Never seen JR do cross-up tatsu, don’t lie to me.
Back with some more vids of my ongoing plight to learn to use Akuma the right way. I’ve uploaded about 19 vids this time, but I’m only going to link 6 of them here that I tought were the most interesting. If any of you want to go through the rest of them, please make sure you read the vid info first to get some insights into what I thought I was doing right or wrong and feel free to leave a comment! For the moment, here are my top six:
[media=youtube]Vg2uqMbi1RQ"[/media]: This one was part of the few “starter” matches I did where my main focus is to get the timing of my moves online down right. I didn’t do anything flashy, just played this one patiently and just finished him off without making too many mistakes myself.
[media=youtube]_vguC2TyMg0"[/media]: I really have no clue how to handle Viper. Most of the time, it all seems so random and the really good CV players (like one I played much earlier) I have a hard time keeping up with. I’m including this one because I need more than what I can find in the matchup thread which was basically “Viper’s a hard match for Akuma, play it carefully!”… Hopefully, someone can let me know which moves I can punish with BnB and such. Otherwise, I played this one strictly by the book. The only noteworthy thing I can think of in this match is that I was able to avoid her two seismo’s at the end by moving back two steps, then forwards two steps. That could’ve ended that match right there in her favour.
[media=youtube]kftAc0mzVDo"[/media]: I have to say, I think this was my best match of the night! I started off a bit slow in the first round. Probably too caught up in trying to feel him out. And then the 2nd and 3rd round were much better. Sure, it’s not top-level stuff, but from where I stand, I think I did pretty good. I don’t want to spoil it, but all I can say is that I don’t think my opponent expected that at the end.
[media=youtube]UJ9wxGPQpPc"[/media]: This match makes me feel fuzzy all over because it kinda shows how Akuma can suddenly come back from a lost cause and take the victory. That said, I’m still a bit sloppy in this matchup. Especially in the 1st round where I didn’t take care of his extremely quick (and powerfull) standing MK and HK. Don’t ask me why I did dive kick, s. HP, LP Shaku in the 3rd… I was trying for BnB there, but I guess I left my finger too long on the HP button and that’s what came out. What I’d like to know for this matchup is which ones of his (when whiffed) should I be looking to BnB? Doesn’t look like you can do it on bocked scisor kicks or slide…
[media=youtube]FFwVYCAvdxo"[/media]: sigh… I have to admit, I played this match like ass. But seriously, what was I supposed to do against his Taunting-Turtle Ryu? Jump in and eat SRK + EX Hado (or Ultra)? I hate these kind of matches where you just sit back and wait the other one out.
[media=youtube]muX2STTHV6Q"[/media]: My last match of the night. And imagine my surprise when I see my opponent’s GT and realize it’s the same guy who was featured in one of DSP’s last SFIV matches (for his 2009 Christmas Special): Costello91. After our match I messaged him and let him know I saw him fight DSP! After telling me how embarassed he was of that, he added me to his friend list so I got another good player I can practice against (his Abel that he lost to DSP with is actually quite good). But for this match, I know where I lost it - in the last round, I had a chance for a BnB that would’ve killed him at the end. Instead, I was SOOOOOOOOOOO sure it woudlnt’ connect that I committed instead to a tick throw attempt and failed when I connected with the dive kick.
[media=youtube]AHt2ima-3e4"[/media]
All I can say about the last link is “Wow!”. All through the match, I kept thinking “Boink!”… Talk about death by Air Fireballs!!
^I on;y really watched the ryu vid…you need to incorporate wake up game…you are all defense based…I saw you land a sweep and jump back fireball afterwards…I’m not talking vortex…that doesn’t work on online “scrubs” but more like safe dive kick setups and cross-up tatsu…demon flip palm whiff block…stuff like that…jump back only gets you so far…zoning is good but it’s only one aspect of the huge tool set akuma has.
Edit: Nevermind… I just realized what “Ryu” match you were talking about (I got confused with anohter one I had up there). Anyways, yeah, if you look at that part where I “jump back and chuck a fireball” after a sweep, he had Ultra. Not gonna jump into him at that point.
I also wanted to send him a message after his stupid little taunting tirade whenever I didn’t come to him (as if I’m going to jump in blindly and attack a turtling Ryu). Two can play the turtle game and Akuma’s is better than Ryu’s.
If you want to see a better match, you should’ve tried seeing the one against Akuma. 
You need to learn to attack. From what I’ve watched (Ryu, Akuma) you quite simply didn’t attack. Its a fighting game man, fight the other dude.
Air fireballs do no damage whatsoever so you need to work on your offence and get your arse in there and start chewing opponents up. Your keep away game seems ok, so you might want to begin focusing on some aggression and offence. Take the fight to your opponent.
