I feel like Akuma is being underrated by a lot of Americans who are talking about AE. I’ve seen some people putting him in the top 5 or top 10, but all of the top Japanese players are quick to put Akuma right below Yun and maybe Fei Long or Yang.
Akuma was underrated by many in America during vanilla, at least until the very end, too. Is he quite as good as he was in vanilla? No, but Akuma was EASILY top three in vanilla and maybe even number one - Sagat was just so easy at first and TU FADC Ultra was so ridiculous that, combined with Daigo’s amazing Ryu, Akuma was largely overlooked for a long time.
Let me examine:
-Demon flip throw has been nerfed since vanilla, but that doesn’t make a huge difference; the vortex is still insane, and a psychic EX-demon flip is still 25% damage plus an insane vortex set-up against a ton of the cast.
-no more cowardcoptor, which I think I’ve used about three times in my career
-he does less damage and stun than in vanilla, but so does everybody (so his low health is less of a factor), and he still does A LOT OF DAMAGE.
-he has an ultra with invincible start-up that can deal 50% damage on most of the cast and can punish tons of stuff
-his super is nearly inescapable with the right set-up and also does crazy damage
-he has ridiculous normals… crazy fast crouching jab, crazy fast sweep with massive range setting up his crazy knockdown mixups, far HK is still godly, he has a great cross up, a very nice jumping HP
-amazing excellent DP that’s easily hit-confirmable, and cr. HP is an even better anti-air a lot of the time
-has a really nice focus attack with great range and good speed
-he has a fucking teleport that is pretty safe against most of the cast unless you do it automatically and is still very useful even against those other characters if you’re smart
-almost EVERY OTHER TOP CHARACTER was significantly nerfed from Super to AE
I’m biased as someone who has mained Akuma since vanilla, and I don’t even know why I’m posting this because I don’t want people to understand how good Akuma is (and most people who don’t understand it won’t believe me anyway), but seriously. What are his tough match-ups? Blanka used to be pretty tough, but he’s been nerfed (why I will never know). Viper maybe. Maybe Yun (haven’t played enough against Yun). Maybe Fei. I’ve seen people listing Ken over Akuma. Ken? I mean, he’s not bad, but how the fuck is he better than Akuma? He has step-kick and a nice kara throw and a nice air tatsu, and in every other way he is a joke compared to Akuma.
I actually do remember that, vaguely hahaha. Still though, I think it’s true. He wasn’t VASTLY underrated by the end by any means, but around when console came out, I recall the vast majority of conversation being about Sagat, Ryu, Zangief, Rufus, BOXER, and Viper.
Seth’s DP is way easier to safejump as it is 5 frames, and his teleport is easier to option select against. Seth is free on wakeup if you know what you are doing. Akuma not so much.
Pretty much anything in this game can auto correct if you do it late enough, including akuma’s dp.
@Poe - How did Blanka get nerfed exactly? I swear he just got a change to his Blanka Ball so he can’t spam it in bad matchups such as: Sakura, Zangief etc? Other than that he is better!
He got new combos and frame traps now.
His Slide was supposed to have more recovery but by shortening the whole animation it actually became more difficult to punish.
All that changed about his forward hop was the grounded frames, it can still be used exactly the same
His EX electricity is a very good wakeup option (especially against Akuma).
His Rainbow Roll can be controlled even more in the air making it useful little shenanigan
HP, MP Blanka Ball is worse on block
If we take into consideration GOOD Blanka players, not randoms who use full screen Blanka Balls, then what’s so bad about him? T SRAI won’t have a bad time playing him and all it means is the Blanka player needs to use LP Blanka Ball or EX to finish combos.
I didn’t realize Blanka got so many buffs. I really thought he was nerfed more, but I do think that the horizontal nerf is huge. Like I said, he was one of Akuma’s worst match-ups before, and maybe he’s still not a great one, but the easily punishable rolls will affect his pressuring abilities, his abilities to punish teleport, etc.
Ken’s DP might be a little better than Akuma’s, and I recognize Akuma’s DP isn’t amazing for antiair (but cr. HP is pretty nasty, so between those two options, and of course the Demon, he is way above average with antiair). It’s the speed, invincibility, and hit-confirmability of the fierce DP, as well as the total invincibility of the EX DP, that make his so strong.
Do you know where I can find his AE frame data? I want to know whats up with these things.
Do safe meaty slides still work or are you always at frame disadvantage now? You used to be able to do these against characters like Dee Jay and actually be at frame advantage.
Grounded frames kind of hurt if you try to f.hop through command grabs though.
