PR Balrog: My new main is Fei Long in AE v2012 - Justin Wong and Eduardo talk about Rufus and Balrog's core weaknesses

PR Rog evolved into PR Long!

Meh

YYYYYYYYEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He isn't PR Balrog if he isn't using Balrog.

I thought PR Rog said that he will always play balrog.

These guys know a lot more about AE than I do, but I don't think switching mains like this will improve their international results.

PICK A TOP TIER

Yooooo SANFORD!!!

PR Free confirmed tier-wh*re.

PR ROG I QUESTION YOU DEEP INSIDE YOUR HEART

I see no problem, if you want to win at a top level, why not pick a top character?

I want to get better but winning a top level isn't my ultimate goal right now.(I do want to place in EVO one year) so I'll stick with Ibuki and Gief.

They know there's 30+characters right?,all we're going to see at these.tourneys are just mirror matches

i hope SF4 won't become 3rd strike where they only use chun/yun

The game has developed to the point where you have to pick a strong character.

The competition is down, right, fierce.

I see what you did there Graphf ;).

To be honest, you see lots of people doing things like this, but still at Evo, top 8 = 8 different characters.

The variety is definitely still a lot better than we could ever hope.

I just want to see more Roses than Filipinoman[I'm Filipino and I use rose...hmm...genetic correlation there, perhaps?], Luffy[who i've not seen in a while] and Arturo. And Dans. PK Stylar hasn't been around in a long time and I've not seen one in a tournament scene for some time.

Make it happen people!

They are playing to win so there's nothing wrong with trying to pick up a really strong character that's within the top 5 smart move

allow rog to cancel out of headbutt. An invisible reversal that can be FADC'd is a trait shared by the top 5.

I don't think it's that Rufus isn't top tier - it's that he does have some disadvantaged matchups (Gief, perfectly-played Guile). All he needs is a backup to cover those and he's set.

Would fixing EX messiah to not go over people really make him broken? That's a bit of an exaggeration.

I think JWong would do really well with Cammy as his main. He's used her before back in SSF4; he should go back.

what a stupid move. he'll fail with with any other character, I promise.
why are daigo, wong and the rest are all back to their other characters? because you need love for the character to actually be successful in the very high levels.

Yes, you heard right, you need the power of love.

@13

"The game has developed to the point where you have to pick a strong character.
The competition is down, right, fierce."

Rufus and Rog ARE very strong characters!

ghey

give balrog a command throw wtf!!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUFxKU...

@#19 zUkUu
"why are daigo, wong and the rest are all back to their other characters?"

Justin is NOT back to his character...he's switching to Adon. We'll see 100% at SCR but the article clearly states that Rufus is tapped out on potential and he'll be switching to either Adon or Cammy when the time comes.

This is why I love daigo so much, he sticks with ryu and he wins everywhere with that character. Character Loyalty FTW!!!!!!!

I don't know much about SF but this seems like they saw people winning and decided 'well if he can do it, so can i.'

balrog safe on overhead would be stupidly overpowered. in that case, don't allow it to be combo'd off of

It's a dark day for Balrog players. Now the best player out there is gonna be Keno I guess.

@26
well it's already a 100% foreseeable and stuffable.

He is a pro player, yeh he enjoys the game but it is his job to win. So anybody who calls him a tier whore is stupid. I wouldn't be surprised if balrog is still going to be his favourite character. He might even go back to balrog. The only thing i'm disappointed about is without PR Rog playing balrog, we won't see much high level balrog play

Balrog didn't need no command grab or overhead to be top tier in ST.

Quit playing SF4 and play a real mans Street Fighter game.

balrog with a command grab would be ridiculous. imo best changes would be giving him a cross up and larger grab range, thats it.

@29

Doesn't matter if it's his job to win, he's fluctuating through characters stronger than Balrog, which does make him look like a tier whore. It's not just him or this game, many people so it as well.

Wait, PR Rog is complaining about balrog being unsafe? Are you kidding me? Balrog is already one of the safest characters in the game and you still want to complain that you have to take risks? What a fraud.

This is a moment to take a cue from the Daigo playbook: in the face of a loss he says, "it was my approach during the fight that led to my loss," not "because Ryu isn't strong enough I lost." If J Wong and Rog think that changing characters will help them win more, then more power to 'em, I wish them success. It would just be nice to see such prominent US players adapt their playstyle rather than their character selection.

inb4 Daigo leg humping

@32,

I think i should rephrase my comment. It would be stupid to criticise him for being a tier whore, because its his job to win, and by picking a better character he believes that he'll have a better chance to do so. However IMO people shouldn't be criticised for the character they choose. I try to stick with the principal 'don't hate the player, hate the game'.