You’re using Akuma - get in there and tear some shit up.
You’re probably right. But my execution (online) still bites. Plus, I’m much more comfortable playing a defensive game. I did try to find openings to attack when I could. He just didn’t give me that many openings. But when he did, I punished accordingly - whiffed his SRK in the 2nd, punished with Ultra. Blocked his walk up s. HK, punished with Kara Demon FTW. Everytime I jumped in, I knew he was going to try s. HK, so I kept stuffing him with LP zanku. It’s all stuff that’s in the matchup notes and I tried to follow them as much as I could (remembering them off the top of my head as I’m fighting). As for Ryu, there aren’t even any matchup notes. The only “strategies” to be found are on a thread here in the Akuma section: http://www.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=217197
The general consensus on that thread is that you have to play Ryu conservatively. You have to play it smart. Rushing in will get you killed more often than not because Ryu (and shotos in general) have too many good tools that stuffs out all your pressure tactics. Maybe you have success playing Akuma recklessly. I on the other hand have been roundly destroyed each time I tried to play him that way, especially against shoto players. When I play defensive however, I can win my fair share of matches. That said, if you have vids showing your strategy against a “GOOD” ryu player where you rush him down constantly and win every match, I’d like to see it to study it.
Seriously, it would be good to have a “base” strategy against Ryu players rather than genearl “preferences” different people have when playing that matchup.
Playing smart doesn’t mean playing on the back foot constantly. You can attack and be offensive in a smart way.
My Gouki game changed considerably when I was both told and personally acknowledged that I simply don’t attack enough. My game has several gears and among them now is an offensive game that I am refining. It is the offensive game that is pulling me in the wins and damage which when combined with decent defense is working for me.
My advice to you would be to quite literally focus the next few weeks on pure offense. Get in there and get your hands dirty. Sitting on the side-lines waiting for a blatantly obvious punish situation is only a fraction of Gouki’s potential - you need to get in there and start tearing those bastards apart.
I played a few defensive players the other day and while I acknowledge it as a style, I said to myself ‘this is bullshit, I’m the only one doing all the attacking’ so I sat back and decided to let them come to me. They rarely did. If they did, it was a piss poor effort. Nuts to that. I changed gears and took the fight back to them. Their defense crumbled and my Gouki closed the rounds quickly.
My point is that IV in many ways favours defensive play - I get that. As a result, many people don’t have a good offensive game. Be one of those players or at least have a good offensive ability bundled into your game. I find because there isn’t a great deal of offensive players that as a result many people’s DEFENSE just plain sucks. Get in there son. Pick some fights. Start them and end them.
Next advice I’d have would to be combine a mixture of offense and defense but as part of working on your defense DON’T use teleport. Learn to block, learn to defend, learn to tech. Become battle hardened. Get used to pressure. Get used to being in the shit without the tele to escape. At high levels your tele will be baited and as such you’ll need to just plain block and tech. Practice this aspect of your game so you don’t cave or crumble under pressure.
On Ryu, yes he’s a prick. Play it smart and play it solid. Seize every punish opportunity and keep a cool head. I find with Ryu that the clock tends to get a good workout because of how well matched the two characters are. Gouki tends to stave off a little more due to the health issue but at the same time I find myself attacking Ryu a lot more than he attacks me. Launching into offensives with EX air fireballs goes a long way towards me getting in on the bastard while giving him something to deal with (the EX balls) while I start working on crossing him up or just plain pressuring him into trying something. Sometimes its worth him EX srking those balls just so I can get him to blow meter and thus detract from any potential FADC > Ultra options.
Spacing, backdashing and footsies are also important versus Ryu and I also like to mess with him via a mix of jab and hp redballs to keep him guessing and unsure of himself. Cross-up tatsu the prick too. The wake-up game is where I net a lot of damage against Ryu players. If they’re wise to cross-up tatsu they’ll block correctly but this works too as they’ll be unsure about how you’ll follow this up. Your options are many so keep 'em guessing. When Ryu gets unsure of himself he loses control of the match and begins trying stupid crap that you can punish.
Its an experience thing though - you just plain need to develop a comfort level playing against Ryu and to do this, yo uneed to play a lot of 'em. This took me some time but I’m now at the point where I really enjoy the match and look forward to experiencing the variation some Ryus can bring to the table.
I trust this nonsense helps. In short:
- Attack more
- Develop solid defense and pressure experience without the use of tele
- Combine the two
- Build a style of your own that balances Gouki’s offensive strengths, solid defense, mix-ups and options
- Borrow from others but don’t emulate. This will stifle any creativity of your own so you won’t apply creative thinking to your game.
