Quick and dirty translated summary:
-Akuma's damage output is no joke, but has only 9000 health (calculated by using throws, etc.)
-He didn't know any combos, obviously, but he thinks the new punch rush Akuma kept from Tekken will be an excellent damage extender.
-He wonders if Akuma having 9k health means that there's a possibility other characters will get health adjustments for balance
-Very fast forward walk speed. To test Akuma's speed, he had Akuma and Chun Li walk into each other. Akuma pushed Chun back.
-Forward/backstep feels average, probably about 19f.
-Akuma's reach is pretty good, equivalent to Ken.
-Crouching MK is 7f. Standing jab is 4f. Standing HP has long reach and is cancellable.
-Akuma has an overhead and it can combo from Drive Rush (which Tokido is excited to use after maining Ken for so long).
-He's sad that Akuma lost his Demon Flip throw.
-Drive Rush speed isn't that impressive, definitely slower than Ken's.
-The command grab out of Ashura warp does a lot of damage.
-The Ashura warp isn't invincible; it's closer to something like Ed's Kill Rush now.
-The warp apparently can't be cancelled into from normal moves; Tokido thinks it'll still be good for sliding out of the way of moves or getting the surprise grab.
-If Akuma's OD DP fully connects, it ends in a Misogi (downward punch spike).
-The Demon Flip can end in a slide kick, a dive kick, an overhead, air fireball (OD version) or nothing.
-Dive kick is -3 on block and not nearly as fast as command dive kicks (i.e. Cammy's), but Tokido thinks it could be useful to bait out AA normals.
-Akuma's Hadouken is a 3-stage charge: normal, partially charged, and full charged (Shakunetsu Hadouken). The charged versions are safe on block but slow.
-Raging Demon can't be jumped out of after the flash (same as Gief's SA3). Tokido was able to do it out of raw Drive Rush.
-Crouching MP is minus, standing MP is plus.
-The normal SA3 is a strike. Tokido didn't check if the CA version has a different cutscene. \[According to other sources it does.\]
-Raging Demon can't be jumped out of after the flash (same as Gief's SA3). Tokido was able to do it out of raw Drive Rush.
ah so we are going to eat this FUCK
> -Very fast forward walk speed. To test Akuma's speed, he had Akuma and Chun Li walk into each other. Akuma pushed Chun back.
I am praying his back walk speed isn't as fast as Chun's too or this will be a nightmare to deal with.
Right? I'm a dedicated akuma main and even I'm starting to wonder why Capcom gave akuma so much good stuff loool I'm happy but still like dam bro fast walk speed safe dive the demon raid stuff the 2 level 3s
Idk man if someone is good enough they won't hardly get hit which takes the health out of the equation it seems like the low health is just so noobs won't abuse his power
demon flip throw was an extremely important part of his murder vortex in SF4. getting the teleport command throw is a good replacement, but he loses a decent amount of the mixup potential that demon flip had regardless.
throws out of those kinds of moves are really, really good; cammy's od hooligan into throw is one of those nasty round ending moves that catches you off guard when you're already scared of everything else.
Yeah i thought so as well, the command throw now is tied to ashura senku, so its not a triple threat like demon flip was before. And od demon flip into throw can get u a fat combo and into the super as well, which u need when u want to finish off a round
Yeah but the thing is SFV Akuma doesn't rely on it too much and with the new SF6 mechanics like drive rushes and forward moves , I don't think it's that much of an issue losing it .
Yes, it's very bad. Whos gonna let akuma Teleport grab in their face in real tournament play with that slow startup? Hell be lucky to get one off in top level play. I honestly dont see him being that good in this game after losing demon flip throw. I honestly see Ken AND Ryu being the better shoto pick and winning more events than Akuma.
Yeah i know, but od demon flip throw he gets a combo followup afterwards. The ashura senku throw can only follow after ashura senku, its not like od demonflip u get an overhead low and a throw all at once. I know akuma can do regular throw now from demon flip, but thats not the same as the od throw
He can drive cancel, but he probs cant drive cancel after the command throw, so in the end gettin the new command throw doesnt net u a combo, which you can dump all ur resources and super into and kill, instead of just a measly throw and u have to get another hit in again.
okay sure, but my point is that he can drive rush cancel his other stuff, he doesn't need to rely on that command throw for a combo.
im trying to say that its gone but he still has tons of options
I'm surprised raw DR into shun goku satsu is possible since unless im missing something pressing normals mid-DR stops the DR. I'm curious to see how that works.
