SSBU/Ryu/Combos

Ryu

Overview

Combos

Setplay

Tech

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Intro

Below are common wordings that the player should learn to understand how Ryu’s combos are written. Unlike Ken, Ryu doesn’t have as freeform combos as Ken. That does not mean the player cannot play a read based combo game. Including frame traps and coverage for air dodges can restart a combo to help tack on more damage.

• It is expected that all specials done in combos are input specials.
• lease read through the overview page to know the abbreviations for specials’ names.
• The version of special will be specified by saying “l.[name]” for a light special, “m.[name]” for a medium special, and “h.[name]” for a heavy special. Specials without the letter in front mean that any version is acceptable.
• The combos list will also assume the reader understands basic smash terms and acronyms.
• “Apex [aerial]” = doing the aerial so that the frame after hitlag ends Ryu can fast fall. This usually requires Ryu to delay the aerial in which the amount of delay will be different depending on the aerial.
• “>” = do the next action in the sequence
• “xx” = cancel the normal into the next special in the sequence

If a combo appears to be sub-optimal (in damage) at first glance, remember that there are at least 4 reasons to do said combo:

• It keeps a certain move fresh (or freshens up a move if that move was used earlier in the match).
• It’s less execution heavy.
• Less risk to go for, whether it’s on potential whiff or it’s generally more “guaranteed” for damage.
• You do not sacrifice stage positioning.

Special Cancels

Jab 1 and Jab 2:

• Hadouken:
  • Light/Medium/Heavy: For some airborne shenanigans, otherwise a misinput.
• Shoryuken:
  • Light/Medium/Heavy: The path of a three hit combo.
• Tatsumaki:
  • Light: Initial hit; puts you in a different position than DP at the cost of at least 3%.
• Focus Attack:
  • MU specific evasive action against options out of shield.

Light Dtilt:

• Shakunetsu:
  • Light: Low percent tech chases.
• Shoryuken:
  • Light/Medium: Damage & positioning.
  • Heavy: Highest damage & kill confirm.
• Tatsumaki:
  • Light: Initial hit; kill confirm & positioning.

HDTilt

• Hadouken:
  • Light: Maintain near-pressure to continue strings after read; probably the most useful on block, since the hado can also cover spotdodges as well as rolls.
  • Medium: Guarantees at least one full dash on correct execution before the opponent is able to act, can also lock the opponent on knockdowns well.
  • Heavy: Safe damage which gives the opponent the most room to act afterwards.
• Shakunetsu:
  • Light: Enables low percent combo routes and option reads at mid percents.
  • Medium: Best finisher in terms of speed and consistency (especially against floatier characters).
  • Heavy: When you gotta get that quick but delayed Shaku in for damage and stage control.
  • Light/Medium/Heavy: Can cause tech chases on plats; alternative ender to Tatsu if Tatsu cannot reach; at higher percents it's just pure stage control/damage.
• Tatsumaki:
  • Light: Great against fastfallers or even tech chases, since you are plus on hit regardless of whether it connects or not; has the most horizontal knockback + fastest recovery against characters it can hit.
  • Medium: Medium Tatsu for better angle (hit safety) compared to Heavy Tatsu at lower percents; DI mixup kill confirm off the side and grants you a bunch of options to apply pressure afterwards.
  • Heavy: Kill confirm; deals the most damage and puts you in a position to anti-air or air-to-air.
  • Medium/Heavy: Can whiff on DI in against floaties or DI away/down+away on fast-fallers or heavies when HDtilt begins to send into tumble, so be careful.
• Focus Attack:
  • Use this sequence to poke at someone, then tank an aerial or simply mix it up with a FADC.

LUTilt

• Hadouken:
  • Light: Hit airborne opponents at mid-high percents or frame trap air dodges.
• Shoryuken:
  • Light: damage plus more safe than heavy if whiffs.
  • Heavy: Kill confirm.
• Focus Attack:
  • Catches options out of hitstun, also puts the opponent in a terrible position unless they have a multihit aerial.