- Play more Ryus
Lastly: Don’t be afraid about losing. You’re gonna lose and lose a lot. We all lose and lose hard when learning Gouki - especially when refining offense. Its how the cookie crumbles. Keep your chin up and know that every loss will be a learning experience and go towards you becoming cool with pressure and understanding where your problem areas lie and what is required to address them.
Gouki to many is a genuinely feared opponent because its well known how much potential pain the little bastard packs. Try to remind your opponents that Gouki certainly isn’t to be taken lightly. You’re not going to achieve this by hanging back and tossing an air fireball now and then.
Against Ryu you need to be patient and look for zoning mistakes. It doesn’t mean just sit back and trade fireballs, but use your fireball game to force Ryu closer in. At a distance you have the advantage in the fireball game since you have way more options than he does. He can not be predictable or else he will eat an EX Flip and also he can’t overpower you at a distance due to your red ball.
He will be forced to close the gap where he has more of an advantage in the fireball game, but at the same time from this range errors in spacing are punishable.
Also I might note hit confirms are 100% crucial since large punishment windows are few and far between.
whats up with these guys and standing still when scoring a knockdown. I know it’s “cool” and “badass” to stand still and counter moves but thats not gonna get you anywhere in high level play. I concur with the above statements when I say you need to apply pressure. Vortex their dumb asses.
That’s something I’m practicing in training mode right now, though I can’t quite get the timing down for “smaller” characters like Ryu: it seems like you have to start the Air tatsu when Akuma’s still tucked & upside down (in his forward jump animation) for it to connect and it’s not very forgiving. A few frames to early or too late and it whiffs. Gonna grind it out some more 'till I get it right. Can’t be attempting a vortex and whiffing during these types of matches. I also read in the “What about Ryu” thread here that an HP SRK seems to mess Ryu’s wakeup options pretty bad. It’s true to a certain extent, but the time you guessed wrong and he just blocks, you’re eating a pretty heavy combo that’s not worth the 120 damage you may make to him if you connect with your HP SRK on his wakeup. It just seems like there’s not too many opportunities in this matchup to get the kind of damage you need to get off, unless the other Ryu player is abysmally bad, and then again, even ABYSMALLY bad Ryus can hurt you with a lucky sc.HP, EX SRK…
LoyalSol’s comment makes the most sense to me. Learning to capitalise on every small chance against Ryu is key. Problem is there aren’t that many Ryu players that follow this logic where they need to close in the gap to beat Akuma, so there aren’t that many instances where you can get even ONE chance to land a good bnb. They’ll happily just stay away all day and chuck plasma at you, nevermind the fact that you have the advantage at the FB game. Sure I got EX demon flips, but do I just waste meter on attempts from full screen away? I may get in one (by luck), but eventually they’ll just start to block and counter so my options are… what? To go back to full screen FB wars? West said something a while back: “Whatever it takes to win”. Against these types of players, it’s basically come to that… Sometimes, you’ll meet up with a Ryu that will rush you down (check my vid against STARGATE JSAN). But that f*cks me up cuz I’m expecting ALL Ryus to basically be running back. When I actually meet one that’s rushing me, I usually drop the 1st round and that’s murder, because even if I can hold my own in the 2nd, I’m basically at a disadvantage and the opponent knows it.
Another thing is, that it comes down to player preferences and tendencies. While I agree that Akuma looks really “badass” when he’s played in an all-out rush down method, it’s probably not the style that’s right for me. At least not right now. Akuma is more than JUST attack or JUST defense. He can be played in myriad of different ways. Think of it this way, in an FPS, you usually have multiple classes. You have your long range types (snipers), your medium range (assault rifles) types and close range types (smg/shotty). You can’t tell someone who’s preference is long distance support (sniper) that he should be doing more close range fighting. Just like you couldn’t make someone who likes wielding a shotgun fight from a safe distance. I suppose either could eventually “learn” another type, but it’s not going to be like a switch they can just flip from one day to another. Maybe if when I can get much more confidence and can do hit confirming (as LoyalSol suggested) on a much more consistent basis, it’s certainly something I’d like to do.
But I’ll always have a tendency to hang back just a bit and judge the situation before I take action. Sometimes (many times) that comes back to bite me in the face. Oh well… That’s just how I am. It’s probably why I like how Momochi plays akuma than anyone else. Not that I don’t appreciate the advice. Believe me, I want to get in there and get dirty more often. I just don’t have enough (good) experience to do so yet. It’s hard to learn the right way when your opponents are doing things the WRONG way…
Hey guys im new here, and im looking for constructive criticism n this:
[media=youtube]V4-Bkf4z5_Q&feature=channel[/media]
I really want to improve my akuma and i need your opinion. Much apreciated!