Man, no one plays Rog anymore. A character who was so prevalent in vanilla is not even appearing in tourneys anymore...disappointing. Oh well, Ill still continue to use him

Does this mean ChrisG will start using someone else too? or are we just being told we are destined to watch the same characters in the top 8 for whatever fighting game is being played. I know that at their level winning is all that matters, but when I watch Japanese/ Korean replays their is at least a slightly larger group of characters they choose from.

I do have to admit though that no Asian player can use Gen like the Americans, but aside from him they clearly do not do as much tier whoring as us. And the same guys win all the time, so I'm going to have to say sticking to your guns > tier whoring any day.

@37 - You see a wider variety of characters in Japanese high-level play because they're not primarily playing for money (yet). If you're playing for fun, the idea is to unlock as much of the potential of your character as possible. Wong and Eduardo are looking at that esports money in IPL AE.

@33 - I think he means applying safe pressure. All of Rog's safe pressure except for throw mixups can be crouch blocked. Top-tier characters can force you not to block or can easily make you block wrong.

#24

You must be new to the fighting game scene, especially given how Daigo has always chosen top-tier characters in every fighting game he's played. See also: Yun in SSF 4 AE pre v2012 for example.

@mrambitious

"I do have to admit though that no Asian player can use Gen like the Americans".

What do you mean? that the US players are the best Gen representatives, if yes, you are seriously smoking.

Anyway, Bad move from PrRog, Feilong may be the strongest character, but he's noway near free, it takes time, very long time to master it, and moving from one of easiest character to use (Balrog), to Feilong is not a smart thing to do.

"going cammy or akuma is a way smarter pick, especially considering that fei has been showing a lot of holes lately vs the other top tiers."

You must be kidding, fei has only two bad matchups, Akuma and Guile, and it's 6-4.

@ 34

/golf clap

#33

You can call Rog a fraud when you play it his level and place sir.

Let them pick whoever they want for whatever reason they want. Their job is to play and win, not please spectators. However they choose to go about that is their call.

I personally don't care about top players playing top tier characters. As long as there is high level play involved, I'm good. If playing these characters help them better compete, then go for it. If it doesn't, they'll go back to their previous mains and the world will keep spinning.

@41
fei long has three bad matchups, Akuma,Rose and Guile, and it's 6-4

smart choice, fei is the top tier most similar to rog. Pr's reactions and footsies with rog will really help.
And all you complaining about his being a tier whore - infiltration just won 25,000 dollars for playing AE. Playing a top tier character (Akuma) improved his chances. Anyone with a brain can see that it is stupid to disadvantage yourself if there is money on the line

Welcome to the feight train!!!!!! PR good luck.

As a Balrog player myself I agree Rogs wake up game is weak and I wish thew would've given him the ability to FADC out of his headbutt if blocked like Guile can FADC out of his flash kick.

@37

'I do have to admit though that no Asian player can use Gen like the Americans.'

Xian and Amiyu like to have a word with you, they say you are smoking some really nasty stuff.

I agree with James Chen's tweet to Justin about Seth probably being the right choice for Justin. I know Justin put in a lot of work with Adon but I think Justin has the offensive AND defensive fundamentals to use Seth at full potential.

And Rog going Fei make sense. Similar to Rog with rekkas and a DP. Balrog has a lot of good matchups though despite his weakness against vortex. Make more sense for Justin to drop Rufus than PR to drop Rog

@Kero: You forgot ShinkuuR. He'll be holding it down for the Rose community at Final Round.

Balrog is fine. His normals beat 95% of the casts in priority and reach, his jabbing speed is insane, his moves are all safe enough, great health and power and big combos. Buffing him would be a big mistake.

Well see no issues with this since Capcom games especially have a fairly defined tiers where if you pick the the lower ones you could still win, but you noticeably have to play harder for roughly the same amount of work compared to top tier

I dont see how people complain about Rog being safe...the only safe move he has is his ex-straight, which requires meter. His normal dash punch is -3 which means there plenty of stuff to punish, which top players do a large amount of the time. He doesnt have a good or safe wakeup. Yes hes got good normals but he still has tons of other problems, hence why balrog players are so few and none of them (besides PR) place high in tournaments. Ill probably catch heat for this but whatever :P

^

Erm, -3 is only something that a few characters can punish.

Unless you're a god at 1-framing a manual reversal with a light punch/kick - and even then a whole bunch of characters don't have normals that fast.

Justin saying that rufus will be broken if capcom change the messiah? thats not the attitude... please shut up... and rog saying that balrog is NOT SAVE ( wait, whaaaaaaaaaaaat!!!??) and asking for a command throw... these two were drunk during the interview... for sure

I suggest they buff balrog slightly, for one, make his ex uppercut hit all crouching opponents! this is good for his block strings and more pressure game, right now he can't do much beside trying to go for frame traps and tick throws.I would make his headbutt fadcable, because why not...Pr rog's command throw suggestion is understandable because balrog really needs some mixups stuff, all his stuff can be blocked by crouch tech and his overhead is so slow you can react to it quiet easily. Balrog isn't known for big damage hitter, he is known for playing patient and consistent and working on damage little by little, when he has full super metre, he has a great burst damage opportunity.

