Ganryu is a momentum-heavy, sticky poking character with a few spicy gimmicks thrown in on top. He's the master of making the opponent second-guess whether it's their turn to attack, and he's great at taking advantage of hesitation with strong pokes and powerful mid-low-mixups. His excellent set of plus frame moves on hit and block, his amount of delayable strings, as well as how a lot of his moves move him forward, means he can really stick to you on offense and take entire rounds off of sheer momentum, while his safety on block means he's not really taking much risk. He also has an excellent full-crouch game and a terrifying wall game, making him even better at opening people up. He's quite unique in that he doesn't have an i10 jab, which greatly alters how he plays on defense and with punishment. This makes him prone to counter hits when he's not on the offense, forcing the player to have good defense to play him well and pick their spots for when to push buttons.
Strengths
Excellent set of close range pokes and strings
one of the best sets of lows in the game
top notch close range mixups
great full crouch game
amazing wall game
core tools are quite safe on block
combos against backturned opponents hurt like hell
top notch WS punishment
great okizeme
has several evasive tools with big rewards
very uncommonly played character, so fewer people know the matchup inside out
Weaknesses
lacks an i10 jab
prone to getting counter hit due to a lot of core moves being relatively slow
subpar whiff punishment, particularly against moves that end in crouch
weak standing punishment aside from his i10 wall splat and potential fast ff1+2
a lot of core moves are kinda stubby, so he relies on being up close
aside from his unsafe i10 headbutt, lacks fast, rewarding CH tools
his rage drive is not very good due to it being reactable
