So how’s everyone feeling on Kolin so far? Havn’t lost to one yet, but considering how close I’ve come to doing so, I feel like maybe just maybe I’ve got yet another semi-crappy matchup to deal with. A month or two from now I expect to hate going against her as least as much as I hate going against Laura. Probably not as much as I hate Balrog, Guile, or Zangief though.
Jumping in on her is a bad idea as, when you don’t get air grabbed, you get parried; which also makes demon flipping similarly stupid. Her buttons are stubby enough that you can actually play footsies against her, BUT, unlike Akuma, she has a useful parry, and if you get parried twice, you’re half dead. Setting up some decent jab pressure and baiting wakeup parries seems to be a necessity here. Worst of all, her biggest weaknesses thus far seem to be fireballs and poor damage. But Akuma’s fireballs are so bad that that weakness is effectively a non-issue, and with his low health her damage may as well be Balrog tier (ok, not quite that dumb, but still). Also, her vtrigger may has well been built around turning Akuma into a snowman because that shits hella effective -_-
Akuma is the only character in the game with a true air fireball so you should have a better time jumping on her than other characters. Almost everyone else in the game is forced to throw out physical hit boxes that can be countered while you can protect your jump ins with a fireball.
If you play against a Kolin that really knows how to play her you will see that she has quite a few lengthy buttons that aren’t stubby at all. Even her s.LK is one of the better whiff punish buttons in the game.
She has “poor” damage because her set play post combo is among the best in the game. Like Ibuki if you get knocked down, mashing on backrise isn’t going to do a whole lot and if you get countered you get hard knocked down for free pressure.
Yeah, a “better” time for sure, but still not good. A Kolin with good reactions will air grab you most of the time you jump in at a range where a fireball is a threat to lead to any sort of real followup. At some ranges I’ll throw out an instant air fireball just for shits and catch em going for an air throw, but of course you can’t followup afterwards. This has actually been the difference in alot of my matchups against her so far. Against a Kolin that really can’t figure out the spacing/angle after a fireball-protected jump in, I’ve been able to abuse it pretty handily. Against Kolins that either figure out or already know the spacing (my Akuma buddy who has jumped over to Kolin, for example), well… I may as well be bending over and spreading my cheeks. I’ve also been doing well at baiting Kolins that bother to parry to open up for some free damage. Kolins that never parry (hence, they never take the bait) gave me fits for a while until I realized that the same Kolins that never parry also tend to never properly respond to air fireballs either.
And while I will agree that some of her buttons are a bit better than I would have initially thought, I still retain that you can play a decent footsie game against her. She’s one of the few characters that I’ll seriously try to raw confirm cr. MP against, for example. Though, part of that for me is a confidence issue, because I’ve got nearly 0 confidence in Akuma’s buttons :o
I like that comparison to Ibuki though. Everyone likes to make me feel crazy for some reason but Ibuki gives me fits. Possibly because I’ve got a legit Ibuki main in my local area (literally playing her since there was an Ibuki to play), but now that you’ve brought it up, it’s quite possible that I hate playing against her for similar reasons to why I hate playing against Ibuki. I probably just need to git guud, and definitely still don’t have her completely figured out, but I still really feel like the matchup is just a hair in her favor. Like almost 6:4 but not quite.
…side note. Damn Jin. Good to see you’re still around.
It’s ok though: Season 2’s changes convinced me that Capcom is either ignorant of how goofy their meta has become, or is committed to making it ever goofier in the hopes that the goof will reach critical levels and transform from goofiness into intelligence.
I personally cannot wait for this patch and the exciting direction Capcom will take us to next; will it be rock paper, or paper scissors, or god forbid the most mindblowing combination, rock scissors???
I doubt they’re going to add paper any time soon. It has pretty much been rock-scissors all day. Throws and 50/50s. To add paper would be to add a neutral game, which thus far it seems like they don’t want there to be such a thing.
Health changes are some of the laziest design decisions in the world.
That’s the dev saying “I don’t want to have to think about this character’s toolset, his strengths, weaknesses, unique niche and how they can be changed for the better, the broken things toned down and the weak things made viable. Here’s a constant number C, now you can play the same game with ±C.”
Formula hasn’t changed, approach hasn’t changed, nothing to lab or think about, just shift the graph ±C. DAT CLEVER BALANCING DOE.
Welp, to save everyone the disappointment of reading the patch notes, Shoryu won’t be 80% ass anymore, but Akuma still won’t have a vskill and his fireballs will remain trash tier. Or poke tier, if you want to be more positive about it.
Balrog… will remain a nightmare. I don’t even really understand how they think this character is OK. And if he can have 1k health with what he’s currently capable of, Akuma is definitely a go for a good 950.
Urien… will be a little less of a bitch to fight (though, I never thought that matchup was hopeless to begin with personally).
