In my long set against VRyu last weekend, 20 of those games were Akuma vs Makoto and it was murder. After a knockdown it wasn’t too much of a problem if you ignore the fact that you can’t safely demonflip divekick but the main problem was getting that knockdown to begin with. I was telling myself the same thing as what Sol had written, in that when you break her down it’s not actually that hard to keep her out.
It’s hard to keep her out.
What I don’t get at the moment: does the move have any invincibility? Looking at the hitboxes Capcom provided (look for them on EventHubs, under the character guide section in case you missed them) the moves starts with no hittable hitbox, so I take that’s why it screws divekicks. Frame datas on the other hand have no mention of this, so I thought it was just a matter of a very favorable hurtbox.
Haven’t still brought this to the lab, anyone can clarify?
What I don’t get is that, according to frame data, her Fukiage (upwards punch) is 8fs startup… That should be plenty to safe jump or even dive kick her with. Is it her invulnerability frames or the hitbox that helps her out here? Even cross-up palm setups are tough against her. When I play against a Makoto player, it’s almost like I have to play it like I’m playing against Ryu, except I’m even more limited in my vortex options against Mak than Ryu…
It’s just relentless zoning, being on point with your AA mp.SRK to snuff out her axe kick attempts and baiting stuff out. Then, even when you get a good set of steam going, you have to be carefull if she gets U2 charged and back off a bit.
This matchup is supposed to still be in Akuma’s favor, but it’s definitely not a freebie… You have to work hard for the win here! I can’t wait for the AE 2012 patch where this matchup will be likely lopsidely on Mak’s favor… o_O
EDIT: Umh… I see dr4z0r brings up the same point I did! LOL
Edited post. Everything I said Loyalsol said better.
One thing I just realized though is that LK demon flip palm after a sweep puts you at the perfect position/range to avoid her up punch even if you mis-timed the safejump.
But, you need MK df from max distance sweep.\
Like it looks like if makoto is half a square from you when you sweep her, LK demon flip is perfect for that range. But any further away than half a cube/square you need MK demon flip.
I have a question. When I first started playing akuma I realized real quick that wakeup df dive kicks on shotos weren’t exactly easy to pull off. I would eat a dp most the time. After messing around in training mode, it seems like a df dive kick always beats lp and hp dp but loses to mp dp and ex, unless you do an HK dive kick when the tail end of your sweep hits them and knocks them down. If you do an HK df dive kick from this spot all of ryu’s dp’s whiff and you can punish. But is this the only range at which you can pressure him on wakeup?
Can’t he just autocorrect DP if you cross him up with mk or short? Crossup tatsu also gets autocorrect dp’d. Crossup air fireball is hard after a sweep if its even possible to do correctly. If you land a sweep during footsies but are too close to safely demon flip, what should you do?
I guess you could early jump to bait a dp or something and then late crouch tech and hit confirm for a combo?
Im messing around in training mode some more and it seems like the outcomes vary heavily depending on the timing and position, how anyone could get anything consistent out of this is beyond me. maybe just judging when to start the kick based on the height/position?
Well, v-ryu is just that good. I think that in super akuma v makoto is 5-5 or .5 in akuma’s favour. But of course unless the matchup is really fucked (like 8-2 or something) the better player will usually win.
I’ll just leave these questions here and hope someone answers:
Guile: I lost a game recently where, I had successfully demon flip kicked (on wakeup) ,combo-> swept him 3 times in a row (2 and then dizzy) until he was in the corner. On the last sweep I was extremely close to him in the corner, I did an LK demon flip kick not really thinking about what I was doing. The guile walked forward under me and punished and I lost. What should I have done? I had like 2 bars of super meter, should I have done neutral jump ex fireball? He had about 10% or less health.
Balrog: I don’t want this char to push me to the corner, so i end up throwing out cr.mk buffering an hk tatsu into it frequently. They catch on and punish it. And actually this cr mk that is supposed to stuff these dash punches ends up getting hit by them. I panic and walk forward and throw out a standing rh which gets hit by mash/stand jab/rush punch, and then I eventually end up not pressing any buttons at all until i’m in the corner. I never throw ground fireballs, I sometimes throw air fireballs that are low to the ground, when I get a sweep I mix in palm and throw, although I havent been OS’ing in sweep after palm which I guess is something I should start doing. What should be changed here?
Bison: I do not press any buttons on the ground. I jump and throw a close to the ground air fireball in an attempt to predict/punish scissors. I whiff palm and throw more air fireballs to build a tiny bit of meter. Eventually a scissors or a slide comes my way, which i block. I then sit in crouch block awaiting more pokes and another scissors. If I am mid screen I walk or jump back out of poke range. If i’m in the corner I just sit there until I think I can jump away. I may jump back in the corner and throw an air ex fireball to force him to block and use this opportunity to leave the corner, but generally I’ve already taken substantial damage at this point. When I finally do end up getting a knockdown which is usually off of a random sweep, a walk up online throw, or a air fireball->sweep, I choke basically and just do a demon flip palm, which they block and the situation resets itself and i’m back to square one. Advice? after checking the bison matchup, the best OS imo that is listed there is palm, LK tatsu, which is safe on all options and once they start blocking I can mix up df throws. But I have not yet begun to implement this into my gameplay. I still need to get past the basics of fighting bison.
