Yeah, with the changes to Akuma’s game, less damage/stun, alterations on the dive kick, character resets when hit out of DP, the old options are no longer optimal because the risk/reward factor is no longer worth it. So now I go for the most safe and hard to deal with pressure.
The 2nd combo is pretty easy and works on most of the cast , I didnt try it on the characters with small hitboxes but it works on normal sized for sure. Damage wise its pretty bad doing only 328 if you do a c.LP after the s.HK when cr.MP xx fireball FADC s.HP xx LK Tatsu > HP SRK does 339. If the characters hitbox is big enough you will still be able to do a c.MP after the s.HK and it will do 343.
Technically speaking, all characters are slower and or worse then they used to be. Though some get away with rubbish, Akuma is ok for a shoto.
i know this already. why do you think i use the demon flip palm as my go to option? it sets up for a lot of freedom against a respectful opponent, and i use the palm to set those mindgames up. i did say that in my original post, right? i know it beats jump outs. that’s one of the reasons i use it first. i know it beats focus attacks and all moves with armor. i know it safejumps 5-frame reversals or higher that have i-frames and beats the ones that don’t. i know it must be blocked high. i know i can punish backdashes or teleports without an option select (akuma’s 6frame sweep). these are the reasons it is my go to option and the reasons it was my go to option in vanilla, which i said in my previous post.
what i want to know is why shin doesn’t think it was the way to go in vanilla SFIV, to open the mindgames with the palm. because that’s what i did, and apparently it wasn’t the way to go until now, with SSFIV? his point about the alterations to the dive kick are interesting, but the dive kick was really only powerful when delayed against opponents who had a DP, against most characters the dive kick was just an option that couldn’t be used effectively as a safejump and could be blocked both high and low, whereas his palm had the high/low mixup in it as well as the fear of the grab.
i dunno. i always started the “vortex” with demon flip palm in vanilla, with very few matchup exceptions. also shin, using LP DP FADC red FB allows you to keep your safejump demon flip palm in most matchups, i know we had a discussion about that in a previous thread about how you didn’t use the DP FADC red FB in combos much, but i feel like it adds to your ability to use the demon flip palm safejump against characters that you can’t use tatsu->sweep against and now that you’re always using the demon flip palm as the can-opener, so to speak, maybe that information will affect how much you use the combo ender.
i dunno. im rambling at this point, basically ive always used demon flip palm to open shit up, dunno why it wasn’t the best way in vanilla.
In SF4 both the dive kick and the grab were very powerful. Dive kick leads to huge combos and stun and grab could be OS’d to also hit dashes. You could basically just mix up between them since they both would cover a vast array of your opponent’s wake up options for more damage and stun than the palm. Dive kick gave combo into knockdown on non blocking opponents. Throw lead to UT KD and beat out many armored moves that would require armor break properties because a throw ignores that. Add them together and you could drop the use of the palm to a minimum. With the changes (read nerf) to both - dive kick properties are…odd now. DP’s get reset when hit, damage/stun is nerfed making your combo chances way less powerful. Throw has a whiff animation making it detrimental to miss, impossible to OS and does not strike fear into your opponent anymore. The risk/reward factor of the dive kick/throw combo shot through the floor.
Palm was exactly the same in SF4. However the combo of dive kick/throw yielded much more damage potential while also covering most of the options that palm would take care of. So in SF$ it was a better choice overall. In Super, due to the changes, that is no longer the case. Therefore the palm moves up the totem pole in terms of what to use because the dive kick/throw combo is substandard and the palm is still as powerful as it was.
Take a look at Eita’s Akuma in SF4. He is the biggest abuser of wake up demon flip and he used dive kick/throw combo much more than he used palm. Not because palm was bad, but because the combo was better.
Shotos rely on fireballs instead of moving forward which is something I don’t like, besides that, Blanka is a deal breaker for Akuma.
Really? On the contrary, I feel Blanka’s probably one of the easier matches for Akuma. So many ways to punish his moves with Akuma.
well blanka is definitely not an easy matchup…of course if he’s spamming vertical and horizontal balls left and right it’s gonna be easy, but a turtle blanka can be a nightmare believe me. That green fuck got some good normals and an awesome jump
I supposed that if played with skill, Blanka can be a problem. Then again, I believe that goes for anyone in the cast vs. Akuma.
just look at the momochi v mizoteru and tokido v mizoteru matches from GodsGarden2…it’s a turtle fest…akuma’s vortex is basically shutdown until you have ultra, then you can start doing some mixups because a GOOD blanka will think twice before doing his fucking brainless “hit you on both sides” ex upball because if you block he’s in for some serious trouble. It’s also not very easy to zone him. Fortunately there are VERY VERY VERY few really good blankas around
That makes sense. I guess I’m used to opponents who never block, and always try a reversal, so that’s why I always made heavy use of the palm. It gave me a very effective sense of what mixups could be used to beat what, but I suppose against truly respectful opponents, I could have used the demon flip kick a little more. Although I feel like many of them would just block more and jump less because the throw is still way way less scary than the combo off of a DF kick. But now they can jump out of the throw, or backdash out of it, and there’s no fear of punishment (which I guess is fair anyway lol) and so it makes the throw a little less menacing. I dunno. I guess my Akuma was impacted less by this than some other Akumas, but Akuma’s overall mixup threat is toned down a bit.
Also as far as Blanka goes, you should still be able to safejump him when he has meter (prior to ultra), and then upon a safejump you’re in your ideal range for the fight (imo). I find it hard to bait a truly good Blanka from mid to fullscreen when you don’t have a life lead, and prefer to take the fight to him like Ryu would. Same with Cammy…