It sounds to me like you're saying that air zoning is the only tool that F-Ryougi has, and that when she comes up against a character that outranges her, there's nothing she can do. No. F-Ryougi has plenty of tools. Sure, her j.B zoning is great, but she still has things to use in matchups where she's outranged. Look at 5b, 2b, and 22a. 5b is such a ridiculous anti-air. As soon as you get your opponent trying to challenge your j.b you can anti-air 5b them or dash under them and 5b with her awesome dash. 2b has some RANGE and is really fast. 2b, 2c, 3c, rekkas is such a great way to get in. 22a is a super fast projectile with massive frame advantage that also helps her get in when she's outranged.
These are all fun tools that I've had success with, but they are all beatable by learning the matchup. 5B is hella risky and spacing yourself properly is kind of difficult with her awkward dash. I've often found 2A to be a more solid antiair option although it loses to obvious air-to-ground moves such as nanaya j.C.
Okay, where the hell did this idea come from? I've been hearing this for a while in relation to H-moon bunker/shield and it's complete bullshit. Show me one player that can actually consistently counter on reaction to getting shielded, especially with F-Ryougi. F has so little time to link her normals together. You pretty much have to press the next button as soon as you've pressed the last. I MIGHT buy this for H-Ryougi normals against F-moon shield counter if you've got great reaction speed and you're really looking for it. But I really don't think this is something you can do without prediction.
Of course not. But if the opponent is predictable it's a valid option. The same can be said of basic shit such as countering Kouma's shield antiair into command throw. He can still run that shit if you autopilot and forget to be weary of it. Obviously reacting to shields in your blockstring is different, but people tend to look out for the same shit and shield it. People often like to shield my 3C, so I'll go into rekkas or a 214 instead, but if I had more experience and skill I don't think it would be infeasible to counter on reaction.
Well, you're half right. Guard crush isn't really an option unless you're fighting a meterless H-moon. But EX guard does not ruin F-Ryougi. See below for pressure options.
your pressure options are gimmick nonsense on the level of ciel's 236B parlor tricks.
Well, yeah. You have a point here. She has no reversals. But she has F-moon shield, which is great. If you're looking for a quick getaway, 214c seems to work sometimes, but yeah patience and knowing when to bunker/shield/block is pretty important for any Ryougi. At least she has an anti-A armor 2a with crazy range for poking the holes, right?
The 2A is so slow, I often find myself going to 5A when I resort to desperation mashing. But her normals are all so slow that when you give up and start mashing, you've probably already lost.
Ugh. F-Ryougi's pressure is just as good as say... F-Ries. Rekkas are F-Ryougi's main pressure tool, right? 236a, 236[a], 2a reset. Safe, easy auto-stagger pressure. If you do this every time, OF COURSE YOU'RE GOING TO GET SHIELDED. It's the only way to beat it besides DP! So when they start shielding, you don't charge the 2nd hit, or you wait a half a second on the 2a, or you end them like normal with 236a because you have such ridiculous range that being at neutral isn't such a bad thing in the first place. And you also even have 22a for a free dash-in because of crazy frame advantage. Normal string, 22a, dash up 5a, 5a, 5b, 4c, rekkas. Safe way to get in an overhead that leads to more pressure or combo into oki if it hits. All that isn't even taking into account her normal stagger pressure or IH gimmicks. Oh and her airdash j.b at just the right height is a nice double-overhead, too. If you cancel into j.c after the first hit you'll land without it coming out and can go into 2b to keep people guessing.
F-Ryougi has plenty of tools.
And don't be so obsessed with ending your combos with j.236b and charge. F-Ryougi is the only style that can hit with her 2b after airthrow on oki without moving forward, so if you're playing against a character with great air options screw the charge and go for the oki.
People can just option select shield the second hit of the rekka. When they see you do hit number one, they hold shield. If you charge the second hit, they shield it. If you don't, they lose nothing. Ways to fix this would be making it neutral to end rekkas on first hit, or giving her a low option for second rekka. Since neither of these exist, there is no reliable way to ever do the charged second hit of rekka, and you often find yourself simply doing A A A airtight string, unless you get stupidly risky and mix up the third one. Yes her stagger pressure is decent, but stagger pressure on its own is worthless. Look at MBAC Nanaya, all you have to do is hold down+back and he has no solid options except throwing you. F-Ryougi is the same except she can't whiff cancel into throw, so if you hold down+back and EX guard the predictable shit and keep awake enough to shield the charged 5C, you're golden. What you've listed is all a bunch of neat gimmicks, and don't get me wrong, they're cool. But a gimmick is something that can be defeated with experience. It's not something you can rely on forever. When your opponent stops autopiloting and figures out these gimmicks, almost all of her offensive game disappears, and she has nothing except long-range stagger pressure, which means little when an opponent has no reason to stop blocking. And she can only make an airtight string by throwing the knife, which she can only do once in one string. So they just sit and wait for you to do string into knife into more string, and then what? do you think you can dash in again with f-ryougi without a knife? they will jump out having taken practically zero damage (maybe one or two accidental hits from failed ex-guards, since we're talking about mid-level play) and you start all over again.
Well if you play all j.b zoning and durr-hurr rekka pressure into 236b rekka ender air combo style all the time... then yeah she's the most boring, predictable character in the game. Personally, my favorite part about playing her is the oki after a simple combo like 2a, 5b, 2b, 2c, 3c, 236a, 236[a], 214a (have to reverse). You get decent damage plus sandoori or a TK j.236b which-way.
So she has decent, solid pressure that will scrub-out anyone that doesn't know how to shield. She has combos into oki setups. She has good-damage combos in the corner that I find really fun. She has a great arc drive. And most importantly she has air zoning that simply shuts down a lot of characters completely.
I'd say she's pretty damn good.
I play her in a very straight-edge simple style because all of the advanced shit she has is gimmicks. I don't like winning with gimmicks because it comes down to you winning or losing depending on how much experience the opponent has against your character. I try to stick to her solid core gameplan and only throwing in gimmicks like charged 5C extremely rarely, so opponents don't get used to them. The only advanced things she has that aren't gimmicks are her arc drive tick mixups, which are straight 50/50s if done right.
I think your comment that she will "scrub-out anyone that doesn't know how to shield" pretty much sums it up. But if you want to stomp scrubs you can do that with practically any character. I'm interested in a character I can constantly discover new shit with, grow my skills at the same time, and better my all-around play of the entire game. F-Ryougi offers you none of those things.
By all means, alt her, but I've discovered that maining her just dragged me down, and more importantly, stole the joy of victory away. With F-Ryougi I never felt like I earned a win. That's the core reason I'm dropping her. If you want to continue stomping poor guys who have never faced a rarely-used console character before with her crazy unique shit gimmicks, then feel free.
