No no no. That’s not how I mean.
Yes, Akuma got a lot of tools to his disposal. Once he’s in his preferred range, he can have a powerful control of the area. He have some powerful mixups with great damage. Couple that with diverse wake up options and great anti-airs and you got a powerhouse.
He have all that with the weakness being that they all need precise ranges to work and his low health/low stun makes it very punishing when the enemy gets control. His ground normals? Neutral jump normals? They are just plain bad with some very few exception.
Almost(notice that I said almost) every character can beat the snot out of Akuma and exploit his weaknesses. Vs Makoto? Try a air fireball and a ball crushing Fukikage will be waiting. Vs Cody? It’s almost not funny to see how much Cody will dominate Akuma due to his way more powerful ground normals(and every so often a rock) once Cody lands a grab on him. Vs Dudley? High, low and upside down mixups all day and you got yourself a mashed and mangled Akuma that looks more like a rose bouquet in the end. Did I forget to mention excellent anti-fireball game?
Look. What happened in that Ixion Vs Infiltration match was almost pure strategy. Infiltration knew exactly what Dan was weak at and did not hesitate a bit to exploit it to the end. Dan’s mid and long range game is horrible. If I was in Ixion’s position, I wouldn’t even be able to land one hit. Ixion did his best and in my opinion the best way to deal with that zoning game by being patient. He made it work, but in the end lost.
Something you have to accept in the end is that Dan is bad. He’s not horrible, he got a good pressure game and damaging combos, but just bad. I would say that other than the skills of both Ixion and Infil, Dan was another huge factor in why this match was so huge in Infil’s favor.
So when you call Akuma lame, I don’t know what you are talking about. Some small imbalances, yes, but nothing that could be considered broken.
When we talk like this it makes Ixion look bad. Let’s just make it clear that this is you and me talking about Akuma and Infiltration, and nobody else. Ixion certainly did not voice any complaint, he’s a real humble guy and this discussion might end up spilling onto him like he’s the one who has a problem with how the fight went down.
Once it’s clear that this is -my- beef and nobody else’s, let me point out to you that I know very well that Dan sucks donkey balls. I main Dan, you don’t have to tell me that. Sometimes I play other characters and it makes me laugh honestly how much easier it is. I play Dan almost exclusively but I can pick up characters that I seldom play and have better results with them. Yes, Dan is a turd nugget in a smorgasmord of human excrement.
The “Akuma is broken” discussion is beaten to death, there’s no sense going in it. So I won’t. I think he has way too many great tools, I think he is too good at too many situations, and I think health is a poor balancing tool. You may think otherwise so let’s leave it at that.
However as our friend up there said: Akuma’s teleports are bullshit. He doesn’t need them. There’s no equivalent in the game. No other teleport goes far beyond across the opponent, only behind them. This once cancels into an Ultra also. And it can only be punished, if at all, by very crafty option selects when you have a perfect read. It’s a bullshit move, and a guy with air fireballs, fastest walk speed in the game ( forwards), demon flip and a 3f DP thats FADCable on the 2nd hit (!) doesn’t need it. He’s got enough mobility and enough tools.
That’s all I’m gonna say. Just don’t sit there and try to point out how many alleged terrible matchups Akuma has or for what reason, and we’ll leave it at that.