Akuma is best played with a defensive(not turtle) style. Rushdown will get you killed. Now this goes against the popular thinking on this forum I know, but I would like to know why Im wrong.
–tsukaihatasu
Oakland, CA
At the Bearcade(Oaktree refugee)
PS. I have been playing with Akuma forever through all the games and this has been a fact for years. I just think its interesting that others don’t agree and go around telling people they can just rushdown and win. I want to see if Im doing something wrong.
Man you’re crazy. If you know how to rushdown effectively you can play Akuma to an almost brain dead level and will. If you’re thinking then things become worse.
Akuma has speed, power and priority. Not to mention that teleport that enables him to escape unblockable setups/escape pressure. It always boils down to what a player prefers to do with their character of choice anyway. If you like playing him defensively that’s your decision. You just limit your offensive options and mindgame by doing so is all.
What? he is one the most powerfulest & fastest chars in the game, thats why they made bitch weak.
And turtle is defensive style
If you can effectively keep you opponent on lock down than the match is pretty much yours, considering he has so many damaging juggle set ups, pressure & mind game tactics, and raging demon & KKZ set ups
3S’s meter is 161pts. Akuma’s best non taunt super only takes 53pts from Ken with no combo. With a combo its at most 65 pts. Chunli takes less damage while Ryu takes equal. RD only takes in the 60s/80s based on whether or not opponent is above 70% power or not. Translation Akuma is not strong.
Defensive style does NOT equal Turtle. Turtle specifically refers to just sitting there blocking and there are many ways to be defensive without that.
There are only 2 real RD KKZ setups. One is st.HK > RD at the right distance and lkHC > jab 2/1 KKZ. Everything else is BS.
Akuma’s juggles are not damaging (compared to others characters <30% usually, dont even think about combo into super)
What mind games? Most of the ones Ive heard mentioned here don’t work/aren’t mind games at all. Please give details or examples.
when i made the thread asking if turtle was best way, i didn’t know what i was talking about. Akuma’s rush down is god, if ur smart, plus since he takes damage very crappy u need to lock them down, u need to limit their options to a few things.
The defensive style ur talking about is being aggressive while being safe, don’t take a risk unless there’s a big reward, just play footsies with akuma, and that leads to his damaging juggles. so what if he can’t do a juggle for half life or whatever, if he could he would be top tier, he still deals big damage off of easily verifiable moves, builds meter quickly, has great super art max supers. i mean ur acting like his juggles suck, they don’t, they are so easy to do and can be done anywhere on anybody. he is easy to play, and that ease of execution leads to not having to worry about something complicated so u can focus on all the other stuff.
his speed is also worth the tradeoff. playing akuma is fun man, come on!!!
he has alot of mind games all the typical shoto shiz
down lk, down lk, if they block keep the pressure up if they connect messatsu
walk up lk once then throw if they block
down mk, after they whiff something= super, or juggle depends on ur distance
just dash and do whatever u want, he is so f’n fast man.
forward mp is a great stuffer on wake up and is good against parriers, cause it hit’s more than once.
Hk on wakeup hits twice.
toward fierce punch is unthrowable in arcade version.
dash in throw, walk up kara throw, walk up then dash back to punish what ever they throw out.
Akuma is really, really fast use his mobility to lock down anybody. just be careful on wakeup cause eventually u’ll frustrate someone into a wakeup super/anit-air or something.
hyakki shuu(demon flip) do the kick variation if they block it keep pressuring with hp, lk lk, lp lp, standing lp, down lk to tr to get openings.
haykki shuu do kick variation right b/f u hit ground and u do nothing and it’s almost like a wakeup situation.
his hurricane kick is really good too.
in air u can put them in juggle state.
in corner u can juggle them and do messatsu for okay damage, this is good if u have health lead and want to keep pressure on, and it’s good to just go ahead and finish em’ off if u can too.
jump in hp, land, standing hp into hp shoryuken, this fills up like half of almost everyone’s stun bar.
he can juggle for damage off of standing hp, down mk, lk hurricane kick can juggle, etc.
he has frame advantage off of standing lp,lk, mp, standing close lp,lk mp, mk, crouching lp, lk. mp so uh yeah he can keep the pressure on like nobody’s business.
shungokusatsu
umm this is cancelable off any ground move… nuff said
this is a good move u act like 70 or less damage is nothing come on, just play chun or ken then if ur gonna hate brotha.
Akuma is a aggressive warrior man… :karate:
Now tell me why not to rush down…lol.
Akuma has the longest super meters in the game and they build slowly, unless you land combos on people. All other characters build meter faster and have EX moves.
Akuma’s super arts deal very little damage. SA1 does 43pts(46 air) against Ken with no combo. It does less with uppercut combos and more with c.mk > SA1, but you still need 4 to kill Ken.
