Gouki’s neutral really seems to be that of a shoto.
You need a REAL zoning game. Get that AA combo into a knockdown then rushdown.
He has the combos and the set-ups, but you cannot access these things safely unless you have a real handle on SF fundamentals.
Capcom showing once again that they have been doing this fighting game design thing for quite some time.
Yup.
Btw the second setup from the video I linked by Tali is dirty as fuck. Very reliable, just have to end some combo by tatsu into ex.dp and cancel it into vtrigger. Then I do it by delaying the air fireball just a little bit if I don’t want it to cross up. That’s almost impossible to see at least for me, it’s super dirty. It doesn’t even say crossup for the crossup version and it is indeed a crossup.
The sweep one require a situation where you kinda do the Ryu thing with sweep xx vtrigger and hope it CC for a setup so I am not a huge fan because if not that’s a meh vtrigger activation. Good point is that it uses no meter so you can trick them into a raging demon with another reset later.
I’m seeing a lot of mixed opinions. I feel like the guy is a bit weaker than usual. Not garbage or anything, more like solid mid with room to move up.
I feel like, for the life/stun that he has, his buttons aren’t as good as they need to be. They need to give him some more health or maybe buff cr. mk range just a tad. I’m not asking for anything godlike, but that move is waaaaay too stubby and he gets torn up by counter hits already.
edit: To add to that, he’s got some garbage matchups. Like… some you-need-to-pick-an-alt ones.
https://twitter.com/omgAyane/status/812717403545145345?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
posting this from the lounge thread, don’t want to lose it
His short buttons are definitely a concern.
Yeah, I was a Urien/Cammy player in S1 and trying to adjust to these stubby buttons is driving me nuts. I don’t think he’s a bad character, but damn… he really shouldn’t have to work this hard with health/stun like this. Cammy is a great example of this, especially with her S2 changes. Plenty of ways in (divekick took a hit, but still usable if you space it right), almost every button she has is great and can lead to damage, her combos keep her momentum going for the most part, and her major downside is her health/stun.
So why does she get all that but Akuma doesn’t? I mean, he’s got a lot of those things but just not on her level. Granted, he’s also got a few more tools than her – but my early impressions are the tools aren’t good enough to balance out the buttons.
I feel like he’s just outside of being amazing. It’s like they had an idea of how they wanted him to play, but they wanted to play it a bit too safe on release. Maybe keep him stubby but give him air fireballs on neutral and back jump? Make them slow and bad, but let him have it. Maybe a better runaway/zoning game will force people to chase and will make his reach less of a disadvantage. Maybe make him faster in general, to counter balance the reach. Maybe give him less pushback on block so he can throw out that cr.mk to fish a bit more. There’s a lot I love about him, but when I compare the work I put in with Akuma vs. some other characters I’ve been messing with then it seems very obvious to me that he’s definitely lacking in some places. This will show even more as time goes on and people figure out how to play against him.
Still fun as hell, tho
They are basically balancing characters the same way BB does it. Give every character a glaring flaw but some mediocre way around that flaw.
For akuma and ryu (and many other characters) it’s stubby buttons.
For urien it’s anti air
For Chun it’s commitment needed to convert anything into meaningful damage
For Alex bison and Nash it’s ridiculously slow walkspeed.
I hate this style of balancing cause it means people can shut their brains off and just abuse your characters weakness.
To me this kind of balancing just means that you have to know what’s up and pick a character that you think you can make up for their weaknesses really well.
For me akumas stubby normals aren’t such a HUGE liability so far because he “makes up for it” with his fireball and cracked out setups and damage (compared to the rest of the cast)
video of the max combos above me
[quote=“Kuwabara01, post:549, topic:181358”]
video of the max combos above me
[/quote]Good shit. Just from a cursory glance, like most chars EX in combos is often not worth it (+20 or so dmg, and where +40 is already considered pretty good).
Unrelated, but it seems you wouldn’t ever want to just pop your Trigger raw, since this takes away your fireball game (unless you’re comfortable wasting it with 4 hados).
I’m trying to decide if you want to play Akuma “lame”, that is, prioritizing Trigger build by using Skill to AA, combo (BnB involving ST.MK -> Kick Skill -> Punch Skill just about barely builds half a bar), and absorb telegraphed moves. Such a strategy would only have its payoff when you’re able to pop Trigger twice in a round; in the interim, you’re giving up damage and momentum as you’re trying to lame out your white health regen. Viable?
Otherwise, as his Trigger is pretty underwhelming (why a 3bar on a 875 health char that also drains when doing moves), you could go full “frame adv” using HK.Tatsu for oki and abusing F.HP. The problem with this, of course, is if you fuck up once in your pressure, they’re gonna turn it around and whale on your 875 health ass.
Conflicted atm between the two. Like, if you’re not going for the double Trigger, I see no reason to use Skill much either in combos (doesn’t hit as far as LK.Tatsu, liable to fuck up, and often necessitates a whiffed LK.Tatsu to get close enough prompting a side-switch) or raw (muh white health regen).
Akuma may have a vortex with cr.mp,st.mk x lk tatsu (wiff another lk tatsu here and you crossup and have a perfectly timed cr.mp meaty)
Or cr.mk,st.mp xx v skill K xx lk tatsu wiff another tatsu as you land and you get ambiguous left/right stuff as they rise.
