What is up with Ryu? Broken much?

[[XIII] | Sandstorm]

Sorry for this little rant post, but I've found Ryu to be straight up OP from day 1. And I still stand by that. And after playing today, I felt I just had to share my own thoughts on him.

I just ask this: What are his cons? He has a projectile, a good projectile, for spacing and approaching. He is crazy powerful (His Fair does 15 damage, and his Bair does 16! Like.....what?!). He can cover lots of options because of his ability to have 2 different tilts and 2 different jabs. I've seen some people saying his recovery is as bad as Little Mac's.... huh? His Up B is for starters a lot higher than Mac's, even though this one too have very little horizontal movement. Still, he has his Side B, and his Focus Punch that he can cancel and get momentum, plus that his Focus Punch gives him a 1-hit super armor that makes it a bit safer to recover, too. He has a Spike. He has a power-version of each Special, except for his Focus Punch, that don't have any downsides compared to the regular specials. They are just straight up more powerful versions, that's it. And I'm looking at you, Shoryuken. That move.... what were they THINKING? For example, I was playing as Ganondorf against Ryu today, and Ganon is one of the heaviest in the game. His power-Shoryuken killed Ganon at UNDER 90%... WHAT? And the thing is, it doesn't have a lot of cooldown or anything, even though it is punishable, sure. It comes out extremely fast, and he flies upwards very fast, so it's not the easiest move to punish. It even doesn't have more cooldown than his regular Up B, which I find stupid. There's really no reason to use his normal Up B if you know how to use the power version of it. His Side B is excellent for punishing rollers or punishing other moves, like Ganon's Wizard's Kick or missed Flame Choke. His Strong Side Tilt is a very, very good Shield Breaker move. He has very little landing lag on areals.

I mean - What the heck are his cons? He is so good in every way, he can basically do everything. There's nothing he lacks.

Then, I come to my final point that really made me just... depressed. Not mad, didn't rage, I just shut down the game and got sad. I'm talking about his infinite Up Tilt. I was using Ganon, and he isn't the biggest in the game (like DK, Bowser etc), even though he is big. But still, if he just landed 1 weak up tilt, I was doomed. He would drag me across the stage with it, lock me, and I couldn't do ANYTHING. I tried DI-ing, Nair-ing, anything. Nothing worked, because I was still in hitstun when he landed the next one, and he could easily just follow me around the stage, so DI-ing was pretty much useless. As we got to the edge, the damage was racked up, and he could easily jump up and land his meteor Down Air. That's when I quit.

Someone, please explain to me what Ryu's deal is. There's nothing he's NOT good at. He's extremly powerful, both air and ground, has a decent enough recovery to be this good, has a good projectile, has a shield break, a disgusting KO move in form of his power-Shoryuken, his Focus Punch, his Up Tilt Lock that's impossible to escape, lagless areals... yeah. Please explain to me.

first of all ya main ganon. sooooo

 

[Derpy_Steve]

When Ryu faces a one on one against a good projectile user, he is often forced to approach, with the exception of having the stock lead. Most would hold shield because Ryu is a heavy aerial user when it comes to approaching. You may say just land and grab, but there's one issue with that. Every charater has a small amount of landing lag when they land, depending on how far above they were before they land. A soft landing often would have less lag than a hard landing. And during that lag, Ryu is weak to anything. Unless the grab is the speed's of greninja's grab, then they are probably gonna grabbed. Ryu's grab can't do much besides damage, so shielding is often a powerful tool. But don't get too shield happy. A technical Ryu player would bait your shield, break it, and then perform a possible 0-death. Ganon struggles against Ryu due to lack of a projectile, and Ganon bait and punish game is greatly hindered if the Ryu is smart and put you out of range of a flame choke or a wizard kick. But if he does try to land an aerial, make sure it's not nair otherwise you will be unable to punish it you normally shield. Perfecting shielding is vital when punishing nair. All his other aerials are more flexible for you, due to their higher lag. But when he is about it to use the uptilt, SDI towards him. Eventually you'll land behind him, and he will need to turn, and there is a chance he might dash attack by accident. Don't spam jump immediately when he uses this. Only SDI towards him if you are close to a ledge. What you should do in most scenarios is SDI up and away. Once you see that you have gotten far enough, jump away.

