give up on this link altogether. It’s a 1 frame link and totally not worthy, unless it’s going to make you win. Stick with your :d:+:lp:, :d:+:lp:, :d:+:mp: on larger characters or just cancel a :d:+:lp: into tatsu when in doubt.
the damage is not important, it’s all about the positioning, unless you’re going to kill.
you can always try :d:+:mp: instead which is a 2 framer and there isn’t that much difference in overall damage.
Thanks, I had a feeling it was a 1 framer and I suppose I would be losing alot more damage by messing up that link than I would be removing the crouching forward and hitting the link about 99% of the time lol.
I actually tried the cr.jab, cr.jab, crouching strong punch etc combo you mentioned before, and could pull it off easily 80% of the time if not more, but I never saw the combo mentioned anywhere so I automatically assumed I shouldn’t use it instead of the crouching forward link.
Thanks for re-assuring me that I don’t always have to take the most difficult approach to be most effective.
I’m sure my game will improve significantly after this, because I would drop about 4 of these links per game; which I guess really adds up.
EDIT:Oh and thanks to Diveman too of course.
cr.MP and cr.MK should do the same damage. Linking the crouch jabs into cr.MP is much better since it’s lenient. The cr.MP is his main linking tool as a 4 framer at +5. It has quite a lot of pushback on hit and block though, so you’ll have to learn the ranges for where it pushes them outta range for the short tatsu (finishing with EX fireball instead solves that) and be careful not to over-use it in block strings/frame traps since too much pushback will kill your pressure.
[Edit] While it’s not written up in stone in some sort of compendium thread for how to build a basic game for Akuma, the cr.LPs into cr.MP is the most fundamental of all BnBs that each uses with him.
Could you recommend some other effective blockstrings? I’m not really aware of many as I only switched to maining Akuma a few days ago.
Basic question, but when is the right time to throw fireballs and do demon flips? I have a habit of only throwing them fullscreen and deciding to throw them at midscreen during the worst possible times or demon flipping only after a knockdown.
You want to let the tip of your foot hit them from uptop when they get up. This sounds very vague but try the following: forward throw, dash dash (really fast with no pause after the throw or dash), medium demonflip, and then hit the kick for divekick. This will stuff uppercuts, and this is generally how you want to land the divekick, spacingwise. After a while you get a better feel of when to use what strength of kick.
Really? I always do a TK air jab fireball after i land an ultra, and it hits as a crossup. I don’t even walk back a little bit. I just wait a little bit and then go for the TK air fireball. If i want it to his as a non crossup, should i just remove the delay? When i try that it usually results in the fireball missing the opponent.
Fireball game is extremely complex and you can’t really give 1 answer as to when to throw them. For demonflips, i do them on wakeup situations and you can use them to punish other fireballs (EX demonflip).
Do small step back before it for non cross up then. I found the TK air fireball whiffed through unless I took a tiny step back first and anything more than a tiny step back gives an air fireball that does not register as a cross-up. Are you testing how each of these are blocked with playback?
Nah, i just set the CPU to auto-block and just see what direction they block. Haven’t really tested it thorough though.
Sorry if my questions are fairly frequent guys, but I only just switched to playing Akuma the other day, so far i’m getting my ass handed to me online lol.
One of my biggest problems is maximizing on damage in certain situations, for example I often do cr.fowardsxxLK tatsu into fierce shoryuken. However my opponents are extremely quick to adapt to this and just crouch alot.
Can I pull off any damaging combos using footsies when my opponent is crouching? The only other combo i’ve used is crouching forwardXXhadouken (or whatever Akumas version of the hadouken is called). But the damage output from this is really quite insignificant.
The only way I can seem to get within range to do Akumas other high damaging combos is by jumping in, but everyone and their grandmother will simply anti air any attempts at this.
I’m also finding Akumas, cr jab, cr jab, cr strong xxHadouken to have rather limited effectiveness, purely because of the range of cr strong after cr jabs. Any suggestions on when is a oppurtune time to use this move?
As you can see, there’s alot of questions lol; i’ve got even more but I thought I would hold back a little 
You can’t just do cr.forward into lk. tatsu hoping the opponent isn’t blocking low, lk.tatsu is punishable on block and good players will punish you heavily if you did it without hit confirmation.
