while slashes can beat gouki in a hurry, i think kens defensive capabilities make that match harder for akuma. his ability to punish any holes in your offense is something yang does really have, granted yangs offense may stun you faster, i think a strong kens overall presence dominates akuma.
Are you suggesting play keepaway? I’ve never seen a makoto not try to rtsd. They way I see it, the more you have her on lockdown, the better. Try to squeeze her into the corner, and as long as she has a super, or the potential for a super, dont even bother throwing, because you really need to do all you can to stay out of karakusa range.
sainthuey: just follow up with mk tatsu, and go for the mp shoryu. this combo is really good, it does like 1 less damage than your bnb, and they can be crouching, or it worked perfect for a crouching yang.
In regards to ken being a harder match, NO WAY! I could be wrong, but I don’t think you’ve played a good Yang, because they really tear up akuma. His crouching jabs can punish whiffed hurricanes, so you really have to hold them back. Plus, Yang has a definite stun threat. He can also dodge under air fb’s. You are kind of stuck in the ground, and can’t really use hurricanes as liberally as normal, plus, he is small.
Yang is a horrible matchup. I still think Yun and Ibuki are worse.
I try and stay grounded against Makoto unless I KNOW she will jump and I go for the air hurricane. And rinse the mk tatsu - Fierce shoryu on her.
Against Yang I mostly try and bait whiff and punish. I jump around a lot without actually hitting them and try to figure out which points they usually attack at, then work my way from there. Akuma can keep Yang away with a smart low mk zoning game, though watch out for random EX slashes if you whiff - its when Yang gets closer that he really becomes a threat. Learn to red parry slashes - its not as hard as you would think - though the risk VS reward factor depends heavily on your stun bar. If I think he’s going to start with the command grab mixups, I teleport away and hope he wasn’t expecting it. Pretty much impossible to outpoke him, so I’d favour option parrying as opposed to continuous poking.
Hope that made some sense :xeye:
Pherai-
Yes I am suggesting playing active keep away the majority of the time, especially if she has meter. Ideally akuma should want to get the lead and keep it. Because if she gets a single stock or is close to it she can kill akuma at any time(saII).
Akuma can be aggressive in places like knockdowns and resets but if she is using saII you have to be very careful on her half of the screen when she has meter.
Air to Air tatsu is good unless the mak sticks out j.rh which beats/trades with it at most angles (akuma pretty much has to get completely underneath it)
Naz: Do you ever try red parrying ex slashes? It seems like going for a red parry against normal slashes would be pretty safe, assuming you aren’t that close to stun. I don’t think they would have time to throw in the last slash by the time they realize you missed the parry on the second one (but im not sure). Either way, I’m suprised I haven’t been trying this.
JAK…: So do you try for some quick damage then keepaway the whole time? I’ll give this a shot, although it seems pretty counter intuitive. You would have to have an incredible keep away game to not get caught in something by makoto at some point, but if it works, it works!
Oh also, about makoto, what do you guys usually do when you are stuck in her hayate fury mode, where she hits you with a hayate, normal, hayate, normal etc. Low lk’s? Parrys? Just block? I try hurricanes but I know thats gonna get me in trouble one of these days.
haha, slashes(non ex) actually leave yang open, I find it hard to react if he just does 1 lp slash, but if he does lp then mp, just block them and follow up with bnb :D.
Parrying is kind of like gambling and I don’t do on my wakeup that often, i’d rather block and expect grab, or just block and do a hurricane which will usually push him back a bit off me.
Peace
I do a random shoryu, to keep her in check. and keepaway work pretty well against her, random c.MP FTW.
when yang does normal slashes, the second one will be the lp one ; and it’s way harder to punish.
hurricanes can get you in ALOT of trouble against a good makoto, cuz they can parry the first 2 hits into a normal dp, which does way way more stun than it should haha.
just mix it up. blocking a hayate gives u at least a c.mk. jump away if you think shes trying to grab you, nothing works 100%, thats why it’s a mixup. random shoryu isnt bad sometimes, but you have to use it in tandem with a purely high hitting move, many makotos option parry low in that situation against shotos, which isnt really a bad idea because you can just down parry the first hit of a shoryu, and block on reaction. you’ll probably get grabbed again if you mash on c.short.
^ which is why i go for hurricanes during hayate mixups - cannot be parried low. Anyways, Makoto owns in this matchup.
When I mentioned parrying slashes - I meant the EX ones. I believe the normal slashes aren’t THAT hard to punish - and the chip damage from the first two are minimal.
EX slashes - red parry the THIRD hit 
I actually thinks that Gouki/Makoto is an even matchup. I turtle to the max in my half of the screen when she’s close to get SA2 and it works pretty well, to the point where everybody switched to SA1. Makoto/Ryu is a pretty much even matchup just because of ryu’s c.mp and turtling abilities. You have better keepaway/turtling options than ryu. so why not use it?
I think I need to learn the Makoto matchup :mad: When I play XBL, even the most rubbish Makoto players can beat me.
Still man, if she guesses correctly, its all over. Its like playing Yun. The matchup is pretty good, until he has geneijin. Same case. Plus makotos are famously random. when all it takes is one guess, its worth it for them to take those guesses. As long as her sa2 isn’t a huge threat, it doesn’t feel like such an uphill battle like the twins, but when you suffer that 100% combo, you know that match is stacked against you. You kind of have to give up throws all together, and definitely cant go for any demons.
here’s a tip, STOP PLAYING XBL! lol
even u told me a while back.
guess u couldn’t resist.
nah u can still throw makoto, and go for demons. even if she does have sa2, its a threat yeah, but i really dont think that match is bad on high levels, mid level yeah its bad, but once both players are really good sa2 is less of a factor.
Its not worth it though. If you get caught in a karakusa, the round is over! I’d rather not risk it
gotta take risks sometimes in 3s, it makes you a better player.
if you’re on your side of the screen, why would you care about SA2? hence the super art switching that i’m talking about… seriously. you have to remember that either for makoto or gouki, one good guess = more than 1/3 of the lifebar and wakeup stuff. but as long as you keep her away, even one good guess is pretty safe for gouki.
seriously, it’s an even matchup.
no dude, one good guess for makoto = 100% combo. sa2 is like the gouki killer. of course there isn’t much of a way for her to connect the super beyond randomness, or karakusa (in certain areas of the screen), but they wouldn’t choose it if it wasn’t a possibility. when she doesn’t have bar, then the matchup is definitely pretty even, but the way i see it, if the fact that it only takes one mistake, or one good guess by makoto for you to lose the entire match, i wouldn’t consider it overall an even matchup, but whatever, to each his own. something i will say though, is that i was talking to alex valle once, and he told me to just learn a new character because that matchup was just too stacked against you :bluu: even i dont think its that bad though
i actually think sa1 is better against akuma, youre way more likely to land it against him, and it does like 1/2 life against him.
sa2 almost seems greedy, sa1 works fine imo.