Why has it become so difficult to open people up with Akuma?
With so many ways for people get around projectiles, how on earth is Akuma meant to score significant damage in a timely manner?
Akuma lacks the frame traps to really open people up, when when he does manage to get them off, he’s stuck not being able to do much more than 350 damage outside the corner.
He struggles to combo to super midscreen, his HK whiffs the 2nd hit on crouchers and his F+MP overhead is useless. Anyone can react to it during pressure and hit/SPD you right out of it.
These are the ramblings of a disallusioned Akuma player.
Akuma does not have mediocre damage, His comboability is very extensive compared to most of the other SF cast members and he has great ability to switch out to his partner with his easy comboes into launchers, Shoryukens and Tatsus which his partner can continue after.
An example of one of Akuma’s longer (though definitely not his longest) meterless comboes is j.:hk:, far.:hk:, :hp:, :qcb:+:lk:, :hp:, :dp:+:hp: does 416 damage without gems, builds meter and can be easilly switch cancelled for more damage for very little cost.
For example say I switch cancel to my teammate, I recommend using a partner that does great damage which Akuma can deal with the bad matchups for, in this example we’ll use Hugo and follow up the DP with j.:hp:, :qcb:+:lp:, :dp:+:mk: the combo does 534 damage without gems, for only one meter, not counting the meter built during the combo.
As for his footsies he’s really solid, his walk speed is one of the fastest in the game, if not the fastest, Akuma’s normals are all pretty fast to start up, his far.:hk: moves him quite a bit foward, is 0 on block at minimum and is highly comboable afterwards, although the second hit can be ducked, his cr.:mk: is a bit slower to start up than Ryu’s but it’s safer, he’s got solid anti air options with his 3 frame dragon punch and crouching :hp:, his normal ground fireballs are very close to Hadoukens in terms of properties, but he also can mix them up with his Shakuhetsu Hadoukens which do more hits to trick people during a fireball war or use them for combo purposes, his tatsu’s are projectile invincible and can be switch cancelled for greater damage and safety, his air fireballs are a very good move (especially the ex version which chucks out two and can be used during a demon flip) with good defensive as well as offensive properties.
He’s also got an invincible flash step teleport that can move him out of dangerous positions, his demon flip although not as good as it was in 4 due to changes in the knockdown game) is still a useful mixup tool with great frame advantage on hit or block for the diversify and palm allowing you to continue your offense and his normal divekick has been buffed in hitstun from 4 making it very safe on block and hit, although only being able to use it at the top of a foward jumping arc does hurt it more in this game than it did in 4.
Basically if I want to summarize Akuma in this game I would say that he’s a character that sacrifices his health for a gigantic toolset that’s very well rounded toolset compared to most of game’s cast and although he retains all his moves from SF4, you cannot play him like you did in SF4 with the nature of the knockdown game which he dominated at in 4 being changed completely for this game and a large ammount of his moves having changed properties as well.
He’s certainly not as easy to play as a lot of the cast due to his overwhelming toolset to learn and the smallest health bar of any of the non DLC/Exclusive characters in the game, but persevere and you will find a character that has nearly all the tools that you’ll ever need to deal with most situations.
I’m more than aware of what Akuma’s moves do, how fast they are, what can punish what etc. I’ve played Akuma since 3S all the way through SF4 since 08. It’s not enough.
His walk speed is the fastest in the game. No complaints there. Sweep is pretty good, that’s great. D+MK in air is mid attack. Bloody fucking awesome, I say. But that’s where it ends.
416 damage, requiring off of a jump-in, a far HK at it’s closest distance, and including a one frame link. That’s pathetic. He hits the opponent with one combo, then gets almost killed the first time he gets hit.
Far HK is always duckable on second hit. It ends up whiffing more often than not because people never need to block high during footsies.
Demon flip sucks. It’s air-to-air-able on reaction half the time, and jump back answers all possible follow-ups.
well, im on the ropes with akuma, i was never great with him and thats the reason why i didnt play him. however he does have some really good things in this game and i’ll share them as i see it:
GREAT AA combo which is basically hard or medium punch srk tag cancel into partner to put on the hurt… im pretty sure the AA combos can get into the 400’s pretty easily and even scratch the 500 mark with the right partners and optimized combos. taking 400 damage for trying to jumpin is something only fools will be willing to do… let them.
his demonflip game seems to be demonflip throw and demonflip palm. palm juggles people that try and jump back cause it causes ground bounce on aerial hit. demonflip divekick seems kinda worthless as it isnt as good as the other 2. now people get super happy with just blocking. also palm makes people stand up which makes demonflip throwing much easier as you dont have to try and throw a crouching character.
those things having been said, im still on the ropes with him as his fireball game seems kinda suspect and his pokes dont really seem to be able to compete with some of the other cast members in overall functionality.
