Street Fighter IV

[Weltall]

Watch Alex Valle play Bison and you will know why characters like Balrog aren't top tier. Also, almost all of Bison's move are safe. This makes him incredible in the game.

[Darus Grey]

Dashing out of stomp has absolutely 0 repercussion, unless you happen to be 'Gief or 'Sim. At full-screen, he can't follow up with anything, short of a charge move, which is long since blockable/counterable at that point; mid-screen, he can sweep you, but that's still blockable or fadc-able and you can punish him for doing that.

Timing it on a fireball will almost never work at full-screen (and with scome characters, even mid-screen), unless they're spamming fierce FBs all day, which is a retarded strategy, in the first place. Anyone decent will know that's the only thing you can do, if you can't ex scissors and will simply bait it, anyway.

Almost never? It almost always works, stomp can go the entire screen distance and if you catch them mid-animation they get hit hard and you're back to the other side of the screen safe. Plus it's hardly the only thing you can do if they're trying to pin you down, you can just jump over fireball#1 and slide through fireball#2 for the few frames it'll avoid it towards the contact point, and if they try to shoryuken instead you slide right under it and then just throw them. Option#3 is jump over into flying-chop which works well if they're trying to move.

The reason I think it's strong is cause his air moves have high priority when initiating contact, so if they're trying to re-act to you they've already failed, and when you're constantly faking out it's hard to time for the "real" one.

[Akanei]

I never said Dic was a bad character. I just think Stomp is a garbage move, in most cases, as is PC.

He's the king of tick throws, safety and zoning, just not with those moves.

Almost never? It almost always works, stomp can go the entire screen distance and if you catch them mid-animation they get hit hard and you're back to the other side of the screen safe. Plus it's hardly the only thing you can do if they're trying to pin you down, you can just jump over fireball#1 and slide through fireball#2 for the few frames it'll avoid it towards the contact point, and if they try to shoryuken instead you slide right under it and then just throw them. Option#3 is jump over into flying-chop which works well if they're trying to move.

The reason I think it's strong is cause his air moves have high priority when initiating contact, so if they're trying to re-act to you they've already failed, and when you're constantly faking out it's hard to time for the "real" one.

I see only two cases you're going to catch someone mid-animation: they're playing Ken (who I'm pretty sure has the longest animation) or if Sagat's popping kick shots. Ryu can recover fast enough, Sagat's punch shots, while slower, recover just in time, too. Outside of shotos? Guile, Rose and Akuma can also bait stomp with fireballs; Rose especially.

You're also not gonna evade an lp shoryuken with a slide. Sagat shouldn't even be using his up close, since knee is much better. As for evading fbs? Last I checked, it only dodged Sagat's punch shots.

[LAGUNA]

6. Balrog's ultra is too easily avoidable. Much like Akuma's in SF4. Any block will catch it and it gives opponent jump time even at closer distances. This brought him down a little in our opinion.

No good Balrog player will try to land the full ultra though, it's only the combo into headbutt, then ultra (kick version) to get most of the hits in. Once you get hit by the first jab of the combo, it's unavoidable


Edit: Also for you guys talking about bison, for his non-ex headstomp, just jump up fierce as he comes at you, similar to what you do against Vega

[Weltall]

No good Balrog player will try to land the full ultra though, it's only the combo into headbutt, then ultra (kick version) to get most of the hits in. Once you get hit by the first jab of the combo, it's unavoidable


Edit: Also for you guys talking about bison, for his non-ex headstomp, just jump up fierce as he comes at you, similar to what you do against Vega

.... any combo into ultra is unavoidable after the first hit... I fall short of seeing how Balrog is unique in this way lol. Combos that start with D+MK or D+LK are more effective that ones that start standing.

[LAGUNA]

.... any combo into ultra is unavoidable after the first hit... I fall short of seeing how Balrog is unique in this way lol. Combos that start with D+MK or D+LK are more effective that ones that start standing.

Balrogs setup into ultra is the easiest to land though. All you have to do is land cr.lk or cr.lp and you are doomed to be punished by his ultra

[Weltall]

Balrogs setup into ultra is the easiest to land though. All you have to do is land cr.lk or cr.lp and you are doomed to be punished by his ultra

Almost every single character can chain ultra from D+LK or LP....

