not sure how anyone can disagree about balrog. that shit is dumb
Not sure how useful this knowledge will be (if at all) or if you guys already knew this, but I was in training mode and I found that you can punish Blanka’s EX Upball on hit by walking forward very slightly and sweeping. The conditions for this to work are:
- He must hit you with it from point blank. Any further and this will not work.
- You have to be holding forward while you’re in hitstun so that you’re immediately walking forward when you can move again.
I wonder what he means by bad match ups cause I don’t see any of those fights worse than 50/50.
Good Bison’s are a tough match. Scissor lock-down is difficult to deal with as your escape options are often punished combined with Bison being extremely difficult if not impossible to zone.
Balrog I’m gaining confidence playing against though he can quickly overwhelm Akuma if you’re not familiar with the match-up. Once you score a knock-down its often enough to net enough momentum to grab a life lead but his comeback potential can be significant. A couple of well placed heavy pokes from 'Rog can easily moves things back to a stale mate.
Honda hits really fucking hard and if not properly zoned can easily tear chunks off Akuma and quickly. Once he has super fireballs are mostly out but I think we can get the upperhand from a knockdown. Crossing Honda up and molesting his wake-up (akin to Balrog) can give him trouble plus we can knock his ass back-down from a tatsu sweep which REALLY helps in this match-up.
Cammy is difficult. I’m only starting to learn this match-up (as she’s growing in popularity in Super) but I find the tatsu > sweep possibility on her extremely important. She hits and stuns like a truck and has many ways to punish Akuma’s crap with ease. Her uppercut has insane invulnerability making wake-up tricks on her very risky.
I can see Tokido’s reasoning, though I’m surprised he didn’t mention Rufus. I find him a tough match though I must admit my experience against him is lacking.
I’m guessing its normal to be turtling vs blanka all day? Cant really do much in terms of wakeup against him.
First… excuse the paragraph-ed wall of post
against blanka you want to use safe jumps, OS jump-ins, and walk-up mix-up on him. It really just means you don’t use cross tatsu or demon flip sans safe palm, which honestly doesn’t change all that much compared to how you play most characters other than for the cross-tatsu. Learn to dash after blocked up balls and you can punish blanka pretty easily for trying to do something when waking up. C.mk has a low hitbox that avoids electricity and will hit him out of it if he tried to use electricity on wake-up. Once you teach him to stop using reversals you can start mixing blanka up with walk-up throw and c.mp/c.mk along with safe jumps when you have the untechable knockdown.
Basically you still have the majority of your options against blanka, you just can’t cross him up. Even then if you bait an upball with a weirdly placed cross-tatsu you can punish it with your demon as he will sail in the wrong direction to safety where most moves without the demon’s speed and distance wouldn’t work. Honestly its funny to me when ppl complain about blanka (unless its lag related) because playing against eachother akuma can actually turtle better than blanka can and has more solid offense (if you can deal with a blanka player’s hops when turtling you should be set). point is you can rush blanka down…you just have to do it a little different then you might be used to.
bison’s hard simply because he can get out of your options on knockdown rather well (as always) with his EX DR, teleport, EX PC mix-up as well as just using solid blocking. Not only that but with his ultra 2 he can poke punish you from a screen away as well as catch teleports WITHOUT A CHARGE… which is pretty amazing for a charge character. Bison is a very very solid character with amazing pokes and lockdown offense that doesn’t require jumping…and he doesn’t have 850 health…lol. I’d still say its roughly even, but I could understand people thinking it might be in bison’s favor.
Rog I don’t understand. That match-up is even and thats it. OS safe jumps with palm on wake-up, huge damage anytime they miss a headbutt, tatsu sweepable, and a nice big hitbox for hk and offensively speaking rog is the perfect target. If not for the health problem and rog’s ease of landing ultra regardless of meter and this would be heavily in akuma’s favor.
Honda is probably even but I agree it is akuma’s 3rd or 4th worst match-up. The damage output for risk just isn’t there a lot of the time. Safejumping headbutts don’t usually net you much if they know what they are doing so you have to connect mid-flight to deal damage which risks a horrible trade if you mistime something. Honda can rush down fb characters rather well when used right with his nj.hp. You also have to be ready for jump-ins over fireballs a lot sooner as the forward range of his jump attacks is HUGE and every jump-in he lands is going to be j.hard, mp, hands or worse… which is 1/3 or more of your health pretty easily. Which also means honda is probably the most important match for being able to AA srk correctly as c.hp is basically never a useable option. At range akuma has a hard time harassing honda because of his nj.hp because it also will even hit post fb demon flips out of the air unless you time it perfectly to him.
cammy+rufus = divekick = problem for akuma. Divekick pressure in sf games has been shown to be very top-tier and super is no different. Any move that makes random srk (with a purpose) a more viable defensive option then teching most of the time has to be strong. Cammy have more mobility and better AA while rufus has better damage and better safety. When it comes to akuma though they both are his worst match-ups.
I’ll send you a message via Xbox live we should play sounds like you have a great Akuma!
Anything to punish blankas ex upball blocked at point blank other than demon? I can’t demon that fast enough.
in the corner you can punish it on hit 
but you can potentially walk forward or dash forward and sweep, someone else here can come clarify the requirements, like whether you have to be standing or crouching etc.
