Why is akuma so freaking difficult to use... (rant thread)

Classic Fighting Games Ultra Street Fighter IV
1

Been trying to use akuma for awhile and trying to train him up. The only thing that came to my mind Gosh Why is akuma so freaking difficult to use… ( And I thought pple qq about how imba akuma is)

I mean with other character on the roster I have an easier time than using akuma. I’m used to using character with low health such as yun and adon but akuma just took it to another lvl. I can’t even win pple who I use to own. Now before you all flame me for not learning how to use him properly, I must say I have quite a good understanding of the game such as using safe jump, footsie, zoning etcetc but with akuma I think everything I have learn has gone down the drain. With spammer, all you need to do is just make 1 mistake and you will see 1/3 of your life gone 0_o

So guys, i’m seeking help here. What is your general game plan? How to you start up your pressure or block string? I’m starting to get unsure of myself as basically I have tried to do everything but just 1 mistake and there goes all my effort of controlling the game. C’mon guys give some help to this fellow akuma mate here ^^

2

You need to accept that Akuma have stupid thin actives frames, nothing to control and engage at mid range like a moving forward special or command normal, st.HK being effective far only on certain chars and usually good at quite close range. You can use his walk speed plus an absolute knowledge of the other guy’s normal ranges to position yourself at the right distance. Everything is critical timing basically. You can’t early push HK or MK in your jumps in or you can just whiff it. You need to time your kick on any DF kick depending or the opponent and situation.
Thus Akuma will shine only if you have confidence and smart reactions.

Once you show the opponent that you control even a small part of the match up, if you can make him respect you a bit, the match became more balanced.
You’ll succeed more with ballsy game plans like wide frame traps, an as far as you can confirm and optimize the damage on theses few openings, you’re good.
Online it’s a very hard work.

Try to use jump in early air FB to get in on some matchups, beware of the ex SRK with this though. But what happens next is up to you and your reads on the opponent’s habits.
Watch some video seeking when the opponent lost his guard and why.

3

After playing more of akuma and having my ass handed to me by more people, I start to realise something. I agree on what you say regarding to having confidence and having smart reaction.

I think what makes akuma so good yet so complex is because akuma is a multi layered character ( correct me if i’m wrong) Akuma may seems easy to use at first glace but deep down what makes akuma tick is because akuma can be used in so many ways and by truly understanding the ways akuma can be played then can 1 truly shine with him.

I think my main problem is wiff punishing with akuma. Guys can anyone teach me how to practice counter-poke? I think I really need to step up on my footsie gamesad

4

really? back when i played ssfiv, people used to mash the controller on their face and beat me with akuma.

5

haha really lol and I doubt pple can really mash their controller and beat you provided you have a decent understanding of the game ^^

6

Because hes not Cammy

7

Everybody seems to think Akuma is Ryu with more options, so they assume he can’t be hard to use. Truth is he’s nonsense difficult to use for a shoto. You pretty much are sniping many of your attacks because he has so little active frames.

8

I’ve wanted to main Akuma for a long, long time now but always go back to easier characters like Fei Long and Bison. I’d love to spend a year or two leveling him up but I just don’t have the time or the patience. You pretty much have to devote all your free time to learn Akuma.

9

Def agree with him. I do main Akuma, but damn, its hard. Been using him since vanilla now and I believe my Akuma is decent but not the best. Still have a lot of work to do tho. One mistake with Akuma could cost you the game. Especially with nightmare lag during you combo when you need it to count… oh man its such a heartbreaker, then glass chin Akuma takes a mashing DP. He is def a rewarding character once you start knowing how to use him tho. Just keep watching Infiltration and Tokido videos to see how they play and mirror their playstyle and try to understand their set ups.

10

Yep. I’ve been using Akuma on the side. My main is Bison, and I’ve also tried Fei Long. Akuma is easy to an extent, but to go that extra step further, it does take a lot of time and devotion. I’m still wondering if I should even continue with him and drop my main, or drop him and move onto someone else. Not really the character that is often used as a secondary.

11

Took me 2 years and from scratch (0 knowledge of SF) to settle inside the 2000pp range with that single char. I have a feeling I would be a bit higher with another one.
Online stuff related though.

12

I ‘main’ Bison, Fei, and Ken, and use Akuma on the side. (though I’m reeeeeeeeeeally considering switching to him altogether, hes just so much fun to play) COINCIDENCE? I THINK NOT! :smiley:

That said, Akuma is just not for everyone. Its not so much about the learning part of him as much as it is about the mentality you have to have when you play him, the fact that you pretty much HAVE to play a solid footsie and zoning game, and you cant make many mistakes.

He also has less derpy comeback potential (herp derp dp fadc ultra, herp derp dp trade ultra, herp derp anti air dp to ultra), but his comeback potential is very much there with his strong mixup game

13

it’s real hard to pick up… I’m getting bodied and I know how to play the game lol.

14

  1. Lose a ton.

  2. 7 “you will be at that exact spot” air fb reads for 40 damage. Mak gets in once, 300-400.

  3. Frustration.

  4. Set Care Factor to 0, no regard at all for quality of own play or match results, start playing Based Jyobin Fighter 4: #yolokengrab Edition.

  5. Lose less.

  6. BibleThump

15

To be fair, no character is “difficult” to learn, it simply takes time. Once you practice setups, hit confirms etc. You’ll be able to put it all in a match. Know his footsie ranges, when to fireball, when to dp/anti air, and finally know the matchup. Once you get that untechable knockdown, all hell breaks loose and it becomes a major guessing game for the opponent, it’s just making sure your setups are safe, yet hard to guess.