Whether or not randoms can perform hard combos doesn't decide where a char is placed on a tier scale.

Edit- Not calling you a random btw.

[Deejay]

Spoiler: show

Here's some assorted information about SF4's character balance.

Arcadia Magazine Tier List
November '08
S: Sagat, Ryu
high A: Zangief, Dictator
low A: Boxer, Blanka, Rufus
high B: Chun, Viper, Akuma
low B: Honda, Guile, Dhalsim, Abel, Ken
C: Claw, Fuerte

February '09
S+: Sagat, Viper, Akuma, Zangief
S: Ryu, Boxer, Rufus, Blanka
A: Chun, Dictator, Ken, Dhalsim, Abel, Honda, Fuerte
B: Claw, Guile

SF4 Wiki Character Ranks
It's a wiki. Anonymous editors. Keep that in mind? link

1 Sagat
2 Ryu
3 Zangief
4 Boxer
5 Chun
5 Blanka
5 Dictator
5 Rufus
5 Akuma
10 Ken
11 Viper
12 Dhalsim
13 Abel
14 Guile
15 Honda
16 Fuerte
17 Claw

Winningest Characters in 2008
More information on ze blog. January results up soon. E.Honda players, oddly enough, had pretty a good month.

Sagat
Ryu
Zangief
Rufus
Boxer
Dictator
Blanka
Dhalsim
Chun
Ken
Viper
Akuma
Abel
Honda
Guile
Claw
Fuerte

SF4 Diagram Fragment
Here's a partial SF4 ranking diagram using numbers from top players. I just found these clicking here and there hopefully Arcadia will do a proper version of this someday. Most of this data was posted around the middle of December.

Nemo
Guilty Gear player. Along with Nuki one of the strongest SF4 chuns. blog

Ii Desu Ketsu Bat
Strongest Honda player at TRF. Won friday singles a couple weeks ago. blog

Fax Gimoto
Very strong Blanka

Shizuoka Saikyo
Very strong Blanka

KOK
CVS2 player. Very strong Sagat. blog

Kuma
Top ranked Bison

FZ
Very strong Viper

Shiro
CVS2/Hokuto player. Top ranked Abel. He used letters to rank how tough Abel's opponents are.

       RY   KE   CH   EH   BL   ZA   GU   DH   BX   CL   SG   DI   VI   RU   EL   AB   AK
Nemo CH 5  5.5    -    6  5.5  3.5    6    6    5  6.5  4.5  5.5    4  4.5    6    6    4
KetsuEH 5    5    5    -    5    5    4    5    5    7    4    4    5    4    6    5    5
Fax BL  4  5.5  4.5  4.5    -    7    6    6    3    7    4    4    6    ?    6    3    5
Sai BL  4  4.5  4.5  4.5    -    7  5.5    6    3    7    4  4.5    6  4.5    6    4    6
KOK SG  5  5.5  5.5    7    6  6.5  6.5    6  5.5    7    -  5.5  5.5  6.5  5.5    6  4.5
Kuma DI 6    6    6    5    5    5    5    7    5    7    5    -    6    6    7    6    6
FZ VI 4.5  4.5    6    4  5.5    4  5.5    5  4.5  5.5  4.5    3    -  4.5  4.5    5    ?
ShiroAB B    B    B    B    B    S    C    B    B    C    B    A    B    A    B    -    A

Battle Point Data
Something I put in the other thread. Someone posted these on the Japanese BBS.

Top 200 Breakdown
Number of times each character appears in top 200 rankings. 1-50th place, 51-100th place, 101-150th place, 151-200th place. Data from Jan 5th.

Sagat   15  12(27) 14(41) 16(57)
Ryu     4   7(11)  5(16)  10(26)
Boxer   3   8(11)  3(14)  4(18)
Gief    5   5(10)  3(13)  3(16)
Rufus   1   2(3)   7(10)  0(10)
Blanka  5   1(6)   3(9)   1(10)
Akuma   3   3(6)   1(7)   3(10)
Chun    2   2(4)   1(5)   4(9)
Dic     2   0(2)   2(4)   3(7)
Sim     1   2(3)   3(6)   0(6)
Ken     2   2(4)   1(5)   1(6)
Abel    2   1(3)   1(4)   2(6)
Guile   0   1(1)   3(4)   2(6)
Viper   3   2(5)   0(5)   0(5)
Honda   0   1(1)   2(3)   1(4)
Claw    1   1(2)   0(2)   0(2)
Fuerte  1   0(1)   1(2)   0(2)

Top Ranker Average
The first value is the average BP of the top 10 players with that character. The second value is the same average with the #1 player set aside. In parentheses the difference between the two. Data from Jan 15th.

