SSF4 AE Akuma Match-up Thread

Classic Fighting Games Ultra Street Fighter IV
361

its not the whiff spd issue.i am pretty much at lost when opponent chooses to just play nothing but react to my moves and counter as it goes.

eg. if akuma c.hk s.mp counter. and outside range c.lk buffer ex green hand. if akuma jump lariat trade into ex green hand in post mixup jump lk o/s to catch teleport.

the beginning issue is that i feel any normal that im sticking out im gonna lose. and random fireball not gonna cut it because ex green hand range…

air fireball and dp as they jump in has proven most potent…but i feel so lame doing that.

not to mention zangief jump lk and jump hp has such an annoying range that its hard to anti-air that.

its kinda feels like this…


or

362

Demon flip divekick absolutely destroyes his anti-air spin IF you aim for his head and if it connects a little bit late. It’s very important to master your antiairs, especially s.Hp. It’s very important to read his habits. If he tends to focus through your fireballs sweep immediately after throwing one, even better s.HK, wchif allows you to punish his focus dash from a safer distance.

As for anti-airs’ if he jumps at you in dp range ALWAYS dp, because it will eat any of his air normal. It gets tricky when he jumps just outside of dp range’ where it will whiff. In that scenario s.HP is the better ainti-air.
S.Hp however will usually trade or lose if he commits to a air normal at a certain range. So it depends on what that Zangief tends to do.

Close range: dp> all
long range:

  • empty jump>dp
    -s.HP>empty jump

There is a range where s.HP beats all of his air normals and it`s when your HP and his normal hit each other at the tips of the hitboxes.

All in all It`s a mini mindgame, where reading you opponent is very important.
Ofcourse always be mindfull of which ultra he uses. Wifth U2 stocked’ better not dp him at all.
Akuma should have a great advantage over Zangief.

363

He is very annoying to AA because of his short jumps, the range on some of his air normals and his tendency to trade even with DPs, but punishing his attempts to jump in is absolutely crucial in this matchup. You also need to be on-point with your fireball zoning. Basically, make him come to you and take a bunch of damage for doing so. Once you have a hard knockdown, you have several options like DF dive kick, DF palm o/s sweep/Demon, DF throw, etc.

Also don’t try to beat his st.MP - it stuffs pretty much everything, even long distance sweep/cr.MK.

364

After removing the coward copter, I don’t see Akuma having much advantage vs Gief at all (it’s 6-4 at most IMO, maybe even 5.5/4.5). The ones that aren’t patient are free, it’s the patient ones that are hell to deal with, they’ll eat fireball chip damage and slowly push you to the corner because they know at the end of the day 1 SPD will change the entire match around lol.

You can still DP AA with EX SRK even if he has U2 since it’s invincible all the way up. As for dive kicks vs lariat, from my experience a late lariat will still trade no matter where you aimed the kick.

I play this matchup extra lame until I get a knockdown to apply some wakeup pressure.

365

this is so wrong…i urge all akuma to stop thinking like that… if u connects dive kick abit late. all gief have to do is to lariat late accordingly and it will trade. therefore, its gief judgement call, akuma can’t do much abit it. more over since ae, the hitbox of lariat got lifted abit higher hence its harder to do any delay compared to super. that’s why in super edition divekick still wins occasionally because its stricter for gief to delay lariat imo.

moodysteve and metallicaband pretty much pointed out some of my trouble. tough to anti-air and tough to deal with s.mp and have to play extra lame.

and by the end of the day i was laming out my wins by

“I play this matchup extra lame until I get a knockdown to apply some wakeup pressure.”

but i feel so lame and the gief feels disgusted as well playing me.

Akuma should have a great advantage over Zangief. <-- this…think again…

if any matchup that ae has that feel like it has any great advantage would perhaps be akuma v sagat and gouken.

366

Crouch Lariat beats Demon Flip anything for free

367

DF throw beats crouch lariat.

