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Second part of the long series of Street Fighter revisions, sequel to this thread.
This will be very long, even more than the previous, so please tell me if it's better to split this one in two threads, in case it turns out being excessively long.
This thread is about some clarifications about a feat and its scaling, more specifically Ryu's energy being used to nuke a city. Don't worry, the feat itself is fine, but the scaling to it isn't.
The characters affected by this revision are: Ryu, Ken, Dhalsim, Sagat, M. Bison, Charlie, Rose, Urien, Gill, Juri, Seth and Necalli.
First I will talk about the scaling problems, and then I will tackle each character one by one.
This feat comes from M. Bison's ending in Street Fighter Alpha 3, where he uses Ryu's energy to power the Psycho Drive. Currently, the feats is treated as if Base Ryu's power was used, while actually that power comes from Ryu's Satsui No Hado, which, as we know, greatly increases his strength and it's what usually allows him to overcome the strongest opponents (as the Mu No Ken does later). With that in mind, it's clear that Base Ryu isn't 7-B, and so aren't the characters who scale from his base form. But now I'm going to prove that what I say is true:
Alpha 3 revolves around M. Bison needing a new body, because his current one is unable to hold his power. This new strong body happens to be Ryu's, and this because he possesses the Satsui No Hado, another form of evil energy that Bison believes being kindred to his own Psycho Power.
Many endings see Ryu being initially brainwashed by Bison and unleashing the Satsui No Hado, which he then uses to kill Bison himself, usually after briefly regaining consciousness thanks to the direct or indirect help of his friends. And Ryu actually ending up being brainwashed is also confirmed by Sagat's profile, featured in the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection, an official collection released in 2017 that contains a profile for each character, explaining their story up to Street Fighter V (included and mentioned). Due to how the game went, it's possible that even Ken and Sakura had a role in it, but Ryu succumbing to the Satsui due to Bison's influence happens in all the main endings, showing that the dictator's aim was exactly that.
Bison's interest in the Satsui is reiterated multiple times throughout the game, making it clear that he aims at having that power for himself.
In addition, Street Fighter V has a series of arcade modes, whose endings are remakes and/or callbacks to the previous games, which are also the themes of each path. Alpha 3 is included, and some of them further confirm that Bison was looking for the Satsui within Ryu:
After all of this, it seems clear to me that Bison didn't use base Ryu's power, but the Satsui within him, and thus the 7-B feat shouldn't scale neither to base Ryu nor to those who scale to him. Not even Bison should scale to it, not only because he only managed to defeat base Ryu, but he repeteadly states the Satsui is a power far greater than his own, and he always ends being literally killed by Ryu using it. And the laser itself fired by the Psycho Drive (presumably charged with Ryu's power) outright kills Bison.
Now, this feat should only be used to scale those who, in a way or another, are on par or superior to Satsui no Hado Ryu. Some will be mentioned here below, while the others aren't involved in this thread and are: Evil Ryu (Superior or at least even to Ryu with an imperfect satsui), Kage (due to it being the embodiment of Ryu's satsui), Akuma (for being superior to Ryu), Gen (on par with Akuma), Gouken (same), Oro (same again).
And now it comes the turn of those who need a new tier.
Ryu
I believe Ryu's profile should be split in three keys, rather than the current two. These keys would be "Street Fighter I-Alpha 3" to cover his youth, "SF II-IV" to cover the middle period of his life, and "SF V-III", to cover the moment from which he gained the Mu No Ken onwards.
The first two are separated because Base Ryu got stronger between the games, and not only by "natural progression", it was actually shown. Alex in SFV has a hard time defeating Alpha Ryu, while in SF3 he couldn't counter even one of his blows, meaning that Ryu significantly got stronger overtime in his base (which should roughly remain the same, as the Satsui and the Mu no Ken are what greatly boost his strength).
The first two keys would be divided in base and Satsui no Hado, and the third in base and Mu No Ken. The powered up forms will obviously be 7-B scaling from the famous feat (the Mu no Ken is even if not stronger than the Satsui), while unfortunately, his base forms would be 9-A for upscaling from the low tiers.