Sagat  82000   77000 (-5000)
Ryu    65000   56000 (-9000)
Zangi  58000   57000 (-1000)
Boxer  57000   55000 (-2000)
Blanka 57000   55000 (-2000)
Akuma  55000   54000 (-1000)
Chun   54000   50000 (-4000)
Viper  52000   49000 (-3000)
Rufus  50000   48000 (-2000)
Ken    50000   46000 (-4000)
Abel   50000   45000 (-5000)
Dic    49000   46000 (-3000)
Sim    49000   45000 (-4000)
Guile  45000   44000 (-1000)
Honda  43000   42000 (-1000)
Fuerte 42000   40000 (-2000)
Claw   39000   36000 (-3000)

Some more tables like this here and here.

^Shoryuken.com character ranking.

Balrog is ranked as Low A Tier(08') to S tier (Feb 09), ranked 4th best on Street Fighter wiki, and has the 5th most wins in japan last year.

Take it for what you will, but everyone seems to think that Boxer is one of the best characters.

[Weltall]

I'm retyping for you once again. The addition of more characters pushes him down, esp Cammy/sakura

[thebearofscience]

the boss is way too fucking hard.
i've played a lot and i can't beat it on fucking easy.

[thebearofscience]

lol. OK. after i made that post i tried again and beat it (as viper). still pretty fucking irritating though. high expectations for new players.

[tommygunnz]

I'm retyping for you once again. The addition of more characters pushes him down, esp Cammy/sakura

Regardless even if they were both ranked higher than boxer he would still only be pushed down to high mid tier, no where near low tier. Even though I have always respected Sak I don't think she will rank higher. Cammy maybe.

I do appreciate your write up though, but I think you are still way out of line ever considering boxer low tier in SF4.

[Sol-Blackguy]

Haven't seen too many people playing Vega. Fun to use, but his air game is kinda shut down since almost everybody knows how to avoid it. Also, more people using Balrog, Blanka and Guile in the arcades. I guess the whole shoto novelty is starting to wear off.

[Milks]

Guile is a fucker. I always lose against them XD

[Weltall]

Regardless even if they were both ranked higher than boxer he would still only be pushed down to high mid tier, no where near low tier. Even though I have always respected Sak I don't think she will rank higher. Cammy maybe.

I do appreciate your write up though, but I think you are still way out of line ever considering boxer low tier in SF4.

It is just an opinion; like I said, tiers evolve and I understand that. When I see Balrog doing better consistently I will move him up on my list.

@Milks - You have the best avatar on BG....allow me to steal it.

[Katlan]

Haven't seen too many people playing Vega.

I think Vega is a cool character and was great in SF2 (I think that was the game where he was first introduced), but he is so aerial heavy that most of his specials and stuff are easy to avoid since they have an extended prep animation from other ppl. Least they are for me, but I haven't come across a good enuff Vega player who I couldn't own easily

[Correction]

So now we get to pay for pallette swaps on alternate costumes, huh. I could swear that a few months ago fighting games were giving those away for free. When did EA take over Capcom?

[Ragnus]

I noticed that one of Vega's moves takes off his claw and mask. Does the player get any benefits other than a bit more speed for losing the reach?

[Sonomaa]

ordered my copy today, found an old 30bux gift certificate, woot

[Isiolia]

So now we get to pay for pallette swaps on alternate costumes, huh. I could swear that a few months ago fighting games were giving those away for free. When did EA take over Capcom?

Alternate costumes are for-pay. Alternate colors are unlocked by doing Challenge stuff, out of the box you can only pick two for the normal costume. I assume that carries over to the alternate costumes.

I find it rather disappointing that Capcom is doing that too. I mean, granted, it's non-essential content. However, they choose to lock "essentials" in terms of characters, and have people pay for what is essentially a benefit of using 3D to render the characters.

It's a poor road to go down, IMO. It's annoying enough that we need to make sure we've got saves for older games in order to use the full rosters.