If you read the developer blog you’d understand that the motivating reason behind extending his throw animation was to cut down Akuma’s vortex setups stemming from forward throw. They specifically stated this. The fact that it nullifies unblockables is a positive side-effect.
The developers are motivated to nutcut the vortex. That is the issue I have with them because while they do this, they don’t give Akuma anything back in return. Its like attacking Bison’s ability to corner opponents by giving scissors 1/2 a screen pushback on block but giving him nothing else - essentially negating a key part of his setplays and leaving the character standing naked without that attribute.
Effectively I don’t understand why the devs want to nerf this option (DF palm empty 2lk), and in fact I don’t understand Capcom anymore,since they made SSFIV AE…thank you Capcom for giving us Yang/Yun broken on purpose,the fact is that now Akuma is involved into the massive nerfs while the only characters who destroy the game are the twins.Fei long is very strong but I don’t think he is as retarded as the twins.
don’t get mad, let’s calm down now. Akuma wasn’t balanced, I think that making his st.hk -2 on block will just force akuma players to learn another poke. Now the gief mu might be closer now. That’s what I call balance.
I can feel that they will nerf his teleport or some shiz. Now that would be funny.
after those akuma nerfs it’s kinda hard to ignore the trolling, especially when capcom makes it easier for my character to beat your character and I just spout it out on the forums about it.
It doesn’t do that either. Safe jumps still work, they just become harder. Like I said it doesn’t do anything useful for balance. It just pissed everyone off.
When was that? Because Tokido was actually worried about the Gief matchup when the coward copter was removed in AE, that alone changed this matchup a lot.
The Akuma-Gief match up is no where near as dominating as it was back in Vanilla or Super. It is still not even just yet, but it is definitely way better compared to the previous versions.
Besides Gief by nature is a character who tends to either dominate a match up or be dominated by a match up. He is hard to balance because of his extreme play style. Out of all the grappler characters Gief is one I don’t feel sorry for. He has the tools to be good and get in. He isn’t like T-Hawk who is lacking the tools needed to compete.
Your right it isn’t the only way. Instead it is the reward for your ground pressure. You can’t do fancy mix ups all the time. Sometimes you have to show your foe you are willing to safe jump and play him straight to keep him honest. After your foe blocks you have to use ground pressure which throws are a major part of.
Why do you deserve a reward that’s so much higher than the rest of the cast? Not everyone has forward throw setups that are safe and have a built-in mixup. Your ground game has multiple threats as which all lead into safe high-damaging mixups. Why do you think you even get throws, it’s because people are afraid to crouch tech because you still have a better counter-hit game than half the cast and linking sweep off it is easy.
Seriously, Akuma has great footsies, great zoning, and a great mixup game. You could stand to lose a few things for the sake of balance.
Um yea because NOOOO one else can do anything after a throw…Right…
NOOOO one else can punish crouching teching…right…
Please do me a favor and don’t talk about things you don’t understand. Most of the cast have set ups after a throw and some of them have 100 times better ways of punishing crouch teching than Akuma does. Akuma can punish a crouch tech using SRKs for what? 150 damage? Maybe more if I want to burn the meter for an Shaku. This is pitiful compared to what other characters can do. Rufus can punish them for a full combo, Ryu can punish into Ultra, Ken can punish into Ultra, Cody can CH into Ultra, and that is just the tip. If anything Akuma’s punish on crouch tech is below the standard set by everyone else.
And serious I get tired of the noobs who keep spouting “Set ups that are safe” like no one else in the game has a fucking safe jump. For crying out loud even T-Hawk has a Safe jump OS U2 after a LP Grab. Learn the damn game people. Many of the safe set ups Akuma players use are the same set ups that are accessible by 90% of the cast.
Give me an extra 100 health and yea I can lose a couple things. Oh wait then I would just be E.Ryu.
What you people don’t realize is Akuma does have a lot of tools, but those tools are not inherently dominant by themselves. Akuma’s zoning tools are good, but in terms of how easy it is to zone with them they are subpar compared to Super Ryu or Sagat. In fact many considered Ryu-Akuma to be a slightly bad match up for Akuma. Akuma has good footsies, but gets out poked by characters like Bison who have even better footsies. Again many considered in Super the Bison match up to be one of the more difficult match ups. Akuma has great mix ups, but they are less safe than Viper’s mix ups and also don’t stun as easily.
Akuma is a jack of all trades type of character. He is good enough to survive in all aspects of the game, but by no means is he the best at each area. That’s why most of his match ups are 5-5 because in a given match up there will almost always be something the other character can do better so Akuma has to exploit his other tools to win.
That is why Akuma isn’t easy to play because he has no “I win” buttons. He has a collection of good tools and has to bring out the most in them to win. This isn’t like Yun where his tools not only are good, but often are the best in a given area.
Nefing other characters won’t stop you from sucking though. In the end it changes nothing for you. In 2012 you’ll just hate on a different character that good players are bodying you with.