Every Street Fighter 6 Character Ranked By Difficulty

Which Street Fight 6 characters are best for beginners, and which ones take a little more practice to play? Let's find out.

Known as a game series that showcases fighters from all over the world, Street Fighter 6's roster is one of the most diverse in the history of this legendary fighting game. With every entry in the series, Capcom constantly introduces fresh new characters for new players to learn the ropes and veterans to lab creative combos with.

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Street Fighter's mainstays like Ryu and Ken will always find themselves back in the roster for players who love their classic "Shoto" style characters, but if you want to feel pain while practicing your trials, characters like Dhalsim and the new Psycho Power wielding, JP will draw your attention easily.

Although Capcom has a ranking for each character's difficulty, it is safe to say that Ryu is one of the easier characters available in the game. Ryu's traditional ground-based footsies gameplay is Street Fighter at its core.

With great pokes, and tools to stop even the strongest player, like a fireball and uppercut, this midrange Shotokan master is always recommended for beginners to pick up and learn the game.

Guile and Ryu are two sides of the same coin. While Ryu relies on motion inputs, Guile uses charge inputs. To use his iconic Sonic Boom, you must first hold back for a second, then flick forward, followed by a Punch button.

Guile gameplay will be vastly different from Ryu's. The flattop airman will find himself comfortable away from his opponent while zoning them out with Sonic Booms and Flash Kicks. With very few Special Moves, Guile is a great pick if you want to zone out your opponent but you don't want to memorize spreadsheets filled with inputs.

T-Hawk was a menace in the Street Fighter 4 era. With his powerful charge-based Condor moves, his mixup potential was terrifying. Lily, a member of the Thunderfoot tribe, follows in the footsteps of her ancestor, T-Hawk, by integrating Condor attacks into her moveset.

Unlike T-Hawk, Lily's Condor attacks are not performed with charge inputs, but rather with motions, like a Hadouken, making her easier to pick up for beginners who want to have a hand at a character with great pokes, excellent rushdown, and a mixup game close to Street Fighter 4 T-Hawk.

The new poster child for Street Fighter, Luke is a great pickup if you want someone easy to pick up, yet hard to master. The CQC expert has tools quite similar to Ryu and other Shotokan characters. He has a fireball, uppercut, forward moving Special Move, but he differentiates himself by having follow-up attacks on his Special Moves that add a splash of MMA to his fighting style.

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While he may seem simple and a bit like a flowchart, knowing when to use his follow-ups to position yourself in order to continue your pressure is where the Luke magic lies.

While she may look like a typical grappler like Zangief, Marisa is much easier to play than her Russian counterpart. She doesn't have the many throws that Zangief does; rather, Marisa relies on huge and powerful strikes. Some of her Special Moves can even be charged a bit to break guard or even leave her at an advantage to continue her pressure.

Marisa is a deadly character that can knock anyone's lights out in just a few moves, making her a great character to pick up for newer Street Fighter players who want a large heavy-hitter who doesn't rely on combos all that much.

If you’re feeling Ryu, but it seems like he's lacking firepower, then Ken Masters is your man. Ken has always been the more aggressive Shoto in Street Fighter, and in this game, that playstyle has been cranked to the max. His fiery kick now has more spice than ever.

With Ken command sprint, combined with his new target combo kicks, his toolkit is different enough to set him aside from his sparring partner, while still retaining the essence of the Shotokan fighting style.

If you have gotten the hang of charge moves, Edmund Honda might be a good pick for you. The Sumo master can play slow and far away from your opponent with his strong flying headbutt and Sumo Stomp, but he can get aggressive with his Hundred Hand Slap when you have someone in the corner.

Honda can hit fast and hard in the right hands, but he can feel a bit slow and boring for newer players who might not be familiar with his "turtle-like" playstyle.

Cammy has always been a straightforward rushdown character with fast special moves and even faster blockstrings. This still remains in Street Fighter 6. Cammy is the most powerful once she is right in your face. With her dive kick and Hooligan Combination, her mixup game becomes hard to predict in a corner situation.

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For newer players, Cammy is the perfect introduction to fast and glass cannon characters in Street Fighter 6, without the strain of high-execution mixups and advanced techniques.