PR Long

Seriously Capcom don't touch the game anymore, for its great number of characters, the game is pretty balanced.

@57
I've not once seen a Balrog play "patient". He excels in offense and is constantly in your face. He is also a big damage hitter as his attack damage is higher than most of the casts. A single H.Punch from him is devastating.

@54
-3 after his dash punch is still hard to punish since blocking a dash punch pushes distance between you and characters who's limbs aren't long enough can't punish. It's a fairly safe move.

Fei Long makes a lot of sense for him. Fei is very similar to Balrog only better and fits Eduardo's style very well. Had he picked him up when AE:2012 first came out, he'd have more majors by now.

lol people crying about tier whoring? lol eventscrubs indeed

@60

He is only in your face when he actually get to your face in the first place, against good zoning characters is not that easy to do without taking some damage, therefore he cannot get in mindlessly and his turn punch isn't the most safe move to do against fireballs, thus playing him patiently is a key. When having life lead it's not a bad idea to play him defensively.

GrAAahh all these people that don't play Balrog(especially at PrRog's Level) should SILENCE!

~~Safe Overhead or FADC headbutt is all he needs.
~~~Command Throw would be dumb.

Being Puertorrican myself, and a big fan of his I find this disappointing... 'rog was a pretty good character and a lot of fun to watch.... Hell! Boxer's name is on PR 'rog's nickname for goodness sake!

There is a gap between good and great, and thus far he is just not a great tournament winning material, like the other 10 or so chars, at least he isn't on t hawk, dan and hakan level, I would like to see infiltration prove me wrong and win a major with hakan, although I understand he would never risk that lol, his hakan is godlike.

Bad choice by PRROg. Top players have a lot more experience against top Fei. There are no real top Balrogs so it's hard to learn how to fight against such a top balrog.
He's going to end up being just a "good" Fei long. I'd be surprised if he can get even close to Mago Fuudo level.

Balrog has the best crouch jab (+4 on block) in game and you want him to have a command grab...

They'll be using Rufus and Balrog as soon as they lose lol i highly doubt they will stick with this for a whole tournament season especially evo

I personally embrace change. I think both Balrog and Rufus are both good players,and if the BEST BALROG in the world wants to change then let him live. Maybe he's tired of going through the same process to win. Justin Wong should play Adon as a main. I like Adon, but there aren't many good people playing them.

All the people who scream out "tier whore" when someone makes a change, get a life. That tier list should be disbanded. It is so many Ryu, Cammy, and Akuma scrubs out there it's a damn shame. It's not the character, it's the person who plays the character. i.e. Dimenion just won a major with Guile, I saw a M. Bison win a major, and an E. Honda player top 8 at a major.

Balrog is a newbie character anyway. His moves are super safe, the specials mix up by themselves without any work, and he has some of the easiest to execute combos in the game. It's only fair that he has some blatantly obvious weaknesses to balance it out and underperform at high level play.

I'm not saying that he should be rebalanced, but his purpose really isn't to be a top tier character in the first place. That should just be accepted.

@68

No pro players will want you to have your crouch jab pressure on them, charge characters has a disadvantage in that when playing the footsie game, which is extremely important at high level, they can't move back and forth because they lose charge time and options, they don't have the luxury of say punish whiff attacks by dashing or moving forward cr mk scissor kick with bison, or dash forward cr.mp headbutt with balrog, unlike shotos. This is simply due to the mechanics and how the characters are played, some say charge characters has better normals, now tell me which normals are useless for ryu, ken, cammy, fei, akuma, seth and so on, their normals great. The extremely under representation of charge characters at top major placings really saddens me. The day when dieminion, neurosis or dogura takes EVO, SBO or godsgarden I will probably cry in joy. I think neurosis took 3rd place at shadowloo this year, which is as close as it gets.

Dat Sanford option select! PR Fei

@71

Saying Balrog is newbie char is just dumb, there is no doubt you are new to this game, you might say guile is newbie as well since he is extremely safe as well with 2 specials only and both fadcable. Playing both these characters at high level is difficult which you would not understand from your claim.

wtf fadc headbutt you guys are freaking crazy

btw there is no such thing as newbie character only newbie players.

Remembering JWong's initial words on Adon...that takes me back.

@75

Whats so crazy about it? It sounds as useful as rufus's fadc ex tournado to me, you cannot use it as reversal anyway, it goes other way from cross ups. As a matter of fact do you think fadc for T hawk's dp is crazy as well?

@23 He's going to get bopped.