I keep hearing ex elec is a good reversal, but if it isn’t invincible whats stopping them from just doing a meaty jumpin instead of one that doesn’t hit you till you’ve been up for 5 frames already which you could ex upball anyways.
Since I don’t play with him I only know of f.MP -> far.LP which isn’t possible in Super. I’m sure he has others as well.
Safe meaty slides still work as they do in Super.
Blanka’s hop has more grounded frames on startup, so they’d have to anticipate it and go for a command throw or normal throw. Other than that you can use it the same.
Blanka’s EX Electricity is fully invincible on startup in Super and AE but in Super it starts in 10 frames which is why it’s a bad choice but they said it’s considerably faster and I remember hearing 5 frames somewhere but don’t take that on I’m not sure.
forgot about f.mp. That doesn’t really help him though because cl.mp and cr.mk are pretty much better than it in every way possible.
Well if meaty slide works the same, then they would have had to increase the blockstun on slide, because the reason it worked was abusing the billion active frames.
f.hop being airborne is important against characters like makoto and abel as you could hop forward in mixup situations and be able to punish them.
ex elec has no invinciblity in console super at all, so uhh yeah. It has an amazing hitbox and a tiny hurtbox, but it doesn’t help Blanka at all really other than landing jab xx elec deep in combos against certain characters.
No.
in AE, ex elec is now 5 startup frames but still no inv. A lot better for comboing into than lp elec because of larger hitbox and damages. But not a good reversal.
ex AA ball is still the reversal of choice because of inv/fast startup.
Using superior footsies chars and dp fadc during pressure seems to be considered superior to opponent reading nowadays.
Patterns ? Opponent habits ? Matchups ? Values of the past it seems.
ex upball is like, 4 frames start up, auto-corrects easily
makes blanka hard as hell to safe jump unless you have something that alters your jump arc like burnkick or divekicks
that being said tons of characters can punish on hit and everyone can punish it on hit when blanka is cornered - there’s no fear on blanka’s wake up if you play cammy or abel or something.
EX V.ball’s startup isn’t what makes him hard(er) to safe jump. If you have a setup that works on other 4f+ moves, then theoretically it should work on Blanka. The reason those setups don’t work on him is because he wakes up 2f slower than most of the cast.
saywutnow? that appears to be a pretty weak troll attempt, but i’ll expand on my question more anyway
i mean, i hear guile players who havent played AE complain. but i havent heard anything from any arcade players. the japanese lists never thought guile was supreme top tier or anything, so it dosent suprise me that he isnt at the top of any of their lists now.
did some american guiles say they were dropping him after they played AE? did the japanese guiles all switch to fei/yang/yun?
the fuck did this conclusion that guile was overnerfed come from?
goes to lurk guile forum in search of answers
EDIT-returns from lurk mode
i dunno. the arcade players ther seem to be upset about the numbers/data, and yun/yang more than anything. guile still plays the exact same tho, right?
all i see is 9 more charge frames for booms. heavier punnishment for really bad booms. the damage nerfs that everyone except fei got. a less multi functional ultra 2. and 2 more characters who get in for free who everyone else has to deal with too
im not seeing how this is going to stop guile players from backing up and throwing up the obstacle course. what matchup is he all of a sudden going to lose because of 9 more charge frames and slightly weaker damage from his buttons? its not like they added recovery frames to sonic booms, or tweaked his frame data in a way that takes away from his playstyle
not trying to be a guile hater, but i dont really understand.
Staring at Guile’s AE mook data. Untouched overhead.
Ultra 2 is 150+15x4+90(down from 150), startup 0+10(up from 8)
Sonic boom frame advantages lowered ON BLOCK: LP +4, MP +2, HP 0, EX +1.
So if you do like LP Sonic boom, follow it and try to time it where the overhead counter hits everything, there’s a chance of that being interrupted now than when it was absolutely frame trapping everything but invincible moves in Super console.
Sonic boom’s meter gain is listed as 10/20 now (down from 20/20 on console data)
His nerfs aren’t even bad. Just made a few adjustments so few low tiers cannot get destroyed. He just needs to work a little more for some of his match ups to stay that way.
true, but how many good guile players are even going to throw a boom in a position where you can get a punnish. you have to pre-emptively try to punnish lp booms. so if the guile player gets hit, it means he didnt react to seeing you leave the ground/pre-emptive attack, and threw out a boom anyway
it seems like a pointless nerf, but i guess they wanted to add some type of risk/reward for getting those booms out there
ok. thats a legit matchup difference maker. not enough to swing one way or the other, but it takes away from his pressure game
