Gamogo
1361
Ya, I touched on this in the thread on the main IV forum (re: Mago and Tokido both speaking highly of Akuma in 2012). Here 'tis:
Interesting. I’d really like for them to expand on this speculation. Akuma has been significantly nerfed in 2012 but its almost as if they still feel he remains strong, or at least still stacks up well when you factor in the nerfs/changes to other characters.
I’ll be the first to admit that the general consensus among Akuma players is that his effectiveness via mix-ups and existing setplays has been significantly reduced and we’re unhappy about it. Though Tokido and Mago seem somewhat dismissive over those impacts. I’m curious as to how Daigo feels about all this because I’d really like to see him run with Akuma to see the new angle he brings to the character. Many figured Daigo would throw the towel in on his recent Akuma escapades due to the slew of nerfs Akuma has seen in 2012 so far, but if Mago and Tokido feel this way I’m curious if there’s both a grain of accuracy to it combined with Daigo still rubbing his chin on the character select screen as he hovers over the demon.
Daigo maining Akuma in 2012? Damn that’d be entertaining, and not just for Akuma players. His Ryu was a treat to watch for me and I loathe that character. I kinda lost interest in following Daigo’s efforts in AE as Yun’s style strikes me as dull and repetitive though the dynamics of Akuma in the hands of Daigo could be quite the spectacle.
I’m still having trouble swallowing Tokido and Mago’s sweeping statements. For Akuma to suddenly be top infers Fei, Yun, Yang and Viper got seriously fucked. But that just plain doesn’t seem to be the case from where I’m sitting. Furthermore, for a gimped Akuma to be considered top speaks volumes about how woeful this revision potentially is. An oki and setplay bankrupt Akuma is top? Really? What the hell man.
Also, inb4 all the herp derp ‘Akuma is top tier, stop crying’ muppetry too.
Still, this ALSO potentially suggests a well balanced game and highly compressed tiers given the strengths and weaknesses people are speculating on with the currently available information. Thats a good thing. I really loathe Akuma’s dorky nerfs, but at the same time I love a well balanced game. Hmm.
mad4ra
1362
Tokido is the one who actually played 2012 - so i prefer to believe him Akuma isnt completel fucked 
Actually Sagat beasts on the Twins. His s.HK is godlike against them. Rufus ain’t that hard either. His hard match-ups are Fei and Akuma but both of those are getting easier in v.2012 - the latter one especially. I suppose also Viper but I guess everybody struggles against Viper’s bullshit.
dr4gz0r
1364
Yeah, wanted to point that out. And even Viper got her damage adjusted. Sagat is gonna be great.
Also, Akuma is a hard matchup for him where he DPs you for 460-570 damage, figure how poor his chances are. Heavy Weapons in the Sagat section said it was 4.5-5.5 at best, if not 5-5 in AE.
Ya know, as much as I hate to debate about this, I’ll say that I don’t share youre opinion. See, coming from an Akuma player, this game will not be balanced for me. I said it before, and I’ll say it again and again - Akuma is SUPPOSED to be powerful, just because of the fact that he has the second lowest HP\Stun in the game.
I look at it like this - why should I have the same chanses of winning like Ryu, when I have SIGNIFICANTLY larger chanses of losing? It’s a simple risk reward factor see, I choose a character that dies from two combos, but istead I get a powerhouse, that can destroy you IF I am on point and IF my opponent guesses wrong a couple of times. In this game, Akuma’s tools have all been nerfed, all his moves without exceptions are now punishable (even the most crappiest characters manage to have special moves that leaves them + or 0 at block, but youre Akuma right, the supposedly strongest man on earth right? U get none of those fool!), and he still dies from two combos? Bullshit, this aint balance, it’s a crapy character design (as of now I mean).
Just WOW at some of these posts… it’s a weird combination of total dickriding and completely discounting Tokido and Mago.
