Calliope Rose, she/her, wiki girl who likes old arcade games
The 101
Neutral
2MK: The cornerstone of your neutral, a fast and rewarding low poke that can be cancelled into SAII.
4HP: A great button that tends to beat almost anything for a chunk of health. It's also great to whiff for meterbuild.
5HP: Your longest range button, good for swatting from long range.
2MP: A good button for reaching low beyond 2MK range.
5/6HK: Hopping kicks that let you dodge lows, good to beat people attempting to counterpoke her lows.
2LP: A great jab to whiff in order to catch hitbox extensions or jabs with almost no risk.
Anti-Air
5MK: A kick at a diagonal angle above Chun, good for standard anti-air usage but loses to air parry and angle altering moves.
cl.MK: High kick aimed above her head, good for catching people above you or trying to cross you up and can be held for the followup vs air parry, though it lacks horizontal range.
2HK: Sweep is great for swatting low jumps similar to 5MK, but secures a knockdown as well.
4HP: Beats or trades with most jump normals, and can cancel for air parry safety, but is a little slow to use on reaction.
5LP: Your fastest normal, good to check people falling down when you didn't react faster and is fairly safe vs air parry but will lose to most strong jump normals.
cl.HK: Fast and damaging, and can superjump cancel for safety vs air parry, but will lose to a majority of jump normals.
Offense
2LP: Where your offense starts, mix between frametraps and tick throws from this, or just walk up and do it again.
LP+LK: Chun's throw is her main tool to stop the opponent from blocking. Keep throwing them until they start doing something about it.
2MK: Your main low on offense, scary as it's fairly safe and confirms SAII.
5/6HK: Low and throw crush normal, links to SAII on crouchers making it scary to mash.
4HP: Beefy way to threaten from range if they try and mash.
Strategy
Chun-Li is a largely neutral focused character, using fast and high priority buttons to control the pace of the match from a safe distance. This means learning Chun involves learning the ins and outs of 3rd Strike's neutral game, and being able to stay on top of your opponents bad habits at all times. Do they mash often? What buttons do they press at this range? Where and why are they jumping, and what can you do to make them stop? While every character has to learn these things in some way, Chun lives by them, since many of her anti-airs are situational and her health is quite low.
Neutral/Checking Habits
The first thing you should do is try and get a feel for your opponent. Chun-Li does this very well using 2MK: this is a safe fast low, and by finding out how they respond to it, you can learn a lot about player habits. If they try and press buttons into it, you can use 4HP to beat them out. If they're trying to space away from it, you can walk forward fairly safely to take space, or even risk a fast dash into 2LP/kara-throw.
Use 2MK to keep them at range and check their habits.
Use 4HP to beat out buttons in neutral at range.
Use 5HP to swat them from far away.
Use 5/6HK to hop over lows.
Of course, all of this becomes much scarier once you have a Houyoku-Sen stocked. SAII is fast, damaging, and combos from most of Chun's best normals at all ranges. Simply having a stock of it allows for mindgames, as opponents will avoid Chun in order to not get hit by SAII. This is a snowball effect as well, as while they're afraid to press in neutral, Chun can easily walk forward into her preferred range while whiffing buttons repeatedly for meter, quickly securing her more meter for another SAII.
Anti-airs are where it gets tricky, as opponents will frequently jump around Chun-Li to avoid grounded pokes. Learning the variation of anti-air options you have is important, as each of them come with unique strengths and weaknesses, and this is on top of having to work around air parries. Your ideal anti-air is 5MK, as it hits at the best angle above you for both catching forward and neutral jumps. 2HK is good for similar reasons, but excels if they're falling right on top of you instead. A smart opponent will vary themselves upon getting anti-aired however, and start parrying these. Without any cancels, both of them are extremely weak to air parry, leading to huge damage from the opponent. Dealing with air parry will require some tricks, usually using unusual normals like 4HP and cl.HK which cancel and are safer on air parry.
Tips on 2MK Delay Cancel:
Learning to master the 2MK delay cancel makes Chun-Li far scarier, as you can safely combo into it. There are a few ways to go about it, with the best being simply tapping again to confirm the hit. This is done by always inputting 2MK with the motion for super, i.e. 2(MK)36236. If you learn to distinguish the sound effects of hit and block, you can train yourself to tap on reaction to the hit sound.