SA 2 and 3 both do 53pts against Ken and scale down to chip damage in combos. Also both miss frequently after landing the first hit, making it essential to use a combo to land them(translation garbage).
RD takes less than 80pts off of most characters on the games at Perfect and even less at 70%.
KKZ takes an unpredictable amount of damage, as its based on proximity. It can also be jumped into, which results in 0% damage if you land right, and the energy wave can be parried(1 parry=15 hits)
All the mind game stuff you mention is easily/parried avoided. Most good players will parry the f.MP chop, including the second hit, the close HK axe(both hits) and yes even the HCKick with any number of hits.
Demon Flip dive kick, d.Mk dive kick, are both easily parried by basically everyone. Demon flip is a air to ground maneuver with no anti-air, so it is easily escaped by jumping straight up. Demon Flip cancel can be executed with punch or kick, and you can be thrown BEFORE you hit the ground.
Jump in hp, land, standing hp into hp shoryuken does not do half stun on anyone. Well maybe Akuma and Yun/Yang.
I can play with all the characters on the game. Akuma’s RD is only connectable to 1 almost impossible to land combo. All other RDs are contrivances. Chun Li has lk > hit confirm > SA2 for 90+ pts off Akuma, Ken has lk > hit confirm > jab DP > SA3 for 70+ pts, plus too many other combos to list. Plus they both have vastly better recovery time and stamina than Akuma.
PS. People keep saying Akuma is so fast and its driving me nuts. Akuma has very fast move startup, but his moves are usually late hits, and his recovery for missed moves is atrocious. If they block the hurricane, your opponent has all year to hit you with a combo into super. Same goes for air fireballs if they have the timing down for passing through/under fireballs.
Ive gotta ask: Explain to me what you mean by defensive. The way I see it , the more time you spend with Akuma NOT attacking, the more chances your opponant has to rush YOU down, and no matter how defensive you play, youll eventually get parried or have your guard broken and eat a huge combo (Urien’s Thunder 100% comes to mind). I agree with what people are saying about locking your opponant down, thats how Ive seen Akuma played and how I play him (I dont play him much, mind you).
But maybe theres somthing Im not seeing. Please explain your playing style to us in a bit more detail.
I won’t explain my thinking, as my techniques are trade secrets(all the guys at Berkeley would kill to know how to beat me) but heres what Im willing to say.
Demon Flip can be used to ZONE opponents. Air fireball as well.
The fireball takes very little damage in this game and does even less chip damage. Still a very small amount of chip damage is enough to win by time over, which makes people anxious to get close to you.
Parry entanglement is a good way to open up opponents. I wont explain this, think about it for yourself.
An enemy who can’t get close to you is an enemy who cant kill you. Caveat: Assuming you have reasonable parrying skills.
Most players have spent so much time mastering combos and such that they haven’t given much thought to attack distances.
Vague on purpose,
–tsukaihatasu
PS. I only really play with other characters in private, meaning Akuma is my front man 100.000001% of the time at the arcade.
Well if you ever plan on going to Sunnyvale shoot me a pm, Im curious to see how your Akuma fairs against the likes of Urien and Makoto. Makoto in particular (I dont use her much but we have a regular here who is quite good with her). Just a friendly challenge, do with it what you like:)
Are you talking about the Indian guy who plays Makoto? I beat him almost every time we played. The only guy who really gave me serious comp at Sunnyvale was Campbell, but apparently he moved to TX(?). I guess Ricardo is still a threat to me with his Alex, but Daniel’s Urien is not a problem, and Dudley Dave is good but he cant beat me often.
You might have seen me, Im the big black guy who plays with Akuma and hangs out with Hydro, and had a long bushy beard last time I was there. I also landed 10 RDs and everyone was going crazy. I was arguing that Urien’s AR Headbutt crossup is escapable, and everyone was arguing with me about it?
Anyway, its been awhile since Ive been and I certainly will PM you next time I go.
Well I’m not sure what you mean by Akuma having the longest bar, supers like Gigas, Shin SRK, & Hyper Bomb have way longer bars & only have one stock, if you mean it’s longer then lets say Kens SAIII or Dudleys SAIII then yes it is. You wanna rush with Akuma because you don’t want the opponent to rush on you giving him the advantage, and considering he’s is weak as hell if you were to get rushed you would lose real quickly. I’m not saying constantly keep attacking your opponent, you wanna keep your game consisten with what’s going on in the match, of course if your going against a Chun with two full stocks of SAII then you wanna play it cool.
s.hp, lk tatsu, hp DP - Does real decent damge
s.hp, lk tatsu -> demon flip - sets up a guessing situation, you can either press p if you expect the char is going to hit so you can trade hits, k so you can maybe set up another hp lk tatsu juggle or apply more blocking pressure, lp+lk if you expect the char is going to parry, or nothing so you can mix it up with a sweep, you want to alternate between these options to keep you opponent guessing.
