Standing short is a good light poke. It probably has the best hitbox compared to hurtbox on any of her normals, so it stands the best chance of beating an enemy attack. You can buffer it into hopkicks or onikubigari.
Her other medium/light normals are questionable as pokes and I prefer to save them for close range, although low forward can be decent as a defensive normal to lower your hitbox from an incoming attack.
Her heavy normals are all decent, though, if you use them at the appropriate ranges.
My primary footsie tools are standing short, f+HK, her three sweeps (f+MK -> d+MK, low roundhouse, leg cutter), and her special moves. Honorable mentions to crouch fierce, f+LK, and b+MP.
The main problem with the f+MK string is the unsafeness of the first hit on block, but if you make sure the first hit whiffs and use it as a long-range sweep, it’s difficult to react to. So the combination of range/speed/safety is probably better than the other two sweeps in the average situation. The f+MK first hit also has a decent hitbox to stuff low pokes that might normally beat your sweep.
I agree a lot with this. I’m thinking her CADC will be part of her offense as she has many mixup opportunities after the dash. It’s still pretty hard to land some attacks to start it however, but I guess she has that style where you have to bait everything to start her offense.
Her mixups don’t even seem that strong- especially considering her zoning. It makes no sense to me at this point. The mixups I’ve found have all been immediately shut down by my roomate, who is learning anti-asuka stuff as we go.
:mp::mk: is the only string i can find that leads to any real mixup from cadac. The issue is the only way to even have a chance at landing :mp::mk: is after her specials, which can just be backdashed safely away after. Absolutely nothing she has gives her enough frame advantage for any kind of mixup that I can see beyond :mp::mk: if you dont include her garbage standing lp.
And the mixups after :mp::mk:? a decent (but not even close to the best) overhead or a crouching light kick. Then there’s the issue of wakeup game, techroll makes it even more difficult to stay on people.
I’m incredibly dissapointed right now. Zangief has 100x better zoning and much stronger mixups.
We might not get fireballed to death so easily boys and girls… You can cr :mk: underneath fireballs. The only one it doesnt seem to work on is :lp: Sonic boom. Cr :mk: is also good against some air attacks. Their attack will whiff and you will sometimes hit them on the ground leading into a BnB. Attacks like Bisons jumping :hp: will beat it though because of the downward angle.
I’m having more trouble with beating pokes than anything, fireballs aren’t a huge issue to me right now since everyone and their fucking mother plays Rolento and x, where x is is usually a tekken character or grappler.
As much as I hate to admit it, it just seems like the little bruiser needs to use her counter and launcher to crush better pokes, just gotta make sure you stock at least 1 meter at all times in case you screw up (although, whiffing you still eat damage and can’t cancel out of a counter). The problem with her counter is that it tosses the opponent across the screen
I was right too, cr.MK is a fantastic late AA. Seems to stuff a ton of shit, including zangief jump ins It’s not a ton of damage, but it stops you from eating a mix up.
Oh, and can anyone post up what exactly her “mix up” is? Her overhead is slower than shit (and unless I’m wrong it needs counter hit to bounce into a combo?), and so is her sweep grab.
My current uses.
Cadac’ing from :mp::mk: is our best opportunity to mixup, but you can also cadac from :mk::d::mp: and either hope they arent mashing, or throw out a counter if they do. I’m praying capcom didnt make a character that “relies on reading the opponent” (ala vanilla super hakan… aka really bad). They sometimes release characters with this archetype and they are always bottom tier.
Rufus is a like 10-0 matchup. Seriously, with no bar and ambigious dive kicks, it’s so free. I think Rufus pretty much rapes anyone without food footsies/good anti air…and good/fast anti airs don’t seem to exist in this game. Anyone want to share their experiences on this?
EX Falling Rain shuts down his dive kicks. You might be able to use EX sweep throw for some stuff too (that move is too good). Not alot of experience in this one yet though.
I think when you guys get some experience, you’ll see what I mean. Had a set with a Rufus and for it was pretty free. She doesn’t seem to have nothing without meter to dissuade him from dive kicking all over her ass, not to mention good old EX Messiah.
I’ll remain hopeful since this game is new. I’ll do some more testing but IMO, this is a very bad matchup.
Hey guys this applies to everyone but you can CADC to backdash or forward cancel to gain meter, which means you can keep doing it from full screen and get free meter. Good for asuka since she is meter-dependant.
The only normals you can whiff to get meter is medium and heavy normals, medium normals give meter at the 2nd or 3rd whiff, heavy normals whiff always gain meter. Even then Asuka’s normals are not the greatest and whiffing normals can be dangerous because you may get hit by your opponent’s normal into an option-select launch. But doing CADC backdash can make you safe and can guarantee you meter especially from full screen.
:mp::mk: is the only string i can find that leads to any real mixup from cadac. The issue is the only way to even have a chance at landing 
It’s not a ton of damage, but it stops you from eating a mix up.