People do have ways to get around fireballs, but if you want to land big damage quickly why are you throwing fireballs?
I also think frametraps are stronger in one sense where all the block and hitstun for moves seems to have been amped up for this game. This makes for easier hitconfirms and safe pressure/traps (aka +2 on a 3 frame stand jab). On the other hand throws are not as strong as they were in SF4 so it’s safer to block than mash on crouch tech, but then that’s when you throw them.
Misogi isn’t worth the meter in a combo unless you’re killing imo. Like demon it’s a great tool to keep your opponent honest. Not to mention that this is a team game where you can get a lot of mileage out of a one bar tag cancel. F+MP while slow (like every SF overhead) can actually convert into a combo (unlike every SF overhead iirc). Hardly useless.
@Dime In regards to his fireball game obviously a lot of the Tekken cast has ways to deal with this, but once again this is a team game. You don’t have to try and OCV every team. We’re all still learning the game and it seems a lot of people are still trying to play SF4. I’d recommend just finding a partner who covers the bases Akuma can’t while we figure this out.
When it comes to the fireball war though who does Akuma lose to? Nobody really comes to mind. With that he still can harass you from the air in plenty of a ways. In a game with generally weak anti-air, that’s pretty good.
Akuma may not have the best limbs, but they’re not just workable they are effective when used correctly.
IMO, Akuma is a great battery who will probably end up with a lot of favorable matchups and has the tools to tackle most situations. Also, roll -> teleport is cheap.
I think you guys pretty much covered all my own concerns about the character. I think he’s very good at dealing damage but has a problem getting in that position first. His ground pokes are good but don’t necessarily compliment him as much as they could, as there is no longer an emphasis on knockdowns. His Demon Flip arsenal has no consistent form of application, and they nerfed the shit out of his st. RH. Its kind of ironic how you can tatsu-sweep the whole cast now, lol.
If I had to break it down…
+Solid AA’s, better than most of the cast.
+Great at safe tags.
+Misogi can be very good.
+Good at getting time outs (I wish I didn’t even have to consider this).
+Roll into teleport is great.
+Solid normals (sweep, cr. mp).
-Shit health.
-Fireball game needs work.
-Heavily reliant on the corner for damage.
-Requires very tight spacing for certain setups (x-up tatsu into ST. RH).
-Has some useless moves and setups (DF, tatsu-sweep).
Based on the recent tier list I’d say he’s overrated. I think he’ll settle around B tier as a solid battery character. If it were up to me I’d remove his whole DF arsenal and at least give him some of Ryu’s normals and/or fireballs. Just something to help him get to dealing his damage.
Well put friend. The fact that we have to actually land a :hk: on jump in, but also have it be perfectly spaced to be able to follow up, its just retarded. Requiring way to specific scenarios to score his damage. I’ve spent hours and hours and hours in training mode with Akuma trying out every possible setup and the damage is whack. Compared to lets say Steve Fox who pulls 600+…Or Hugo, that moves way to fast for a grappler, to much health and too much damage all going for him.
Honestly, I feel like (aside from Tekken characters and there high-low game that no one knows how to block yet) this game is all about getting a counter hit, so frame trap set ups are really important, and it’s the main way I score damage with him. It’s tougher now because you can’t really bait crouch techs because not many people go for them, but Akuma with a speed gem is counter hit city, so I score damage in that regard. I really wish he could open up people like he used to, but as previously said, Demon Flip is tough to incorporate, and overall it feels like I can’t open up anyone that can block obvious cross ups. I’m gonna look into overhead tag cancel, since holding down back is the way to go against Street Fighter characters apparently. I think I should also start using Demon Flip throw more, since many people just block on the first Demon Flip cancel, but they seem to catch on after the first and second.
im convinced that the way to play akuma is with a very good grounded fireball game… i believe that was how to play him in sf4 as well, but tokido found a loophole which is basically his vortex, that allowed him to not have to use grounded fireballs AS A MAINSTAY.
i’ll link to choi versus edma in sf4 to give an example… the problem is that choi was of course using ryu. but i believe that that style is where akumas game is at.
the biggest problem there is that its VERY HARD TO DO and that akumas fireball isnt as good as ryus. but imho its pretty plain to see that he is SUPPOSED to use his neutral ground fireball game to open up his demonflip game and to use airfireballs when he is hesitant about using grounded ones… the skill being that the more air fireballs his user uses the less effective he becomes.