And don't get me wrong, don't hate me, I'm placing him in that tier only because there are no higher feats or available ways to scale him. Base Ryu and those who scale to him (they will be discussed next) are clearly stronger than the others, it's just that there are no feats available for them, and the only thing which can be done is greatly upscaling them from the low tiers, but it still isn't enough to make them breach into 8-C. The tier right next (which will be presented below, as all the other stuff) includes characters such as M. Bison, Seth and more, and all of them curbstomped Ryu, until he used one of his power ups.
Summary: Ryu = 3 keys = SF1-Alpha 3 (At least 9-A, 7-B with Satsui), SF2-4 (At least 9-A, 7-B with Satsui), SF5-3 (At least 9-A, 7-B with Mu no Ken).
M. Bison
First, Bison currently has 4 keys and I want to bring them to three.
The first would be his base, and since he doesn't scale anymore to 7-B he goes to 8-B. This because he is able to fight Juri at full power, and has also defeated her and took her eye, meaning that she couldn't be holding back her power. And with the Feng Shui Engine active (the eye) she was able to perform a feat calculated as 8-B.
Next it's his Alpha 3 key, where he is powered by the Psycho Drive, which makes him much stronger than before, but to an unknown extent and still below the likes of Satsui no Hado Ryu.
The third key would merge the ones that currently are his third and fourth, making only a single "Street Fighter V" key, which would include the power up he received from the Black Moons.
The first thing about this key is that the 6-C tier has to be axed. The first reason is that it is based on something that never happened, which is Bison being powered by all seven moon, while his plan was halted before this could happen (only two moons were detonated) and it would be like giving to Frieza a key with immortality for the what if scenario in which he used the Dragon Balls on Namecc.
The second and most important reason is that 6-C is based on the wrong assumption that Bison is holding the same energy output the moons have while detonating in FANG's arcade ending (which also isn't canon but it's not important now). The truth is that Bison absorbs the negative emotions caused by the moons bringing chaos and destruction alla around the world, he's not powered by their electricity or anything, they are tools to create the right conditions for him to increase his power through other means.
Now, how strong is Bison in SFV? I will use end game Bison for this key, the one who absorbed the negative emotions caused by the crash landing of two moons. I believe this Bison should be around 7-B, somewhat scaling from Satsui no Hado Ryu. This requires a bit of speculation, but the key of everything is Torrent of Power Necalli. In that form, it was about to (and was meant to) fight against Ryu while powered by the Satsui. (this will be brought up again in the other sections of this thread) He may have been inferior or on par, we don't really know, but he should have at least been able to clash with him. He was also overpowering Dhalsim, who in SFV withstood a punch from Satsui Ryu and was involved in the prophecy amon the other warrios. Bison fits here, because he was one of the strong warriors mentioned by said prophecy, along Satsui Ryu and Bison himself (who activated the moons, from it the title of "the one who brings destruction to the world"), and was also put against Torrent of Power Necalli (you see it from its hair). I agree it's a bit based on speculations, but I don't see it so farfetched for Bison to have grown so strong thanks to the moons, especially since they were intended to make stronger than ever, even more than the psycho drive.
Summary: Bison = 3 keys = Base (8-B), Psycho Drive (At least 8-B), SFV (7-B)
From now on the sections will be shorter, don't worry, the long stuff has ended.
Necalli
We already established that its Torrent of Power form is around 7-B, what needs to be changed is its Base form, which lost its 7-B scaling from base Ryu.
It would be now 9-A, likely always scaling from Base Ryu (and because it needed the Torrent of Power in order to overcome him) and always because Balrog managed to defeat it and force it to retreat, making that form a consistent 9-A (it also lost badly against Bison while not using the Torrent of Power). Bear in mind that at times it activates its super form in battle as a result of its V-Trigger, but the game makes it clear when it is actually using it, usually though a cinematic or making it transform before a battle.
Dhalsim
As I previously said, Dhalsim would maintain his 7-B rating, but from the reasons stated above. Him destroying the Psycho Drive isn't a real feat, as he destroyed the core and the explosion was a consequence of it. Destroying the core is something that many other characters managed to do, even low tiers. The same core was also destroyed once by Charlie by dropping bombs on it and by Sodom by ramming his truck inside the base. All of this proves that destroying the core isn't a big deal and the explosion is the chain reaction caused by its destruction.
