SF4 Akuma Combos

The main thing you need to know about charge characters who have projectiles (like Guile, Dee Jay and Chun) is that their main weapon is their slow LP projectile which they can follow in as a shield. Your goal is to keep snuffing their projectiles out with one of yours. Guile throws a boom, you throw hado IMMEDIATELY. Where your advantage with Akuma lies is that we can throw a 2 or 3 hit projectile without the need for meter. Now the problem with the Shakunetsu (Red Fireball) is that the startup and recovery is a little longer, so you need to anticipate a bit when it is that your opponent will launch a projectile, but that shouldn’t be too hard to figure out.

The other thing to know when fighting Guile is that you need that ONE knockdown and then you have to keep on him until he’s dead.

it seems that on jump-in attacks, it’s best to never input more than 2 blocked jabs/shorts as anything more has a high risk of being reversal’d … it is at this point, if there is no reversal, to attempt a cross-up j:mk: or neutral j air fireball or EX… it seems that what makes this cross up positioning possible is the second block string input containing an option select to handle back-dashes, like cr:lp: ~ cr:hk:

i have found that one of the best tactics with akuma, being that it’s what occurs in distance from your opponent that actually wins matches, as once you are hitting your opponent, that is actually a result of the actions that occurred over space to enable that hit confirm, is to do a short palm wiff out of range of a DP followed immediately with a sweep, as this maneuver covers a lot of ground safely, offensively

another would be following hados with an EX demon flip, as your opponent will have to react to the hado while making himself vulnerable to the demon flip

anyway, just mentioning misc tactics… anyone else have others worth mentioning?

here’s a nice effective use of meter combo… cr:lk:cr:lp:cr:mp: xx fireball fadc cr:mp: xx fireball fadc cr:mk: xx :lk: tatsu cr:hk:

266 damage! hell yeah. you get hit confirms, 2 fadcs, and a nice sweep knockdown. nice and technical

The problem with this combo is that tatsu sweep doesn’t work on every character… also for 4 bars you could just set the opponent up for a super demon which does 300 dmg. Or if you really wanted to do a hit confirm combo then do cr.LP, st.HP xx HP hado FADC cr.MP xx EX tatsu. Very easy combo that nets you over 320 dmg and only costs 3 bars.

yes, i was being sarcastic in suggesting it was a good idea, sorry.

but an honest question, what is a good follow up to landing a DF palm strike?

tiger knee air fireball is the best option… take a slight step back , then tiger knee air fireball its hard to block and crosses up

I don’t know… I’d say that depends on which character you just landed it on. For example, on Gouken and/or Rog, I’d just take a step back and do another LK DF Palm. If they block, continue with block string and try to sneak in another throw/sweep… If they try a reversal, it whiffs and you punish. If they backdash, you O/S sweep, etc. As long as you can keep getting the UTKD, you should go for it.

question… how is U2 a better choice than U1 outside of comboing into it? what makes U1 so awesome is it’s long range anti-air effectiveness… can U2 be used the same way?

also, how many frames do you have to link cr:mp: / :mk: into xx teleport xx U2 ? it seems like a 1 frame, i still havent been able to do it once

Depends on the character you’re facing, but more importantly on what kind of akuma you are or want to be. It mostly comes down to what you want to protect. Your sweep or your teleport. It took me a month to master comboing into U2 from every normal with enough hitstun. If you master c.mp/c.mk xx U2, you can basically substract 380 health from your opponents life, evening the odds, because you can land it from any hitconfirm.

Unlike U1, it doesn’t give your opponent an ultra and 2 free bars of meter to land it with. The ability to meterlessly land a 380+ combo is a great ability. After a hit, two dashes leave you in the exact same position and frame advantage as after a landed sweep.

However, footsies become less safe and FA’s become a really dangerous threat.

And no, it’s not a 1f cancel because of hitstop reasons. You still have to do it really fast , but there’s plenty of leniancy. C.mk moreso than c.mp.

am i right that jump-in OSs really only handle the possibility of your opponent backing away from the primary attack connecting? that’s not very multifaceted

i think the best jump-in OS is a demon flip, get him to react to a jump to get caught mid animation by the follow-up DF. :hk: tatsu seems to be lame, a dead end no-combo move. i suppose SRK OS is useful if your opponent tries a jump when you jump in… but if he back dashes the jump in you dont want to be doing a SRK… it seems too risky to use freely.

No one can jump out of a proper jumpin os attack, they’ll be hit during their ascent, and if you hit them during the 4 frame jumping startup, you can combo afterwards. However, there are moves that have invincible frames during their rise (Gouken ex DF). The correct os can vary depending on the move properties. Sometimes the os dp whiffs and they land behind to punish your recovery. Against those moves you can os backjump and hit them out of the air or punish their recovery on the ground.

Os df might catch the opponent off guard a couple of times, but it isn’t safe at all. The average total frames of a backdash is 26 frames, while the fastest df hit lands after 40 frames. This gives them 15 frames to knock you out of the air with anything they want. Only use it if you predict a teleport or something similar.

General OS guidelines

Jumps/DFs beat teleports
SRKs beat reversals
Sweeps beat back dash
Ultras beat back dash and some reversals.

edit: post removed

nice post in a combo thread…

So what are Akumas BnB’s in AE2012? The Op hasn’t been updated since 09’

They haven’t changed much since then.

If someone can find an easy way to use cr:hp: xx exDF xx exFireball it could be a nice way to show off in easy matches ^^
The fireball cancels very easily point blank but canceled from the cr:hp: you need to delay the fireball cancel and it’s kinda annoying…

I found a combo I have not seen posted.

It requires RIDICULOUS spacing, you have to find the range where you can connect a jump attack, into forward hk, into cl.hp.

I tested it on akuma, it is j.hk > f.hk > cl.hp xx fireball > FADC > cl.hp xx ex.tatsu > ex.dp

493 damage

Of course there are other options with less meter, like simple lk.tatsu > sweep/hp.dp

But that is the most damaging combo I could find without using ultra.

(the spacing is literally 1/4th of the smallest square in the training room where you have to jump from, and you have to hit the j.hk early in the air.)

You can set up far hk -> cl.hp in the corner with a level 3 focus attack backdash walk forwards also. Slightly more consistent.