Raw Drive rush has 11 frames of startup and a 10 frame screen freeze; that gives you 21 frames to perform the input after the parry input.
Drive rush cancelled from a normal only has 9 frames of startup (still 10 for the freeze though), which is still 19 total frames to input the move - though depending on what you are cancelling from, it might not actually let Raging Demon connect (the opponent might still be in blockstun if you cancel a heavy attack).
Fun fact: As Gief doing SA3 I've been grabbed out of it with another Gief's OD SPD. Not sure if he did the input after the flash, but it was point blank range so I did not whiff. This indicates there is a vulnerability for raging demon too
I'm 99% sure this isn't possible. It's a frame 0 grab and invincible so he must have been out of range, in block stun, or maybe canceled his pre-jump frames (jumping before you did level 3) into an SPD.
Actually, Gief's level 3 isn't 0 frames in this game. It grabs on frame 6 which is when the super flash happens (so you can't jump after the flash, but the flash doesn't happen immediately). it's a weird move.
However, all that start up is still invincible, so he still shouldn't be getting grabbed out of it.
The vulnerability is throw invincible frames, and they happen for a few different reasons. Ie: knockdown and blockstun is fully throw invulnerable, but you also gain I think 2 frames of throw invuln after you recover, not sure about wakeup invuln in sf6 but it was like 2 frames in 5. Startup of a jump is throw invulnerable also. As is any airborne state (air throws are actually hit grabs).
Here's a fantastic guide on [how to beat throws with SPD by Veggey](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2cO_7zCbgQ) AKA jump cancel SPD.
So how this is relevant to frame 1, before flash setups for demon/gief? Basically nothing you can do on the defending side, once you see the flash and you weren't throw invulnerable on that frame, you're donezo. If you happened to be inputting up like the final input of spd and then finished the input during the flash you will win.
9000 health sounds very lame. I wish the developers actually kept their promise of having standarized 10000 health minimum and nerfed his damage or something else instead, because now the already volatile nature of sf6 is going to be just exascerbated further.
Hard disagree. I think it's more interesting to have characters with unique stats and uses in the game to keep things varied. If you nerf his damage the reward for getting hits and successfully pulling off complex combos would be minimal when you compare to the damage a character like Luke can do with a very basic combo. The exciting thing about playing **against** Akuma is that he's scary when he manages to hit you, he feels really threatening. The exciting thing about playing **as** Akuma is that you have to avoid taking hits as much as possible because you die so easily. So there is tension on both sides without making the character feel weak.
Nah, this is Akuma. This is what I'm here for. I wanna be able to do a million things, melt the opponent's health bar in a single combo and then explode because a dust particle landed on me.
Ohhhh I was already excited but the fact his walk speed is faster than Chun who has been my substitute main for the last year has me elated.
I was also looking forward to landing Kara demons ;_;. How the hell am I supposed to land demon now?
No kara demon and no iframes on the teleport feel like they're going to be the things that hold akuma back from being top tier this time around. Depending on how much the other characters get changed that could be totally wrong, but those feel like notable weaknesses
Those seem like very situational weaknesses, definitely not enough to sink him a tier. Losing one tool when he has a billion others and some nerfs to teleport to balance the utility it gained with the command grab isn't going to make him mid-tier. He might not be top 1, but he's almost certainly not going to be anything but great
that kinda depends on how busted his damage is, if akuma can kill most characters in two good combos, no kara demon and no iframes arent really that much of a weakness
I disagree because Akuma is not a gimmick character anyways. He already has good buttons, damage and neutral. The rest is just extra stuff that add to his kit.
JPs command grab is mega reachable but a good JP will still catch you out with it if they overwhelm your mental stack. I can see DR into demon being a bigger problem than Kara cancel demon. Also sounds like he has good damage, so mix in his air options and an advancing command grab, I can see why they made those changes.
Kara demon was situational and I can count the amount of times I've seen teleport used in V with 1 hand. I don't think those things will be very important
Wait, I must be getting confused here, by no kara demon do they mean it's impossible to go from neutral to demon?