Blanka: sitting in crouch block all day waiting for a roll to cr.mp , a hop to cr.mp, a slide to sweep (cant do shit after a sweep anyway), or a jump to dp (I rarely am able to dp jumps because of delay and poor reaction speed). usually a blanka will resort to jumping in on me. why not? its free anyway, they jump and do a poke and either hop behind me or grab at some point, which is impossible to tech especially in delay. So at some point, I begin throwing low to the ground air fireballs to hit them if they attempt a slide, this usually trades in their favor, but I have no other better idea as to what to do. I know to whiff an LK demon flip just to bait a slide and then do dive kick which often punishes it, but this can easily be punished by just jumping and hitting me out of the air.
The other hard matchups aren’t really as complicated, I can most likely figure them out. LIke for instance rose is supposed to be a bad matchup but I understand this fight well. Is there any obvious things that I am doing wrong at this point?
Also, it may sound as if I’m just pressing buttons in a braindead fashion hoping to have luck, but I really do attempt to look at patterns and punish things. But with these chars I don’t even know if there is such thing as a pattern, these fools just press buttons randomly and are rewarded for it.
Vs all 3. I do not throw fireballs up close, only once in a blue moon. I do not like the position I am in where they reaction jump at me and I am forced to time a DP in delay which might even trade. It’s a free jump in basically and yes I use the MP dp.
If he was IN the corner then you should jump forwards to set up the ambiguous crossup/ambiguous side you land on situation. Palm/empty palm also would have worked
On tip range sweep, I like to throw out HK DF Dive Kick on Ryu players I KNOW are going to try and reversal DP/EX DP me. From there, you have two options, walk up to them and do a BnB combo of your choice, though you’ll likely not get another hard knockdown from this, but the benefits are the damage you’ll do. My preference is just to sweep them and go for another DF Dive Kick setup. Usually if they go for the EX DP on wakeup, I know they’re not smart enough to know that MP DP beats my dive kick, so after I knock them down I try it again, but this time MK DF dive kick to try and stuff them and THEN do a BnB. If they block, I go for the tick throw which sets up a vortex run (fwd throw, dash xx HK DF Dive kick or fwd throw, dash-dash, x-up tatsu, sweep, etc).
However, good (or lucky) Ryu players will slightly delay their DP on wakeup and hit you with an auto-corrected DP. And if they have U1 stocked, well… Ouch! So always gauge your opponent before you do anything rash.
Hey superlollo, I think you had better PM Tokido and tell him to stop being such a scrub. You remember a while back when you called me a scrub because I told someone asking for match-up advice that they can catch shotos with a wake up demon if they try and chip you out with fireballs on wake-up?
Well here’s a video of Tokido doing exactly that (at the 0:31 mark)…
I think that was mostly desperation (and luck) on Tokido’s part. Plus Aqua was in his face when he threw that Tiger shot… Chances of success for the wakeup demon were high! Why not go for it?
I think more than “matchup advice” that falls under “punish such idiocy with…”: you don’t chip Akuma with a low tiger shot from that distance, that thing’s recovery is bad. And this is pretty much true for several fireballs, from that distance.
I’m also pretty much positive a top player like Tokido can react to a fireball spawing type move, that’s about 20-25 frames of time from startup, about half if you consider when the fireball appears: you buffer the demon till the last hit, then watch what happens.
Yep, exactly. Plenty of time to confirm the fireball and use the invincibility frames of the Demon to punish. And players will fall for this from the scrubbiest of scrubs on XBL to top ranked players like Osijan Boy in that video (although you probably won’t catch a top player with it more than once).
I once saw edma doing an air ex tatsu and immediately doing U1 as soon as he landed! He caught valle’s ryu with it.
Someone add this strategy to the ryu matchup paragraph ASAP.
I remember that match… So epic! Almost as epic as DSP’s Rufus losing to a flowchart Ken who set the rounds to 30 seconds! 
So in lieu on our glorious nerfery in 2012, I’ve been focusing a lot on footsies and frame traps. Particularly frame traps and counter-hit follow-ups. I found that if you put together a couple of delayed strings with frame advantage spread within them (cross-up j.mk, c.lp, cs.lk, c.lp, c.lp … c.mp for example) that you can perform via muscle memory, do with your eyes looking the middle left (or right, depending on your side) on the screen.
The reason for this is so you can properly react to the counterhit notification and then plug in that fs.hk to really maximise damage. The counterhit notification comes out when the hit actually connects, so its not so much a ‘1 frame link’ into fs.hk after a counterhit c.mp if you catch this notice. You actually have a lot more time to at your disposal as extended hitstun combined with the recovery of the c.mp after the immediate counterhit notice gives you a decent amount of time to properly react and press hk.
Try this is training mode with random block and random counterhits enabled. Get your counterhit fishing strings nailed and committed to muscle memory then work at them while glancing at the notification area to see if this helps your consistency. Remember than c.hk is a good option too, though I quite like fs.hk 
I used all the games I played last night to work on this and the results were kinda cool.
Using random block and and random counter hit in training is actually very very effective. Its something I have been using for quite sometime.
Likewise, its good for reaction training too. I’ve found this looking at the notification area while autopiloting staggered frame trap strings to be really helpful too. Landing counterhits is very satisfying
(Though attempting frame traps against mashing retards isn’t, lol)
this is fucking genius. i never thought to keep an eye out for the counter hit.
Does random block have absolute guard? Last time I tried random block and counterhit on, the counterhit would happen on the cs.lk for example.