I think it’s interesting that people just assume that Tokido is the best Akuma in the world and/or that he’s maximized Akuma’s potential. Honestly, I think the Akuma players’ fixation on the “vortex” has been a hindrance to his character development, at least in America. Yes, the vortex is great, yes he has a lot of awesome mix-ups and safe jumps after forward sweep in the pre-2012 versions, etc. etc., but good God, it’s only one part of his game and the forward throw set-ups are not nearly as essentail to his gameplay as people think. It probably seems that way because you’re beasting on scrubs who can’t fathom the idea of just BLOCKNIG on wake-up.
He still has awesome three frame normals that combo for huge damage, excellent pokes (far st hk will still be almost as good in every match up other than Gief and Hawk), demon flip is still awesome for spacing/ambiguous stiff and DF throw is still an awesome tool… he’s got a solid DP, a completely invincible EX DP, a good focus attack… look at all that he does have, for god’s sake. I didn’t even list half of it.
And like many, I wrote off the EX DF air fireball, but depending on its properties, it could actually be anothe really nice mix-up tool. It could even provide a bunch of new possibilities after… you guessed it, forward throw.
Also, please note that the forward throw nerf will not affect his corner pressure at all… you know, the place where most characters need to have their opponents to apply a lot of pressure?
Its very easy for Yun and Yang to augment the trajectory of their dives and fake out Sagat’s anti airs. Besides that, they have some very commanding normals and dragon kicks/shoulder/whatever to get in from the ground.
I feel Rufus is very good, but why pick him when you have yun and yang?
Viper is undoubtly top tier.
Just wow at ur post, though some of what u said is vaild (the ending part about normals/ex df to ex fb) though much of this is ur opinion not fact
Opinions expressed are best formed and believe upon based on fact. I know I sound like a know it all like some ppl on SRK
Well, who discounted Mago/Tokido lol…
Nobody “assumed” Tokido is the best Akuma in the world, he IS based on results & he always consistently places high in every major tourney he attends. So, in my eyes he is the best reference for me to look at and learn from bc he knows how to play with the character correctly.
What’s funny is how u seem to discount vortex, when that is exactly how u win at the highest lvl with this character…Tokido uses vortex all the time on knockdown…so vortex is not hindering anyone it is actually the opposite not knowing when to vortex or not (50/50 situations) or another way n saying it, doing the vortex with the highest precision possible is crucial b/c u knw if u mess up u can be punished hard.
So it is not one part, it IS the major part of Akuma game to success if u will… I will say this dont leave footsies behind
Beasting on scrubs with vortex?..ur vortex game maybe minimal at best saying something like…Akuma has 5 to 6 different things he can do on wake up even more, blocking a solid vortex can be hard even on wake up…calm down with ur assumption…Akuma is super sick with his okizema on wakeup
You definitely misunderstood me. I said “the vortex is great.” I know it’s a big part of his game. But he can still do plenty of mix-ups despite the nerfs. I know Akuma is amazing after knockdown. If you reread my post, you’ll see that I’m just pointing out that it isn’t the only thing Akuma has. It’s just a shame IMO that people ONLY focus on demon flip/dive kick mix-ups when he has tons and tons of other great tools, arguably more than any other character, but as soon as he loses his precious forward throw safe jump, he’s supposedly useless. He’s not even losing the vortex. He’s just losing ONE way to set up the vortex…
As for Tokido, I wasn’t addressing you (nor re: the above), I just think that the SF4 community as a whole has put Tokido on this pedestal, through no fault of his own (not that many top top Akumas in the world, and he’s the only top Akuma from Japan who has traveled to the US). Either consciously or subconsciously, many people seem to think that Tokido’s play is the absolute ideal way to play Akuma. And maybe it is. But maybe it’s not. As people have pointed out, he isn’t great with anti-air. Daigo is amazing with anti-air. If Justin Wong and Daigo were to decide to main Akuma in 2012, I guarantee you people would start to see the character in a deeper way. Tokido is amazing, and I’m NOT knocking his play - but if you don’t see that 95% of SF4 players either take it for granted or very close to it that Tokido is the pinnacle of SF4 Akuma play, then I don’t know what to tell you.