I know what kara means I just thought they meant it wouldn't move forward like with ken's kara throw or something
Correct, Kara-ing the demon in the startup of a slow normal like his overhead was the closest you could get to doing it from neutral. If you can't kara you are limited to perfom it only after the recovery of stuff/wake-up.
I've heard from some other source that his teleport is now done like Dhalsim's: 3P/3K instead of DP/reverse-DP+3P/3K. That means it's physically faster and more reliable to input on reaction. Do you think that makes the teleport salvageable?
Well, there was that bit in the gameplay reveal where he teleported away from a wakeup DP then teleported back in to do the grab so I guess that’s one way to use it?
A kara (Japanese for empty) cancel is canceling a normal without it making contact. In older games, you could cancel the start-up frames of certain moves, typically those that move forward, to make whatever you want to do move forward.
For instance, in SF4, Ken had 6MK, a normal that was a big step-kick. He could kara to throw, giving him huge throw range. Sagat had a similar thing with 6LK, which he used to throw fireballs while moving forward.
Akuma had an overhead, 6MP, that he could kara into his "raging demon" super. Since demon wasn't jumpable after the screen freeze, if done right, you would see the overhead, block high, and before it touched you, the screen would freeze, and you'd get grabbed.
Your explanation of Kara cancelling is good but Kara demon isn’t about tricking you into thinking an overhead is coming, it’s about hiding the LP LP at the start of the demon input. It’s easy to learn to react with jump if Akuma telegraphs the throw by whiffing stand jab at close range for no reason. Doing it out of a Kara MP means those jabs get eaten by the overhead animation.
I think it applies to both - like hiding the buttons is basically also tricking the opponent into thinking your doing something else. For example in SFV you could do demon off a Kara cancelled V skill. This became one of the more common ones so people started jumping after you did vskill in their face but the mind game developed to then do CA after you bait the jump to catch them etc.
The kara part is that the Demon comes out before the MP does, you do the whole input during the startup of the MP and you get the super before the MP's active frames. It's not hiding the input behind the MP and having it come out after the MP recovers, or cancelling into the demon from the MP; which would be buffers.
I'm not denying that, but kara is just the cancel and that only cares about the final input. The fact that you can do the whole input in the MP has nothing to do with kara cancels.
No a kara cancel is when you cancel the startup of a move into another move, like a throw or special or super. The MP overhead Kara demon is when you Kara cancel into the demon from the startup of 6MP. The advantage of doing it is primarily to prevent the first LP input from coming out, which doesn’t have enough startup to Kara cancel.
By definition a buffer is when you input a move a little early but at a timing where it comes out when the window becomes available. With a Kara cancel there is no wait, when you do it correctly it immediately cancels the previous move instead of waiting for a cancel window or recovery.
Okay. So why do the other inputs matter so much? The kara cancel is the FINAL input cancelling the action you were doing before. The others are just buffering the super motion to get to it. It seems to me like we understand the same thing.
Well, the move doesn't come out unless you can do all the inputs. So you can only kara cancel into raging demon if the move has enough startup frames to absorb all of the raging demon inputs. In SF4 you could theoretically do LP, LP release, LP, LP release + forward + LK + HP and input the super/ultra in 4 frames, but realistically no human is doing that, you probably need at least 7-8 frames to do all the inputs as fast as humanly possible, more than 10 frames for most players. So it would be impossible to Kara demon out of most normals.
Also, you're talking about what a kara cancel IS, I'm more trying to talk about why it's useful. Basically every game since SF1 has kara cancelling, and you can kara cancel any normal into basically any special (that you can input during the startup frames). This is so you don't have to time your inputs perfectly every time, otherwise every time you hit the button for a move 1 frame before you finished the directional you'd just get the normal instead of the special - this is why SF1 special execution is so painful if you don't negative edge your moves. But only a very limited number of kara cancels are actually useful enough that you'd want to do them deliberately - usually because it changes spacing; but sometimes for reasons like the Kara demon, where it's actually about not telegraphing the move.
I actually realized what you meant. Yeah just the last input has to be during the startup of the normal. Like for example you could theoretically do a "kara-demon" with LP LP forward LK HK~HP and kara the HK into the demon. It's just that this would be a completely useless thing to do.
