SSF4 Akuma thread

I’ve mained akuma for a long time, and i really liked him in IV, but there are a couple of things that i thought badly needed changing.

First and foremost, change his raging demon to work the way it did in older SF games. It should catch at any point in it’s slide/warp across the screen, and not just at the end. The situation where it can “push” you across the stage until it eventually catches you is retarded, and is unique in all the games i’ve played him in.It’s nowhere near as scary a move as it used to be. If somebody pulls it off as an anti air or whatever it should land, because in 99% of games that had it, it was something to be feared. In IV, It’s too powerful when it lands, but is too limited in it’s application to land enough to make a difference against good opponents. In other SF games, If akuma got meter you had to keep the fuck away from him and he could push a big attacking advantage. Now it’s only useful in a very limited amount of situations, and any other time it’s used you can just jump away from it. He’s no more scary in offence or when he’s close to you with meter than when he doesn’t have it, unless you make a really huge mistake or whiff something that he can use it to punish.

I would make the raging demon his ultra only, and change the motion back to the normal lp,lp, Forward, lk, hp, and make it more universally useful once he has meter, but nerf the damage slightly to balance that out. (IMO ultras damage should be toned down across the board, but their usefulness should be levelled out, so that all characters can land them easily enough, rather than the current situation of some characters finding it easy to combo into ultras for big damage, like sagat, while other characters have to work really hard to land one, like akuma).

I would replace his super raging demon with one of his older supers from the alpha series or third strike, my preference would be the Zankuu Shoryuken, or whatever it’s called, like ken’s shin shoryuken, a double dragon punch anti air, but he could also have his fireball super, if the shoryuken made him too much of a turtling powerhouse. This gives him 2 options, and not essentially the same move twice, like the demon is in IV at the moment. 3 Selectable supers like in Third strike would be great, but that might bring up all kinds of balance issues in the character roster.

(for anyone who’s new to SF, this is what these moves used to look like:
[media=youtube]MRI49AMLG38[/media] )

Also (and this is across the board) i think supers should be easier to build meter for, because nobody uses them much in favour of EX moves. They should also be “levelable” like in some other SF games, ie you don’t need to build up a full meter to use a super, the bar is in 3 sections, and once you fill 1, 2,or 3 of the sections by attacking, you can do a different strength super move by using a light, strong, or fierce attack to activate it. This would tone EX moves down a bit and give supers more value and more frequency in the game.

I think teleport is fine, it’s already a get out of jail free card for akuma if you know how to use it carefully and not telegraph it, it doesn’t need to be improved, it’s already one of the best in the game.

Other than that, the only niggles i have are things like the way his red fireballs work. The speed and number of hits should be related to the button you press for the move, slow is activated using jab and hits once but is powerful, medium speed is strong punch and hits twice but is less powerful, fast is fierce punch and hits 3 times but is less damage overall. Recovery times should be a little longer than on his standard fireballs to balance out the extra attacking advantage the moves give him and add an element of risk to them instead of making them his “go to” fireballs, and making his standard ones redundant.

This is all i can think of. I would pretty much leave everything else with him the same, but some kind of easy to use palette editor for character colours like in Capcom Vs SNK 2 that allowed you to custom edit your character’s colours would be cool to put in superIV. You could create your own outfit colour schemes and have them visible to your opponents online. It would add a degree of individuality to character choice that you don’t get by picking from the standard 10 or whatever unlocked colours. You can have a bunch of pallettes saved, and one set as your selectable custom colour from your list of character colours on the character select screen.

I used to have a badass fiery red & grey shin akuma palette that i used all the time in CVS2, i would love to get something like that in online in Super IV.

Doesn’t need either of those. Sorry Sick but you just need to time your cross ups better. More hitstun on jLK would be god-like and more active frames on jMK? Really?

Akuma needs almost nothing. I’d like a combo-able second Ultra but that’s about it really. He is probably the most balanced character in this game as he is right now.

That’s because they’re in hit or block stun. It’s always been like this. You can’t grapple people who are in hit/block stun.