Turns out that this vid was made before the 2012 V2 changes, so they were not yet aware of all the nerfs.
Not exactly huge damage from a jab. On average Akuma’s combos deal less damage and stun that other BnB’s in the game
As it stands after a blocked st hk the Akuma player can battle for initiative, with the nerf you need to back off. It’s not exactly excellent. Still useful, but excellent…no.
I have to disagree with this. Akuma FA looks good but in practice is actually very mediocre. His step away doesn’t really alter his hittable box and the attack itself is very high and short making it prone to miss in places where a good focus would hit. There’s a reason you don’t see that many FA’s from Akuma players.
It will affect certain setups but we should probably be able to find replacements.
dr4gz0r
1371
You know that pretty much everyone can list a series of strenghts for every character in the whole game just like you did and make him sound good? It doesn’t work that way, sorry to burst your bubble.
With your post you’ve literally pissed on every Akuma in these boards, because we’re not “beasting on scrubs who can’t block”, people here go to majors. How about you show some evidence that you’re that good, wait, better (and a lot, I hope) with Akuma than our top players?
And in case you didn’t notice, there’s only 1 person in the world who could win majors with Akuma, and that was the one focusing on the stuff you said was not central, that is too say vortexing and setups. We’ve said it countless of times: this is no vanilla (I still see people doing crap like LP DP into HP Shakunetsu), Akuma lack the burst damage/stun he had, you won’t win anything just by zoning with a 850 health/stun character which is not even on top when it comes to these areas.
Since when personal skills (anti-air) is the same as understanding how to play a character the most effectively?
In Vanilla nobody felt the need to explore the character, because you could win with him just by playing a solid footsies game exploiting his huge damage/stun - not to mentioned he was the only character to really handle Sagat. It was Murderface who really established the “vortex” as we know it and essentially created the character’s game which revolves around setups.
Tokido is the pinnacle of Akuma (either you like it or not), which however is far different from being the most skilled player in every area of the game.
Btw, nice knowledge of the character with the three frame normal thing.
I’ve measured it in SSF4, there’s also 23 characters with more range on their FAs than Akuma, and 3 more are tied with him. Frame advantage (FA into fwd dash) and damage wise, he’s average. What a great Focus Attack.
Vortex is what makes Akuma, Akuma. Without it he would be what everyone thought he was going to be in Vanilla. A watered down Ryu with a teleport and air fireball.
Take a player like Inifiltration, less emphasis on vortex more emphasis on footsies, he’s good but I think Tokido is definately a few levels beyond him because of his playstyle.
I don’t have time to post a full response and I’m on my phone… Maybe I’ll expand on some of this later or maybe not.
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Maybe Tokido is better than Infiltration, or maybe not. Infiltration did much better than Tokido at EVO last year and from what I understand does well against Poongko in Korea. With that in mind, I highly doubt Tokido is several levels above him. But hey, feel free to enlighten me or maybe this will inspire me to watch more vids and compare directly myself.
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What exactly was wrong with me saying he has three frame normals? Yes I was mostly referring to crouching jab, but he has several. And Xian and Zhi were just talking on an episode of CC how crucial having even one three frame normal is.
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Ok, so maybe his FA isn’t amazing, but there were tons of other things I could have listed. There is more to FA than range, though. They have different speeds and recoveries, plus Akuma can do more damage than most after landing one with hp into tatsu, ex srk or demon.
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The far roundhouse still moves him forward very quickly… That’s huge.
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You really can’t make every character sound awesome by listing their strengths in my opinion.
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Daigo outclasses Tokido, and Tokido knows it. Tokido will tell you that himself. Tokido is amazing and has done well at multiple games, but he’d be the first to tell you Daigo is far beyond him. All I can say is that we will wait and see, but don’t the Daigo vs Kazunoko results compared to kazu vs Tokido numbers tell you something?