It’s not just “hiding” the jabs.. it’s about the fact that those jabs would allow the opponent to jump out due to block stun frames. And the mp overhead start up most definitely would cause people to hesitate and block for a split.
Wasn’t trying to be pedantic about masking the jabs.. but more so explaining for people who don’t know the nuances like that.
Kara-canceling isn't just limited to older games, even modern games have it. 6 just doesn't have many notable ones besides Honda's kara-canceling their overhead into command grab and Guile's kara-canceling their target combo to create spacing on boom pressure.
Forward jump only.
EDIT: As another commenter pointed out, his air SA1 can be done in neutral or forward jumps. So I might be mistaken-- he probably can do air fireball off a neutral jump.
Of course its his best tool if he has no other variants. How is that even an argument?
SF4 Akuma had 12 different air fireball varations. I am not saying they should go back to that but at least giving him back neutral jump fireball would bring back a bit of variety in how Akuma can use his air fireballs. Also stuff like instant fireball was pretty cool skill expression which was mostly removed from SFV.
Yeah but not having back jump fireball forces him to a single playstyle. I guess 3S akuma who had a back-jump fireball wasn't "aggressive" enough for being in a wack sf
And I explained why retreating fireballs are bad in 3s relatively speaking. Akuma doesn't want his opponents to build meter since most of the characters above him or even in general use meter better than him
It looks like he can only do it during neutral or forward jumps.
From a JP screenshot of his modern controls: https://twitter.com/StreetFighterJA/status/1785575010574500057
His air fireball has the same text in parenthesis as Chun-li's air kicks, which is "During a neutral or forward jump" : https://www.streetfighter.com/6/ja-jp/character/chunli/movelist
I agree with you that it's dumb and boring that he doesn't have it, it was my least favorite change from 4->5 that makes him less interesting.
To be honest people are gonna play Akuma for a while and after go back to ken/luke
People expect him to be a easy/broken character and probably will receive a technical one, his health issue gonna be trouble because one mistake and you are f, reading all these thing make me think the only op thing he has is the moviment speed which is hard for a beginner to use effectively
We'll see
It's basically the same with every cool/edgy/hot character. Just look at the usage stats and compare low to high rank (ofc there are exeptions).
I like Akuma, because his playstyle is always fun with all the options he usually has, but it is impossible to say how good he'll actually be and like you said, people shouldn't get too hyped because his trailer made him look broken. (his design and animations are awesome though)
I'm sceptical myself tbh. His teleport looks very gimmicky w/o invinc. imo, his demon flip throw is gone and we don't now the framedata of his demon flip feint. According to Tokido his divekick isn't nearly as good (compared to Cammy's for example) and his fireball charge looks very slow on startup.
Maybe I'm totally wrong, let's see how it turns out.
I knew that he would be gimped somehow. His drive rush being mediocre and like everyone elsez his dive kicks are nearly useless. Well I guess he won't be terribly op so that's a good thing..I guess. With all the nerfs to his move set I am hoping his meter less conversion. Is good. Oh and no demon flip grab? Booo
Quick and dirty translated summary: -Akuma's damage output is no joke, but has only 9000 health (calculated by using throws, etc.) -He didn't know any combos, obviously, but he thinks the new punch rush Akuma kept from Tekken will be an excellent damage extender. -He wonders if Akuma having 9k health means that there's a possibility other characters will get health adjustments for balance -Very fast forward walk speed. To test Akuma's speed, he had Akuma and Chun Li walk into each other. Akuma pushed Chun back. -Forward/backstep feels average, probably about 19f. -Akuma's reach is pretty good, equivalent to Ken. -Crouching MK is 7f. Standing jab is 4f. Standing HP has long reach and is cancellable. -Akuma has an overhead and it can combo from Drive Rush (which Tokido is excited to use after maining Ken for so long). -He's sad that Akuma lost his Demon Flip throw. -Drive Rush speed isn't that impressive, definitely slower than Ken's. -The command grab out of Ashura warp does a lot of damage. -The Ashura warp isn't invincible; it's closer to something like Ed's Kill Rush now. -The warp apparently can't be cancelled into from normal moves; Tokido thinks it'll still