If we mix this up with his other ender options we can keep our opponents guessing about what exact type of mixup they are going to have to look for. This kind of things works really well on skullgirls… making the opponent guess between a high low mixup… but going for a crossup instead… or a frame trap/throw mixup but doing a high instead… etc etc.
The other thing that really needs to be found with akuma is his repressure options. So far all I have is fhp/demonflip late palm/dash up… which is pretty pathetic for an 875 HP character when rashid and Laura have higher HP and better repressure/turn stealing.
If youre having trouble with his neutral, the general idea is to use fireballs enough to where the opponent isnt just dashing into you or pressing their longer buttons, and use the hesitation to take the space from your opponent. Dash in, walk crmp etc.
The key to using the fireball as a poke is finding the spot at the edge of the opponents range where you also wont get clipped during fireball start up by whatever CC button they start flailing with.
Been saying it since I first got him. The fact that he lacks range on his normals drives me MAD. I used to play Nash and I got Urien because I like his range, Aegis combos, and is my favorite 3S character. It became readily apparently he lacks range on his normals. And his RH whiffing on crouchers doesn’t help. But yeah, the plan from the beginning was to stress the importance of FBs because of his lack of range. It’s odd playing an Akuma without a crMk with good range but he’s my favorite character and aside from Urien, the major reason why I got back into SFV.
[quote=“jsfinis, post:550, topic:181358”]
I wrote up top about his v trigger. It’s strong if you know what moves to use it for and in what situations… here’s cliffs notes:
Fireball = +1 on block, links from lk tatsu and combos into DP
DP = 200 damage and can’t be backrolled and it’s plus 33 on kd so akuma gets double dash into st.lp for free. Also his fhp hits on frame 33 so that is also free to everything except metered reversals (and is basically autotiming)
Air fireball/demonflip air fireball = free, high priority, plus on block way to get in if your opponent stays grounded.
The way NOT to use his v trigger is to simply throw fireballs from fullscreen with it… that’s a waste.
He’s also got some of the best activations in the game with a huge number of good ones such as:
St.hp TC
Sweep
Fireball up close
Fireball from far
Ex DP
@Dime_x
Peep this:
Cr.Mk, St.Lp, MK Tatsu, LK Tatsu (whiff). The LK Tatsu will cross up or not depending on what recovery they pick. The loop links back into itself as Cr.Mk meaty will beat 3F normals and will link into St.Mk.
I didn’t like it at first because I thought cr.mk was -2. But at -1 into a 3 frame move… that means only 3 framer will beat it and 4 framers will trade. Probably not a bad string on block if not abused.
Are there any other ways to set it up? I looked at it yesterday and it seems that the primary thing needed is a spacing to make the first hit of mk tatsu wiff? There are lots of combos that allow that spacing.
Hey I took a look at your CFN yesterday, was impressed by your neutral. It’s nice.
Your cr.hp use was also nice but after seeing it a few times it did seem like you were abusing it a bit to much like going for it in punishes where it was to far away and stuff. I also noticed you missed the cr.hp CC combo. To make that combo just plain easy you can just dash up and bhp. That will float them for a demonflip juggle or red fireball juggle depending on what spacing you prefer to be at.
Really liked your akuma though, nicely patient and reserved but willing to go in and handle business. That’s how I’m trying to make my akuma as well.
It’s strong-ish in a vaccuum; compared to others, for instance, Ken’s doesn’t deplete and he gets similar boosts to his damage and moves on top of 1000 health, and Cammy gets to use hers twice in a round. As far as Triggers go, it’s nothing special.
But I get your point.
The question I have is if it’s worth playing for Trigger-build (with the hopes of getting 2 activations per round) or discarding it all and going for offense on our plus situations. The dichotomy also means you either play super lame or pretty fucking aggressive (at the risk of being turned around on).
Yeah that’s nice, just like Ken’s LK.Tatsu in the corner when he’s in Trigger. Could be useful, and saves us the mental drain of having to check standing/crouching since MK.Tatsu hits both. I normally don’t like gimmicks that can only work once, but Akuma’s has a lot more utility than Ken’s (had to be in Trigger, corner only). Could be good.
*EDIT: Wow that shit’s so ambiguous in the corner lmao.
what’s your cfn?
Thanks Dime! Truly I didn’t even know what the best punish was after CC Cr.Hp, only discovered it in the discord today. Haha.
The first hit of the MK Tatsu should hit. It did for me. As far as setting it up goes, it depends on whether you want to sacrifice damage for oki, as MK Tatsu always hits off any normal that you can cancel. (Unless I misunderstood your question?!)
Thinking along the lines of 2 v triggers a round with a 3 bar v trigger is crazy talk IMO. You should be focusing on getting early trigger build so that akuma can activate at half health instead of 3/4 or so that he can use a v reversal and still get a v trigger in the same round.
Activating at half health opens up more options because then you aren’t so desperate to use comeback tactics and can just run your game. Also, the opponent is more likely to be scared of a half health activation cause you will be closer in life to the opponent more often and so the opponent not be able to just be patient and weather the storm while sitting on a 70% lifelead or so.