Several? By that you mean 2? Because his stand and crouch jab are his 3 frame normals. (with the worst hitboxes of the 3 frame normals)
Then list them and we will see if you have misconceptions about that as well.
Gamogo
1375
+1 strawman.
A sizable amount of people are poking fun at Akuma players for bitching about our nerfs, but I gotta say a good chunk of us grow tired of arm-chair critics of a character they have a poor understanding of coming in and vomiting up their ignorance.
Agreed, his throw setups are not completely essential to all of Akuma’s setplays, but they constitute a large part of it both for and outside of vortex options. Nobody is arguing that Akuma is completely worthless, nor is anyone completely writing off the potential evolution of his style as a result of these nerfs. Akuma will remain a good character, nobody is disputing that. As mentioned above, only recently both Mago and Tokido cited Akuma as top of the pile in 2012. Granted, the final balance hasn’t panned out yet nor has the game been put through its extended paces, but I find their assessment interesting to say the least.
If you paid attention to the discussion you’d realise that many of us share your sentiments about Daigo and Tokido’s dfiffering styles and how Daigo driving Akuma would bring a completely fresh perspective to the character at high levels.
Yes, of course. They tell us what everybody knows. That Daigo is a better player than Tokido. Tokido himself says this much also and this is reflected in these results. We’re just as curious as you are to see how Daigo has wrangled Akuma and to see how his style differs and where he might be showing new strengths or angles nobody has perhaps considered with Akuma, Tokido included.
Lastly, I gotta say that it strikes me as pretty strange that people on this forum find it laughable that people are complaining about their chosen character’s nerfs. No user of any character is going to see a developer citation of negative changes and proclaim “Oh cool, <x move> and <y ability> are weaker and less effective now. This is pretty great news.”
Of course players of a character are going to find nerfs shitty news and have a whinge. Akuma players are sulky over their character’s negative changes in 2012? Gee, who would have thought?
Gamogo
1376
Interesting perspective. Thing is, while he certainly doesn’t dole out huge chunks of damage nor stun anymore, he is still tooled up well to deal with any situation. Not all characters have that luxury. I think this has been heavily factored into Capcom’s balance decisions, which explains why he remains with poor stun and health. Akuma’s strength now appears to be his options, mobility and versatility.
I agree that the line between risk/reward becomes increasingly blurred for Akuma though. He has to work very hard to net a win and you can’t afford to slack off with him at all. This is even more paramount in 2012 with our reduced setup options.
I don’t think the nerfs are intelligent at all, but in what way did anyone consider Akuma “watered down”? People were just ass in Vanilla, people also thought Viper was mid tier. Ryu would kill for an air fireball, and Akuma’s walking speed and sweep. If Ryu somehow had those he would need at least 100 less health to compensate.
Akuma has a worse ground fireball than Ryu and way worse ground and air normals. Less damage and less stun output. Of course Ryu would be broken with Akuma’s move set because Ryu’s hitboxes and active frames are off the charts unlike Akuma’s tiny versions.
The point is currently Akuma can’t do what Ryu does as well as Ryu and with the nerfs he can’t even do his stuff that well either, making him a watered down Ryu with a port and air fireball.
Poe2222(x infinite) don’t listen to these guys. The amount of bitching from these forums is ridiculous. Akuma is still a really good character, as his damage and options are awesome. You pessimistic drama queens bitch about him losing 1 or 2 setups, while his damage, shoryu, and fb’s are amazing… He is still very good. All of you downplay Akuma’s strength so much you think you were fucking Yun players.
Vanilla Akuma would have pissed all over Yun in terms of power. What people don’t understand is, we as Akuma players pretty much had 0 complaints about the nerfs going from Vanilla to SSFIV (Yun’s nerfs are nothing compared to this) and then to AE.
Now after 3 revisions of our character and Capcom finally doing something that’s obviously uncalled for (screwing some of Akuma’s essential tools), we have no right to complain? GTFO.