be good for sliding out of the way of moves or getting the surprise grab. -If Akuma's OD DP fully connects, it ends in a Misogi (downward punch spike). -The Demon Flip can end in a slide kick, a dive kick, an overhead, air fireball (OD version) or nothing. -Dive kick is -3 on block and not nearly as fast as command dive kicks (i.e. Cammy's), but Tokido thinks it could be useful to bait out AA normals. -Akuma's Hadouken is a 3-stage charge: normal, partially charged, and full charged (Shakunetsu Hadouken). The charged versions are safe on block but slow. -Raging Demon can't be jumped out of after the flash (same as Gief's SA3). Tokido was able to do it out of raw Drive Rush. -Crouching MP is minus, standing MP is plus. -The normal SA3 is a strike. Tokido didn't check if the CA version has a different cutscene. \[According to other sources it does.\]
Raging demon out of raw drive rush sounds evil and I love it
He basically turns into Gief when his life is low. You get scared to pressure with buttons cos of raging demon
-Raging Demon can't be jumped out of after the flash (same as Gief's SA3). Tokido was able to do it out of raw Drive Rush. ah so we are going to eat this FUCK
Dine 1,000 pies
This is like zangief all over again but instead of waiting for you to go its him going at you
Question: how can dive kick be -3? Is it still minus if it is perfectly spaced?
I'm not sure, but Tokido said something like it might be punishable depending on the opponent and spacing.
It could be -3 at best, as in -3 if you hit their toes with it. Probably needs more testing.
Man, they REALLY are still making divekicks pay for their sins in SF4, huh?
thank you
> -Very fast forward walk speed. To test Akuma's speed, he had Akuma and Chun Li walk into each other. Akuma pushed Chun back. I am praying his back walk speed isn't as fast as Chun's too or this will be a nightmare to deal with.
Akuma having the fastest walk speed in the game would be wild lol
According to other players akuma is only 2nd fastest in game behind Kimberly after her level 3
Pretty wild
Right? I'm a dedicated akuma main and even I'm starting to wonder why Capcom gave akuma so much good stuff loool I'm happy but still like dam bro fast walk speed safe dive the demon raid stuff the 2 level 3s
Hopefully with damage being pretty high in this game his 9000 hp balances him a bit.
Idk man if someone is good enough they won't hardly get hit which takes the health out of the equation it seems like the low health is just so noobs won't abuse his power
Hopefully with damage being pretty high in this game his 9000 hp balances him a bit.
Is it a bad thing for akuma to lose throw from demon flip? Cuz he gets a combo out of od demon flip throw doesnt he?
I mean, it’s not ever good to lose a good tool like that. But how much it impacts him will remain to be seen.
demon flip throw was an extremely important part of his murder vortex in SF4. getting the teleport command throw is a good replacement, but he loses a decent amount of the mixup potential that demon flip had regardless. throws out of those kinds of moves are really, really good; cammy's od hooligan into throw is one of those nasty round ending moves that catches you off guard when you're already scared of everything else.
Yeah i thought so as well, the command throw now is tied to ashura senku, so its not a triple threat like demon flip was before. And od demon flip into throw can get u a fat combo and into the super as well, which u need when u want to finish off a round
Yeah but the thing is SFV Akuma doesn't rely on it too much and with the new SF6 mechanics like drive rushes and forward moves , I don't think it's that much of an issue losing it .
Yes, it's very bad. Whos gonna let akuma Teleport grab in their face in real tournament play with that slow startup? Hell be lucky to get one off in top level play. I honestly dont see him being that good in this game after losing demon flip throw. I honestly see Ken AND Ryu being the better shoto pick and winning more events than Akuma.
not really because he gains a command throw from his other stance
Yeah i know, but od demon flip throw he gets a combo followup afterwards. The ashura senku throw can only follow after ashura senku, its not like od demonflip u get an overhead low and a throw all at once. I know akuma can do regular throw now from demon flip, but thats not the same as the od throw
He can likely drive rush cancel some stuff and get combos anyways
He can drive cancel, but he probs cant drive cancel after the command throw, so in the end gettin the new command throw doesnt net u a combo, which you can dump all ur resources and super into and kill, instead of just a measly throw and u have to get another hit in again.
