I’m not sure mainly because I thought of the whole tatsu setup in terms of setups for extending combos because Heihachi is a good combo extender off of a MK or HK tatsu.
But yeah there are some that you can do should your opponent roll on their wake-up should you be Akuma. (It sucks saying all of this stuff without being able to show it to you instantly lol.)
You could also try some stuff with Heihachi, you’ll want to make sure that you jump over your opponent so that you are at their head whilst face up.
Good example of this (with Akuma). Is to do a Regular Dive Kick (Down + MK) on a downed opponent after a successful MK or HK tatsu so that you land over their head. If they roll, they’ll roll right in front of you and you can play the game like you are doing Akuma’s vortex all over again as you can pressure them on their wake-up with a Demon Flip > Divekick / Throw / Palm etc.
Sometimes players also get confused with the rolling as when you jump over someone whilst they are on the floor (head first) they have to press the opposite direction whilst they are on the floor to roll. This can lead to them just regular standing up instead. From here you could overhead them into your partner for some solid damage.
Running a mix of Akuma, Yoshimitsu, and Cody. You guys have any tips for playing a rushdown Akuma? With the lack of vortex I find that I play every single match the same way: long-distance fireballs. Any ideas would be great!
For playing offensively with Akuma I find that you need the following in your gameplan
[LIST]
[]Hard Knockdowns
[]Demon Flip Pressure
[*]Overhead
[/LIST]
Hard Knockowns
As an offensive Akuma you should be relying on hard knockdowns to gain advantage.
Many characters in the game (mainly the Tekken Cast) lack solid wake-up options from hard knockdown states and you can use this to your advantage.
One of Akuma’s best hard knockdowns is his cr.HK sweep as you know.
From here it is pretty much a guessing game as to what your opponent does next. Kind of similar to like a flowchart.
If they like to do invincible moves out of the roll then depending on who you are fighting, a well timed DP (mainly HP) will beat their options on wake-up.
You can also either avoid or block the move and punish it on whiff or block should they decide to bring in their partner with a Reversal DP.
If they like to block, then you have a couple options:
[LIST]
[]Frametrapping the hell out of them
[]Overhead
[]Demon
[]Throw
[/LIST]
Not too great on my frametraps to be honest but I have been using cr.LP > st.LP > wait a bit > cr.LP and it has been getting me counter hits versus people with slow jabs. But don’t follow me on that one as I’m not sure if it hundred percent works properly.
You can also overhead them out of the roll into your partner for some decent damage.
On top of this if you have two bars, a demon also works well versus defensive opponents. You can easily chain into a demon from your normals or delibarately throw out a Far St.HK on their wake-up and demon whilst the second hit whiffs.
For his other hard knockdowns, you should either be looking for whether they like to block on their wake-up or they like to reversal and you can bait out the reversals as well as pressure them afterwards with either frametraps, overhead or a demon.
Throwing someone after they finish rolling is also another good way to score a hard knockdown and pressure further on their wake-ups.
Demon Flip Pressure
Yep effectively doing it JR style isn’t a bad way to play offensively just be wary of reversal happy opponents on block.
It’s a risky strategy but it can work versus heavy defensive opponents, just mix it up with the throw and palm follow-ups should they like to duck too much.
Also thanks to Close St.HK being special cancellable on the first hit, you can now get more advantage from demon flip pressure on hit. Some reversal attempts can whiff over you should you follow-up with the palm follow-up.
Also those who like their anti-air normals run the risk of being counterhitted by the palm should you land a Close st.HK on hit. It also gives them less time to react as well to air to air you.
Overhead (THE CHOP!)
Yeah I’ve said overhead a lot and for a very good reason, the overhead is pretty dangerous this time around.
It’s fast and will take a little bit of time for your opponent to react to it properly and punish it. You’ll need a bar to bring in your partner to really damage them afterwards though.
You can do it especially during roll situations or after knockdowns should your opponent decide not to roll on their wake-up.
ONE MORE THING ABOUT THE OVERHEAD!
This really should be going into the Mechanics Thread but whatever.