Cammy… LOL Capcom what the fuck.
Guile… shouldn’t be completely BS anymore but… we’ll see.
Ibuki… mark my words, she’s more of a problem than people seem to give her credit for.
Juri… I’m sure this only matters to me because I have a Juri that I regularly play, but this should be a bit easier. Nice even matchup.
Ken… should still be the best shoto.
Laura… should still be a fun matchup. Still in her favor a bit, but fun.
Nash… will be a more obvious dicey matchup for Akuma. It already is dicey if you come against a Nash player that actually stuck with him, but expect this character to be more problematic in the future.
Ryu… should still wish he was the best shoto, but only because Akuma will be 1 notch above him.
Vega… One to watch. If anybody actually starts playing him.
Zangief… still gonna be a problem but might maybe be better. Maybe. Possibly. Probably still gonna suck. Maybe not but… Ugh
Overall, Akuma should have less bad matchups and a few more even matchups, but I’m not expecting him to end up with any more in his favor. Gonna still be a tryhard 2017 boys :s
For those who like numbers, Akuma should still be sitting 13th-16th.
He was pretty much owed the 25 health, so that’ll help us survive some strings of events that used to barely lead to death but, overall, meh.
Of course nothing matters until the patch hits, but those are my predictions.
I’ve spent the last year playing ken now I’m switching over to akuma. do you guys generally go for building as much v gauge as possible early on? or always take the damage?
really like a lot of his block strings and options off of them. and with ken getting another nerf i might as well switch.
Depends on the matchup. Sometimes you “need” vtrigger just to have a fighting chance against some characters. Guile is a perfect example of this. In that matchup you want to always maximize vtrigger gain. By that I mean through use of combos by the way, not parrying. In almost every parryable situation there’s a better option.
With that said, there are also matchups where you want to maximize damage as well. I would say Necalli is a matchup where you just want him dead. Other characters that fit the bill here are characters that just don’t care whether or not you’re in vtrigger. Zangief I would say is one of those characters.
There are still nuances therein that are highly situational as well. Sometimes spacing can be an issue, mind games play a role, and oki must be considered as well… Also, a character that you just want to kill might turn into a character you want to maximize v-meter gain against if you start a match fully stocked with super and you know that your opponent will likely give you a prime opportunity for a Shun Goku Satsu.
So this is partially matchup dependent and partially up to you. Everyone tends to have a demon (no pun intended) or two that just has their number. Mine have always been Zangief, Guile, and Dhalsim and it sucks like hell that 2 out of 3 of those are purely dumb strong in this game and naturally counter pretty much everything Akuma wants to do.
With that said, Ken is probably going to still be the best shoto so… don’t come expecting an easier route. If Ken just isn’t a good fit, then Akuma might be a better pick up. In a case where both equally fit you, at best, you’d be on par with Ken, and you’d probably be working harder for wins all the same.
thanks for the tips. I havent been using him long but akuma already feels better. st.LK functions in a similar manner to kens just a tad shorter. being able to combo that into a fireball that knocks down is a huge plus. you can combo kens into dp…but if you’re wrong youre dead.
ppl say ken is the better shoto, but I don’t see it. akuma has better whiff punishes better buttons(3 frame normal). overall more utility to his game, only thing ken has over him is health. that being said I think the shotos will be mid tier season 2.5 or worse.
cr.mp xx EX tatsu has been my go-to buffer for ken. its simple, sets up oki, works from 99% of all ranges. Its much harder to do that with akuma/ryu’s ex tatsu so im at a bit of a loss what kind of whiff conversions akuma can do. At least ryu can forgo EX tatsu and instead buffer cr.mp xx HK tatsu in hopes of checking a dashing opponent. akumas HP dp travels the least horizontally out of all the shotos, his HK tatsu hits unreliably at range (if at all), vskill cancel into P/K whiffs…
am i suppose to whiff punish everything with st.mk xx LK tatsu instead? If so, ive been spoiled with 3 active frames this entire time.
Stupid dmg with only 1 bar, his vt doesnt drain every time you do shit in vt, both akuma and ken have vortex, more hp, stupid buttons like st.mk or st.mp or hk, great game in general, hes the better shoto, no doubt about that
akuma i dont know very well and I’m still learning but I know ken very well. so I’ll address what you said first. ken doesnt have a “vortext”. he does have a strong oki game. but that isn’t a vortext. st.mk is an 8 frame normal thats -2 and whiffs on crouchers at max distance. it’s hardly dumb. st.mp and st.hk are pretty pedestrian. st. hk received 2 nerfs it’s slow and doesn’t combo on normal hit.
now to address the ken does more damage myth. again I’m a novice with akuma so my combos may not be optimal
Personally I say it because I’ve got a long history with both characters. Before Akuma existed, I played Ken. The day Akuma came into existence, I basically dropped Ken unless I was getting my ass handed using Akuma. So you could say I’ve got a little over 20 years of “active” play with Akuma, and over 25 years of… mmm… “dabbling” with Ken. That said, as far as SFV goes, I started out playing Nash and Ken when the game released.