Akuma has one of the easier to land ultra’s in the game, actually. It’s not to the extent that Sagat/Ryu/Rufus/Balrog has, but it’s still pretty easy to connect. You can buffer the input into so many different moves that it’s difficult -not- to land it at some point during the match. Once Akuma has his ultra meter and the player who’s using him is capable of buffering it into just about every poke they throw out there, you can fish for focuses. Focus attacks in footsies become the most dangerous thing a person can do once Akuma has ultra.

On top of that, AA ultra (buffering the demon into a low forward so that their aerial attack whiffs and you catch them on their landing recovery), reversal ultra (certain moves recover slow enough to catch them with it), and kara-ultras are all very viable ways to land it.

I found a timing in which even if the person point-blank reversal shoryu’s, they’ll eat your ultra. You can see the animation of dust fly out from behind them, the reversal notification pop up, even the trail of white ink that surrounds Ryu’s hand shoots up for a moment before being grabbed and beaten down. Not an easy thing to time, but an option nonetheless.

His red fireball is far from his “go to” fireball, at anything other than practically max screen distance it’s unsafe… The only reliable way to land it is FADC’ing a lp.srk or fp.srk. His standard fireballs are actually quite good… …and not at all redundant? :sweat:

Edit

Ryu jumpforward.LK Active Frames = 8 BlkS = 8 HitS = 11

Ryu jumpforward.MK Active Frames = 6 BlkS = 11 HitS = 15

Akuma jumpforward.LK Active Frames = 6 BlkS = 8 HitS = 11

Akuma jumpforward.MK Active Frames = 3 BlkS = 11 HitS = 15

Ok, I don’t know why I was bitching about the hit stun, I only seemed to get thrown when I use the j.LK glitch in the corner. So scratch that.

But more active frames on his jf.MK would be hot, I swear I whiff that shit too many times.

It’s not because they’re in block stun, the demon not grabbing in that situation is fine, i know all about the mechanics of street fighter, and i know you can’t grab an opponent in blockstun, that’s not what i meant. Akuma’s raging demon doesn’t have any active hitting frames till way late it it’s trajectory, unlike earlier versions, where it’s active immediately. I don’t know how much experience you’ve had with other iterations of Akuma/Gouki, so apologies if this is old news, maybe you already know, but If you stand in front of akuma in any other SF game that features him and he does his raging demon, his “warp” sliding animation will be cut short as soon as he reaches you and he’ll grab you immediately, no matter whether he’s 1/8th, 1/4, 1/2 the way through it or he’s literally just begun it, or whatever. In SFIV, he’ll always warp for a predetermined time before he can grab you, in which time you can be standing still (not necessarily in block stun) and be unharmed, or simply press :u: to escape. This is dumb. I know what you mean about there being ways to buffer/cancel/kara cancel into it, and that’s fine, players will always come up with new ways around character limitations, it’s always been that way, but the fact remains, his shungokusatsu is MUCH less formidable than it used to be, and if there are going to be ultras like ryu’s, ken’s, sagats, etc, that are so easy to cancel into or to land effectively, then i think the demon should be changed to be more versatile.

Akuma doesn’t have one of the easiest to land ultras in the game. His ultra can be escaped from so easily (jump) whether it’s cancelled into or not unless the opponent is a complete retard. Aside from a few very specific setups, anti airs, focus cancels, etc, some of which you’ve gone through, it’s ridiculously easy to get away from if it’s just thrown out on the tail of a normal like that.

While i know what you mean about stuff like a footsie into focus attack into demon setup, and while it’s very do-able, it’s hardly on the same level of simplicity or usefulness as cancelling an ordinary standing heavy kick anti air into ultra, or standing heavy punch into ultra, or any number of the other ridiculous easy ultra cancels in the game that you’ll get a large number of windows to land in a match.

Don’t get me wrong, i know that there are some setups for reliably landing the Demon Ultra, and it does have it’s uses, but there’s huge disparity in the ultra system in IV, and akuma is one of the characters who got the short end of the stick on that. I think this should be rectified in superIV.