On counterhit, if you can space yourself properly so that you hit the palm at it’s tip, it will ground bounce a crouching opponent. It’s kind of difficult right now and I’m trying to find some setups where you can space it properly so that it ground bounces every time.
Overall
Overall Playing Offensively with Akuma requires conditioning – the ability to condition your opponent into doing certain moves and stuff on their wake-up and to ‘put the fear’ into them as they say.
This can be heightened if you pair up Akuma with a character who can really extend combos to get you more damage as your opponent will be forced to take more risks in order to avoid losing more health.
Once you’ve stopped your opponent from constantly rolling and losing damage time after time, they’ll eventually stop and once you stop them doing reversals they’ll eventually stop and that is where you can really put pressure on your opponent using the 3 methods mentioned above.
It isn’t much but I hope it helps as generally, I don’t play an offensive style as much unless I’m feeling really gutsy on the day. I tend to try and mix things up constantly between rushdown and keepaway but for the most part (especially online) I tend to play keepaway more than rushdown.
Also to note, you can combo off overhead. The timing is EXTREMELY tight - and I mean extremely. Would be good if they buff Akuma’s st. RH in the actual patch, would give him a real go-to move. You know what I was thinking? We should make match-up list for Akuma that goes like this:
Strategy:
Punishes:
What Can Be Punished:
Specific Setups
For each character, just like the SSF4 Akuma forum. Would be good.
I could never combo after his overhead solo but I can if I tag cancel it. Sounds good but it has to be someone who will stay dedicated to the thread. No one wants to see a thread halfway done and because the op abandoned it.
Not a bad idea to be honest. I mean usually when I do my character write-ups I try to cover pretty much a majority of what the character can do because sometimes, not everyone plays the character in the way that they are intended to be played hence I try to cover like the majority of moves the character has so that people can form their own strategies around them in order to beat the said character.
That being said, I do find that it is a little bit too long winded and most people just want the straight forward approach as to how to combat said match-ups. Hence I think that what you said isn’t a bad idea.
EDIT: For the characters (outside of DLC and PS Exclusives I only have 8 characters left: 3 SF and 5 Tekken Characters)
Also you can only combo off of his overhead solo if they are standing right?
Right, only if they are standing. I’ve been thinking: Capcom should buff both of Akuma’s fireballs in the upcoming patch. He needs to have exceptionally good projectiles if his health is 850 and his rush-down game has been nerfed due to rolls. He has some decent pressure but the fact is a roll almost totally negates it, and you generally have a split-second to decide whether your opponent will roll or not.
The JR method is the only consistent way to use the DF arsenal, but in reality it can be easily countered for anyone with good reactions. Akuma is also missing a wall bounce, needs the corner for solo damage, and has no safe special move string enders (cr. mk xx hadou CAN be punished by some). He has solid fundamentals but is missing some of that “HERP DERP” which characters tend to have in this game. What do you do versus someone like Kazuya, for example? He’s great against fireballs and you just need to make one wrong read on his high-low setups to eat huge damage.
I mean his only real safe string is a couple of normals i.e. cr.MP > cr.MP which leave you +ve on block I believe.
Outside of the JR stuff, his demon flip is good in roll situations if the opponent rolls towards you.
His fireballs don’t do a lot of damage but the air fireballs travel slower in the air making them a pain to get through for your opponent.
On top of this, most characters can’t get to you full-screen without having to burn meter using supers or EX moves.
Also is it only me but am I the only one who finds that his ground fireballs are pretty spammable in this game?
For people like Kazuya I just stay at full-screen and then see what he likes to do. He generally has like 2 options of getting in: wavedash and jumping. Also Kazuya’s wake-up options aren’t very strong as well if he doesn’t have meter. You can also buffer DPs during a good portion of his pressure strings and a demon pretty much shuts down a large proportion of his offensive game but it is pretty annoying just making mistakes.
Then again it’s actually borderline frustrating to actually fight against a Kazuya who can avoid the little obstacle course of fireballs you throw out at him.
Maybe it’s just me but I’m actually ok with how he is right now (maybe it’s because I’m a little spoilt because one HP SRK for me leads to like 474 w/o gems) but I can see where you are coming from.
Even then, what would his wallbounce move be? EX Tatsu?