Pressure on Gief wake up is rock/paper/scissors. You have options that beat all his options but you need to guess right and if you guess wrong it’s generally bad for you. That’s why you usually see palm pressure because it’s the hardest for Gief to punish.

368

I know the more in depth writeups are being worked on, so it may be a while before we see X character, but can anyone give some updated tips on Guy and Cody? Neither of these are anywhere as easy as the spoilers in the first few posts would indicate. In fact, those “tips” don’t even seem to do all that much. Maybe both were buffed enough in AE to make them outdated, or it was simply written against mid-level (or lower) players. Cody doesn’t have to work anywhere near as hard to completely blow up Akuma, and Guy is impossible to keep out, and does similar damage as Cody, but has better mixups.
[media=youtube]u2oUDk0uzHo[/media]
[media=youtube]8-0S-UG1Anc[/media]

369

Well I just read the Cody writeup and it totally correct. If you find you are having trouble with Cody it’s probably because you are unfamiliar on how to handle the match. The information provided here is relevant and correct.

370

You can’t make any ground against Cody by just tossing slow fireballs. They just jump straight up almost every single time if they have any experience. Once he’s up close, he seems to have frame advantage on both his crouching jab and short (or at the very least they out range yours by a great deal). If either connect, Akuma is losing 25% or more health. The rock can also keep up with regular fireballs, and only the Shaku eats them alive, yet if you toss more than 1-2, he’s just going to jump in and Ruffian. Every time I’ve tried to use a DF move after a knockdown, they simply backdash or block. Did you even bother watching the match above?

371

I think you misunderstand the point of fireballs in this game. Fireballs are neither fast nor difficult to deal with. Every time you throw a fireball you need to be ready to continue your zoning post dodge. Really you should be expecting your opponent to jump over the fireball and be ready to follow up.

Cody has better normals than you up close, basically like very matchup in tight the opponent will have better buttons. That’s why you need to block well and port out when you get a chance.

You simply need more experience with your fireball game. Akuma doesn’t lose fireball wars and if you find yourself at a disadvantage it’s probably because you are being read to easily. just concentrate on improving that part of your game and you will get better at recognizing your holes.

That’s why we have option selects bud, to prevent the opponent from escaping for free.

Did you? Showing a match where Tokido makes 5 unforced errors, 3 of them on untechable knockdown setups, is hardly indicative of the matchup and only shows that you can’t fuck up 5 times a match with Akuma and expect to win.

372

Palm OS Ultra 2

Congrats, Cody has to block Everytime.

I only find the Cody match up hard if I miss my Tatsu-sweep combo. Other than that, just don’t let him land a big combo. He does retarded amounts of damage and stun

373

True enough, and I fully admit to not knowing them all yet.

Yeah, I get that. But then you could argue similarly for any matchup. My point was only that this is what it feels like each time I go against Cody. If you watch other videos of Tok vs Dnm, Dnm seems to win most of the matches.

You need to redo the music in your U2 videos and add Never Gonna Give You Up. :slight_smile:

374

And it would be true in every matchup. I don’t think there is a single matchup that Akuma can expect to win making that many unforced mistakes.

Then you may want to consider that you are making too many mistakes and that you need to tighten up your game. Examine why you lost those matches and try to change up your game to prevent it from continuing.

375

I normally lose to Cody when my spacing is not on point and I’m impatient. When you’re in a block string, don’t hit buttons or even crouch tech. Cody is a frame trap machine and his combos are easy (read: they will almost never get dropped) and highly damaging. You’re much better off eating the occasional throw, especially since Cody’s wakeup pressure is nothing special. If Cody is jumping over your fireballs, that’s a great time to walk or Demon Flip forward to gain some ground.