 

[Emperor Jon]

Yeah also thought that Ryu was actually OP because whenever I use Little Mac I die from shoryukens and get comboed across the entire stage and then juggled with the up tilt or down tilt a couple of times and once my health is at 80% I die from the shoryuken. Does anyone have any tips that I can use when I'm using Little Mac fighting Ryu?

 

[Dagon97]

The main issue is that Ryu beats very bad. Ganon's ground normals all clank with all versions of hadoken. Jab is the best but ftilt is not bad. If Ganon ever sees Ryu tatsu offstage in an unsafe manner he should be dead every time. It is pretty easy to try to predict and gimp Ryu's recovery as ganon especially if the recovery is very horizontal.
As for the neutral, you should run away as much as possible but as Ganon that is near impossible. If you want to keep Ganon as your main, you need a CP character for character such as Ryu and Falcon.

 

[Shollyboster]

I found this gem in another post.

Anyone else think Ryu is highly overrated and probably not even top 10? Hear me out before you think this is an insane opinion.

His neutral leaves a lot to be desired. Only his uair and nair autocancel which lack the range to be really safe on block. A spaced fair on block is still usually punishable. A spaced bair on block can be safe sometimes but some characters can definitely still punish plus it's pretty obvious when he's going for fair/bair and they are so punishable on whiff.

Similarly his fireball seems decent at first until you realize the massive recovery time it has making it a pretty big commitment at mid range and he rarely gets much from it. On the ground it's basically a worse version of PK fire.

People tend to get scared and not punish these very punishable options because it's Ryu. Even in tournament play I've seen Ryu for instance do VERY punishable aerials on shield only for the opponent to roll away or sit in shield showing they didn't know the matchup. Giving the illusion that Ryu is way safer than he actually is.

His kill potential isn't as good as people think. For him to get TSRK confirms, the opponent has to make huge mistakes (basically do an unsafe move at point blank range so he can tilt confirm into it). Aside from that he has bair which will eventually start killing. But that's pretty much it. If you can avoid these two options and actually play defensive and campy, there's not much Ryu can do about it, he won't kill early at all. People rush at him blindly with really unsafe moves right next to him and then complain when they die at 70. Play the keep away game and I guarantee you Ryu becomes 10X easier to deal with.

Now let's talk about his disadvantageous state. He's a heavy and semi-fastfaller making him combo food. His focus attack won't work against multi-hit juggle moves so he basically has to commit to a focus dash in the air early in those matchups and hope you guess the direction wrong.

Also his recovery is pretty mediocre, it's basically a worse version of Diddy's recovery. You have ages to react to his side B, go offstage and hit him over and over. Similarly if he chooses to dip low and up B, any lingering hitbox will easily knock him away. Even if the opponent gets hit it's no big deal as the trade will just send them up and a sour spot SRK will never kill.

As the meta progresses I think more and more people are going to get better at exploiting Ryu's weaknesses, I don't think we will ever see Ryu consistently making top 8s at nationals (it hasn't happened at all yet anyway to my knowledge). He requires the opponent to be unnecessarily aggressive and unsafe to shine and once you don't give him that, you realize there's not much he can do.

 

[Dagon97]

I found this gem in another post.

the main issue with that post is that this person assumes we are in a meta which people capitalize on everything.
fortunately for ryu, even top players capitalize on a pretty small percentage of mistakes. since we are in a meta that involves people making frequent mistakes, ryu can get away with a lot of unsafe things, this will for sure change as time goes on.

 

[Shollyboster]

the main issue with that post is that this person assumes we are in a meta which people capitalize on everything.
fortunately for ryu, even top players capitalize on a pretty small percentage of mistakes. since we are in a meta that involves people making frequent mistakes, ryu can get away with a lot of unsafe things, this will for sure change as time goes on.

I agree with you, but nevertheless I think that this OP makes valid points about the future meta game. As you said, this will changed as time goes on. So would it even be wrong of a post to say that in the ultimate meta game Ryu will go down in tiers?

That's like saying "oh Bayonetta will be amazing forever" and then 1.1.6 rolls around. This game's competitive base is evolving so fast that I feel a strong connection to that post and its validity.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Yea but match up wise Ryu craps on ganon

 

[Shollyboster]

Yea but match up wise Ryu craps on ganon

Pretty much everyone with a brain does, besides Jiggs or something.