You can set up a KKZ with just an air tatsu.
Dash in RDs and kara RDs are always good if you know the damage will put the opponent on real low health or will kill him.
SAI is like a crappier version of Kens SAIII but makes up for it with air options and slightly more damage, you can cancel a lp DP into SAI for more damage. hp -> lk tatsu, lp DP -> SAI does real good damage.
Akuma’s meter on SAI is the same length as Ryu and Hugo’s bars(SAII and SAI respectively). Alex’s might be slightly longer, but I couldn’t tell by eyeballing it. The point is Akuma has long bars for his super arts.
There are ways to prevent your opponent from rushing you. Without serious risk to yourself.
St.Hp, lk.tatsu, hp.DP does decent damage against some characters(depends on how you define decent).
All demon flip strategies are defused with a well timed jump from your opponent, or worse yet, a DP, EX DP, forward dash under, EX hurricane, etc.
KKZ can not be connected reliably with a simple air tatsu. It will miss frequently because of it’s long startup.
Dash/Kara RD can be avoided by aware opponents. Some characters, most notably Elena and Urien, can throw Akuma out of RD easily.
DP to SAI results in 6-8 pts. more damage than a plain super. In a worse case it takes less than the straight super alone. Ryu’s c.HP 2->1 hp.DP take 50pts. from Akuma(with no SA), while Akuma’s j.DP 2->1 SAI only takes 46pts. from Ryu, and c.HP > hp.DP > SAI takes 50.
These numbers are hitpoints, not percentages. The training mode displays hitpoints when attack data is on. 1%=1.61pts.
The Makoto I was referring to is this one guy (white guy, kinda curly hair, not sure what color cause of the arcade lighting lol) who always stands while playing (as opposed to sitting on the stools). There are 2 really good Uriens that play there quite often, Im sure youll run across them if you stop by later on, like around 8-9. Most good comp at SVGL shows up around 7-8. I think I may have seen you there before, not sure though, were you at a tourney there a few months back?
Anyways, sounds good man I look forward to playing you in the near future:tup:
Decent as in more than most characters can do in a single combo without using meter and without an inane setup (ie. Urien hitting MP or HP anti-air sphere in the corner then taking ~50% with just normal tackles).
Not all. Characters without DP have a really bad time with it, tall characters have trouble too because they can get thrown so early. The best option most characters have is to jump straight up and immediately parry. Though I think demon flip’s best use is just mobility, like getting across the screen after b+throw or connecting with SA1.
I don’t know about other people, but I have no trouble judging whether I’m within distance for it or not, though I personally like to save the meter for RD setups or just connecting SA1.
Ha. If you’re actually good at using RD, there’s nothing easy about getting out of it. For that matter, you could just sit on the meter based on the threat of anti-air RD against most characters.
DP to SA1 is generally just a bad idea unless you’re using it as an anti-air, but even that isn’t usually worth it. DP does good enough damage on its own that it’s not worth burning all that meter for just about 25 more points of damage.
Your example is no good. You should be looking at damage comparisons against the same character, not what damage two different characters do to each other. You should be looking at either the damage that both things do to Ryu, or what they both do to Akuma.
Anyways, arguing ideal situation shit isn’t a great way to determine the best way for a character to be played. Ideal situations don’t pop up often enough to matter for the purposes of this discussion. Realistically, while Akuma can work either defensively or offensively, keeping the pressure on the opponent is really the best way to play. Hell, the general best strategy against 2/3 of the top tier is to stay on them and do as much damage as you can before they get meter and you’re forced to be more careful. About the only matchups where I can see defensive as ever being better are Ken or Makoto, though in the latter case it’s pretty borderline. Letting Makoto play around with meter is worse for Akuma than anything else and getting out of the grab tricks isn’t always simple.
I am talking about ‘Akuma vs some other character’ matchups in this thread, which are by far the most commonly encountered type at the arcade. Just about every character can match or exceed the damage delivered by that combo, when fighting Akuma. That may or may not include SOME meter, in the form of EX moves, but considering most characters can do 2 or 3 EXs per available level, using one EX is not a great loss.
This is exactly what I said. If they don’t want to get hit/be trapped they can simply jump and punish on the way down. Some characters(read: all top tiers) can simply punish you with DP, etc right from the start.
It doesn’t matter how far away you are exactly it matters more if they’re high enough in the air to prevent them from landing/falling/blocking before the hit.
Im damn good at landing the Raging, and its super easy to get out of; you just jump. Hit stun or block stun guarantee that your opponent will have extra time to jump, because they will be pushed instead of grabbed when Akuma arrives. Thus no combo into RD(1 exception). Anti-air RD is easily defeatable with early hits.