Ryu
Story
Ryu is the main character of the Street Fighter series, as well as THE fighting game character. He is a traveling martial artist who strives to test himself against strong opponents. Ryu is a practitioner of the Ansatsuken fighting style, alongside his best friend and rival Ken Masters. Strong and silent, Ryu's greatest pleasure in life is combat. He takes his training very seriously, even the basics. Occasionally, an evil power known as the Satsui no Hado threatens to overcome him, manipulating his desire for improvement into a desire for victory at any cost. Regardless, Ryu continues to train himself and travel the world, so that he may become the greatest version of himself that he can be.
Gameplay
Often you'll hear certain types of characters referred to as "shotos". These tend to be the simple, fundamental, and easy characters that can excel at any level. Ryu is the original shoto, and likely the purest one you can ever play. His control of neutral is stellar, with multiple great pokes, two fireballs, and a powerful anti-air. His main super, Shinkuu Hadouken, is a powerful utility super that allows him to punish fireballs or end combos with great damage. He can alter his air momentum with his Air Tatsu specials to keep his approach a bit ambiguous. His defense with his invincible Shoryuken is powerful, since he can deny pressure that isn't gapless. Even his rushdown is solid, though it is likely his weakest point. He has an overhead, a crossup, good hop normals, a solid low confirm, and of course two grabs.
While Ryu doesn't truly have many weaknesses, his main weakness is that his strengths aren't excelling in their categories. He does everything well, but nothing perfectly, and requires you to make intelligent decisions and make solid gameplans. Ryu rewards consistency, and without it his strengths will falter. He does still have weaknesses, mainly that his preferred ender for knockdowns and damage requires a standing opponent meaning his knockdowns are a bit harder to find. Otherwise, Ryu is a simple and solid character that rewards you for being a good player.
Ryu is the original shoto, and a great all-rounder who struggles to excel in any specific area. Ryu's best Grooves are C-Groove and N-Groove.
Pros
Cons
Shoto: Very versatile toolkit allows him to easily work in most situations
Neutral Focused: Simple "footsies" based gameplan makes him easy and rewarding to learn
Easy: Generally very easy, with very few truly difficult things to learn
Versatile Super: A useful and reliable super with Shinkuu Hadouken
Groove Friendly: Useful to some extent in every Groove
Baseline Tools: Solid damage output, simple zoning and neutral, and solid defense, Ryu has everything you would want on a basic level
Jack-of-all-Trades: While he does do well in most categories, he isn't Sagat. He doesn't entirely excel in any category besides neutral
Mixup: His mixup potential is lackluster, he does have access to a simple mixup with his standing overhead and his normal throw but they lead to very little reward
Situational Enders: His preferred meterless combo ender whiffs on crouchers, so he tends to want to end in a super which he doesn't always have
Profile
Stats and Vitals
Health (R2): 14400 Stun: 70 Dash Length: 15 Frames Dash Type: Slide Run Speed: 8.2 Roll Distance: 140 Pixels Roll Duration: 27f Wakeup Speed (Compared to Ryu): 0 Frames
Colors
Groove Selection
C-Groove is one of the most popular Grooves for Ryu. It fits him perfectly, giving him consistent access to his useful supers, multiple levels of super to more efficiently manage meter, and rolls to use for RC Hadoukens. His dash is solid, though he can't corpse hop due to it being grounded for the full duration. Airblock helps to alleviate the issue of having an average jump arc, and Air Tatsu is still great for altering his trajectory. If he finds himself stuck in a long pressure string or blocking a Custom Combo, Alpha Counter can help escape that.
The weaknesses of C-Ryu more come from the inherent weaknesses of C-Groove. Level 2 supers are the X-Factor of this Groove, and while Ryu uses it great, it's all that it can really offer him. It lacks the mobility of N-Groove and K-Groove, and without hop, Ryu isn't nearly as scary on offense. His reliance on standard footsies and zoning is amplified in this Groove. C-Ryu has to be ready to react to offense, and poke into a damaging super combo.
C-Ryu is great if you're coming from Street Fighter and want someone familiar to play. He's a standard character with enough options to let you play and have fun, and requires very little optimization.
Pros
Cons
Level 2 Combo: Level 2 Shinku Hadouken combos into Heavy Tatsu consistently, making for a damaging combo that allows Ryu to save some meter for later, or cash out with a double Shinku combo
Varied Options: C-Ryu has access to a decent amount of the mechanics of CvS2, like rolls, guard cancels, any of his supers, and a unique option in airblock
Low Mobility: C-Groove has no hop or run, and while Ryu does have a solid dash, it doesn't compare to runs ability to quickly and safely move forward while threatening pokes
Offense Issues: Without hop and run, Ryu is forced to rely on his standard offense. His overhead is slow and low reward, ending his turn even on hit, and his throws are just decent
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