What are Akuma’s optimal teams/partners? I know already it’s going to involve Sentinel, but I don’t have much else.
The Akuma point team I’m trying for fun is Akuma/Doom/Ammy. Was just a lazy pick from me at first, but it turns out Cold Star is fucking stupid for Akuma.<div><br></div><div>The main gimmick is this: call Cold Star and immediately L Shoryu, either on someone’s wake-up or to get out of pressure. Invincible reversal setup that leads into a combo on hit (juggle from Cold Star) or a mixup on block. Wut. This actually can kinda work with Plasma Beam too if you know your Shoryu is gonna hit.</div><div>It’s really good on incoming too. Just plink dashing repeatedly in the corner while calling an assist causes a very ambiguous mixup.</div><div>On top of that you can just come in with walk forward c.L pressure, and as Cold Star comes in go for Demon Flips into the dive kick. The M and H versions cross up even in the corner.</div><div><br></div><div>Like, I understand that people put Akuma anchor because of the damage output and assist, but this character is potentially really cheap on point. Air fireballs cover for his stubby normals and tatsu can help his ground approach vs. projectile characters. Give him a beam and a lockdown assist and he’s a real character IMO. Just need to be really careful of taking incidental damage.</div>
Cold Star is AWFUL for Akuma. It scales his damage so bad. Akuma’s best assists are lockdown assists with few hits like Drones, Bolts, and Spitfire.<div>I’m running Akuma/Dorm/Sent right now. It may very well be THE ultimate Akuma team. Beam xx Chaotic Flame can easily turn into a dead assist for two bars because Dorm loops Purification of the assist afterwards. Once I get around to using TAC infinites, Dorm is going to be hella good for that too. Beam xx Stalking Flare is such a dirty set-up to give Dorm advantage. Plus, Akuma/Drones lets Akuma keep his high damage and meter gain, effectively allowing him kill quite a few characters off of the first hit. Dorm/Drones is just retarded. Dorm/Tatsu is so hard to get in on. I struggle to think of a better optimized Akuma team.</div>
Guys, I think everyone is overlooking the all important Magneto assist. 1) Disruptor doesn’t scale combos like a mofo, so free to abuse as mixup potential. 2) Lets him use Tatsu L on the ground as an attack option. 3) Controls ground space and buffs zoning game. 4) Dominates many assists out there due to speed and durability. 5) Having Magneto/Akuma on any team together, if you put Akuma on point, means you can play matchups by swapping orders and both assists will more or less function the same for one another. 6) TAC shenanigans that dwarf anyone else besides Doom. And maybe MODOK.<div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Point Akuma doesn’t suffer that bad from heavily scaled combos. Most of Akuma’s damage comes from his Fireball Hyper S Fireball OTG Beam anyways, which does like 400K even at max scale. Also, mixups are mixups and Demon Flip gives some nasty jump-in based mixups. I’d say Cold Star is worth it, but you might want to get some resets going in there.</div><div><br></div><div>Also, Doom Missiles are pretty good, but that pretty much goes for everyone+Doom Missiles</div>
Maybe I exaggerated Cold Star a bit there, but I do think Drones is better for him. If nothing else, it comes with a much better DHC than a lot of other lockdown assists.<div>So, Colonel, what do you think is the most optimal Akuma team? You are probably the most knowledgeable poster about him on here, so I’m interested in your opinion.</div>
There is a lot that goes into Akuma point strategies and thoughts, but the absolute most important thing Akuma needs to do is get close. His approach is pretty good, but it tends not to buy him enough time to go for his stronger setups. Fireballs are good, but he cannot keep a zoning game up the entire game. Hell, Dorm can’t keep a keepaway game up the entire match and look at how many tools he has. So dedicating assists purely for zoning is out. Akuma’s good at protecting assist calls, but his main defensive power there is simply throwing a fireball while calling the assist. It can lead to some miserable times depending on matchup. So while I won’t deny slow starting assists such as missiles and drones, I wouldn’t rank them as top of the line. So you must have a long range pressure tool that’s either fast or durable. Beams are what you’re looking for. Or arrows. So long as you have one of those, the other assist is fair game. So Doom Plasma, Iron Man Unibeam, Magneto Disruptor, Hawkeye/Task arrows, Strange Bolts, Arthur Daggers. These are all your best bet. After filling in this role, the next thing would probably some kind of lockdown assist or aerial controller.<div><br></div><div>Primarily, you want Akuma with Doom. Because Doom is the Guiles’ Theme of UMvC3. He can either be your beam or your other. For the third, if you picked Plasma, something like Log Trap would be absolutely perfect, but requires sacrifice. Same goes for Drones. Both characters have really high entry barriers. Though both are meter hogs like Akuma, so keep that in mind too. I’d say Dante’s Jam session is your best bet to combo with Plasma Beam. Provides excellent stun and screen control.</div><div><br></div><div>If you picked Missiles, go with either Magneto or Strange.</div><div><br></div><div>There’s my input.</div>
Drones probably is better, I was thinking about that on the way home. But Sentinel is a terrible character, and my reset setups using Demon Flip and Cold Star are more than enough to compensate for the damage scaling (not to mention Doom TAC’s).
