I’m not exactly a good Akuma player, but I find that it is most effective on the opponents wakeup and if you special cancel into it from say a crouching forward (crouching medium kick) that being said using it on characters with quick reversals on wakeup can lead to you getting hit, if you don’t space if perfectly. And i’m guessing really good players would punish you for special cancelling into it from crouching forward, although I haven’t met a single person who has managed to yet.
I also like to jump backwards and make them chase me, which causes alot of players to jump forwards after you. If they do this I like to use the time when they’re falling from the air to initiate a demonflip, it’s not perfect but I have alot more success this way than I do just randomly throwing them out.
To tell you the truth, it’s kind of rare for a experienced/strong player to fish for your flip and countering them with an air to air. That should happen only when you get very predictable with it - and even then, the flip is pretty slow. So first advice, just don’t abuse it from fullscreen and such.
The best scenario for a “safe” DF is when your opponent cannot really hit you in the air, so the “standard” setup for Akuma is to get an untechable knockdown: throw, sweep (on about 2/3 of the cast (link here), you can do LK Tatsu into sweep, sacrificing some damage to startup mixing up on your opponent), DF Palm and Throw all work fine. Those are, of course, your best tools to start the infamous Vortex - and I recommend you stop by its own thread, here (The Vortex Thread).
You can also cancel a normal into the Demon Flip, something which will give the opponet a very small window to react: there’s no chance for them to hit you in the air, but once you land, you gotta be careful.
So far i’m only used to playing fairly scrubby/decentish players, but lately i’ve found i’m going up against alot of good players, who are capable of teching or punishing all my tick throw attempts. I heard the best way to get around this is to trick them into thinking your going to do a tick throw but then throw out a frame trap instead.
However I’ve tried what I believe to be a frame trap, but they end up either magically blocking that too or throwing out jabs which beat me. I’m guessing i’m obviously doing something wrong, or that i’m mistaken about something. I usually use cr.med, when I want to attempt it.
I’m really having a hard time, penetrating my opponents defences against good players. Whereas with not so good players I can just spam crossups and score a direct hit.
I also have another question.
I’ve been watching more Akumas videos online, and i’ve noticed good players often use a cross up air fireball on their opponents wake up, and it looks like a really safe option compared to most other things in the vortex (I suck at getting the correct distance to demonflip dive kick shotos). Is he using a normal air tatsu, or is it a TK Air tatsu? and where about exactly do you need to stand in regards to your opponent, to pull this off?
If they block, you are using your trap before their normal/tech comes out; if they interupt you, your normal is delayed at a point where their normal is becoming active and beating it out, so that timing is too late. I think the best thing to say is that they are syncing up with the tempo of your blockstrings and finding where the holes are. If you keep your timings mixed then you’re bound to catch them out.
Be confident of another thing though: you can throw the opponent out of their crouch tech. If you do jab, jab and leave just a little gap for something to come out before the throw, then their crouch tech won’t work and they’ll get thrown. The crouch tech offers protection when it isn’t starting up or coming out, like when it’s registered within block stun or during a grab animation (which prevents the low coming out). If they delayed a little more, then your throw would start and then the tech would save them; but that delay leaves them open to a trap. Basicly, don’t feel that just because you’ve seen them using a crouch tech that you have to normal trap them until they stop in order to use throw again… the throw is still part of the offense.
(if they stand tech, then they get a full window; but this becomes vulnerable to lows like cr.MK EX fireball)
I fell in love with the air fireball cross-up as soon as I learned how to do it. It’s both low risk and confusing to defend, and doing that into SRK is good for chip-outs too. Can only be done in certain circumstances though.
Palm is most common. Position yourself at their feet, then TK jab air fireball. To time it correctly, they basicly need to wake with it passing through their invulnerable body, and then hitting the ankle of their backfoot when they become active. Record and playback, check how it’s blocked. The timing is everything. If you switch it up a bit and do the TK air fireball slightly later than cross-up timing, it’s a non cross-up. You get frame advantage on block and combos are easy to confirm with fierce. Players aren’t as familiar blocking the mix-up as they are with the traditional jump cross-up game.
Flip throw is next. Forward dash then jump forward and jab air fireball. It’s not TK timing but it’s still early in the jump. Record and playback to test. It should cross-up against their shoulder and the advantage is the same as the palm one.
