Personally, I’ve had bad luck with kongoing the first one. I mean if he fireballs from the apex of his jump that’s not going to work. If he jumps as the first fireball is hitting you, again he is out of range.
He is always in range by the second fireball since his goal is to attack you while you are in block stun or a frame or two after you come out of it.
I just feel like the second fireball is always guaranteed kongo since I know Akuma is going to be there for his litle tricks.
watch out for kongo bait to raging demon.
funny thing is there is just enough time to cr.lk to catch that flip palm as he throws it late , no need to throw it when hes hi enough to mix up with dive kick, just wait till you see that palm animation and let er rip!
As long as the hammer fist is not a low meaty Gouken is able to avoid it that way, but if it’s a low meaty then Gouken loses out per counter hit.
The better Akuma’s who know this use this set up as their staple to make sure Gouken stays in place while eliminating your options per OS cr. roundhouse Gouken’s only way out it EX Flip and that’s punishable too, even if he used OS roundhouse using this set up he’d still recover in time to be safe and punish Gouken 
The only thing that would help Gouken in this match is if Hammerfist wasn’t an overhead and/or armor break, or if Gouken had a 3 frame reversal.
It’s so sad that all of Gouken’s options are pretty much eliminated by this 1 set up, all you really can do is block and that’s not even guaranteed b/c Hammer fist forces you to block standing and it sets up the oki for Akuma.
Every time I watch a high level Gouken and Akuma play, I look to see if this is going to get abused once Gouken is flat on his back. If it’s not being abused then the Akuma player is either stupid or they just don’t know the match up.
Since you’ve played Akuma, and I haven’t really, does the c.lk beat out the throw as well? My problem with Akuma isn’t that I have to block and deal with shit after I get knocked down, it’s that he only need hammer fist or throw. We can’t do anything cause of hammer fist which basically just makes us stand there and take throw for free. This matchup is already tough without that bullshit. Worse than that, unlike with Gouken, he recovers in time after his throw to continue this bullshit on us.
I’d be fine if one flip throw got us out of this but taking the throw does nothing to help us.
If he’s meaty with air grab he’ll grab you out of everything except Ex Flip, Back Dash, EX Tatsu, and jump (All which a safe jump hammer fist/os cr. roundhouse can avoid or punish.)
That hammer fist set up is fucking ridiculous against Gouken. If he’s safe jumping you with it to make you stand and block on wake up he can switch it up and faux safe jump you with it. If you don’t know the timing it looks EXACTLY the same, but he whiffs the meaty hammer fist and will cr. lk > hit confirm your ass. Even if you are lucky enough to block he can just chain jab out so Gouken can’t use kongo. Shit, even that shit is a mix up, b/c he can just stop the chain jabs to see if you are mashing kongo, and if you are you get knocked down or opened up for free again.
Now I will admit, IT IS AWESOME when he does DF Grab and you catch him with EX Tatsu, but those will be few and far between against someone worth their salt, b/c they will just set you up with hammer fist all day and PRAY that you EX Tatsu so they can max punish you. The only thing Gouken can do is, guess correctly or block/tech and give up the possible throw.
It’s a damn shame that Gouken doesn’t have a 3 frame reversal b/c it would solve the brokeness in this match up.
Even with an EX 3 frame reversal. Akuma will still be broken in this match up for Gouken. He can still do ex fireball or cross up tatus and all other mix up Ryu can do. And he will still dominates Gouken with better footies and superior fireball. Then he can do the mix up again when Gouken is out of meter.
You can kongo EX Fireball and Tatsu, that shit is childs play compared to his hammer fist.
The only REAL dominant footsie tool Akuma has is his standing roundhouse which you can cr. lk him out of or neutrual jump > take half his life away.
Akuma just can’t throw fireballs at Gouken for free in non wake up situations, he risks Gouken either walking/dashing/palming through the air ones, and eating a GF dive kick combo or slide for the ground ones. This never really get’s exposed in the Akuma match up b/c they only really need to rely on one bull shit set up. The hammer fist.
J. Mp and EX Tatsu both own Akuma’s DF in non wake up situations so he just can’t flip in for free either.
If Gouken could get back on his feet per 3 frame reversal this match up would easily be 5/5 or in Goukens favor. You don’t see Akuma hammer fisting and grabbing Ken and Ryu for free do you?? Why?? B/C they’d DP that ass.
I’m not convince it is 5/5. Even with a usable EX tatsu is all. You would be really predictable and he will obviously just try bait out the extremely punishable Tatsu.Hell, he could just safe jump -> short teleport back and STILL max punish you. Harder to, sure, but not 5/5. Akuma still have his 3 frame EX srk and 0 frame Super.
??? If you had a 3 frame reversal, he couldn’t safe jump you, that’s the main reason why Gouken needs a 3 frame reversal.