Thing about Ken is… he’s simple as hell, but highly effective. In most SF games having a character that’s too “simple” is actually somewhat of a negative because eventually the mechanics of the game start to favor characters that are somewhat more technical. Capcom has almost completely obliterated that in SFV. Simple is not only in, it’s very easy to win with.
So what we’ve got right now in terms of shotos are: simple, easy-to-master Ken | simple, hard-to-master Ryu | technical, hard-to-master Akuma.
Generally speaking, Akuma’s benefits for being a complete glass cannon means that it is typically fairly obvious that he’s the stronger shoto as your hands become more capable. He tends to have blatantly higher damage and obviously better mixups for always being a couple of combos and a stray hit or two from dead. Thing is, in SFV, you don’t get that benefit until vtrigger is on the table, and because it’s a 3 meter vtrigger, you’re either somewhere close to dead when you unlock it, or a little less dead from having used his vskill extensions in combos (which actually means reducing your damage output somewhat). There’s also pretty much no room for error because this game’s overall damage output is both very high and Akuma’s health, as usual, is very low. And then you have Ken.
As you’ve already pointed out, Ken’s damage output is for the most part pretty much on par with Akuma’s. This only really changes to be in Akuma’s favor when he’s basically one combo from dead for a very large chunk of the cast. To that end, I’ll say that Akuma has a potentially more “impactful” vtrigger. But that impact comes with very harsh downsides as well (because you know… the lowest health character having a 3 meter vtrigger isn’t bad enough).
While in vtrigger, as Akuma, you lose gobs of vmeter just for throwing even a grounded fireball. Admittedly, vtrigger makes Akuma’s air game inapproachably good and finally gives you the over-the-top mixup options he’s known for, but the cost for guessing wrong is high even when you don’t get punished by your opponent. You’re basically punished for even attempting to poke your opponent with a fireball. You can throw red fireballs, sure, but that’s only even an option against characters that don’t specialize in full screen punishes, and even those that don’t will still only be a well-timed jump in from killing you if you do. Same deal for punishing with a shoryu when the animation doesn’t complete. You waste a gob of vmeter for, at best, one HP of damage. What’s even worse is that shoryu will occasionally glitch out and leave you in a really bad situation afterwards where you’re still landing and your opponent is put in prime position to end you. Ken’s vtrigger isn’t as impactful, however, you typically get more time to actually take advantage of it’s benefits. It also takes the ONLY good thing about Akuma’s fireballs and gives that to you as well. Except it’ll work from whatever distance, including full screen. Still, I’ll give the nod to Akuma for his vtrigger having a bit more “potential” if everything goes according to plan. Playing off of that…
Arguably, Ken’s ground game is also arguably somewhat better where Akuma’s air game is better as usual. From most distances hes got a better fireball, which somewhat lends to him having what I’d call a more “solid” neutral game. Now, neutral barely exists in SFV, and I’m not necessarily saying his neutral overall is “better” (I’d actually say Akuma’s is better situationally, while being more gimmicky) but overall his buttons “feel” better to me. And with as many anti-air options as there are in this game… Well, the short of it is that alot of air attacks are always only a decently timed jab away from being rendered useless. Akuma being able to throw a fireball to cover his air approach saves him from a bit of the foolishness, but even that doesn’t help in some matchups. If Akuma had his trademark walk speed, we might have a different story here. Not to mention demon flip is laughably punishable, but that’s neither here nor there. So in that regard, I’d give the nod to Ken.
The intangible part of all of this is the technical nature of Akuma Vs. the simpler nature of Ken. Akuma has what I’d call a larger toolbox, but also NEEDS to use more options in his toolbox to be as effective as Ken is. Any would-be benefit to having said toolbox is too situational to really call advantageous in what is, again, a game where simplicity doesn’t really come with the usual downsides of lower damage output, or even necessarily obviously worse mixup options. Going autopilot with Ken will get you places that get you killed when autopiloting with Akuma. At the very least, you’ll at least have time to “wake up” where Akuma is basically a dead man.
So all this boils down to two characters that, in my book, WOULD be even. But Ken has alot more health. That gives you more time to kill your opponent, more room for error, and more time to both read and set up your opponent. That alone gives him the nod for being, overall, the best shoto imo. The benefits of playing Akuma just don’t outweigh the simplistic, yet highly effective toolset that Ken has to justify the large difference in durability.
It’s not a monster of a difference mind you. If I had to put numbers to it, let’s say is Akuma is about 15th, Ken is about 13th. Ryu is firmly out of the teens at the moment though haha.