After Ultra I. You’re left in the perfect positioning for the TK jab air fireball, but unlike palm you have very little time before they rise. If you TK jab air fireball straight away, it will just pass through them. You need a slight pause before it. You can stay still for the pause, or do a teeeeeeeny step back and then do it. If your step back is any more than tiny, it will be a non cross-up.
These are the most common setups. Most of Akumas knockdowns don’t give you the time you need to set it up, even the sweep. If you do an SRK combo finisher and they don’t tech, you can walk up to their feet and do the TK jab air fireball at the correct time for the cross-up too, less reliable stuff like that.
Often the first c.mp above will net a counterhit if they stick something out. Sometimes I briefly walk back as part of the stand. Note that the brief stand is to invoke a slight delay so as to give your opponent time to os tech (thus beginning to stick a normal out that you can counterhit).
However, if they’re teching a lot, just plain start punishing that shit.
c.lk, c.lp, c.lp, wait, ex tatsu.
Even if they don’t tech, you’ll be safe most of the time as a blocked EX tatsu is difficult to punish for a lot, if not most of the cast.
There’s no go-to tech buster setups however. A lot of this stuff depends entirely upon the whims, patterns and tendency of your opponent. Its up to you to figure out exactly what he’s attempting to do in situations where you (or him) are ripe for grabs. A mate of mine is very confident with reading tech attempts to the point where he’ll just rip out an SRK. When he uses Akuma or Ryu he usually saves his stocks to cancel out of a bad guess. His meter use pretty much goes into this alone as he likes to play up close and in people’s face.
A big part of smashing techs and scoring counterhits from OS tech attempts is to also try conditioning your opponent into thinking you’re a tic throw happy bastard. Do a couple of blatant tic throw attempts to make him think you’re a dirty bastard, then change gears and smash out his instinct to tech with an srk or ex tatsu or even counterhit setup. If you do this a couple of times he’ll get rattled and then you’ve really got him by the balls. You’ll be surprised how many free grabs you’re more likely to get away with thereafter.
One thing to keep in mind though - a lot of this stuff isn’t always applicable to shitty opponents. Counterhit setups and tech baiting usually falls apart in the face of morons who don’t think and just mash away. Save this stuff for opponents who tend to have a bit of thought behind their approach. Also note that a skilled opponent may catch on to what you are doing and reversal some of your setups. This is typically done when they have stocks to cancel a potentially bad guess, or if your trickery starts getting predictable.
This is a post written by Toxy on our Australian SFIV forums. All major tournaments in Australia always come down to Toxy and HumanBomb with Toxy driving a truly wicked Akuma. He knows his stuff and this article is a good read about counterhits, jab spammers and teching.
Actually you can easily get hit in the air or air thrown…etc if the opponent became aware that you go for such unsafe setups, even the block stun of close fierce xx lk DF ain’t enough to not give them time to hit you in the air.
It’s the lk.tatsu juggle reset into HP XX DF palm for example that the opponent doesn’t have time to jump and hit you in the air, that’s unsafe vs good reversals though.
I’m not sure I get it, you’re suggesting there’s difference in the blockstun of HP xx DF when you go for it after a LK Tatsu?
The guy was asking how he could avoid getting countered by air to airs when DF’ing, how exactly do you have the time to stick out a normal when Gouki’s cancelling from a st.HP? I mean, not that it has happened to me, but as long as you don’t get predictable with it, I suppose it’s fine and the opponent has a very hard time reacting to it…
2- on hit: st.hp xx lk.tatsu, st.hp (reset) xx lk DF palm
You’ll be surprised how much time you have as Ryu to jump and hit Akuma in the air with the first setup, people with good reactions can do this, that’s why this gimmick is barely ever used at high level gameplay because most can react to it there. This trick usually works if used on rare occasions to hopefully catch the opponent off guard or the person you’re playing against doesn’t know how to punish it (for example a good amount of people I’ve seen JR play against online)
For the 2nd setup, if timed right the opponent shouldn’t be able to jump out, good/fast reversals will beat it though.
@ Gamogo, thanks a lot for the link to Toxy’s post man, he’s an awesome Akuma player and those information were really helpful. Would it be alright to post that link in the frame traps thread btw?
Go for it dude, I’m certain he won’t have a problem with it. He wrote this stuff with the intention for it to be read and shared, hence why it was posted on our forum publicly (it was also circulated across a few websites within AU).