376

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VEGA (CLAW)
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SPACING
Akuma has the advantage at full screen and up close but is at a disadvantage at middle (footsies) range. Try not to play footsies with Vega; his pokes outrange Akuma’s at every distance (you can stand just outside of Vega’s cr.MP range and try to whiff punish it with sweep). Take advantage of Vega’s weak AA by jumping in with air fireballs, j.HK, ambiguous crossups and empty jumps. From a hard knockdown, Vega is very susceptible to Akuma’s vortex, so keep the pressure on. Vega’s backdash and flips are his go-to tools to escape pressure, but they can be punished on reaction by walk forward – sweep, Raging Demon and others.

FOOTSIES/ZONING/PRESSURE
Zone Vega with fireballs/air fireballs and slowly push him into the corner. Space the air fireballs so that Vega cannot walk forward – sweep on reaction (i.e. do them relatively late and/or aim them at his feet or a bit in front of him just to gain ground). Vega cannot punish a tight fireball game easily, so punish his attempts to do so hard. If Vega is using U1, however, fireballs become risky.
Akuma cannot sweep for free against Vega; on block Vega can punish a blocked sweep with cr.MP xx EX Izuna for 230 damage. Don’t telegraph jump-ins too much, as Vega can air throw on reaction. If you see Vega whiff a standing poke, that’s a good time to jump.
The best frame trap in this matchup is cr.MP-st.HK because your cr. MP leaves you at +2 and your st.HK starts up in 8. This leaves you with a 4 frame gap to counter-hit Vega, who will often try to hit Akuma with a cr.MP. It’s a good idea to plink the st.HK since the timing on this frame trap is tight. If your frame trap fails, use cr. MK to put you at a distance outside his pokes

DEFENSE
When Vega is in the corner, his U1 has only 1f startup, which allows him to punish jump-ins or fireballs on reaction. If Vega is turtling in the corner with U1, advance forward slowly and try to make him give up his charge.
Vega’s j. HP has an excellent hitbox, so using Shoryuken is the most reliable way to get a clean AA. Cr.HP often gets stuffed or trades.
To defend against wall dives, use a combination of cr. HP and focus attack. Focus attack will lose to the throw if done early, but if done immediately before Vega is about to grab, it should whiff. Teleport is also effective, but don’t become too predictable because it’s punishable with EX Izuna Drop. If Vega starts ‘whiffing’ the wall dives, he’s vulnerable when he lands, so at the very least Akuma can close a lot of distance or even punish with st. HK kara U1.

ULTRA CHOICE
U1 is useful in this matchup, as it can punish wall dives, protects sweeps from being whiff punished and can punish Vega’s flip or backdash on wakeup if option selected. U2 is also viable, as it allows Akuma to teleport freely and can be used to punish Wall Dive as well (for less damage than U1).

ON WAKEUP
Vega has no good options to escape Akuma’s vortex, so Akuma has a lot of options (in addition to the option selects listed):
Crossup Tatsu.
Empty jump cr.LK (or cr.LK + cr.LP)
Safe jump j. HK/DF dive kick
Demon flip throw (Loses to Scarlet Terror)
Fake crossup command dive kick
Crossup fireball.
DF Throw > EX DF Dive kick (Crosses up)
Corner-Specific Options:
DF Throw> HK DF Dive Kick (Crosses up)
DF Throw> LK DF Dive Kick (Does not cross up)

377

what is Fake crossup command dive kick?

378

It’s when you jump at your opponent at a distance such that you will narrowly cross them up, but then do a command dive kick (D+MK) at the top of the jump arc. If spaced correctly, the dive kick will not cross up. It’s a great mix up to use when your opponent is expecting crossups.

379

Respectfully, Ultra 2 is just as viable. It easily punishes wall dives, if not easier than Ultra 1. By teleporting, it forces him to whiff, especially if he is waiting til the last second to do the throw option. Late teleport into Ultra 2. I have had mixed results with backdash raw U2 for better damage.

Not to mention that by using the frame trap you suggested, you can easily st.hp -> cr.mp xx teleport xx Ultra 2 for some serious damage.

380

tx, that’s what i thought but just wanted to be sure. btw thank you again for the claw write-up!