As M. Bison would say, “Yes! YES!!!” This thread is amazing! Thank you, very much.
Why isn’t this thread stickied?
Does anyone here care about info on ambiguous cross-ups, on from what seems to be the whole cast, after either sweep, jab srk, or jab rk fadc RFB, or do people here really think gambling with stuffing auto srks with dive kicks and x tatsu’s are really a good idea?
After playing with a group of very good players these past few months I’d like to share my view on akuma’s "vortex."
The vortex is overrated. Now b4 you bash let me say why I think so.
Akuma’s has arguably 7+ ways he can make you guess on wakeup (1/7 chance of your opponent guessing right and avoiding your attack). The thing is, most of these 7+ things can be bundled together in groups such that in order to avoid them it’s only 1/4 chances of avoiding another knockdown. eg. Blocking forward, blocking backward, jump back attack and back dash. Furthermore, it’s not like a blind guess. There are cues to tip your opponent off as to what you’re about to do. a good player who knows his spacing will be able to tell if that jumping short is going to cross up or not, or whether that cross up tatsu is going to hit in the front or back. I’ll pull it out of my ass and say 60% is the percentage of them getting it right.
That said, against characters such as zangief and abel, the vortex is effective b/c of the demon flip grab/palm/kick and since they are so large the x-up tatsu is incredibly tricky.
But to further my argument, against a character like ryu, he effectively neutralizes, demon flip grab/palm/kick, and all front jumping attacks (however, you can somewhat safely use them when he doesn’t have ultra). So you can only x-up tatsu, or x-up safely. Again, there are cues to tip them off if they’re good so it’s more like 70% of ryu getting it right. Now this is where I’ll end, because if you look at these options, they’re the same as ryu has.
IMO.
@ 99Problems
I’m by no means a vortex expert, but from the small amount of knowledge that I have, I hope these might help:
- A properly spaced x-up tatsu is very difficult to read, I’ve seen pros fall for Momochi’s, Tokido’s, Eita’s…etc crossup tatsus A LOT
- About Ryu vs the vortex, he’s one of the hardest (if not the hardest) to use the vortex on from what I know, but I think if the Akuma player took a few risks and was successful, he’ll be able to mindfuck the Ryu player and apply his mixup on him, for example:
1- After a knockdown, x-up tatsu > sweep
2- DF Grab > will grab Ryu out of his reversal SRK if timed right (strict timing, but possible, Eita just recently did it to Daigo @ the tournament that was held in France).
3- Ryu player might be afraid to take reversal risks now so he’ll just want to block the correct way, you can DF grab again? DF palm OS hit confirm a combo…etc), I guess a lot of it has to do with reading your opponent correctly and understand his habits so you’d know which option will give the highest % of being successful.
Someone please correct me if I said anything wrong.
The crossup tatsu is an ambiguous crossup when done correctly. Just because people throw it out there sloppy doesn’t mean it isn’t good when done right.
The vortex works on Ryu fine, you just have to use different options. If you expect an auto corrected DP you crossup palm and block or fierce DP. A well time crossup tatsu still works on Ryu. Demon flip throw can throw the wake up DP.(most likely need the medium or hard demon flip to do this) Akuma’s fierce DP can bully Ryu into blocking. The wake up game is still in Akuma’s favor, it is just different.
And Ryu’s options are only similar initially because he can’t sweep you after crossup tatsu for an untechable knockdown to continue the “vortex”.
also after mindfucking ryu with crossup tatsu you can do a normal jump and press hk as late as possible and he’s almost guaranteed to block the wrong way. He will eat a shitload of damage for such a mistake and it’ll most likely make him want to spam a srk the next time, and you can do something safe and then punish.
Essentially, the Vortex works good on really good players. Against a medium or scrubby Ryu, the whole vortex concept doesn’t work because they don’t even suspect they’re being mixed up. They’ll just do the same thing all over, and you should do the same with whatever works. There are G1 ryus who will fall for a crossup tatsu like 5 times in a row, why would you even want to use the Vortex vs such players?
