Akuma’s entire matchup chart is dominated by 5/5 and his good matchups are 6/4. It’s difficult to get more balanced than that.
And yes the character is good, but apparently only so good that only two players have done anything with him competitively in the last year+, which is the point. You don’t nerf a highly balanced character because hardly anybody can do anything with him.
Really nothing should be getting nerfed. His normals are by far the worst out of the 3 shotos.
They’re doing the same thing then that they’re doing now, and in retrospect it was a good idea even though not many players had managed to unlock Viper’s potential. I’m not saying that I agree with the nerfs, but using tourney results alone as justification for balance changes is short-sighted. I still think there’s a lot about Akuma (and other characters) that people haven’t fully explored.
You can’t look at stuff like that in a vacuum. His normals are equal or better by virtue of his walkspeed.
Are you suggesting we’re dumb enough not to have ‘unlocked the potential’ of st.HK in 3 years?
And how is that short sighted when we’re looking at the whole Super era, where the character’s core has been the same, with a couple nerfs?
You’re also talking like Viper couldn’t do shit in tourneys in Vanilla, and that wasn’t the case.
Uh…no. His walkspeed helps his footsie game but his normals aren’t magically as good. Ryu doesn’t have poor mobility and awesome normals so by comparison his normals are far better than Akuma. There are many points during footsies where both players attack. When that happens Akuma loses. His walkspeed doesn’t change that.
It’s this type of fundamental misunderstanding of a character that leads to undeserved nerfs. I’m not saying this to troll but it is very common for people to see Akuma as Ryu with a flip and teleport and that simply is not the case. If you really think his normals are that good maybe you should try him out and see how not good they are compared to the other shotos?
I don’t understand what the big deal is about st.HK. It’s a non-factor for over half the cast. And for the others, all -2 means is that Akuma can’t throw it out brainlessly and frequently for free counter-hit setups. And for Zangief and T. Hawk (2 matches that Akuma unquestionably dominates), it means that it’s not 0% risk, 100% reward.
And miss me with the “Akuma is supposed to beat grapplers” bullshit. Fuck how the matchup was in every other iteration. If there’s a way that balance can be achieved without making his other MUs suffer much, or at all, then how is that bad? I will say that the nerf to palm and other stuff was probably too much, but the st.HK nerf is fair and justified, and if that had been the ONLY nerf to Akuma, I’d be just as satisfied as I am now.
No, of the character as a whole.
US: Flashmetroid, Marn. Maybe Sanford was more known for his SSFIV Viper
Japan: Uryo, Kyabetsu (who wasn’t even that strong according to Fuudo)
EVO 2009 top 8 had 3 Akumas, 0 Vipers.
Walkspeed has everything to do with footsies and his close up game. Hakan has great normals but he’s not even nearly good as Akuma up close. This has been discussed so many times that I’m not even gonna bother replying if you disagree.
It’s the combo of nerfs with no practical buffs that is the issue.
If the only nerf was st hk nobody would give a shit. However they are nerfing his footsies and his mixup and giving him gimmicks in return.
If his walkspeed brings him up to par (which it doesn’t because Ryu’s walkspeed is barely any slower) then the low stamina, low stun threshold and lack of stun output brings him back down again.
Ryu - great normals worse walk speed=better footsies
Balrog - great normals worse walk speed=better footsies
Fei - great normals worse walk speed=better footsies
Don’t bother replying as it’s obvious you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Just out of curiousity, who wins the Ryu/Akuma matchup in AE?
imagine if they made bisons lk scissors-2 on block…
Akuma does.
BECAUSE HE HAS AN UNBLOCKABLE!
Irrelevant points FTL.
Then STFU about footsies when everyone knows that Gouki has about a million other usable tools than Boxer, Ryu or Fei.
But since you’re so intent in replying to me, explain how Ryu has better footsies than Gouki in AE. I’m genuinely interested. Not that it has anything to do with st.lk, but I like being entertained.
All I can say is… don’t get mad, you’ve been nerfed and I won’t be surprised if you get more nerfs lol. Having 55-45’s not in your favor is also balance. All characters need some kind of weakpoint in their style of play. The only characters that could beat akuma were the broken twins in AE but now they got nerfed to shit and akuma almost stayed the same until they realized what would happen if Akuma did stay the same. Get nerfed, it’s well deserved Akuma mains!
“Deal with it”. Ah I Love using those words. “Deal with it” that payback stings.
He also has ass health and stun which is intended to offset his “tools”. Just because you give a character tools doesn’t mean he should be worse in every single area.
Having tools doesn’t mean much anyway. Fei is the best character in AE, Ryu was about as good as Akuma in Vanilla and Super.
He has better normals and an awesomely fast ex fireball.
dude, just drop it, its not worth the pages of posting that will ensue. i tried having this conversation with these guys a few weeks ago. they severely undervalue akumas ground game, and basiclly the character as a whole.
im sure every non biased player knows whats up, but youre not going to convince any of the akuma players here
Instant low tier… If he had an overhead that was quick like dudleys and safe on block and +4 on hit then i’d make scissors -2 on block but since he doesn’t have one then he can keep scissors 0 on block.
Oh yeah you’re that guy that tried to say Seth had shit footsies to which I posted examples of Poongko playing footsies with Infiltration.
Yeah you’ll find that conversations are a waste of time when you’re wrong.
…I don’t agree with you if you are using the “undervalue” term to imply that Akuma mains should think that their character needs to be nerfed.