Soso:
The two biggest things I noticed are work on your AA in the earlier rounds he was just jumping in carelessly and not getting punished, also I noticed something you can never work on enough and that’s crossup defense. Late round 2 he cought you with a xup but he messed up his combo or else he could have finished it there. Also the same thing in round 3. Learn your pokes, didn’t see to much footsies there, at the end of round 3 he just outranged you with cMK… use them pokes. I notice when you get blocked jumping in you try to throw a lot, cost you a few times… don’t get predictable… also you can throw out of demon flip. When you get a knock down, keep pressure use Akuma’s plenty of mixups. Also don’t forget about your Ultra.
Im not pro, not even good at all, just some stuff I noticed… hope this helped atleast a little.
I got some problems with the stand up- teleport, thats why i got punished with the crossups. Yeah sometimes i get predictable its kinda hard changing a fighting style from one day to another but im working on that. Thnx dude!, ill be expecting more criticism 
So I finally made it to G1 and it looks like I hit a wall… I was strugling before, but at least I could win my fair share of matches. In this grade though, it seems like I win about 1 in 10 matches. So I decided to hit up Ranked matches for a bit and get things down pat (before I end up being g1 with like less than 10K GP or something!).
Anyways, a question for the better Akuma players here: what is a good way to follow up an AA c. HP? I thought it would be a Dive kick, but most characters are able to dp on landing and stuff any pressure I may throw at them (though it does work against noobs). FB (EX or shaku) also seemed like a good idea, at first… Then I got ultra’d in a few matches and decided maybe FB isn’t such a good idea either. Dash/Walk up throw? Sweep? I’m stumped at this point… Yeah, I can AA opponents fairly well now, but it doesn’t really do a lot of damage and they know it because most of them just keep on trying to jump over you and get the cross-up spam going cuz they know if they can get through just once, they’ll have a chance at taking at least 1/4 or 1/3 of my health away with a combo. In comparison, I’d have to hit them out of the air almost a good dozen times to deal the same amount of damage to them.
Im having the excact same problem, what’s a good damage AA tactic?
Thanks
Just AA them and then AA them again… and again… and again. You don’t need to follow up on it, and if they’re going to jump into your fist all day what’s the point in doing something stupid so they can hit you? Also if you time it right you can srk them out of the air, hp.srk for normals and lp.dp FADC shaku if you want to look and feel pimp/ a shitty version of Ryus anti air DP > Fireball shit. Though really you should just keep batting them out of the air with c.hp/ srk, cause it’s free damage. It’s a reset sorta thing so trying to hit someone after a c.hp is like just walking up to them and trying to him them, probably not going to work.
Edit: Can’t believe I forgot the AA demon, stupid smart West. >_>
shotos should not get jumped on.
dp or demon. cr.hp is for when the crossup is more ambiguous
Hi guys, I played a local tournament a few weeks ago.
The finals went well, I came from losers so had to win 2 bouts, first bout was a win streak by me but second I got my ass kicked.
Would you guys look into it?
[media=youtube]7xY2bjlzgYw[/media]
I can tell in these matches you got nervous - particularly towards the end as you made some poor choices and missed some easy punish situations where a s.hp, lk tatsu, fp srk would have netted you good damage and standing.
For some reason you don’t push s.hk opportunities to peruse the loop - even when you had ripe setups for it. Learn it.
While you landed a couple Ultras, watch the random ‘ah fuck it, maybe he’ll eat it’ Ultras as these were countered with Sagat’s Ultra and it seriously maimed you.
You don’t pressure enough when you score a knock-down. Go for cross-up tatsu, demon flip grab, ambiguous cross-up with j.lk, walk-up throws, etc. Mix it up. Make the bastards guess. Its important to mess with Sagat’s wake-up using the vortex and general mix-ups as this is where Akuma gains serious advantage combined with the loop.
Avoid FADCing hp srk after a lk tatsu to put a red ball on 'em. It does no damage (especially against Sagat) and blows two stocks. You used FADC on an lp srk into red ball once - this is the preferred option. Otherwise, just opt for the hp srk and save those stocks for cancelling out of a bad SRK choice (i.e. a blocked one) or perhaps to aid an offensive kicked off with an EX air ball as you jump in to pressure.
Above all though, from what I could see you have solid skills only you got a bit jittered with nerves. I think if you played a few more tournies and built up some competition experience combined with working on some of the areas mentioned above, you’ll do much better next time around.
Well done chewing your way to the finals from losers though mate, that’s always an awesome achivement in itself
You got hit by a wake up ultra, and your mixup game is bland.