If Akuma does a jump back air fireball against Hawk the best thing is to do nothing. Maybe whiff throw to build meter.
That’s one thing I want to try a lot more with Hawk once I get a stick and can actually do his friggin super consistently. Turn the whiff animation into a plus since it allows Hawk to build meter. Against Akuma the super does what, 60%+ damage? If Akuma is going to run away for a while instead of trying to immediately chase him down might as well wait until you have a full meter first. If Amuka is playing runaway this fight takes forever and you only get a couple opportunities to hit him, might as well make them count.
Dive totally sucks against Akuma, it comes out too slowly and is DP bait. If you try to dive vs. an air fireball you’ll just eat it most of the time. The only time the dive is useful in this match is against red fireballs if Akuma throws them at a stupid time.
you have to predict it pretty well for the second situation to work. most of the time he always lands in time to jab dp.
enlighten me on various possibilities on a jump towards air fb. a meaty one , hawk can TRY and dp through it but regardless akuma always lands in time to block.
Also, dive loses to standing :hk:, which is much faster and easier to pull off than :dp:+:p:. Dive really does suck vs Akuma. I watched Damdai destroy this Hawk player over and over and over every time he dived.
Those standing normals of Akuma’s are brutal. The roundhouse however is probably baitable and punishable, since it seems pretty slow. Looking at the hitbox might show some good ways to punish it.
Yes, my input was air fb specific. But desynk’s addition is directly relevant to mine in these parts at least (edited for brevity) :
In summary, sure, there’s plenty of answers to air fb’s, but in concert with other modes of attack–particularly RDs-- it doesn’t help that much. But perhaps tackling the air fb could still be one major piece of the puzzle.
Another Guile trick for air fireballs. This one is dependent on spacing, but if Akuma goes for a deep crossup air fireball, you can hk flashkick him cleanly (no trade). It is pretty awesome when you hit it. Guile moves underneath the fireball and the tail end of the flash kick hits Akuma.
I’d also like some confirmation from Sirlin that if you block a tick low, raging demon is inescapable. Right now we have some players saying that, but no concrete proof or enough experience to say so for sure.
regular anti shoto tactics work with vega since hes so damn fast.
i think theres just enough invincibility to go thru akuma’s air fb with the flip kick and tag him as he lands. however, the timing is very strict and not really worth it since you will get knock down if you time it wrong.
The damage trade against the air fireball is not really worth the risk of getting knocked down since the flip kick is a multi hit move.
I played some more of this matchup today with me being guile. It was very rare to trade hk flash with air fireball, but it did happen at least once. You don’t have to anticipate, you can do it on reaction. The goal is to get the TAIL end of your flash kick (behind you) to hit Akuma on his way down when he is going for a cross up air fireball. You go under the fireball and tag Akuma with the back of your flash kick.
If Akuma is just going for a meaty straight in your face air fireball I usually block it, though a reversal lk flash should in theory trade, since IIRC it has invincibility at frame 0. I suck at reversal lk flashes so I never tried.
I did at one point walk under an air fireball as Guile and throw, though it seemed a bit too risky to rely on.
I remember someone in the ban akuma thread mentioning you CAN jump out of the raging demon if you block an air fireball low. Supposedly if you let the stick go to neutral then hold up you can jump out like 50% of the time. The main thing is to not go directly from crouch to jumping. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I guess it’s something to test. I’d test it myself, but my second controller is broken and training mode does not have a record function.
I will be testing for trades with Air FB, it seems like that will be a strange yet effective way to stop Kuma air spam, he takes so much damage that a kuma player could be scared off the air FB if there are consistent trades.
I think this is what your refering too. A short fk would still clean hit as well is this situation though.
I think its worth noting the the fk his does at 0:53. I believe it was a forward fk. Because of the spacing, Guile is able to hit Akuma with the “flash” of his flash kick without getting hit by the fireball because he has no hitboxes out that far.
OK, I take back what I said about Boxer in the other thread. The more I play this, the more I feel he can hang. 6-4 Akuma, probably, and one of his “worst” matchups.
How do I deal with meaty air fireball?
Do reversal headbutts with piano input, at worst you’ll trade.
Do NOT try the super unless you need to avoid chip damage.
Crossup air fireball is a little bit harder on Boxer than anyone else, so watch for whiffs and throw him.
How do I deal with regular air fireball?
Headbutt doesn’t go through air fireballs until they’re lower to the ground.
The super, on the other hand, does work as long as you’re close to the fireball.
If he does a jump back fireball from midscreen, the super may not be able to hit him. Save it for when he throws air fireballs in the corner, and do the super with kick and hold kick the entire time.
If he jumps forward with an air fireball, you may be able to trade with j.strong or hit him with the directional jump straight up fierce, depending on distance.
If he jumps back with an air fireball from midscreen, perform a fierce low rush as the fireball is about to hit the ground; this will stop him from doing anything except DP or another air fireball (which you can headbutt if you see him jump). If you’re within range for a strong low rush, this becomes much easier.
Another approach is to simply hang back and build meter during air fireball keepaway.
What do I do after a knockdown?
Obviously, don’t jump in at Akuma.
The whiffed low dash upper mixup doesn’t really work on Akuma either, since his DP always beats the headbutt.
The best idea is to hang around close-mid range. This is one of those rare cases where you may want to charge TAP with punches - you’ll be able to punish DPs for a lot of damage, outpoke him with low forward, and whiff dash upper -> throw once you get him scared.
Other stuff:
Teleport avoids low rush, but not any of your other specials.
If he switches to a ground fireball game, you can safely headbutt through fireballs ala the Ryu matchup.
the backflip will avoid it but leads you to the corner and with akuma chasing after you. not good.
its good to reset the situation if you have enough space from the corner and the backflip but he’ll generally still be at a disadvantage.
for chun li:
neutral jumping hk sorta works if hes jumping forward and throwing air fireballs. i’m having some mixed success with walking under and punishing him. theres not much you can do against jump back fb except maybe a preemptive j.lk and j.mk
Actually, charging TAP with punches is unnecessary in this situation. Remember, you can charge TAP with short and roundhouse, and still outpoke him with low forward, and you still have access to punches. You can use the 3rd button of the TAP up to level 2, so that is enough time to work your mind games on wakeup.
Good point. I’ve always tended to charge higher-level TAPs because I want that damage, but after reading about the changes to this move that’s probably not such a good idea anymore.