Anyways, yeah, the vortex is “harder” and more limited vs ryu than say versus Abel or sagat, but you can still mix him up more than all the other characters can.
well for me i kind of echo 99’s sentiments… but i’m pretty sure its me.
for me akumas best startup to his vortex bs is to safejump against the opponent… this puts the opponent into a passive state which is what akuma needs the opponent to be in if vortex is going to work well.
my safejump setups are: forward throw dash x 2 jumping hk. this wil safe jump chun rufus sagat etc. timing has to be slightly adjusted versus some characters but its doable against anyone that is safejumpable.
this is also the perfect distance to crossup tatsu ambiguously. at first when i was learning vortex and crossup tatsu… it would ALWAYS get blocked. i was pissed. then i read on here that for the tatsu to actually be ambiguous it must hit near the middle of akumas legs… if hes hitting with his foot it isnt ambiguous enough. another way of putting it is to crossup tatsu from a distance where if you hadnt have tatsud, your jumping hk would hit them in the front.
so i put that all together and got a decent mixup game of regular jumpin hk and crossup tatsu… works well for me. another thing that i use is st.fp xx lk tatsu > cr.mp > forward jump into crossup tatsu or regular hk. the distancing is PERFECT for the tatsu to be ambiguous. weirdly if you juggle with cr.lp instead, it wont be ambiguous at all and will crossup no matter what… it has to be cr.mp.
so that is my basic reset that i use about once in about 10 times i use the punish bnb.
my real problem is with the other vortex options from sweep and demon flip… here is what they are:
sweep… overrated imho… cant ambiguous tatsu unless the sweep hits from a very specific range (near max range sweep) you can always crossup tatsu… but it wont be ambiguous unless the range is just right.
the other problem with sweep is if i do an immediate mk demonflip, i CAN NOT grab them from demon flip… nor can i palm… both will wiff. i have to delay the demon flip slightly in order to be able to grab… and that makes it very obvious that i am srk/reversable unfortunately…
so i usually just mk demon divekick which always gets blocked… whichh is pretty much useless.
and my 2 last problems are that i cant get wiff palm to cr.lp’s to hit my opponets… i usually get jabbed/blocked or thrown. rarely do they hit… i dont know why, but maybe i’m not doing the moves to slow upon landing?
wiff palm to super is by far my most consistent vortex… shit is like 99% successful.
and my other problems are not knowing how to run vortex on certain characters, or if i should even be trying to run vortex on those characters.
the characters that i have the most trouble with beating are guile, honda, dictator, balrog, chun… chargers in other words.
anyone got any advice on why vortex works well on these characters? and what is the go to option in general against these characters? the ones that are safejumpable are cake once i throw them, but i need more options to startup vortex than just forward throw and an unreliable sweep ranging.
-dime
Those are called “button mashers”. Teach those fuckers to stop pressing buttons by doing df palm and immediately fierce srk, like you press the fierce button the moment you’re landing.
Also works ALL the time against those that like to throw you every time you wanna option select their ass.
As for your mk demon flip kick always getting blocked after a sweep, try with hk flip palm, you’ll land behind them as they’re waking up, be ready to option select with c.lp+c.lk and start a combo/ blockstring/ tick throw from there
Ugh there were no safe jumps in 3rd strike so that shit trips me out, genereally after akumas forward throw I’ll just walkup RH DF and wiff palm, depending on how far you walk you’ll land infront or behind. Works on everyone but gief from what i can recall.
Similar setup against bastard charaters who cant be tatsu swept, i fount that depending on how far the initial combo into tatsu is, you can follow up with a jab srk, or jab srk, fadc HPRFB and wiff RH DF too cross up on there quick recovery, but the RH DF has to be first frame after the RFB and depending on how far away your hit onfirm into lk tats pushed you back; can decide whether or not the crossup is possible on fatter characters. one way I found aound this was to use the MPRFB or EXRFB, which have less recovery, although the EXRFB needs practice cause that recovers too quicklly and I found i’ll cross them up on landing well in time for them to notice it.
Also if the don’t quick stand then this obviosly doesnt trick any one, but hey, you at least closed the gap.
you shouldn’t whiff palm and go into cr.jabs. jabs can be blocked high and low. The point of the demon flip palm whiff is to make you opponent think you’re going to hit high, then you insta recover and hit low with a cr.short > BnB (preference).
thats great advice! thanks alot for that, i already have people blocking and/or doing reversals after sweep, so hk demonflip wiff palm is i think the option that i needed! kudos!
also i am going to use your fierce srk > fadc if blocked as well… never thought of doing it there… i mostly do it on peoples wakeup that like to crouch tech.