Once again, this was my exact point. I was responding to someone saying DP > SAI was good, by countering with the argument it was no good. Check my post again.
The ideal matchup is Akuma v Akuma. Period(character factors out). Ryu v Akuma is a bad matchup, as Ryu can kill Akuma in one combo. The real truth is that 99% of your matches at the arcade will be ‘Akuma vs some other character’. Therefore we should primarily be concerned with those matchups, rather than Akuma v Akuma.
How is it useful to see how much damage Akuma deals to himself? If you compare that to Ryu’s damage vs Akuma, things seem more even, but that’s just because Akuma has the worst stamina. Besides, that matchup hardly ever happens.
I chose Ryu because he and Ken have identical stamina, similar power, and Ken/Ryu show up frequently at the arcade.
Makoto can only grab you if youre close enough to be grabbed. The same goes for Ken’s crossup > EX DP, which supports my argument in favor of staying away from opponents.
Oh really? Well I finally got away from what I was doing so I can do some actual testing.
Akuma max damage vs Ryu (considered as average stamina for this game) with no meter: j.hp, st.hp -> lk HK, st.jab -> HP DP = 68 damage, about 55-60% stun. If you omit the jab (which you really should) it’s 65 damage, stun is basically the same.
Ryu max damage vs Akuma with no meter: j.hp, st.hp -> rh HK or hp DP = 68 damage, about 65-70% stun.
If you give Ryu EX, it jumps to 84 points by throwing in EX side kick, but I really can’t remember the last time I saw someone land a jump-in and capitalize on it completely with either character. It is really not that simple to do against good players without stunning them first, by which point pretty much any character can kill any other without wasting any meter.
Yes, they can do that, but players that try to jump against me when I do demon flip get hit by the punch the 2nd time they try it. Also, out of all our Ken players, only one actually reacts in time to hit me with DP, and half the time it trades anyways with about even damage, maybe a bit in Akuma’s favor. Theory fighter is great and all, but I honestly don’t get DP’d out of the flip much, nor do people get out of the way in time all that often.
Distance applies in the Y dimension as well. Like I said, not very hard at all to know when it will work and when it won’t, the more difficult part is learning to do the motion fast enough.
If you were damn good at landing RD, you’d know it’s not that easy to get out of the better setups. ESPECIALLY not anti-air. If your character can’t delay landing (Oro’s double jump, Makoto’s axe kick) or change trajectory (Ken’s EX hurricane, but done too late it won’t work), you’ll get caught if it’s done right. Early jump-ins don’t mean shit, he just slides through it and grabs as soon as they land.
My point in saying your example was bad is that if you’re going to compare damage, you have to have a standard to judge against. But regardless, I already pointed out that without meter, he goes about even with Ryu. Letting Ryu use EX give him more damage equivalent to Akuma’s close st. forward. Big deal. And unless Ryu is using SA1, he’s not likely to burn meter for EX moves, even then it’s better used on EX fireballs for the most part.
Staying away from opponents won’t get you good damage. You have to get in and try to kill them because if you’re playing defensively and getting in hits here and there, one misstep means they have the lead again. Akuma is one of the better characters at running away, but he’s not good at keeping a lead because he takes hits so poorly, as you’ve pointed out so many times in this thread. The answer to this is to lock them down and force a mistake out of them so you can capitalize and take off between 1/3 and 1/2 their life in one shot.
Also, staying away from Makoto isn’t easy, fast dash, relatively fast jump, high priority attacks in the air and on the ground, and a few dozen stupid tricks to catch you in her grab and kill you. She is far and away Akuma’s worst matchup for very good reasons. Running away doesn’t make it any better.
And Akuma isn’t the best at zoning, so I don’t see what kind of ridiculous defensive strategy there could be that’s better than getting in close and being as tricky as possible in order to get hits in. Besides, if you’re staying away, you can’t take advantage of the most useful kara-throw in the game.
Besides all that, you’re trying to argue this like you’re playing against people with nearly perfect reactions. People don’t parry things like the t+mp overhead or close rk all the time unless you’re incredibly predictable with them.
By the way, j.hp, st.hp -> hp DP does do a little over 50% stun. On Ryu. So Sdouble was absolutely right about that.
By the way, I’ve played against Campbell, and if he was your best 3S competition before he moved away, the rest of the people you play against can’t be all that good. He’s decent, but that’s as far as I’d take it. 3S is not that boy’s game, doesn’t have enough Morrigan or Hibiki in it. =p
After seeing this guy come with so many arguments against Akuma even from an objective point of view I’m really forced to wonder why does he bother with Akuma at all. Play Ryu and don’t bother trying to debate this man.