He’d either have to jump in early to avoid the safe jump or attack your reversal window high up like you have to vs. the rest of the shotos. Still a viable mix up, but clearly not what we have now. That shit isn’t even a mix up, it’s more like un-consented sex.
Plus having a srk like reversal prevents Gouken from being grabbed all the damn time, so it fixes a few other much needed areas too.
i doubt we would get soemthing like that …i guess i need to accept that this is what he DOEs in fact need. ive spent so long trying to subconciously play around those scenarios maybe that ive been in denial this whole time! lol
Serious question, can’t he do this to anyone without a 3 frame reversal then? I try to justify it by thinking we aren’t alone.
Gouken DOES have a 1 frame reversal, the problem is that it loses to armor breakers. What needs to happen is kongo needs to gain “does not lose to armor breakers” when it’s a reversal, just like other people’s specials gain armor breaker on reversal.
@Reipin: We aren’t alone as far as his vortex is concerned, but other characters have out’s or reversals that don’t repeatedly put them in the same situation. He can just vortex Gouken with no regard and if everything breaks down just say fuck it and grab em. I don’t know if there are many if any other characters he can just do like that without eating a reversal. All Gouken has is EX Tatsu and we all know the story with that and you can grab him out of everything else. Of course you can EX Flip, but if he presses against Goukens wake up, he can just look to see which side he is going to land on and punish or throw him again. Even if he can OS their reversal or something with DP or tatsu it doesn’t lead to another hard knock down. He only needs 1 OS vs. Gouken, cr. roundhouse.
@artificeren: That would be hella nice and what would make the most sense. Better than a 3 frame reversal tatsu??, no, but I’d definitely take it over what we have now. The main problem that Gouken has, is that he doesn’t have a get the hell up off of me type of move without you hitting him first, AND it loses to simple throws. As punishable as tatsu is, you’d think it would be damn near one of the best reversals on the game in regards to it’s start up.
@Takin: We were all in denial when we started playing with Gouken. We like the character so much that we found work arounds for all of his flaws and played with the character anyway… WHY??? B/C Gouken is STILL BAD-ASS!!! And every time we get close to dropping him for good, we get news that a new version of SF4 is coming out.
I do think the Akuma match up is winnable if Gouken can stay on his feet, very very tough but winnable.
when 90% of everything akuma hits you with leads to knockdown, that statement is essentially saying, “gouken can win if he doesn’t get hit”
Keep in mind Akuma has to be almost perfect with his hammer fist. That cr.lk xx tatsu on wakeup works when Akuma is even slightly off.
vs a strong akuma that knows you:
after losing first round and taking some your opponents life for the first 2 rounds and building about 2 1/2 bars of meter gouken is in perfect position for a strong 3rd round!
is that it guys? is that our sad little world.? lol im afraid so
If he does a high DF yes, but if he errs on the early side Gouken loses out. Akuma has no reason at all to time a late DF vs. Gouken on his wake up, if an Akuma that knows this does a late flip vs. Gouken it’s clearly a mistake. The main mistake I see most of them making is trying to use DF Dive kick after cr. roundhouse, he can’t safe jump you with that. He has to use d+mk in the air to do it after cr. roundhouse.
Also, be careful with using lk>tatsu on wake up b/c if he decides to dive kick instead it’s your ass. I’ve seen times I’ve tried to cr. lk>tatsu to punish his hammerfist and he erred on the early side and whiffed the hammerfist landed safe, and Gouken did cr. lk > and went flying in the air. Even with the lk connected, b/c if he was crouching for whatever reason the tatsu misses. It’s probably better to do cr. lk > lp palm if anything now if you want to avoid with cr. lk. However that also loses to srk
When he’s high up, you can get out of it by using jump back mp, cr. lk, or EX Tatsu, but this goes back to my original point. Akuma doesn’t really have any reason to late DF on Gouken, the late flip is primarily used to stuff reversals etc. and Gouken doesn’t have anything Akuma has to worry about stuffing.
On another note, an easy way to find the window that I’m talking about to set the training dummy to jump. Knock him down and flip in on him. If you can hit him, or combo him on the ground then you’ve found the sweet spot. If he jumps out, if you are early it doesn’t matter much, but if you are late then it’s punishable.This is the easiest way to learn how to safe jump or counter hit anyone on their wake up, as well as learning the different timings to jumping in. I haven’t played in a WHILE but I still make sure I spend about 15-20 minutes doing this to keep the vortex fresh whenever I have time.
Dunno, I just do it all the time when I’m online cause I’m either going to get thrown or have to deal with retarded crap. As far as I’m concerned if I land this once after getting hit three times that’s a trade I’ll take with Akumas health. If they are high enough to tatsu you tatsu, if not, I do cr.lk.