HUTilt:

• Hadouken:
  • Light/Medium: Trying to cover landing space if the opponent also DI's out at low percents, while still being very difficult to punish if you caught the opponent DI'ing in.
• Shakunetsu:
  • Light/Medium: Trying to cover landing space if the opponent also DI's out at low percents, while still being very difficult to punish if you caught the opponent DI'ing in.
• Shoryuken:
  • Medium: Medium DP could potentially be used to rise up to a platform for pure movement, without having as much airtime as Heavy DP.
  • Heavy: At lower percents, HUtilt > Heavy Shoryuken is about 25% of damage (the 15.1% of HUtilt and the 10.5% of DP's late hit), making it similar to a Dtilt's BnB damage.
• Tatsumaki:
  • Light: Not an actual combo but Tatsu is used to advance forward to position yourself for a landing trap.

PTilt:

• Hadouken:
  • True or frame trap against airborne opponents, otherwise a misinput.
• Shakunetsu:
  • Damage without staling DP or committing to Initial Hit Tatsu.
• Shoryuken:
  • Light/Medium: Damage & positioning.
  • Heavy: Highest damage & kill confirm.
• Tatsumaki:
  • Light: Initial hit; puts you in a different position than DP at the cost of at least 3%

PJab:

• Hadouken:
  • True or frame trap against airborne opponents, otherwise a misinput.
• Shakunetsu:
  • Damage without staling DP or committing to Initial Hit Tatsu.
• Shoryuken:
  • Light/Medium: Damage & positioning.
  • Heavy: Highest damage & kill confirm.
• Tatsumaki:
  • Light: Initial hit; puts you in a different position than DP at the cost of at least 3%.

DSmash:

• Hadouken:
  • When Dsmash sends into tumble and you think the opponent will miss the tech, Hadouken is best due to piling on damage and a jab lock, of which a correct tech chase can lead to massive damage; use slower speeds to gain a few more frames of hit advantage, and higher speeds to get more damage + knockback (putting them into corners).
• Shakunetsu:
  • Before Dsmash sends into tumble (i.e. very low percents), Shaku is great for getting your damage in without having to deal with the occasional wonkiness of Tatsu.
• Tatsumaki:
  • Light: Light Tatsu is a great special cancel to keep advancing if you expect the opponent to tech the Dsmash.
  • Medium/Heavy: Not sure how reliable this is pre-tumble if the Dsmash is spaced, but if you feel that it can hit then you're rewarded with plenty of damage, stage positioning, landing trap scenarios, and keeping fireballs on the fresher side.

NAir [Rising, Falling]:

• Hadouken:
  • [Rising] You might cancel into a fireball for people on a platform (generally stages we can't full hop onto) in order to put additional block pressure or to create a pratfall situation.
• Shakunetsu:
  • [Rising] You might cancel into a fireball for people on a platform (generally stages we can't full hop onto) in order to put additional block pressure or to get lots of knockback.
• Focus Attack:
  • [Falling] At lower percents, delayed SH Nair into Focus Attack 1 can option select both a hit and a blockstring that is plus due to FADC'ing into the ground, possibly enough to create a true shieldbreak string.

FAir [Front, Back, Rising, Falling]:

• Hadouken:
  • [Rising, Front] You might cancel into a fireball for people on a platform (generally stages we can't full hop onto) in order to put additional block pressure or to create a pratfall situation.
• Shakunetsu:
  • [Rising, Front] You might cancel into a fireball for people on a platform (generally stages we can't full hop onto) in order to put additional block pressure or to create a pratfall situation.

BAir [Rising, Falling]

• Hadoken:
  • Extra damage at low percents
• Shakunetsu:
  • Extra damage at low percents
• Focus Attack:
  • [Rising]: Drop combo to instead get more damage. Can punish an attack out of hitstun or a roll or shield break if they shield once landed. Especially good against fast fallers where fireballs might whiff.

UAir [First Hit, Second Hit, Rising, Falling]:

• Shoryuken:
  • Heavy: [First Hit] Kill confirm

DAir: [Spike, Weak, Grounded hit, Rising, Falling]

• Hadoken:
  • [Rising, Ground hit] extra damage
  • [Spike, Weak] to stop falling and to get extra damage in case Spike hitbox misses.
• Shakunetsu:
  • [Rising, Ground hit] extra damage
  • [Spike, Weak] to stop falling and to get extra damage in case Spike hitbox misses.
• Tatsumaki
  • Heavy: [Rising, Spike] Miss Tech punish at high percents as they will bounce off the ground and get hit by the later hit of Tatsu.
• Focus Attack
  • [Rising, Falling] Slows falling and can be used to edge guard a recovery if Spike hits off stage at low to mid percents.