Best block string(s) I usually use is c.lp, c.lp into c,mp knockdown - frame trap. Mix this in with tick throws and you’ll open the opponent up. Double c.mp into knockdown also works as a frametrap (Don’t do this in an akuma vs akuma matchup since he can punish the sweep). Try not to use low forward fireball as much as it’s not a true block string and you’ll get a lot of life = gone. Good safe setup is if you can hit confirm an ex fireball i.e. c.lk, c.lp, c.mp - ex fireball then heavy demon flip kick, if they reversal i,e, dp it will either depending on how early/late you do it, crossup and enables you to punish or will completly stuff out their move and enable you to continue your combo. Experiment - that’s the key.

What not to do: Fierce cancel into demon flip DON’T do that, easily walked under and fully punishable, or worse in Ryu’s case light uppercut ultra meterless. Whenever I mirror an akuma I sometimes see people do this and all i do is simply walk under and punish, my favorite one is sweep cancel into demon. People may also try to cancel their c.mp after a block string in order to create distance therefore you walk into a dive kick, simply light uppercut on reaction, but not too late otherwise it will probably whiff.

It took me around 2-3 weeks to solidify my Akuma play and around a month to learn framedata, matchups and what to do in certain situations. Overall around 2 months to master Akuma i’d say, although online is a bit harder since there’s the lagg and certain moves are harder to punish on reaction i.e. anti air may come out too late due to lagg and you get blownup, or tech throw may not register due to lagg, but when I play offline with my cousin I tend to have almost flawless inputs. I play on pad lol, may invest into buying a stick in order to do some OS’s.

The only thing left for me to do is learn some option selects although with a pad I struggle quite a bit on this, but oh well. - reaction for the wins.

16

yea pretty much agreed with what you say. Been close to 1 month since I been using akuma and I can say I have improve pretty much and started to get more wins finally ^^

Things with akuma is that you pretty much have to study up his setup. I couldn’t count how many times when pple try to reversal shoryu me when I did cr.lk cr.lp cr.mp hardo into fadc cr.hk hard knockdown into dfk and counter hit their shoryu into another combo of my choice. Even something like fwd throw, wiff hk into wiff hdf plam will see pple falling for the setup and try to shoryu you just because they thought they can and all they have after trying is flying into the sky waiting for punishment.

Once you start playing solid with akuma, you will see the potential that he has and you will start to love ssf4 more ^^ But I’m still getting butthurt when I miss my far st.hp anti-air and getting a ultra in my face in return… lol the joy of using akuma…

17

Haha, yeah standing st.far hp is annoying to get sometimes, best anti air is his uppercut. I’d only use far st hp if it’s a certain match up i.e. Rufus and Yun/Yang since it beats out their dive kicks like 90-95% of the time.

Sweep/low forward cancel into demon is a god like tool and by far the best anti air in the game since your hit box is also lowered allowing attacks to pass through the demon. Simply c.hk + c.jab and finish the demon input and it will be a boss, same applies to c.mk - I don’t recommend you do this in laggy games since the demon may not come out at all or you’ll probably do a standing jab and knock them out the air lol, happened to me. Knockdown demon is SOOO good against focus happy players, the only person who can escape is probably makoto due to her quick back dash if she’s far enough. They pretty much take a free 550+ damage depending on ultra bar

18

He’s only hard because he’s commonly mistaken as a better ryu… with a demon flip. facepalm

  1. Doesn’t have true block strings mid-screen.
  2. Low active frames.
  3. Anti-airs tend to whiff/“fail” if slightly mis-spaced.
  4. No traditional “comeback” mechanic. (easily combo-able ultra)
  5. Very dependent on precise strategy, execution and spacing.

Very little room for error with Akuma and that’s just for the basics.

With Ryu you can mess up once and a while, take one or two fierces to the face no biggie.
With Akuma, two fierce looks like you got jab spd’ed and a fierce spd by Zangief looks like a damn ultra punish.

What will really get you killed very easily, is oddly his “vortex”.
I hate calling it that. It’s just mix-ups. In 2012 his is not the best. I believe Cammy’s is but that’s for another discussion. (Her’s not dependent on one type of knock down. Seth’s very strong as well.)

In ae 2012 Your “vortex” needs to have option selects, and if blocked ways to quickly reset the situation or retreat. It also has to be very character specific to remain safe. 39 characters most with different safe jump timing. Some characters you can’t combo into sweep with tatsu so you need to learn safe jumps, combos to compensate. And that’s to be a higher level Akuma nowadays. And you wonder why guys like Infiltration uses his phone for notes. So much stuff to remember and learn with this guy. And of course one reversal and incorrect timing will blow this whole thing up and your bound to lose 30% soon after.

What I can say is the best with Akuma is his space control. No other character can dominate space like Akuma can in this game. However space control takes A LOT of practice. Masters of space control like Infiltration, Daigo, Valle, etc… they make it seem as if the opponent doesn’t even get to play sometimes. Akuma on paper can do this the best but it takes very talented players to bring this out of this character. Have fun >>" What a love and hate relationship with my main. ><

19

Anyone who says Akuma is imba is ignorant and knows next to nothing about this game. You never should listen to ppl making dumb statements like that.

Why is Akuma so difficult to use ? i would say two things.

  1. As someone said earlyer, thin active frames. inferior normals in general. Outstanding offensive and mixups make up for that, but it brings out the main point which is :

  2. You can’t fuck up. If you do, it’s K.O screen before you realise what happened.

Akuma requires an in depth knowledge of the game mechanics and crisp timing. You also need to be creative and know your matchups very well. If you lack any of those be prepared to lose to vastly inferior players a lot.

That said. I never found a character which feels more rewarding upon winning. If you win with Akuma, or you perfect someone, it’s because you deserve every bit of it.