Street Fighter V/Balrog/Introduction

Introduction

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About Balrog

A disgraced boxing champion, Balrog joined Shadaloo in search of more riches. Disatisfied with his role in the organization, Balrog searches for things to steal as he leaves S.I.N., and finds a young boy (Ed). Convinced he'll be of use to him in the future, Balrog leaves S.I.N. and Shadaloo behind to seek further riches.

Balrog focuses on aggressive play and annoying his opponents. His trademark dash punches can quickly close the distance to punish any opponent attempting to walk forward or whiffing buttons, and once in he can force the opponent to play his game with his great + on block buttons and crush counters. His V-Skill 1 and Critical Art also allows him to easily deal with projectiles, while his V-Skill 2 lets him make his dash punches multi-hitting and safe, making his approach even easier. However Balrog is a fairly straight-forward character; he does not have many setups, his lows aren't very threatening without V-Trigger, and he doesn't have many mixups in general which can make opening up opponents difficult. He is also the only character in the game with no cross up button. If you like simple, aggressive bruisers then Balrog is a great choice.

Strengths

Weaknesses

High damage: Balrog has generally high base damage that is further strengthened by his v-system and allows him to achieve staggeringly high damage and stun combos Versatile v-system: both his v-skills and v-triggers have very different functions, allowing Balrog to adapt his toolset for different matchups Fireball answers: Balrogs v-skill 1 allows him to contest fireballs very well despite lacking one himself, forcing characters who rely heavily on them such as Guile to fight with normals more Solid mixups: Balrogs v-skill 1 gives him access to a fast overhead whose range can be further extended by cancelling into it from dash straight or dash grand blow, and can additionally be faked to go low. On top of this, his v-trigger 2 gives him access to a command throw with incredibly high damage and stun, giving him further layers to his mixup Midrange control: dash punches give Balrog an incredible amount of control in matchups where the opponent lacks consistent punishes for them, on top of his long reaching normals such as 2MP, 2MK, 5HP, or 5HK Anti-airs: Balrogs 5MP and 2HP are both very consistent anti airs that both give him freedom to reposition afterward, giving him remarkable ability to deter jump happy opponents, as well as 623K allowing him to heavily punish opponents for recklessly neutral jumping to bait dash punches

Defense: Balrogs only non-universal defensive option is his 3 frame 5LK or his super, meaning situations where he's forced onto the backfoot can end rather poorly for him Reliant on dash punches: Balrogs normals, while good, don't reach quite as far as some other characters, leaving him reliant on dash punches for poking from afar. Characters with consistent answers to dash punches can often force Balrog to play a more defensive, reactive neutral No crossup: Balrog is the only character who lacks a crossup, giving characters with occasionally unreliable answers to jumps much more consistent ways to prevent him from jumping recklessly

Final Patch

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