anywho, without having a good ground fireball game from a players perspective… i think hes kinda bad. everything he has becomes obvious if you arent using grounded fireballs to mask your dash in/jumpin/demonflip attempts.
anywho thats how i see it, e capcom designed him to always be a heavy zoner that could go on the offense if he wanted to.
im not good enough to do that however and neither are 99% of the akumas out there… so he may be a character whos style of play is completely out of reach for us normal players… i feel like it would take choi or daigo to truly showcase what the character is about kinda like it takes sako to show what ibukis about and nemo to show what chun is about… if you get what im saying.
heres the choi match that im talking about. choi is perfect against ed in that he never gets hit by a jumpin combo… while akuma cant throw fireballs like ryu here… he can manage something similar and he has demonflip and air fireball to help himself out. still, i think its too hard t do with akuma, for myself at least:
To quote the Eventhubs Akuma AE guide: “Weakness: ground fireball is not suited for zoning.” Its just not on the level of Guile’s fireball, Ryu’s, or Sagats. I believe even Poison has a better fireball. In SF4 it made sense because it was just a way to keep up with your opponent, not out-zone them. All you had to do was keep up until you could get a good sweep or DF read. That made sense because Akuma was all about mixups.
Here…he doesn’t quite have mixups but has the exact same fireball. He’s basically Ryu but without any of Ryu’s tools. Hence, go play Ryu unless you really like this character (which I think we all do).
I agree and the fact that ryu can cancel his fireballs and sweep to make them safe makes it worse. Not to mention ryu has much better damage output , super easy links which lead to that huge damage. A super that you can pretty much land from anything. His moves have more frame advantage on block and hit. And to me akuma’s demon flip is not all that effective in this game so i don’t see why anyone would pick akuma over ryu. Besides just liking the character like me
While an opponent is being juggled, a hit from a normal will not air reset them like in SSFIV. Every hit leads to a knockdown after a juggle in this one, so no resets in that regard.
I feel like there is no reason to play Akuma over Ryu in this game. All of his ‘weaknesses’ are still carried over from 4 except he doesn’t have a strong throw/vortex game to back it up. He received practically nothing to open people up and dish out good damage for this game engine in a practical way. You’ll spend half the round fishing for counter pokes and basic BnB then get one-touched into a tag combo, undoing all the work you put towards 1 character.
I guess being able to tech roll > teleport is worth it though! (not really)
Gotta agree with this. Playing against someone with good defense is pretty deflating… I find myself wondering how exactly I can score some damage. I’m working on trying to bait throw techs, but it’s not as easy with some of these Tekken characters having long range on their cr.lk’s. That’s why I use a speed gem though, it helps a lot with footsies and landing counter hits, but that seems to be the only way I can score damage. It seems that Ryu’s overhead has longer hit stun as well, since I’ve seen Poongko tag cancel it into Ken and combo with relative ease, while with Akuma, the timing seems to be a lot more strict. Can’t really think of any other ways to open people up besides that. Demon Flip throw works once or twice a match, but it gets caught on to pretty easily.
Not that I was gonna bother with Akuma in this (there’s just so many new characters), but I’m not really feeling him in SFxT.
I mean, really, the roll just kills his SF4 vortex game. You just do that and get out, can’t grasp why they didn’t give rolls any recovery, even if small. You take that out, and it’s tough to pick him over the likes of Ryu who just outfootsies him (godly cr.MK and cancellable sweep) and doesn’t die in a single combo.
Funny that they also completely wrecked his st.HK, you think they’d make up for the lack of vortex with better footsies game or something.
Some people also said he deals great damage, but I fail to see how that applies: pretty much every character in this game hits hard (only, Akuma gets hit the hardest), and his damage honestly seems no biggie. LK Tatsu for 50 damage? Fierce DP for 130? No looped/wallbounce EX like other characters? I mean outside of corner or jump ins (derp) you’re not gonna deal huge chunks of damage, and he’s not a character with awesome followups to tag in (should make for a decent battery though).
Frame traps wise, did you guys see the frame advantage on Tekken characters’ normals and their crumple states? He’s just not on par.
And he still has his low-arse active frames normal, in this game you want some decent air to air. Wasn’t also mentioned that his air fireball game became weaker?
Honestly, Ryu just makes him obsolete: cancellable sweep into cancellable hadoken? cr.MK xx Joudan like there’s no tomorrow? Easily taggable overhead for massive damage? etc
When v2012 dropped we complained about Akuma becoming lamer, seems even more fitting for SFxT lol.