For me the only changes I’d embrace right now for Akuma would be if his Close St.HK forced stand on hit. That and a easier way to combo into his Misogi Midscreen other than st. / cr. LP xxx Misogi especially during pandora situations. I can’t tell you the pain of doing it off of Lili’s EX Dendrobium Wallbounce move.
His ground fireballs are good at a long-range distance, but the problem is that distance is not optimal for a SRK follow-up. If the opponent jumps he just lands. Good for meter and getting your opponent to inch closer, though. I’ve found that the sweet spot is to be about two cr. mk’s away when throwing a hadou. Allows you to recover fast enough to SRK, unless you use EX which makes it even faster.
I just feel they should make his fireball tools better if that is indeed his staple. As far as I know, his fireballs are the same as they were in AE - just now there is no focus attack. I think some minor buffs are necessary to account for the loss of pressure and safe-jumps. But still, fundamentally this character is sound. If you’re good with him its because you know your ground game - and that’s how I like it.
EDIT: For what its worth, I think Akuma would eat most of the cast alive if there were no rolls. I can’t think of a single Tekken character that would pose a problem minus Ogre, lol. Its probably better that rolls exist.
Yo even Ogre gets raped on his wake-up . You can safejump all versions of his Infinite Power with a meaty non DF Divekick on his wake-up. He also suffers very badly versus meaty pressure as his counters don’t start up as fast as most would think.
That and Owl’s Hunt can lose to Option Select Misogi if you time it right.
So faced a good friend of mine last night, he’s a solid player (better than me). Used Akuma on my team, lost some but came close to winning. Realized it wasn’t going to work out so I picked Rolento, a character I have only screwed around with in training mode for a couple of hours. I played better with him just using basic footsies and fundamentals than I did with Akuma after training, making videos, and practicing tech.
Seriously, Akuma needs a health buff RIGHT NOW. Or better pokes and footsies. I have found that his keep-away is solid if you play smart, but it just doesn’t do enough damage compared to making one mistake and eating a launcher. I won’t be dropping the character since I’m quite fond of him, but he’ll be taking a backseat to Rolento as my main for some time.
That and possibly easier stuff such as LK Tatsu > St.HP not being a one framer and cr.MP > HP not being so difficult to perform consistently. But we can only dream.
For now I’m just gonna focus on taking out the big guns online with Akuma, It’ll be hard in a time where his offense has been slightly nerfed and DLC characters are running amok and I haven’t got my hands on them but I won’t give up nonetheless:nunchuck:!
Normally the health buff wouldn’t be fair since he’d have plenty of options. I don’t feel that’s the case here. Like SF4, Akuma needs to be played with tons of precision here. From spacing fireballs, having SRK’s go deep, and spacing dive kicks properly, its quite a ride. Hell, even nerf his teleport if it means he gets more health.
Then again, Capcom isn’t that good at nerfing and buffing. They already blew up Raven, lol.
The things that bug me is how hard it is to land demonflip grab on some characters and that stupid raging demon bug where they can jump away after its kara’d from f.mp. Besides those two things, I think he’s solid. Just slap on a defense gem that absorbs 100 health and he’s got 950. Given on capcom’s history, they’d probably nerf his damage and tools.
This is probably already known but if you land 1 air fireball on an aerial opponent you can land cr.mp, cl.hp xx mp srk,cr.mk xx hk tatsu, super if you’re close enough or in the corner, team super, or sweep if you’re too far away for. The super must be landed the same way as Solidrose’s method of landing a super after a launcher. If you land 2 air fireballs from the ex version on an aerial opponent, you can only the last hit from hp srk or all the hits from ex srk.
I think you’ve pretty much cracked it there. I tried finding stronger ones in the lab and yours still came out on top.
Personally I use the MP Red Fireball especially online as the timing isn’t as tight as using HP for slightly less damage.
Also using other enders i.e. (regular fireball, or MK or HK Tatsu) can put you in some good corner pressure situations as well for slightly less damage.
. You can safejump all versions of his Infinite Power with a meaty non DF Divekick on his wake-up. He also suffers very badly versus meaty pressure as his counters don’t start up as fast as most would think.