Which Character is most proficient in all areas?

I just thought that I would throw this out there in order to get some opinions. I like balanced characters, and your advice might lead me down some character opportunities that I haven't tried yet. Thanks! /versus/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

Kage is a very balanced character, he has a good throwing game and plenty of combos. He also has a sabaki (or is it inashi?) that deflects high and mid jabs, and another more defensive stance (he's also the quickest character in the game). His main game is floating.

 

try http://virtuafighter.com/view.php?section=vf4&file=vf4_chara_chart.html

 

Main "all-around characters" are Akira& Goh, Pai, Jeffry & Wolf, Sarah & Kage, and then Lau, Brad, Lion and Jacky, ranked from highest difficulty to lowest in terms of controls, applicabilty, etc. Finally, there are the rest (miscellaneous): Vanessa, Shun, Lei, Aoi.

Both Akira and Goh lack speed and mobility without using Minami stepping or something similar but have great damage and priority if used properly, but are very difficult to use properly (especially Akira), so expect a lot of practice both against the CPU and against people... expect to lose for a while.

Pai has great, quick staggers and combos, and is especially deadly if used to poke, annoy, make the opponent whiff and then punish them; her mind games are some of the best in the game, next to Akira's or Goh's. I think her throws are great too.

Wolf and Jeffry are the best characters for throw based mind games... and have great strikes to round them off, although they are the slowest characters, though vastly improved in Evo may be difficult for newbies....

Sarah is better off then the last two or three characters mentioned in that her speed and quick recovery allow her to have easily canned strings of attacks; her throws, while not the best, are nonetheless formidable. Kage is actually a little better than Sarah and the other strikers in that his moves are more difficult but much more applicable. His throws are great, and his capability for mind games makes him a great character to choose... although some use him as a fairly solid, if mediocre striker.

The strikers, mainly buttonmashers and also some toptier players use them, specialize in staggering, etc. to create opportunities to completely demolish your opponent. These guys are just plain nasty if played right, but may have a difficult time due to their relatively limited movelist (hence, strikers are some of the most "defensive" players, that is, they must be played defensively well to be able to succeed, since they usually don't have any inashis or other such high priority moves -- they rely on speed and strength, not so much on the more complex properties of their moves). that isn't to say their moves aren't good, they still have great damage, priority, and speed, but to really succeed, you need to be able to play mind games with them (i.e. Lau is too straightfoward, should be used to counterattack (MC, mC, etc.) ; Jacky hits high and mid way too often and doesn't get much frame advantage unless he uses risky moves, however, he has the best range of almost all the characters, and works well against turtlers or pokers ; Brad is fast and confusing, but still ends up hitting high and mid too often, needs to psyche people out to get MC's but can pound the hell out of fz-grders. )

The miscellaneous group are hard to classify: Vanessa has some of the easiest moves in the game, but is hard to apply, since no single one of her moves is easily or effectively applicable in more than one or two situations. Nonetheless she is my current fave and I'm really working hard on using her effectively (she's slow, like in VF4, but has some great interrupts and pokes, as well as some nice staggers added in Evo).

Shun. One of the greatest and most difficult characters ever. He preys on patterns and weak players, but in high-level play is usually demolished, he requires twice the effort and time to master then almost any other character, save maybe Akira. His moves have great properties, but like Vanessa, is difficult to apply consistently. You need to know everyone's moves very well, be able to tell how someone plays very quickly, and thus counter it (he is well suited to play against any character). His main weakness is really his throw game.

Lei Fei, the stylish evil monk. Could be used as a striker, but this would waste his inashis and great setups for attacks. His new bokutai stance is great for combos, as well as surprising highly aggressive opponents (his K from that stance is especially easy to apply). Basically, you want to wait your opponent out (unless its Goh, Akira, Wolf, or Jeffry) since Lei's somewhat slow, and take advantage of the many evasive, high priority, and great range of his huge movelist to get counterhits... his MC combos are some of the most damaging and relatively easy to perform combos in the game.

Aoi is a weird character. Should be played very similarly to a cross between Goh, Akira, and Pai (maybe some others too). Not too experienced with her, but I think her mind games depend on baiting then either coming out with a nice inashi \ MC combo (her new P+K moves are great for this) or counters \ parry stance, then pound them. Her throws are nice, but her multi throws are useless in high level play, you might as well try for them, since if your oppt escapes, there isn't really much frame advantage.

Note: these are just general (very general) guidelines, try out each person's movelist, and do at least 100 to 200 matches with them (preferably much more).

 

pai, low throw, st throw, sibakis, and ppk combos!

 

Some characters are harder to master than others but overall strength-wise, i would pick Kage and Akira.

I play Lei Fei only so i can tell you a bit about him. He is a fun character to play with and great in terms of mid range striking but you'll probably have a hard time dealing with characters who have a strong poking game. (e.g Jacky, Kage, Lion, Aoi, Pai, Sarah (cause of her kicks)).

Lei Fei is probably the worse character in close range combat. His single P stats is the worse of all characters in this game (-4 on guard, -1 on normal hit and only +2 on counter hit). Even though his IN stance can auto counter single fists, he is vulnerable to all double fisted attacks and kicks. Any hit would count as counter if he gets hit while in any stance. That could mean major blood loss! He's not the best character in the game but i play him cause he's fun. I think the "fun factor" also matters to a certain extent.

Jacky is a strong character too but is rather boring to play imo. So there you have it, try Akira, Jacky or Kage. But remember, your skill still counts more than who you play.

 

Being most proficient in all areas would mean "better than everyone else in every way." I don't believe such a character exists. As far as well-rounded characters go, I would have to give that to Pai - model jack-of-all-trades.

 

Dural

 

In my opinion i dont think it matters what character you pick its about how skilled the player uses that character.
All characters in this game are great to play with. Its just who you get the most fun to play with, in my case Sarah /versus/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

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YohoA said:

Dural

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This is the correct answer.