Also, since Dhalsim only displayed his 7-B feats in SFV I'm unsure if he should be split in two keys, a pre-SFV at 9-A for being comparable to others and a SFV 7-B, but it's not that big of a problem.
Juri
Simple, her base form has already been downgraded to 9-A in the previous thread for being slightly above Guile and Chun-Li, but with the Feng Shui Engine on she goes to 8-B for the aforementioned feat. In the previous thread you can also find evidences from the OVA that the eye makes her far stronger than the 9-A characters, so no scaling is involved with them when she has her eye active.
A second SFV key should be given to her, as she gets a new eye, but it appears to be a prototype version of the one she had; it glows white instead of purple, when even the first defective version of the true engine had that color, and this is called Engine Alpha, implying to be an early version. She also stole it from the old SIN laboratory, where it was left, still hinting to it being an incomplete version.
And throughout all of SFV's story mode she has fought only with low-tier characters, solidifying the fact that she is weaker than before. In this key she would be at least 9-A, higher with the engine turned on.
Seth
He is another one who lost the 7-B scaling from Ryu. Personally, I believe should be 8-B after Juri's feat, even though it requires some assumptions. He is stronger than his other clones, has completely stomped Base Ryu, he was meant to be Bison's replacement body (even though he lost to him).
The Feng Shui Engine (which performed the 8-B feat) strongly resembles his Tanden Engine, possibly making the former a miniaturized version of the latter.
Seth was also aware that Juri wanted to betray him and was confident in fighting her, even after witnessing the 8-B feat (He's not watching the feat itself, but it's clear he watched the entire scene).
He also should get a second key for his SFV version, since their powers are different. It stays 8-B because he's very likely comparable to his previous body, nothing contradicts it, and Juri (who didn't have the strong eye) was scared of fighting him.
Ken
Very simple, he goes to at least 9-A after scaling from base Ryu, and his Violent key goes to 8-B because he defeated Bison.
Sagat
Same as Ken, unfortunately he goes to at least 9-A because there are no better feats.
Rose
She still scales to Bison,so she goes to 8-B. She defeated him in Alpha 2 and was confirmed by her 30th anniversary profile. The fact that Bison inhabited her body was also confirmed by Street Fighter IV.
Charlie
He also goes to 9-A. It's true that use used to scale from defeating Bison in Alpha 2 before being betrayed, but SFV retconned the thing, explaining that "Bison's power had already surpassed far beyond the bounds of Nash's imagination", and eventually he doesn't defeat Bison anymore.
He still scales to Base Ryu for fighting on par with him in SFV.
Gill
He is tricky, because Gill has absolutely nothing, he doesn't really scale to anything or anyone. But just how he currently does, he should be at least comparable to base Bison, and for this reason he goes to 8-B. Also, the fact that he is comparable to Akuma has to be removed from the profiles, they never interacted in canon (only in the comics) and even in the games the only instance is when you meet certain requirements through the arcade mode and fight against him as a secret boss, when he appears and kills Gill just like he did to Bison in SF2.
Urien
He doesn't scale to 7-B anymore as Nash went down, and Urien didn't fight anyone else, he just scared C. Viper, forcing her to flee.
Luckily, the 30th annyversary states that his power is equal to Gill's and what's make the difference between them is the skill.
For the sake of transparency, I must point out that SFV introduced Gill in 2019 (two years after the release of the 30th annyversary collection) and made some retcons to his character, such as him being "An ancient earthling", while it was stated in previous guides and the collection itself that he received an education along his brother by the secret organization, implying that he was rather young or at least not ancient. (this is also shown in Kolin's story, where he was an adult and she was a child)
In the same story he stomps Urien, thus the fact that they hold the same power could not be valid anymore, but the skill difference may still be involved.
For this reason we can give Urien "At least 9-A, possibly 8-B", if we want to be totally safe.
Phew, this is the end and it took me so long, and I was always waiting to make this CRT since almost a year.
Sorry if it came out so long and please let me know your opinions on this.
This will be very long, even more than the previous, so please tell me if it's better to split this one in two threads, in case it turns out being excessively long.
This thread is about some clarifications about a feat and its scaling, more specifically Ryu's energy being used to nuke a city. Don't worry, the feat itself is fine, but the scaling to it isn't.
The characters affected by this revision are: Ryu, Ken, Dhalsim, Sagat, M. Bison, Charlie, Rose, Urien, Gill, Juri, Seth and Necalli.
First I will talk about the scaling problems, and then I will tackle each character one by one.
This feat comes from M. Bison's ending in Street Fighter Alpha 3, where he uses Ryu's energy to power the Psycho Drive. Currently, the feats is treated as if Base Ryu's power was used, while actually that power comes from Ryu's Satsui No Hado, which, as we know, greatly increases his strength and it's what usually allows him to overcome the strongest opponents (as the Mu No Ken does later). With that in mind, it's clear that Base Ryu isn't 7-B, and so aren't the characters who scale from his base form. But now I'm going to prove that what I say is true:
Alpha 3 revolves around M. Bison needing a new body, because his current one is unable to hold his power. This new strong body happens to be Ryu's, and this because he possesses the Satsui No Hado, another form of evil energy that Bison believes being kindred to his own Psycho Power.
Many endings see Ryu being initially brainwashed by Bison and unleashing the Satsui No Hado, which he then uses to kill Bison himself, usually after briefly regaining consciousness thanks to the direct or indirect help of his friends. And Ryu actually ending up being brainwashed is also confirmed by Sagat's profile, featured in the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection, an official collection released in 2017 that contains a profile for each character, explaining their story up to Street Fighter V (included and mentioned). Due to how the game went, it's possible that even Ken and Sakura had a role in it, but Ryu succumbing to the Satsui due to Bison's influence happens in all the main endings, showing that the dictator's aim was exactly that.
Bison's interest in the Satsui is reiterated multiple times throughout the game, making it clear that he aims at having that power for himself.
- Sakura's ending: M. Bison states that he wants Ryu to show him his secret power (which he called ultimate power at the beginning of the video), and states being kindred to the Psycho Power.
- Sagat's ending: Bison calls the Satsui "The ultimate form of Psycho Power" (further implying that that's the reason why he wants Ryu's body) and tries to control Ryu.
- Ryu's story and ending: Bison tries to reveal Ryu's true nature and he later questions if Bison is the answer to it.
In addition, Street Fighter V has a series of arcade modes, whose endings are remakes and/or callbacks to the previous games, which are also the themes of each path. Alpha 3 is included, and some of them further confirm that Bison was looking for the Satsui within Ryu:
- Ryu's ending: Ryu gets brainwashed by Bison, unleashing the Hado.
- M. Bison's ending: This is the same from which the feat is taken (edit: not really, as this is the Alpha 2 ending, but his plan is the same) and still we see that he brainwashes Ryu just to control his inner power.
After all of this, it seems clear to me that Bison didn't use base Ryu's power, but the Satsui within him, and thus the 7-B feat shouldn't scale neither to base Ryu nor to those who scale to him. Not even Bison should scale to it, not only because he only managed to defeat base Ryu, but he repeteadly states the Satsui is a power far greater than his own, and he always ends being literally killed by Ryu using it. And the laser itself fired by the Psycho Drive (presumably charged with Ryu's power) outright kills Bison.
Now, this feat should only be used to scale those who, in a way or another, are on par or superior to Satsui no Hado Ryu. Some will be mentioned here below, while the others aren't involved in this thread and are: Evil Ryu (Superior or at least even to Ryu with an imperfect satsui), Kage (due to it being the embodiment of Ryu's satsui), Akuma (for being superior to Ryu), Gen (on par with Akuma), Gouken (same), Oro (same again).
And now it comes the turn of those who need a new tier.
Ryu
I believe Ryu's profile should be split in three keys, rather than the current two. These keys would be "Street Fighter I-Alpha 3" to cover his youth, "SF II-IV" to cover the middle period of his life, and "SF V-III", to cover the moment from which he gained the Mu No Ken onwards.
The first two are separated because Base Ryu got stronger between the games, and not only by "natural progression", it was actually shown. Alex in SFV has a hard time defeating Alpha Ryu, while in SF3 he couldn't counter even one of his blows, meaning that Ryu significantly got stronger overtime in his base (which should roughly remain the same, as the Satsui and the Mu no Ken are what greatly boost his strength).
The first two keys would be divided in base and Satsui no Hado, and the third in base and Mu No Ken. The powered up forms will obviously be 7-B scaling from the famous feat (the Mu no Ken is even if not stronger than the Satsui), while unfortunately, his base forms would be 9-A for upscaling from the low tiers.
And don't get me wrong, don't hate me, I'm placing him in that tier only because there are no higher feats or available ways to scale him. Base Ryu and those who scale to him (they will be discussed next) are clearly stronger than the others, it's just that there are no feats available for them, and the only thing which can be done is greatly upscaling them from the low tiers, but it still isn't enough to make them breach into 8-C. The tier right next (which will be presented below, as all the other stuff) includes characters such as M. Bison, Seth and more, and all of them curbstomped Ryu, until he used one of his power ups.
Summary: Ryu = 3 keys = SF1-Alpha 3 (At least 9-A, 7-B with Satsui), SF2-4 (At least 9-A, 7-B with Satsui), SF5-3 (At least 9-A, 7-B with Mu no Ken).
M. Bison
First, Bison currently has 4 keys and I want to bring them to three.
The first would be his base, and since he doesn't scale anymore to 7-B he goes to 8-B. This because he is able to fight Juri at full power, and has also defeated her and took her eye, meaning that she couldn't be holding back her power. And with the Feng Shui Engine active (the eye) she was able to perform a feat calculated as 8-B.
Next it's his Alpha 3 key, where he is powered by the Psycho Drive, which makes him much stronger than before, but to an unknown extent and still below the likes of Satsui no Hado Ryu.
The third key would merge the ones that currently are his third and fourth, making only a single "Street Fighter V" key, which would include the power up he received from the Black Moons.
The first thing about this key is that the 6-C tier has to be axed. The first reason is that it is based on something that never happened, which is Bison being powered by all seven moon, while his plan was halted before this could happen (only two moons were detonated) and it would be like giving to Frieza a key with immortality for the what if scenario in which he used the Dragon Balls on Namecc.
The second and most important reason is that 6-C is based on the wrong assumption that Bison is holding the same energy output the moons have while detonating in FANG's arcade ending (which also isn't canon but it's not important now). The truth is that Bison absorbs the negative emotions caused by the moons bringing chaos and destruction alla around the world, he's not powered by their electricity or anything, they are tools to create the right conditions for him to increase his power through other means.
Now, how strong is Bison in SFV? I will use end game Bison for this key, the one who absorbed the negative emotions caused by the crash landing of two moons. I believe this Bison should be around 7-B, somewhat scaling from Satsui no Hado Ryu. This requires a bit of speculation, but the key of everything is Torrent of Power Necalli. In that form, it was about to (and was meant to) fight against Ryu while powered by the Satsui. (this will be brought up again in the other sections of this thread) He may have been inferior or on par, we don't really know, but he should have at least been able to clash with him. He was also overpowering Dhalsim, who in SFV withstood a punch from Satsui Ryu and was involved in the prophecy amon the other warrios. Bison fits here, because he was one of the strong warriors mentioned by said prophecy, along Satsui Ryu and Bison himself (who activated the moons, from it the title of "the one who brings destruction to the world"), and was also put against Torrent of Power Necalli (you see it from its hair). I agree it's a bit based on speculations, but I don't see it so farfetched for Bison to have grown so strong thanks to the moons, especially since they were intended to make stronger than ever, even more than the psycho drive.
Summary: Bison = 3 keys = Base (8-B), Psycho Drive (At least 8-B), SFV (7-B)
From now on the sections will be shorter, don't worry, the long stuff has ended.
Necalli
We already established that its Torrent of Power form is around 7-B, what needs to be changed is its Base form, which lost its 7-B scaling from base Ryu.
It would be now 9-A, likely always scaling from Base Ryu (and because it needed the Torrent of Power in order to overcome him) and always because Balrog managed to defeat it and force it to retreat, making that form a consistent 9-A (it also lost badly against Bison while not using the Torrent of Power). Bear in mind that at times it activates its super form in battle as a result of its V-Trigger, but the game makes it clear when it is actually using it, usually though a cinematic or making it transform before a battle.
Dhalsim
As I previously said, Dhalsim would maintain his 7-B rating, but from the reasons stated above. Him destroying the Psycho Drive isn't a real feat, as he destroyed the core and the explosion was a consequence of it. Destroying the core is something that many other characters managed to do, even low tiers. The same core was also destroyed once by Charlie by dropping bombs on it and by Sodom by ramming his truck inside the base. All of this proves that destroying the core isn't a big deal and the explosion is the chain reaction caused by its destruction.
Also, since Dhalsim only displayed his 7-B feats in SFV I'm unsure if he should be split in two keys, a pre-SFV at 9-A for being comparable to others and a SFV 7-B, but it's not that big of a problem.
Juri
Simple, her base form has already been downgraded to 9-A in the previous thread for being slightly above Guile and Chun-Li, but with the Feng Shui Engine on she goes to 8-B for the aforementioned feat. In the previous thread you can also find evidences from the OVA that the eye makes her far stronger than the 9-A characters, so no scaling is involved with them when she has her eye active.
A second SFV key should be given to her, as she gets a new eye, but it appears to be a prototype version of the one she had; it glows white instead of purple, when even the first defective version of the true engine had that color, and this is called Engine Alpha, implying to be an early version. She also stole it from the old SIN laboratory, where it was left, still hinting to it being an incomplete version.
And throughout all of SFV's story mode she has fought only with low-tier characters, solidifying the fact that she is weaker than before. In this key she would be at least 9-A, higher with the engine turned on.
Seth
He is another one who lost the 7-B scaling from Ryu. Personally, I believe should be 8-B after Juri's feat, even though it requires some assumptions. He is stronger than his other clones, has completely stomped Base Ryu, he was meant to be Bison's replacement body (even though he lost to him).
The Feng Shui Engine (which performed the 8-B feat) strongly resembles his Tanden Engine, possibly making the former a miniaturized version of the latter.
Seth was also aware that Juri wanted to betray him and was confident in fighting her, even after witnessing the 8-B feat (He's not watching the feat itself, but it's clear he watched the entire scene).
He also should get a second key for his SFV version, since their powers are different. It stays 8-B because he's very likely comparable to his previous body, nothing contradicts it, and Juri (who didn't have the strong eye) was scared of fighting him.
Ken
Very simple, he goes to at least 9-A after scaling from base Ryu, and his Violent key goes to 8-B because he defeated Bison.
Sagat
Same as Ken, unfortunately he goes to at least 9-A because there are no better feats.
Rose
She still scales to Bison,so she goes to 8-B. She defeated him in Alpha 2 and was confirmed by her 30th anniversary profile. The fact that Bison inhabited her body was also confirmed by Street Fighter IV.
Charlie
He also goes to 9-A. It's true that use used to scale from defeating Bison in Alpha 2 before being betrayed, but SFV retconned the thing, explaining that "Bison's power had already surpassed far beyond the bounds of Nash's imagination", and eventually he doesn't defeat Bison anymore.
He still scales to Base Ryu for fighting on par with him in SFV.
Gill
He is tricky, because Gill has absolutely nothing, he doesn't really scale to anything or anyone. But just how he currently does, he should be at least comparable to base Bison, and for this reason he goes to 8-B. Also, the fact that he is comparable to Akuma has to be removed from the profiles, they never interacted in canon (only in the comics) and even in the games the only instance is when you meet certain requirements through the arcade mode and fight against him as a secret boss, when he appears and kills Gill just like he did to Bison in SF2.
Urien
He doesn't scale to 7-B anymore as Nash went down, and Urien didn't fight anyone else, he just scared C. Viper, forcing her to flee.
Luckily, the 30th annyversary states that his power is equal to Gill's and what's make the difference between them is the skill.
For the sake of transparency, I must point out that SFV introduced Gill in 2019 (two years after the release of the 30th annyversary collection) and made some retcons to his character, such as him being "An ancient earthling", while it was stated in previous guides and the collection itself that he received an education along his brother by the secret organization, implying that he was rather young or at least not ancient. (this is also shown in Kolin's story, where he was an adult and she was a child)
In the same story he stomps Urien, thus the fact that they hold the same power could not be valid anymore, but the skill difference may still be involved.
For this reason we can give Urien "At least 9-A, possibly 8-B", if we want to be totally safe.
Phew, this is the end and it took me so long, and I was always waiting to make this CRT since almost a year.
Sorry if it came out so long and please let me know your opinions on this.
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