I personally always do whatever is necessary to win the match. That sometimes means switching from defense to agressive offense, but the question posed here was about what should be the DEFAULT modus operandi. Some people think rushdown, but in consideration of the character and my own experiences, I think a defensive bearing is more practical with Akuma.
I agree that character selection can not accurately predict the outcome of a match, but in 3s it seems that given opponents of equal skill(game system+knowledge+strategy), the choice of character becomes MORE important instead of less. That is why, in my opinion, Ken/Chun/Yun are the most commonly selected and successful characters in tournaments and Akuma is rarely seen. That is not to say that it is impossible to compete with Akuma, it’s just harder than competing with Chun.
Without playing to maximize his strengths and minimize his weaknesses, your success or failure largely becomes pure chance; the outcome is completely in your opponent’s hands. If they captialize on exposed weaknesses, they win, if not, you win. In a sense, every battle is like this. However, your style of play, strategy, knowledge of the game, and physical ability combine to weight the outcome of match.
Style of play is listed as a seperate factor because I tend to think of SOP as habits and execution. Bad habits and poor execution can combine to nullify all other factors(e.g. it doesn’t matter if you know all the moves in a combo if you can’t execute it). Poor execution can be corrected failry easily with practice, but bad habits are harder because when something is truly a habit, you do it without conscious thought. It takes a little while to form a habit, stemming from habitual repetition, but breaking a habit is a true challenge.
Having bad habits, meaning habits that maximize the weakness of the character you play with, hurt your chances of winning consistently, regardless of which character you choose. But it hurts more if you have bad habits and play with Akuma. I think rushdown as a default style of play leads to the formation of habits which leave Akuma in vulnerable positions often, and can subsequently lead to frequent losses due to playing against the design of the character. Akuma has good offensive possibilities and has extreme defensive deficiencies. A balanced approached to offense and defense seems best to me, yet the advice to players on this forum is frequently “rushdown as much as possible, and don’t worry about getting punished because nobody ever punishes me when I rushdown like crazy with tatsu”(creative license). I just wanted to understand why, and now I do.
I personally usually err on the side of a more denfensive style, because I believe Akuma’s stamina, glaring vulnerability during certain attacks, and poor recovery time outweight any offensive advantages he may possess.
–tsukaihatasu