

Juggling Ryu

Ryu has a hard time landing against a lot of characters due to his slow aerial speed. So as Robin what do you pressure with? Well standard up air pressure is a thing that works decently well, if they try to focus you get a free hit anyway and so a lot of Ryu's might still try to airdodge it which can be read for a free hit. In general you're going to be able to force him to grab ledge for an edgeguarding opportunity by using your disjoints against him. For hard reads on focus you could arcfire or arcthunder their landings or wait then grab for a riskier mixup.

Edeguarding/Offstage against Ryu

Arcfire edgeguard is standard, Ryu doesn't have anything really character specific to get around it (not like wake up dp beats it lol). So you can still use that into your standard mixups.

Obviously keep in mind that Ryu can wakeup DP so always be ready for that. If he whiffs it, always punish him hard please, otherwise you give him reason to attempt it again. Up smash is a safe punish, fsmash is possible, and grab is possible too but the latter two have to be done at the correct time lest you wish to get DP'd again.

Now offstage is awful for Ryu and what you want to do is try to hit him after he's used his double jump, Robin's neutral air is amazing for this purpose. When he's forced to tatsu you can dair it for free, there's not much of a hitbox above him, and even then to be safer you can still nair gimp him again with that 96 FAF. You can also run off bair his up b but it's very hard to do if the ryu is good at his recovery timing, and you can dair above the ledge on the extended hurtbox too if you have a good timing.

Disadvantage state against Ryu

So you're playing neutral and Ryu got in with a move, what does Robin do?

So keep in mind again that Ryu's perfect nair is +6 on shield, so NEVER press a button after that, you are going to have to take the up tilt mixups as Robin or down tilts if they go for that. Now the options you have with up tilt is that super duper up close you can possibly grab up tilt on shield OOS straight away, if they're using cstick up tilts, they can't do the fastest possible up tilts, so the slower ones one after another can be grabbed inbetween. The fastest ones mean they can't really walk while doing it, so you can shield it all and run back, sacrificing stage control in exchange for not getting hit/dying possibly, rolling back is possible too but riskier if the Ryu reads it, and rolling is is also another mixup if you wish to try and hit him. It is possible to react to the collarbone breaker shield breaker if they go for that too, this just takes experience though, it's more common for it to happen on the edge too as unfortunately Robin lacks much there against Ryu in terms of avoiding shield pressure.

If you get hit by an up tilt IMMEDIATELY SDI up and away, this helps you avoid DP at the higher percents and the combos at lower percents and nair chains if they go for it. But, it's a true combo - this only makes it harder for them to kill you or get combo'd. Jab and up close down tilt can't be sdi'd for the DP followup.

On the edge Ryu's will most likely up tilt or down tilt spam to cover options. Mixup goes as such:

They do nothing but up tilt ever, not shielding - Down jump forward air will hit them/combo into another one at lower percents, this beats down tilt too but have to be more careful to not get clipped.

You KNOW they're gonna shield an attempted down jump, and might focus - You could play the patience game and wait for a focus and if they dash back you get free ledge recovery, if they go for the punch thinking you might try to hit them, you have time to down jump forward air punish. Or you play risky and just do regular get up, and risk getting hit if they go for it and only it.

They're just standing there....menacingly :( - Most likely want an attack or roll, again will just have to mix up between the ledge recovery options, regular get up is hardest to react to in this game so might be best option.

And that about does it for the sort of situations you will be in. Ryu does not have much of a juggle game, his up air does have a ridiculously good hitbox, but to be honest fast falling into jab or just shield can be good against him due to his slow aerial mobility, his ground speed is decent to compensate for this but it does often give Robin an easier time landing. I'm not saying landing is free for Robin against Ryu - bair and up air are still something to keep in mind at times but for the most part it's not as threatening as other juggles.

Stage Choices For Each Character

Final Destination - Mostly Even but Slightly Robin Favoured Possibly

Whilst both characters can struggle to land against each other due to lack of platforms, I think Ryu has a harder time approaching Robin and dealing with the projectiles / camping.

Lylat Cruise - Ryu Advantage

Smallest stage, and the tilt helps Ryu out intensely to get around Robin's projectiles. Robin can be benefited at some of the tilts but overall Ryu has an easier time using it to his advantage, plus the short ceiling at some of the tilts can lead to some incredibly early kills. The platforms can still help Robin zone in some cases but Ryu can also still use them to help get around Robin's zoning.


Smashville - Ryu Advantage

Fairly small stage gives Ryu an easier time to get in on Robin, platform can also support in offering pressure. Arguably Ryu's best stage in the matchup as it can be harder for Robin to zone.


Battlefield - Robin Favour

Definitely Robin's best stage, large stage, tri-platform, higher ceiling. Whilst I would argue the high ceiling means nothing to Ryu as Ryu still kills early regardless and lives longer too - it's still Robin's best stage moreso for the stage layout, making it incredibly hard for Ryu to approach on the stage.

Dreamland - Neutral

Like Battlefield, there's a tri-platform layout, making it possible for Robin to zone Ryu well. But unlike battlefield it's shorter and has a shorter ceiling, allowing Ryu to get in a bit easier and kill earlier as well. Definitely a neutral pick and something you'd probably see in tournament for this mu being picked.

Town And City - Robin Slight Advantage

Most conflicting one for me to decide. Whilst Ryu kills so bloody early on this stage, it becomes FD for a good portion of it (Notes Above on FD) and the stage layout is still good for Robin to camp Ryu with, as well as the stage layout being fairly big still for Robin to camp Ryu with. Checkmate still kills early anyway so Ryu killing earlier is not reason enough to call it Ryu advantage.


Duckhunt - Robin Advantage

What's to say? Ryu's worst stage for sure. Can't approach, massive stage, Robin can camp forever here, get charges for free etc etc. Should never see this stage in this mu being picked.

Conclusion

I think this mu is honestly even if not, ever so slightly in Ryu's favour only due to the pressure he deals when he gets in, and things like arcfire if read are PAINFUL for the Robin if Ryu gets a back air or run up shoryuken or up smash. If the Robin plays smart and builds a wall with fair, jab and neutral B, it can be annoying for the Ryu to get in, but overall, after having played the mu as both characters more recently, I've begun to see that a good Ryu honestly only needs a couple of good reads to get in, and Robin lacks much mobility/fast options to get him away from him/her. However, it is also incredibly annoying for a Ryu to get in on a good Robin who knows how to mixup their wall building.

So in all honesty it could just be even, still undecided on that much.

I don't write many smash 4 guides, more versatile in writing matchup helps for other games, but was requested this. If you disagree with anything or wish to build up on any more points, do feel free to comment on it or Private Message me. I admin the Robin discord and am always active there, and may just reply on here too. Thank you for reading!
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom