Watched a couple of videos in the Ryu section, the new cr.MK seems to suck big time.
It’s not just the new hitbox (the tip isn’t invincibile anymore, he gets stuffed and seems to trade a lot as far as I’ve seen), it also doesn’t seem to combo as it did with fireballs. It’s just like Akuma’s, if not worse.
In terms of footsies, is Ryu still better than Akuma, now that his godlike cr.MK is gone?
I think what they did with cr.MK and far MP was kinda necessary (though the cr.MK changes in all were heavy-handed). If you saw Alex Valle play Ryu at West Coast Warzone, he got plenty of mileage from far MP as a result of adapting to AE Ryu.
I think viewing Akuma as a mixup based character is the wrong approach to being successful with him. I now look at Akuma as a safe pressure character with strong footsies. My approach is to use the safe pressure and the threat of mixup to open up the opponent to damage. Similar to how the threat of a throw opens up an opponent to frame traps, I primarily use safe pressure to force the opponent to make a mistake and give me damage.
A good example of this is how I fight Rog. I will palm strike his wake up 80-90% of the time. Eventually they crack with some escape attempt leading to damage.
I should definitely try a safer approch since I suck big time at mixing it up.
However, I think this approach worked best during vanilla days, when you could still deal massive damage and actually stun people without taking risks. Now that those things are gone, the mixup/rushdown (murder face style) approach seems to be what pays most at (very) high levels.
Well, one might argue that Tokido has yet to actually win something…
Tokido actually safe pressures alot and doesn’t risk as much as you think. He has many setups leading to OS punishes and he generates alot of his damage like that rather than just raw mixups.
As for this approach in vanilla, it was actually far better to mix up in vanilla as 3-4 successful mixups would generate massive damage, stun your opponent and effectively win you the round making the reward worth the risk. With Akuma’s nerfs to damage and stun post vanilla those risks are no longer worth it and 4 successful mixups will not stun. generate far less damage while putting you at risk to eat huge damage.
You’re right, he definitely knows his stuff and heavily relies on OS - was it on his blog that he said he studies the various OSs for each matchup?
I guess Momochi’s game is still burnt into my mind lol…
My Akuma tends to be more of a careful zoning style that takes advantage of openings. If you play me you will find that I try to use fireballs carefully and punish attempts to get over them.
I do have to thank JR for the s.HK demon set up. Between s.HP and that set up the players at my weekly fight club are scared to death to jump forward over my fireballs even from nearly full screen. 
Loyal can you tell me how to do the s.HK demon set up.
Rather straight forward set up. Throw a HP airfireball or LP Fireball and immediately hit s.HK while inputing the jabs to U1. If you see them jump forward over the fireball you finish the U1 input and watch the magic happen. There is a slight bit of timing to practice, but overall it is a good set up.
It is one of the few Demon set ups that JR uses that I can actually say I don’t mind using. It keeps people thinking about it making them more reluctant to jump over fireballs. Now keep in mind there are ways around it such as focusing through the fireballs and also jumping early over the fireballs, but both of those do have some risk associated with them.
This technique is more of a way to limit options which makes zoning easier.
This is not gonna work unsless they do stupid shit like j.hk from full screen over your fireball…If they didn’t press anything while jumping they can evade your ultra 90% of the time unless there is some VERY specific timing/spacing, which isn’t reliable anyways.
Your best bet is shaku FADC s.hk xx demon and even that doesn’t work every time.
Actually in most cases even empty jumps can be caught. The s.HK combined with their jump forward causes you to meet them in the middle (The more floaty a character’s jump the easier the timing) with enough time and the right spacing to active the demon to catch even empty jumps. The key is the timing of when they jump not what they do after the jump. If they get an early jump so they just barely land in front of the fireball then it won’t work, but if they delay their jump you can catch empty jumps from full screen. I do this regularly and know the strengths and weaknesses of the set up. Trust me when I say if you catch them in the right circumstances there is nothing they can do and the right circumstances actually come up more often than you would think even against good players.
The only characters I have found you can’t catch with it are characters who can change their trajectories such as Adon or Cammy and also characters with air projectiles like Akuma or Ibuki. Now this does not catch neutral jumps. This only catches people jumping forward to get over your fireballs.
This set up is not gimmicky at all and it isn’t one of these highly specific situations either. It generally works in most cases I have applied it to. It actually can force players to think about how they advance which only works to your benefit and makes your fireball and zoning game more effective.
My Akuma is more gimmicks and shenanigans than anything else, and I find it fun to play xD
About the st.HK Demon: is the standing Roundhouse kara cancelled, so that you gotta be super fast with the inputs?
I remember Infiltration doing this to Mike Ross at Evo 2k10, but iirc he kara cancelled the st.HK.
2 Raging Demons = Instant Death
[media=youtube]LRm-vf8IpX4[/media]
Oh and who’s the bitchboy that banned me!!! I’ll just make a new acc (",)
Watch & Comment!!! Thanks
Too bad you didn’t make a name for yourself in 3s, otherwise you’d be called godlike for something like that ^-^
I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many fronts trolled in just one sentence like that. Imma need me some popcorn.
@dr4gz0r: For the setup described above, technically I guess you could call it kara-cancelling but since you can ultra/super cancel out of any part of startup and active frames of the st.hk, they are typically doing it towards the end of the active frames, the use of st.hk is mainly to close the gap.
Dude! That’s mad EPIC!! And those MAD Combos where you hit random EX SRK for 2 hits are soooooooooo sick!! You should play against JR and beat him 0-10!
Also, your vid editing skills are too L33t: showing only the one round out of 6 where you win. You gotz mad skillz booooooooooooooyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!
good to see dat sum1 on this SRK forum appreciates good SF gameplay when they see it… thanks venom2099 :wgrin:
It is a kara cancel, but actually you don’t need to be fast with the inputs in this set up. The thing is you practically let the s.HK finish or come close to finishing before you activate the demon. The whole point of the s.HK is to move you close enough to perform the AA demon and also allows you to buffer the jabs while moving forward. Most character’s forward jump will place them roughly half screen and the s.HK will place you right underneath them with two jabs buffered if you timed it right. All you need to do is active the demon at the “sweet spot” for AA where the opponent’s knee caps is level with Akuma’s head and they are screwed. They have no time to escape or attack regardless if they were empty jumping or jumping with an attack.
Heh gimmicks are fun when they are working, but unfortunately when they aren’t they suck lol. I will say I even perform them when people aren’t stopping them. Some fun ones to screw around with are c.MK cancel HK demon flip palm into SRK. An experienced player will stop it, but newer players always try to grab you when you land and it just pisses them off lol.
Sometimes I think, “I have no idea what I’m doing.”