Any good JP players to look out for at Evo Japan this year?
Because anyone decent wouldn’t be getting tatsus on block? Besides you’ve also got stomp (safe, easy confirm) , CC ( plus) or simply spacing your st.mk out to the place where it’s not Gona trigger the block stun. You don’t even need shimmy if you’re talking about bog standard low level play.
I mean that definition means Ryu is also hard to play because none of his shimmys are safe yet I’d put Ryu second easiest.
Newbs don’t shimmy.
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Sfv evo Japan is stacked, pretty sure all top players will be there.
This is like real-time projection lol. Like the only time we ever debated back and forth you trolled me. The only person dismissive here is you. Like if i have been condescending you can always point that out but you gotta behave like a bitch instead right?
I thought I heard Daigo and Tokido might not be going? This was all word of mouth of course. Any netplay warriors that might make an appearance?
True somewhere higher rank.
Cr mp into st mp works but you gotta make sure your not in alex throw range. At high levels akuma is easy to perform. But when learning the char sakura is easier.
You literally said newbie in your first sentence. If you are talking about higher ranks, why are you talking about newbies?
Imo Sak is harder to use at lower ranks. Her specials aren’t stellar and that’s what terribles and beginners rely on. Akuma is much better for your average newb. No low cancel into dp and his bnb is as easy as they come plus he’s got worlds most braindead AA in bhp and he’s got AIRFIREBALLS which any newb will understand the instant they use the character and most lower level players will have a hard time dealing with.
Sak imo is the opposite. She gets easier to use the more the opponent knows what’s up. Using Sak against terribles wasn’t a fun experience for me, but against good players was quite fun, if not a bit underpowered… but still doable.
Imo with justification ( for low level)
Akuma - safe as houses specials, lots of plus frames, no crouch or stand required, spazzy trigger with a spazzy dp. Best corner escapes , pretty much do stuff and keep doing stuff. Or run away and lame with the occasional spazzy EX move ( lots of them do this)
Ryu - Probably the hardest if we are talking high level, but for Joe you can get by doing rando dash, everything confirmed of mediums, no spazzy cc or trigger, but in general play, pretty easy to navigate.
Sakura - Gona be putting yourself in lots of close minus situations which generally low level players can’t handle, need a buffer for your best poke and needs to be spaced so you don’t blow yourself up. Trigger unsafe on block, fireball pretty pants, Gona get zoned out or jumped on.
Ken - Sure, he’s spazzy, but really you got to hit confirm target combos that will land you in hot water, crappy fireball, not that great mid range, pokes whiff, shit whiffs in general although does a retard dash which keeps players a float. Also needs to hit confirm low lights to get the most out of his high/low
I played them all, although I’m playing at a slightly higher level than your average Joe.
Edit: I’d actually be tempted to put Sakura last and Ken after Ryu.
Well its a hyperbole of low ranks trying to and messing up a shimmy. I mean you can go as far as gold rank. You can extend that same example and say a player learning akuma tries to go through fireballs and messes up and ends up being -7 whereas sakura doing the same is -2. You gotta train this kind of stuff a lot more with akuma players.
You dont need to cancel lows into dp but tatsu which gets you a mix up on hit. Getting hit by her st mp back fierce into heavy tatsu does around 220- 240 dmg and you get a free mix up. If the player doesnt crouch tech and guesses you can get away with a tatsu loop. Also you got a simple frametrap in st mp into back fierce into h tatsu which blows a lot of people surprisingly.
All of her normals special cancel into tatsus. So you can buffer from normals into specials easily. And you also have low ranks unable to anti air tatsus and having to guess with that -2 mix up.
So sakura’s gameplan isnt idiot proof either.
But anyways the meat of my argument is that sakura’s easier to learn than akuma even at low levels. Because even at low ranks player generally can tell whether air fireball its safe or block. And at gold rank people will dash through or neutral jump. I know because i played with the char around these ranks. You still need to learn a lot of these things.
Sakura is the character you see least of, that’s not a coincidence for me.
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I don’t peg any of the shoto designs as easy, they’re simple to grasp in theory but application is difficult.
If I had to think about who I would define as easy, it would be characters who can apply a tool in basically any context, at any timepoint, and either create an advantageous scenario or suffer no repercussion for the action.
Birdie, Bison, Balrog.
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B for braindead? 
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Beekmeer, you better take notes my dude. hit random buttons, buffer tatsus into everything.
Fuck it, DP afterwards too. Ride that train to Grand Master.
Welp, i’m gonna finish season 4 of the wire because this thread just jumped some sort of shark I didn’t know it could jump.
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I can agree with this, shoto in general I wouldn’t say is difficult but it’s not easy, since you do have to play mid range. Some characters don’t. At least not if we are talking lower level again.
You forgot to mention that a lot of these things take time to learn. Demon flips can be jabbed easily. lk tatsu requires the opponent to be standing. Air fireball spacing requires a bit of learning. And on top of that you got 900 health. Any wonder the character 2 years after release was consistently bottom 3 in winrate.
You mention sakura’s ends up being in a lot of -2 situations. But with akuma it’s -7 and -10. I dont get it whats so hard about learning the character.
Moreso that shotos don’t have a tool that’s free commitment, fireballs are easily the hardest things to learn in SF, shotos thrive on them.
DP perfection on AAs is basically impossible, you’ll fuck up an auto correct or crosscut routinely, fuck even Bonchan is.
Their optimal midrange has to be reliant on confirms because of the aforementioned no free commitment special options.
Like shotos play incredibly honest, lose easily off of one small mistake, and have to work harder in areas that most others don’t. It’s easy to look at their kit and see what’s what, but effectively using it is really difficult. The amount of bad Akumas to actually good Akumas is landslide.
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PR Rog said Akuma is difficult to really get down. In general im of the idea that a character can have easy reward things and still be difficult to master.
Id say optimized Sakura requires work also (s.hp and c.mk hp shoryu confirrns, s.lk buffer is tighter than other characters). Dont really think its worth debating who is easier or harder. They specialize in different things to master overall
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Sak has an easy game plan but to play her well isn’t easy IMO. You have to have strong fundamentals and hit confirms. She doesn’t have any derp like Akuma. Her V triggers are also lackluster, so you’re mostly winning without them. When I dabbled with her she seemed like a slightly better version of Ryu whereas Akuma is Ryu on steroids.
Whoa there’s a cake next to my name. Happy valentines day.
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