Hello, what do you think about these match-up note for Akuma (it seems there are some mistakes with that list, it’s not “official” since arcade isn’t avaible yet)
SUPER STREET FIGHTER IV Wiki - ???
opponent/Akuma
chun : 4/6
honda: 5/5
Dictator: 6/4
Guile: 4/6
Boxer: 6/4
Cammy: 6/4
Ryu: 6/4
Seth: 5/5
Sagat 5/5
Rufus 5/5
Abel 6/4
Fei 5/5
Rose 6/4
Blanka 6/4
Ken 4/6
Zangief 4/6
honda: 5/5
Dictator: 6/4
Guile: 4/6
Boxer: 6/4
Cammy: 6/4
Ryu: 6/4
Seth: 5/5
Sagat 5/5
Rufus 5/5
Abel 6/4
Fei 5/5
Rose 6/4
Blanka 6/4
Ken 4/6
Zangief 4/6
Claw 4/6
DJ 5/5
Adon 5/5
Ibuki 5/5
Viper 5/5
El fuerte 4/6
Cody 4/6
Dudley 5/5
Gouken 5/5
Juri 4/6
Sakura 4/6
Hawk 3/7
Guy 4/6
Hakan 5/5
Gen 4/6
Makoto 4/6
Dan 4/6
So, I’m really surprised with:
Boxer I think this matchup is still balanced, ok Akuma take less damage but headbutt to ultra too, and vortex is really nice on him.
Ryu because he can’t trade to ultra with DF, and globaly I feel the same matchup
Abel…is it a joke?I must admit a balanced match-up could be possible but never advantage for Abel
Zangief, I feel the same matchup than before, lariat is really easy to punish now.
Hakan, I really feel Akuma has advantage on him
Fei long, that match-up is really difficult, a good Fei is a real nightmare for Akuma.I think he has advantage.
Rose, I feel balanced match-up, even with her U2.
What are your feelings ?
Hakan and abel seem off.
Wow, I don’t see that list as correct. I really don’t think Akuma has a bad matchup. The only one I could see being potentially bad is Dictator. The rest not so much.
Yea a couple of those make me scratch my head. Balrog may be a pain, but I definitely don’t see that as being a 6/4 match up in Rog’s favor. Rog is deadly at close to mid range, but at a long distance his stuff is easily punishable so Akuma can effectively zone him out. Akuma also has the footsies to get in on him and once in Akuma’s vortex options against Rog are very effective. Rog often has to stand there and block because his only good wake up option is beaten by armor breaking moves like the palm.
The match up against Bison is a very difficult one because of Bison’s new Ultra and insanely good normals. The fact his c.LK is close to the same range as Akuma’s c.MK is one of the more annoying problems with the match up. I will say this is easily one of my worst match ups. So if you told me many other Akuma’s consider it in Bison’s advantage I could buy it.
But Rose and Blanka? No those are not in their favors. Rose’s only real advantage is her annoying U2. The Blanka match up is a boring turtle fest, but it isn’t in either’s favor.
Rog and Rose are free to palm pressure on wake up. Abel…??? No idea what makes that supposedly in his favor. Blanka can be tough but solid play ruins his day. Cammy is only 6/4 in her favor if you don’t DP her jump ins. (looks at Tokido) Otherwise that’s an even fight. Ryu can “feel” 6/4 at times, but really I say that’s 50/50. Dictator is the only one I could accept as 6/4 cause when he puts you in the corner you must risk something to escape.
I had some trouble with a Balrog earlier today. He would just sit there, mid-screen away and block everything, high and low, tech every throw attempt, anti-air everything, out footsie me and make his way towards me without taking much of a risk. I managed to land Demons by baiting turn around punches and cancelling normals into Demon when he did an EX move. And once I got that knockdown, he was free. I would bait out headbutt with demon flip palm and regular dive kick (found out this will cause headbutts to whiff) and punish. So knowing that it wasn’t safe to headbutt, he would just block which leaves him open to demon flip throw and I would catch him blocking the wrong way with cross-up tatsu. Eventually he started back dashing on wake-up which got him out of the vortex free for a few times. But I was prepared for it the next time and OS sweep’d him. This made the Balrog really unsure of what to do on wake-up. And this basically broke him mentally. I was able to land some free overheads which before he was able to consistently react to and block, and mix it up with low moves and throws. But anyway, just pointing out how key it is to get that untechable knockdown and use that vortex and just break him mentally. But you probably knew that already anyway…
His headbutt is one of the slowest reversals in the game. You have what? 8 frames on start up? That means you have a 5 frame window to safe jump him. It really sucks for wake up that is why most good Rogs will only use the EX Rush punches to wake up. The rush punches works against most characters, but luckily for us Akuma has the palm to make short work of that.
Cammy and Dictator are the more difficult match for a lot of players, and are probably the only bad match-up for Akuma, even if I think Dictator is not so horrible if you block his pressure without batting an eyelid and use safely TP.
Option select are very nice against him, if he has EX use shoryuken or Ultra
if he doesn’t have EX, use tatsu HK to prevent his TP.
Cammy…no strategy but praying 
(my nightmare)
I have a few ideas against Cammy, these are only in theory so correct me where applicable:
Wouldn’t a very defensive approach work here? For example, if you crouch and wait for counter opportunities you effectively stop her Hooligan and are anticipating her Cannon Strike. Also, her Drills can be blocked low and punished more or less, no? I’m pretty sure the sweep has enough range to punish a blocked drill. Safe jumps and the palm are not a good option but you can still vortex her.
^ Each strength of spiral arrow has varying distances. and from tip range, her spiral arrow is NOT punishable on block, its actually a frame trap and where most scrubby cammys will tip range spiral arrow, then spike and feel good about themselves.
Hooligan from full-screen is retarded and no one smart will do that.
You can safe jump her 5-frame spike.
On wakeup she can ambiguous dive kick you for more fun.
If you teleport, she can ultra 1 on reaction from a whiffed dive kick.
Her DP has so much invincibility and vertical range poorly timed cross(up) j.mk or j.lk will be destroyed.
You’ve only played moron cammys.
Well at least headbutt isn’t as bad as Guile’s flashkick. That has to be the worst reversal in the game as far as I know.