:zzz:

I know. Was my post not clear? I wasn’t saying that the standard fireballs are redundant at the moment, i was suggesting that if they mess with his red fireballs in the way i suggested they should, then they’ll be improved so much that they they might make the standard ones redundant, so they should play with his recovery times to make both types a viable balance between risk and reward, so that one type isn’t used exclusively 100% of the time while the other one is more or less ignored (like now). Stuff like one type being viable for zoning because of quick recovery, and the other one being more viable for tagging on to the end of a combo for bigger damage or a knockdown at the expense of recovery time, or whatever…Just give him more options, and specific situations that fit each one, instead of one being used almost all the time.

isn’t that what the super SGS is for with its 1 frame startup?

isn’t his Ultra SGS slow for the frames of invincibility on startup? imho it’s a good countering ultra.

I thought they split the strengths of the past single SGS into two for this reason.

It would be a good countering Ultra if throwing it out randomly wasn’t so ridiculously punishable. The fact that people still have a chance to react after the startup animation kind of screws that, though. Anyone can Ultra right after yours and escape it, or use other moves with invincibility or quick startup to counter. That makes random Ultra a huge risk to do for Akuma, moreso than most.

Akuma’s Ultra is only “great” as an unspoken threat. The threat of Ultra is enough to shut down some characters’ offense (like a slide/ball-happy Blanka or sweeping Guile). However, most characters can only be punished on specific occasions, which no high-level players are going to risk unless they have no choice.

Aside from that, it’s a crapshoot. And with Akuma’s health, he can’t really afford those.

He doesn’t need more active frames on the jMK, just time it correctly. Ryu is making you sloppy, you’re better than that Sick.

theres only one change for akuma that is needed .

make demonflip punch option active frames longer . damn it i really hate whiffing it .

Okay guys, no more suggestions based on your own incompetence please. Nothing wrong with the palm either, just time it better. I have no problem landing that move at any given time if there is an opportunity for it.

Kongou Kokuretsu Zan as second ultra.

He just needs more life equal as the other shoto’s Ryu,Ken,Gouken i’ve played him alot in alpha and thirdstrike yeah he needs only one raging demon
i like playin as a rusher but in SF4 gotta be super careful

why are people still complaining about demon? that ultra demon you have sitting on there shuts down a lot of good options other charachters have gimping their game because they know the cant do it anymore.

SGS is to keep people honest.

Akuma is the only high tier charachter with no combo into ultra.

his health is bad because if he could make as many mistakes as ryu/ken he would be better than sagat.

give him a fireball as his second ultra so we have the option of playing shut your options down akuma or whoop your pitiful ass akuma.

but for real kuma speaks the truth, understand how powerful a charachter Akuma truely is before you complain that he isnt easy mode like the other high tier charachters.

One thing I’d like to see is his back throw leaving you slightly further away to work flip / cross up mix ups better. It’s such an awkward position as it is now.

i want his next ultra to be one that helps you controll space like an slow aerial projectile, and it should not be comboable

After seeing juri’s divekick they better fix kuma’s d+mk Tenma Kuujin Kyaku, i really miss that as a pressure tool from 3s :frowning:
One demon only with kara insta grab, hell they can even make it scale when preformed as a kara i dont mind, i just like the pressure that it creates when rushing down.
Big chars should not be able to cr under tatsus!

and fix his dash, hes supposed to be a fragile in’n’out pressure char, but his dash is pathetic and he looks retarded while doing the forward version.

change his focus breaking to hurricane kick.

QFT!
Akuma doesn’t really need any extra tools in my opinion. The only thing that I would like is for his jab shoryu to have less recovery time, but that’s just a small detail.

He wasn’t saying buff akuma’s health, he was just making a point that akuma with ryu/ken health would be bad.

Akuma is a “chump”

http://www.capcom-unity.com/street_fighter/go/thread/view/7411/21913345/This_why_Akuma_is_a_chump_character_in_SFIV_and_how_to_Improve_Akuma_in_SSFIV

Lol, but honestly he needs nothing more than a few tweaks mentioned in previous posts, hes good the way he is right now really. I don’t want a broken Akuma because then he would get the same treatment as Sagat right now (YOU ONLY WON COZ HES OVERPOWERED)