Normal Links

Jab 1

• Jab 2
  • Jab 3: Tech chase at 0%

LDTilt

• LDTilt
• HDTilt

LUTilt

• PTilt: True at mid-high percents
• PJab: True at high percents
• HUTilt: Ture at high percents
• Jab 1: Ture at mid-high percents
• Shoryuken: True on most characters. Don't want to special cancel because then it will not KO.

LFTilt

• NAir
• FAir
• BAir
• UAir
• DAir

NAir

• Jab 1
• PJab
• PTilt
• LFTilt
• LDTilt
• HDTilt
• LUTilt
• HUTilt
• DSmash

FAir

• PJab
• LUTilt
• HUTilt
• NAir
• FAir
• BAir
• UAir
• DAir

BAir

• Jab 1
• PJab
• LFTilt
• LDTilt
• HDTilt
• DSmash

UAir

• LDTilt: Only works if you hit first hit dragdown UAir. Very hard to do.
• UAir: Combos into itself when landed and with platforms to get ladder combos

DAir

• Jab 1
• PJab
• LUTilt
• HUTilt
• NAir
• FAir
• BAir
• UAir
• DAir

Tech Chases and Jab Locks

PTilt/PJab Jab Lock

Do the first jablock listed unless it gives a character orientation. "Front-floored" means when they are lying on their front side face down. "Back-floored" means when they are laying on their back side face up. "Head-side" means when you're standing by their head. "Feet-side" means when you're standing by their feet. Graphic by Lernonad: File:Ptilt pjab1.PNG File:Ptilt pjab2.PNG File:Ptilt pjab3.PNG File:Ptilt pjab4.PNG File:Ptilt pjab5.PNG

PTilt > Jab1 Jab Lock

"Front-floored" means when they are laying on their front side face down. "Back-floored" means when they are laying on their back side face up. "Head-side" means when you're standing by their head. "Feet-side" means when you're standing by their feet. Graphic by Kyronic: File:Ptilt jab1 lock1.png File:Ptilt jab1 lock2.png File:Ptilt jab1 lock3.PNG

Hadoken Jab Locks

At low to mid percents, DSmash will not send far enough to launch off stage. This means that the opponent will be on stage and in a tech scenario. At low percents, m.Hado will cover everything but roll in while l.Hado will cover everything but roll away. And at mid percents, h.Hado will cover everything but roll in and m.Hado will cover everything but roll away. And if the opponent doesn't tech, Hado will jab lock. Shakunetsu can also be used but it won't jab lock, it will launch.

If the opponent is launched to a platform for a tech, Hadoken can be used to cover the tech. If they get knocked off the platform and they were downed from a miss tech, they will pratfall and must try to tech again.

Focus Attack Reset

During tech chases near the ledge or on platforms, instead of going for a jab lock doing jump (short hop if on ground, full hop if on platform) Focus Attack can apply additional pressure and get more reward if successful. Focus attack will cover all options against opponents with getup attack that are single hit on both sides. If the tech chase is at center stage then this does not cover all options. If Focus lands late and the opponent shields you can dash cancel and go to a DDFADC shield break. Otherwise, FA should be charged enough to get a followup combo.

Mixups

DI Mixups

Tatsumaki DI Mix:

• The correct DI for heavy Tatsu is away. The correct DI for medium Tatsu is in. The opponent cannot react to which version of Tatsu is done.

B-Reverse DI Mix:

• Sometimes B-Reversing Shoryuken is needed because the opponent SDIs behind Ryu before he cancels to Shoryuken. When Shoryuken is B-Reversed, the correct DI will change to the opposite direction.

Frame Traps

Light UTilt:

• Many things are not true until later percents but are frame traps early on. Examples are PTilt, Jab 1, DSmash. At higher percents NAir and UAir become frame traps then become true at really high percents. This can be used to get extra damage from combos and tech chases or kill confirms. They can be escaped with frame 1 invulnerability though.

Untrue Combos

Light UTilt:

• LUTilt > LFTilt is never true but can often be hit as buffer system might mess up the combo LUTilt > PTilt, which is a true combo and frame trap. So the opponent will likely not be ready to air dodge out of LUTilt LFTilt if the string ever happens.