<span style=“font-family: Arial, Verdana; line-height: normal;”>Hmmm… so you are saying Akuma’s </span><span style=“color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Helvetica, Arial; line-height: 18px;”>good teams are likely Akuma/Magneto/Doom and Akuma/Doom/Dante? Interesting. I’m running Akuma/Dorm/Sent right now, and I am noticing some issues with characters that can keep Akuma out for extended periods. May need to experiment with Akuma/Beam/Sent or Akuma/Sent/Beam…</span>
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<div class=“QuoteAuthor”><a href="/profile/45295/just5moreminutes">just5moreminutes</a> said:</div>
<div class=“QuoteText”><span style=“font-family: Arial, Verdana; line-height: normal;”>Hmmm… so you are saying Akuma’s </span><span style=“color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Helvetica, Arial; line-height: 18px;”>good teams are likely Akuma/Magneto/Doom and Akuma/Doom/Dante? Interesting. I’m running Akuma/Dorm/Sent right now, and I am noticing some issues with characters that can keep Akuma out for extended periods. May need to experiment with Akuma/Beam/Sent or Akuma/Sent/Beam…</span></div>
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He needs a beam to get in. I think it’s absolutely necessary. Any lockdown assist like Drones or Jam Session or Cold Star on top of that is a solid team IMO.
I’ve been playing Firebrand/Dormammu/Dr.Doom (Missiles) for a bit but I put in Akuma in matches where I feel like Firebrand doesn’t help, or I want better DHC synergy so I can tear up assists. Also, it allows me to possibly have Tatsu for Dorm, along with Missiles.<br><br>The main problems I’ve noticed with this team are just some really hard match-ups. People like Zero, Strider, Dante (Read: Stupid normals, teleports) just tear Akuma up. Missiles is nice for Akuma though. Keeps him alive longer and air Tatsu pressure is pretty good when you know Missiles are coming down behind you.<br>
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<div class=“QuoteAuthor” style=“font-weight: normal;”><a href="/profile/57676/Kresent">Kresent</a> said:</div>
<div class=“QuoteText”>I’ve been playing Firebrand/Dormammu/Dr.Doom (Missiles) for a bit but I put in Akuma in matches where I feel like Firebrand doesn’t help, or I want better DHC synergy so I can tear up assists. Also, it allows me to possibly have Tatsu for Dorm, along with Missiles.<br><br>The main problems I’ve noticed with this team are just some really hard match-ups. People like Zero, Strider, Dante (Read: <b>Stupid normals, teleports</b>) just tear Akuma up. Missiles is nice for Akuma though. Keeps him alive longer and air Tatsu pressure is pretty good when you know Missiles are coming down behind you.<br></div>
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Thank you for not saying the V-word here. Your sensitivity to B.M.U.T.D. (Bad Match-Up Trauma Disorder) is much appreciated here.<div><br></div><div>Akuma needs a balanced set of assists. I feel for you (I run Gouki/Dorm/Sent). You may want to invest in an alt team if you don’t like Akuma with beam assists (Dorm 2nd>Beam assists in my hands). I personally keep a Wesker/Lei-Lei/Ammy team handy when I have to deal with V*****, Captain America, and other equally stupid anti-zoners.</div>
I started playing Akuma/Dormammu/Hawkeye just messing around and Akuma on point is suprisingly good. I love the synergy between Akuma to Dormammu, and I also like having the ability to switch in Hawkeye and have tatsu for his keepaway game. Akuma really shines at the start of the round IMO, he can handle some situations that my other chracters cannot. I also love walking right up to the opponent before the start of the round, I feel lik it catches some people off guard as they arnt expecting getting rushed down by Akuma, let alone Akuma on point. As long as he doesnt get touched I think he is really strong point, can get Dorm in relatively safe, and does good damage.
Yeah, Akuma/Dorm/Assist is really good, I do run it after all.
What is the best beam for Akuma, anyway? I have it narrowed down to Bolts, Unibeam, Disrupter, Hawkeye Arrows, or Gun Fire. Preferably attached to someone who either works well with Drones or is useful to Sentinel.
Fix’d
Any beams. Just any beams. Each has different ups/down.
Akuma/Magnus/Sentinel or Akuma/Doom/Sentinel is so good & fun to see. I wish rayray would drop Ryu for Akuma.
What about Akuma w/IF’s rising fang.
He gets the j.M>j.H>j.S>qcfL loop and saves his ground bounce for other options.
Extending Akuma’s already ground-bounced combos with assist>otg divekick>S>j.H>qcbM>super.
Has enough invincibility to get through assist.
Goes roughly 3/4 screen.
Hard hitting DHCs.
Start IF, power chi charge, find a way to get Akuma in safe.
I play Akuma\Magneto\Sentinel right now and I do base a lot on rayray’s team of Ryu\Magneto\Sent.
Akuma’s air QCB is crazy good. I’ve found out it best most projectiles and it has an armor frame when coming down. But the “armor frame” doesn’t work with everyone. (example: Task Master triple arrow will not work.)
If anyone is looking to play akuma with sent assistance is awesome. If you can assist go in and then AT LEAST hit cr.L>cr.M, the sent will protect you coming in and also allows you to do 5 more hits. (example: cr.L>cr.M>allow 1or2 sent missles to hit>dash>cr.L>cr.M>cr.H>S>BnB)
Try to see what assist allows protection and hit stun and work with that.
IMHO Doom is a bitch to play against. since you have to get close to him and/or under him and that allows him to foot dive the shit out of you. What seems to work for me is waiting for Doom to jump and do any time of projectile. When you see him do this, jump towards him do a Demon flip>M and it will bring him down for you to do a combo. If you wanna do a LMH combo you’ll have to wait for them to come down from the first bounce. I do s.M>cr.H>S to assure I get the combo to link.
Also FYI, After doing demon flip to M, You can combo and do demon flip>L to extend the combo longer.
wait like you saved the ground bounce from the air.demonflip m?(assuming you hit the target in the air) maybe i’m just understood it wrong
Yeah for some reason Demon flip>M causes a slight bounce allowing you to do a combo(LMHS) but you can do Demon flip>L after and it will still bounce and extend your combo. Worked for me every time against my friend as doom.
Could you perhaps list a full combo you accomplished using this? We’re not talking about you STARTING a combo with Flip M while they’re grounded, right?