I don't blame him. Rog has no cross up, sucks on wakeup, and most importantly loses to all the top tiers accept maybe viper very convincingly. Rog is good but to be honest if you have a job like winning in sf then he has to pick someone stronger rog won't do it for him he would have to work ten times harder for nothing.

That's why since I main ryu I play viper as well because of people like akuma and seth as they give ryu a very hard time. There is never a clear path beating those two characters playing as ryu. I may not be pro but let's be honest would you go easy on people if it was your job to win no matter what? I don't think so. He's not a tier whore he's being smart

There is no need to buff or nerf balrog, he is the way he is by design. Pick another another character if you dont like his moveset, there are more than 30!

As far as PR Rog switching characters: Come on guys be realistic, hes in it to win it. If he thinks Fei will increase his chances of winning more then more power to him, he might have to switch his name while hes at it.

It will be interesting to see how PR's Fei doesnt against the pros.

Balrog has a command grab, it's called dirty bull. Kappa

Bottom line, everybody complaining about the switching of characters in a CAPCOM game, you are idiots.

Don't complain about what you don't understand, scrubs should not make complaints about a pros decision.

If you don't want to see the same 8 characters in finals (which is usually how it is in every capcom fighting game, less even), complain to capcom for making such imbalanced fighting games.

@85 that name

Some notes from the entire interview

PR Balrog
- Will continue to use Balrog as a secondary.
- Balrog is good but not top tier due to the lack of vortex
- Believes his Fei will be as good as his Balrog in 5 months

Justin Wong
- Rufus' bad match ups are Zangief, Sagat, Guile, Ryu, and Seth
- Most likely mains will be Rufus & Adon.
- "It hurts me to say it but I think that we let the FGC dictate how we currently play. Back in the day everyone use to hate on us for counter picking and how amazing Japan is because they can win with just one character. It seems like its the opposite now. Now America stays with that one character and rarely counter pick. But you see Infiltration counterpicking with Gouken in some matches or Daigo counterpicking and etc. But I as a player will do what it takes to win now even if I have to pick a top tier character or just 100% counterpick."

Al I want say is, "Hell, it's about time."

Maaan I wish RYU had an SPD.
Would make for a nice vortex on the wake-up game.

@87

Amen.

Character loyalty be damned! When you are a sponsored player, you're not just playing for yourself anymore, you are playing for yourself AND your sponsor(s).

The world love winners, and it's the winners that we remember. For example, Daigo Parry EVO moment #37, It is remembered not because of the legendary parry, but because Daigo performed the amazing feat and WON at the same time! If he parried and lost, nobody would've gave a damn.

It's a fact that charge characters don't win major tournies....Grabblers also dont' win majors....it's all about shotos & rushdowns...this game needs an update as it's getting old

Dieminion says "Hi".

@85

"all fighting games are horrendously imbalanced when compared to RTS or DotA."

League of Legends would like to speak with you

you just don't realize it since SF4 is the only game that gives out more than $200 in prize money.

Sadly, i already know this.

esports is a bad idea for this genre. the imbalanced nature of this genre already reduces the number of useful characters to 2-3 out of 39.

Yes, Esports is a bad idea, but the "fgc" (which is basically a compilation of smaller communities, that have little to no respect for each other) needs something to grab onto to make itself seem legit.

fighting game tournaments could always implement a drafting system like captain's mode i guess.

would you mind explaining? Do you mean like how rts have bans?

I remember in AE Justin, Ricky, PrRog, etc chose top-tier, but they ended up going back to the characters they loved after a few months.
I wonder how long it will last this time?

AE is a game about match ups. No one character in this game is perfect, every character has bad match ups (how many bad match ups you have is a different story). I think they will see some success with their new mains but they will fall into the same problems in that they will face a bad match up and lose.

For everyone saying Daigo doesn't counter pick are wrong. I know he counter picks Fei with Yun. He did it at the Japan SF 25th qualifier.

@#95 No, Daigo used Ryu all the way at the Japanese Qualifiers.
I should know, since I watched it.
Fei is a horrible match-up for Yun btw.

@96 true but STILL Daigo does in fact counter pick. When he came to the US tourneys he would run Yun against Dhalsim cause its a horrible match up for his Ryu and a gdlk match up for his yun.

@#97 Not quite. Daigo hasn't played Yun at any US tournament since AE where he mained the character.
I can only recall him counter-picking 3 times in the last 4 years for SF4, and none of those times were in the US. ST on the other hand is a completely different story.

Can't see PR Rog sticking to Fei Long for long, he'll probably jump ship the moment he realize how demanding it is to maintain Fei Long's pressure against a good player and how difficult it is to make comebacks with Fei Long. Think Adon is probably more of his character.