@ 99 yeah i know, but i see japs opting for jabs over lk’s because jabs hit 1 frame quicker… imho the way i’ve seen it done and the way i’m trying too do it is if flip crosses up, then jabs work well since they will hopefully be blocking the wrong direction. if the flip doesnt crossup then its best to go for shorts to try and take advantage of a high block that is held a little too long.
at least thats what ive seen when watching the jap vids… once the opponent is passive then lk’s are overrall the best… but i think jabs are best before that if the opponent hasnt been trained well enough yet.
-dime
started akuma about a month ago, and eventually starting to get a feel for using the vortex properly.
but people i often play with, are still waiting for mistakes in my vortex setups - e.g., when i unintentionally do just one dash and not two, after a forward dash, or i just mistime the flip and can me reversal srk’ed or reversal flashkicked.
so, for further mixup options, i’m playing around with different timings and spacings for baiting FK’s and srks. people seem to rely on my execution errors, so i want to bait them into a situation, where their reversal seems to be garantueed, but can be blocked and punished.
from forward throw:
- forward dashx2, LK demon flip, palm strike whiff: not fast enough to recover and block a reversal srk/fk,
- forward dashx1, MK demon flip, palm strike whiff: same as above
- forward dashx1, LK demon flip, palm strike whiff: waaaay to obvious
also, forward throw, dashx2, jHK is no real safe jump against a 4frame-reversal like guile’s flashkick (or blanka’s upball).
so far, my only real safe jump is from sweep - but since the positioning for all demon flip mixups is near perfect, i go for the hit, not for the bait.
so, what setups to you guys use to bait those reversal?
f.throw > jump forward and throw an air fb > immediately lk flip palm as you land.
This OFTEN baits srk, and if you punish them once you can repeat the same shit but use HK flip throw because they’ll probably just stand there blocking.
Also after a df throw i like to neutral jump mp air fireball and lk flip pam as soon as i land. This also baits a lot of reversals, but I only use it if i see that my opponent can block crossup air fireballs, otherwise that’s the way to go after a df throw.
cool, never thought about that, thanks.
still experimenting with the air fb after df throw. i just recently found, that - for me(?) - throwing the lp air fb not instantly (tk version), but just after tk timing works best.
timed as tk, i often land in front of my opponent. guess i’m doing something wrong, or is this setup supposed to NOT use the instantly tk air fb, and i just overread it?
what do you use after untechable knockdowns when you are really close, like connected palm strike, or df slide? are there more options than immediate d+MK dive kick (which stuffs ryus hp srk, i really abuse that when scored a close sweep against him) or crossup air fbs? i often get reversaled when i try going backwards a bit and df throw/palm again
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hmmm… sorry about bro… i was under the impression that guile and blanka werent safe jumpable… i knew that the “safejump” doidnt work against them but i thought they werent safejumpable anyways…
however sagat is and isnt his tu a 4 framer as well? maybe the timing for the safejump is just tighter as in immediate dashes and whatnot…
will test in training mode.
-dime
^the double dash jump doesn’t work on them but a normal safe jump does…but the Stricness of the jump makes it near impossible to do consistently…
how do you do a normal safe jump after throw midscreen? or are you talking about a different safejump… i only know of 3 safe jump oooprtunitys:
after sweep, after throw dash x 2, after df grab.
i personally only use the grab safejup but am starting to work the sweep one in.
-dime
you can safe jump any reversal, which has 4frames or more startup (sagats TU is 5 frames, btw)
i tested safe jumps with forward throw, dashx2, but i think even perfectly executed you can’t safe jump guile. you are still in the air when he reversals his FK.
after any other untechable knd (sweep, flip palm/grab/slide, backthrow) you have to opportunity to bait and block his FK.
think i will stick to flip dive kick and air tatsu after the forward throw
I’ve kept an eye out on this thread for some time, but didn’t see it mentioned for a mixup, so here goes. After lk tatsu, you can hit c.LP to reset them on the ground.
My timing isn’t perfect with it, but I find it a decent hit confirm with BnB that I’ll lead into an immediate grab attempt or demon flip to grab attempt. On cross tatsu (which my timing is very poor on consistency, I need help), I don’t always go for c.HK sweep, I’ll toss this to keep the mixup going.
Naturally it can be stopped with a spammy shoryu, but its another tool in the arsenal of Akuma.