It’s best used sparingly but boldly. It works against players (normal x flip, I mean) because (like many of JR’s tricks) when the opponent is intimidated and/or thinking about other threats they give that leeway of hesitation even though it can feasibly be reacted to and can end up eating stuff they “should’a seen coming”.
For example if you’re doing tick strings and frame traps: if you instead jab, jab then short demon flip; what can often happen is they stick out a crouch tech, notice they’re off guard and then decide to block while you flip throw them. Next time perhaps they’re ready with a cr.HP to AA it, but you do a dive kick so it messes their timing and they eat a combo. If you occasionally mix these in when an opponent respects your offense, then they can actually help you can get inside their head; even if this same guy would be reaction SRK’ing and jump normaling every time against someone they weren’t afraid of.
That’s my two cents on it.
No need to be scared to ever bust it out because it can be countered. Think of a good time to try it out against an opponent and see if they let you get away with it. What happens effectively tells you something about the opponent. If their guard is up, you can just shuffle it back into your deck of strats.
Yeah I thought it would be a good idea to post it there (just updated the main post) so it wouldn’t get lost in this thread =)
About the normal xx DF mixups, I do use it from time to time but try to not rely on it much even though I know it works well vs lots of players online who probably don’t know how to counter it or aren’t familiar with the Akuma matchup in general (I myself have pretty bad reactions and fall for it sometimes, but then I hate Akuma mirror matches and barely play it lol).
You were so right metallica, it’s damn easy to jump out of the close Fierce xx DF and counter with an air normal!
Ryu puts the hurt on Akumas abusing this, just LP DP into Super/Ultra (or another DP), lol. I’m kind of surprised that my opponents hardly ever move during that mixup, it gave me the (wrong) impression that there was much more blockstun. I don’t rely on it that much, maybe that’s the key for it to work.
I also experimented a bit with the Tatsu, st.HP xx DF reset: I don’t know if I just executed it poorly, but there’s actually time to jump and activate a very quick normal. I suppose characters with air throws would totally destroy this kind of gimmick. But again, maybe I was too sloppy at cancelling the standing Fierce (but I’m sure I cancelled it)?
Guys I have some questions regarding my vortex game.
What options are available at long range if you knock someone down with a red fireball?
Everything I can think of trying at that range using ex demon flip, they can easily counter with a dragonpunch if they’re shotos.
I have so much trouble setting up a good vortex against shotos, well more specifically people with quick reversals. It seems my vortex options are pretty limited when fighting them. As I find I can only really stuff their shoryukens if i’m already fairly close range on knockdown.
Against characters with slow reverals, I tend to jump forwards once and then activate the demonflip. I’m sure this has some holes in it but it has been fairly reliable for me so far.
I’ve also tried to adopt one of Tokidos tactics, which is to crossup using demon flip palm (by crossup I mean, jump over not damage), but for whatever reason when I do this it seems they get to attack first after I land. I’m obviously doing something wrong, any idea what?
Also I’ve noticed that Tokido uses quite a few demon flip palms, even when the opponent is standing. What situations can I try and do this, because when i’ve attempted it, I just get air to aired.
Tokido is not good at the fireball ground game stuff (he feels this is his weakness, Momochis strength) he looks for good times to use palm just to get close so he can probe better to start some offence.
The best times to look to do this are when the opponent is tied up in a way where they don’t have all their immediate options to anti air you. For example, if you palm over while they are blocking or neutral jumping a Shaku or fireball, or by using one of your fireballs to make them throw one to nullify it.
The aim is to pin them down in other animations and commitments so that they lose the time and space to AA your attempt to close the gap (it’s a different utility than trying to use far range flips offensively or to punish fireball recovery). If you just flip at them with no cover, it is much easier for them to cut those off by looking out for them; it’s best to pick your moment and try to tie their hands.
Shaku knockdowns are another way to do this and that brings me to your other question: In my case, I don’t purposefully aim to apply any mix-up from a Shaku knockdown at range; I just use that time to flip palm over to them as a distance closer.
****EDIT:****Considering i’m here, I might aswell ask. Does Akuma have anyway to build metre when he’s not being harrased? For example, I use to main Abel, and you could pretty much spam short roll if you felt you were safe.
I’ve noticed that fireballs have to actually connect to build metre, and his shoryuken builds metre without hitting but even the LP shoryuken has long recovery time.
