Look at this
The hottest discussion in Street Fighter 6 right now revolves around the game’s best characters. The balance in this latest franchise entry is particularly good, making it especially hard for the community as a whole to truly tease out a matter of fact best in the game (or even a consistent top 5, for that matter) but there are definitely three characters getting the lion’s share of top tier attention: JP, Luke, and Ken.
Adding his voice to the mix is the reigning Evo champion, NASR|AngryBird, who just so happens to be a Ken player. In one of his recent FGC Birds uploads, AngryBird shows why he feels that Luke is a better character than Ken as the game stands right now.
The champ breaks things down into four categories through which to compare the two fighters: offense, defense, tools, and normals. He kicks things off with normals, of which he argues that Luke has the single best in the game.
The attack in question in Luke’s crouching medium punch, and AB puts it next to Ken’s for comparison’s sake. Both moves have very similar frame data (in fact, the only difference is that Ken’s is active for one more frame than Luke’s) but the key difference is in the reach as Luke’s hitbox extends out a decent bit further than Ken’s and is +1 on block.
He goes on to highlight Luke’s other key normals, most of which move him forward a bit, which gives him his deceptively far reach in the neutral.
Now, to be fair, Ken shares a lot of the same advantages Luke does when it comes to his normal attacks, but is unable to convert to the same kind of damage after landing his standing heavy punch.
AngryBird argues that this tips the scales in Luke’s favor when it comes to this category, though he does hash out a number of additional details as well.
We then move on to examining projectiles, which AngryBird says is absolutely crucial to Ken’s neutral at high levels of play. Though key to his kit, Ken’s fireball doesn’t exactly stand out as a particularly good projectile while Luke’s is great for chip damage, isn’t a necessary part of his neutral, and his OD version knocks down, making his fireball game superior according to the champ.
AngryBird goes on like this picking apart both characters’ respective strengths and articulating why he feels it’s clear that Luke is a better overall character. Check out his video below and let us know in the comments if you agree (and whether or not this video was what swayed you) or if you feel like Ken is ultimately higher tier.