There are many combos Akuma can do (Combo thread), but here are some of his basic and important combos:
Hit confirmed combos on standing opponents:
cr. lp, cr. lp, cr. lp xx lk. tatsu, HP SRK
cr. lk, cr. lp, cr. lp xx lk. tatsu, HP SRK
You need to link the last cr.lp and not chain it to be able to cancel the jab into lk. tatsu (Hit confirmation thread)
Hit confirmed combos on crouching opponents:
cr. lp, cr. lp, cr. lp xx ex tatsu
cr. lp, cr. lp, cr. mp xx ex fireball or ex tatsu
Heavy combos for punishing opponents mistakes (i.e blocked SRK or most ultras):
cl. HP xx lk. tatsu, HP SRK (that’s close standing fierce into lk tatsu)
cl. HP xx fireball FADC cl. HP xx lk tatsu, HP SRK
You can replace the HP SRK after the lk. tatsu with EX SRK for more damage and stun, but the EX SRK is rumored to be nerfed in SSFIV:AE. Also, you can replace the HP SRK with sweep vs some characters, it gives you less damage but earns you an untechable knockdown (which if used properly with Akuma’s wakeup mixups/vortex, will most probably earn you much more damage).
Does crouching jab have more range than crouching mid then? Because as I said one of my main problems is whiffing the crouching mid punch in a combo due to poor range
cr. strong (mp) pushes the opponent further away than cr. jab which could result in a whiffed lk. tatsu, that’s why it’s usually better to go for the cr. jab into lk. tatsu after two hit confirmation crouching jabs.
Ah so that would kill two birds with one stone, I wouldn’t wiff the tatsu plus i’d only be using 2 attacks to lead into it meaning the range at which I could start the combo would be more leniant.
Thanks.
A different kind of question:
What do you guys think of JR’s play-style? I ask because I’ve been watching some of his matches and he’s not the standard Akuma. Less emphasis on knockdowns, doesn’t tatsu-sweep, more of a priority towards maximum damage. Also does some interesting setups I never see anyone else do, such as ST. HK > FP SRK (probably to avoid mashers and lag?). He strikes me as a good Akuma and definitely not a “lucky ultra setup guy”.
>.<
Wow I’m pretty terrible at pulling of Akumas hit confirms into LK tatsu, the odd thing is i’m more consistent with his cr.jab, cr.jab, cr.forwardxxLk tatsu hit confirm than I am with this 3xcr.jabxxLK tatsu :S.
Timing is not my strong suit lol, I guess i’ll be dedicating most of my Street Fighter time to learning to do the 3x crouching jab hit confirm in training mode.
How long did it take you guys to learn this, out of curiousity? I realise every person is different but i’m just curious.
Training Mode at least 10 mins a day… for the most part
Online will ruin your timing unless you always play people with a flawless connection
JR’s playstyle is more in your face than you would normally see from Akuma players (except maybe Tokido). Guy doesn’t give a shit and will walk forward to wail on you every round of every match. His reaction speed is IN-SANE and his tactics will keep you guessing all the time which is why his demon setups work so good.
I’ve been watching a lot of his matches lately and I’ve been able to pull off some JR type demons (I did it last night against James and Joey). It’s not something I do all the time, but when the chips are down, sometimes fate favors the bold: doing something your opponent may not expect can net you interesting results. 
All in all though, if you’re looking for a “style” to copy, you’d be better off trying to base yourself off someone like Richard, West or Tokido even as JR’s style is too unique to fully capture. Unless you have his execution and reflexes. In that case, by all means, go for it!
so apparently Akuma’s Super beats Ultra I… never knew that until today
so apparently Akuma’s Super beats Ultra I… never knew that until today
From what I’ve seen, his style is an unconventional (I might even say flowchart-like) improvised one. Seems like he’s aware of what a ‘solid’ Akuma style generally plays like, but doesn’t care for the supposed efficent stuff himself and does his own thing regardless. I dunno, perhaps it’s because he doesn’t believe in the forums and youtube vids resulting in everyone having copycat styles for best risk:reward efficency. Nonetheless he has found his own way of controlling matches with his style from lots of experience with strong opponents etc.
I think he does far HK into SRK just coz it’s his thing and he doesn’t care that it does less damage than the standard HK combos.
IMO if you try JRs style without JRs skills you’ll probably just get bodied.