Combo Theory

At first glance it may look like Ryu does not have big combos. His small combos may not be big but they do decent damage. 30-40 damage for a 3 hit true combo is good. But because of Ryu's mechanic to cancel moves into other moves, a lot of his normals don't have a lot of knockback but have a lot of hitstun. This makes linking normals for big damage important for his combo game. And if they don't link, they will most likely frame trap. This is where Ryu gets his damage. Ryu has lots of moves that have long range and can combo or frame trap including Hadoken and Shakunetsu, which do more damage and have higher variability in speed than Ken's projectile, and Focus Attack, which has more range than Ken's projectile. He uses these moves to cover multiple options in scenarios where the opponent can act out of hitstun. Or to cover tech options, especially on platforms.

Reset to DeathBrought to you by Asimo

Hard

Sour FAir > SH BAir > FF DSmash xx Hado > SH FADC2/3 > DAir > DAir

In this clip, Asimo uses DSmash to send at a low angle tech chase and cancels to Hado. When the opponent techs in place or tech rolls away, Hado hits. If they tech roll in, Hado whiffs. On miss tech it jab locks. Asimo runs in and short hops FADC. Because Kola is at the ledge, Focus Attack covers every option but do nothing. Something Ken's cannot do because it doesn't have the range Ryu's has.

Raging Demon (With max rage) FADC3 > sour FAir > SH Apex DAir FF > LUTilt > PJab > h.Shoryu

• Difficulty: hard
• SDI Away on LUTilt can make {{clr|tilt|PJab}|} whiff. SDI in on LUTilt > PJab xx Shoryu can make the opponent fallout Behind Ken.

This is Ken and Ryu’s ToD. The video is done with Ryu but is done the exact same way for Ken and more consistently KOs with Ken. From Pennini: https://twitter.com/PenniniKen/status/1221971236219248641?s=19

Ledge Trapping

A common setup used is the three zones. The three zones are the pressure zone, neutral zone, and distance zone. The pressure zone is when Ryu is right on top of the ledge. It covers ledge getup and ledge jumps if Ryu is mashing tilts. It loses to ledge attack, ledge drop aerials, and ledge roll but Ryu can react to the roll and pressure that as well. The next zone is the distance zone. It is meant to cover ledge rolls to prevent losing stage control. It is also good for reacting to ledge jumps. It loses to ledge getup. The final zone is the neutral zone. It is right in between the pressure zone and the distance zone meant to be used to transition between the two other zones and react to ledge options and move there with Ryu’s walk to successfully punish it. Another setup is to stand at ledge roll distance and throw a light Hado as soon as the opponent grabs the ledge. This will cause them to delay ledge getup, ledge attack, and ledge jump, for if they do this, they will get hit by the Hadoken and be pushed off stage again. And if they decide to ledge roll, Ryu will be right there to punish that. Alternatively, Ryu can use a slow Shaku and if the opponent gets hit by it, Ryu can jump up and hit an aerial to potentially KO the opponent. This will cause them to wait so that their intangibility runs out. If they ledge getup or getup attack dash in and try for a combo starter. If they jump, use an air-to-air or Shoryuken. If they roll try for a combo starter. Be ready to transition to shield pressure if they do shield. After doing this for a little bit, be prepared for hasty ledge jumps to try and get out of the way before the Hado gets to the ledge. Finally, if the opponent decides to hang on the ledge, there are many ways Ryu can counter that. Depending on the character, Ryu’s LDTilt, HDTilt, and DSmash can hit the opponent’s ledge hang based on the chart below.

File:Shoto ledge hang1.png File:Shoto ledge hang2.png

Another way to counter ledge hangs is to use Tatsu trumping. This is a way to ledge trump without having to deal with body blocking preventing ledge trumping. How to Tatsu trump is listed on this character’s Tech page under COIL.

Edge Guarding

Ryu won’t often go for edge guards. Really it’s best if the opponent for sure has to use their double jump. It’s not advised to edge guard if the opponent has a really long recovery and large hitbox on their Up B that could potentially stage spike Ryu or worse. An example would be Byleth, Charizard, and Ken and Ryu. If possible, stuff them out before they get a chance to use their Up B. Only other time edge guarding would be beneficial would be from combos. If Ryu hits a DAir at the ledge at an early percent a cool trick would be to cancel to Focus Attack and fall down then release the attack when they jump up next to Ryu then dash cancel, double jump, DAir, and cancel to Shoryuken to recover back to stage. Combo notation for that would be: DAir xx FA (hold until opponent is next to Ryu) > release > dash cancel > double jump > DAir xx Shoryuken.

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