The electric Brazillian tour guide is back! Blanka's game plan seems sporadic and random to newer players, but his attacks are usually controlled chaos. Blanka likes to bounce all over the stage using charge moves to throw off his opponents and then use his electric charge to keep the pressure on while in the corner.

Just like the rest of the charge characters in the roster, Blanka's moves are easy to execute, but his playstyle takes practice to master.

One of the newest additions to the wide cast of Street Fighter, the Ballerina Judo master Manon is a pseudo-grappler with excellent pokes. She plays a great ground game by poking her opponent out then going in with her grabs.

Manon is quite easy to play since you can combo into a lot of her grabs with the use of Drive Rush, but her Medal system might be hard to follow for newer players, especially when fighting a zoner like Guile or JP.

Juri has always had excellent buttons and tons of tools to deal with whatever comes her way. In Street Fighter 6, she is paired with a Fuha system that gives her stacks every time she uses her Fuhajin Special Move.

Juri used to be a tricky character since she was able to store fireballs then unleash a barrage of attacks when she saw a gap in defense. With her Fuha stacks, Juri is now a 'rekka' character similar to older characters like Fei Long, making her a bit more accessible.

Dee Jay's fun spirit comes through in his gameplay. He loves to dance around his opponents with a myriad of feints. All the light versions of his Special Moves are feints, adding an extra layer of mix up when pressuring or baiting out your opponents.

Related: Street Fighter 6: Beginner Tips

For that alone, Dee Jay is a bit tricky to play. You can easily pick him up from the get-go, especially now that he doesn't have as many charge motions as before, but it will still take some practice to play him at the highest level.

One of the newest and fan-favorite additions, Kimberly plays closely to what Ibuki is usually like. She is a fast, rushdown character with lots of mix up options, and setups to keep you in blockstun until the next round.

A student of the Bushinryu fighting style, she combines Guy's Bushin Hurricane kicks to add even more verticality to her combos making them even more flashy than they already are with all the spray paint flying everywhere. She is a tricky character with will prove to be a challenge for new players who are unfamiliar with knockdown vortex characters.

Created as a rival for the new main character, Jamie fills the hole that Street Fighter had of a drunken master. While not actually confirmed to be alcohol, Jamie carries a gourd that he continuously drinks out of in order to power up his Special Moves.

Jamie's martial arts are combined with breakdancing making his moveset all about fast moves with a swagger about them to quickly overwhelm your opponents into a knockdown and safely drink from your gourd. Jamie can be difficult since he only performs at his best when at his level five drunk and getting there can be a slog.

Chun-Li has always been an execution monster that will test your mettle. With instant air Lightning Kicks to wall jumps, her moves, while difficult, can be extremely rewarding.

The biggest addition to Chun-Li's kit in Street Fighter 6, is Serenity Stream. This is a new stance that has many follow-up attacks that can be canceled into other moves, extending your combos and mixing up your barrage of kicks against your unaware opponents.

JP's power is overwhelming at times. He has all the tools needed to succeed. He has a great anti-air, projectiles that linger on the screen, and even has a full-screen command grab. He seems like the most broken character ever, but like most zoner characters, JP crumbles once you pressure him up close.

With the combinations of tools and the timings that you have to keep in mind when launching these attacks, JP can take a huge amount of brain power just to play correctly.

The big running joke is that grapplers are easy to play and require no skill, but to a newer player, full circle motions can be a nightmare. Zangief can hit big with his Spinning Pile Driver, but the motion to perform is a bit difficult to nail.

Since Zangief is so strong, they can't give him all the tools they have given the rest of the cast so getting close to your opponent is quite difficult and can lead to very slow gameplay. The biggest downfall for newer players is not knowing when to slow down.

Dhalsim's gameplay has not changed much over the years. His limbs can stretch out across the entire screen to deliver demoralizing pokes until your opponent cracks under the pressure.

Dhalsim is not very combo-heavy to begin with, but knowing when to hit your long-range buttons and reading your opponent's jumps is what will win you any battle with him. Although he can be as slow as Zangief, Dhalsim will not even let you get close enough to feel his Yoga Flame.

Next: Street Fighter 6's Greatest Asset Is Diversity

List writer at TheGamer. 1% JRPGs 99% hot gas. Avid vinyl collector. When he is not writing, you can find him talking about his latest hyperfixation on Twitter.