SF5 being balanced throughout its life is hilariously not true.Exactly. Don't pay him no mind. He's being contrarian cuz he's goofy as fukk. At best, he's talking from an intermediate level of "dominance" which even still, due to the balance of the game, it's never really that lopsided either. He either don't realize or acting purely stupid to think that just cuz a game has some dominant/strong characters that the game can't be balanced. He needs a kufi slapping fr.
For better or worse, SFV has BEEN KNOWN to be the most balanced fighter out there and possibly ever, for the exact reasons you stated. Everyone that follows the game or FGC/fighting games in general have long known this. Some don't like it for that reason (not to say exclusively due to that reason) cuz some goofy FGCers either don't know what they really want or actually really want broken ass characters in their fighting games and that's one reason some didn't/don't like V is cuz there's not really any of that.
Not at the highest level and not at the intermediate level.
Was it season 1 with Chun and instant air legs or necalli and Mika, maybe it was was when ibuki dropped, then akuma, and the newly buffed guile or maybe it was 2017 when Abigail and menant dropped and ran shop for about 6 months or so until G dropped? Around 2019 where we had little to no dlc and they started nerfing and buffing characters the game started to balance out. All the while cammy and karins are running wild...
I can go on but over all after 2019 is when the game started to balance out some, but even then until the addition of v shift the balance wasn't good just serviceable