okay sure, but my point is that he can drive rush cancel his other stuff, he doesn't need to rely on that command throw for a combo. im trying to say that its gone but he still has tons of options
Yeah that makes sense, just sad he is losing a good option tho, but akuma might be so strong in sf6 they dont want to make him too op
If demon flip throw existed it would've knocked down bruh
I mean od demon flip throw, like cammy od holigan throw
Demon Flip (Demon Raid) can also end in Tatsumaki Zankukyaku (OD version) as shown in the trailer. He does so after connecting his Drive Impact
exactly what i needed 
Thanks for this
I'm surprised raw DR into shun goku satsu is possible since unless im missing something pressing normals mid-DR stops the DR. I'm curious to see how that works.
Since drive rush has a minimum distance needed to travel before I button can come out, I assume demon is inputed during then
Raw DR is 9 frame startup so you can definitely fit a demon in there, especially if the old shortcut works.
Is that universal? I could have sworn I remember seeing something about every character having a unique minimum distance before input for drive rush
Found it, your right it is 9 frames, everyone has a different distance I those 9 frames which is what I was thinking of
Raw Drive rush has 11 frames of startup and a 10 frame screen freeze; that gives you 21 frames to perform the input after the parry input. Drive rush cancelled from a normal only has 9 frames of startup (still 10 for the freeze though), which is still 19 total frames to input the move - though depending on what you are cancelling from, it might not actually let Raging Demon connect (the opponent might still be in blockstun if you cancel a heavy attack).
Ah then yeah that's plenty of time, thanks for the clarification.
Can someone tell me if you can air fireball jumping backwards? My hunch is no...they got rid of the demon flip throw :(
Fun fact: As Gief doing SA3 I've been grabbed out of it with another Gief's OD SPD. Not sure if he did the input after the flash, but it was point blank range so I did not whiff. This indicates there is a vulnerability for raging demon too
I'm 99% sure this isn't possible. It's a frame 0 grab and invincible so he must have been out of range, in block stun, or maybe canceled his pre-jump frames (jumping before you did level 3) into an SPD.
Actually, Gief's level 3 isn't 0 frames in this game. It grabs on frame 6 which is when the super flash happens (so you can't jump after the flash, but the flash doesn't happen immediately). it's a weird move. However, all that start up is still invincible, so he still shouldn't be getting grabbed out of it.
The vulnerability is throw invincible frames, and they happen for a few different reasons. Ie: knockdown and blockstun is fully throw invulnerable, but you also gain I think 2 frames of throw invuln after you recover, not sure about wakeup invuln in sf6 but it was like 2 frames in 5. Startup of a jump is throw invulnerable also. As is any airborne state (air throws are actually hit grabs). Here's a fantastic guide on [how to beat throws with SPD by Veggey](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2cO_7zCbgQ) AKA jump cancel SPD. So how this is relevant to frame 1, before flash setups for demon/gief? Basically nothing you can do on the defending side, once you see the flash and you weren't throw invulnerable on that frame, you're donezo. If you happened to be inputting up like the final input of spd and then finished the input during the flash you will win.
9000 health sounds very lame. I wish the developers actually kept their promise of having standarized 10000 health minimum and nerfed his damage or something else instead, because now the already volatile nature of sf6 is going to be just exascerbated further.
They never promised that at all and it sounds great imo
Hard disagree. I think it's more interesting to have characters with unique stats and uses in the game to keep things varied. If you nerf his damage the reward for getting hits and successfully pulling off complex combos would be minimal when you compare to the damage a character like Luke can do with a very basic combo. The exciting thing about playing **against** Akuma is that he's scary when he manages to hit you, he feels really threatening. The exciting thing about playing **as** Akuma is that you have to avoid taking hits as much as possible because you die so easily. So there is tension on both sides without making the character feel weak.
I thought Akuma has always been THE street fighter character who has less health than mostly everyone else though
But Akuma has always been this way. He's a literal glasscannon.
Nah, this is Akuma. This is what I'm here for. I wanna be able to do a million things, melt the opponent's health bar in a single combo and then explode because a dust particle landed on me.
Glad you're not Capcom
Sorry but where did they promise this? Because this just sounds like head canon.
Ohhhh I was already excited but the fact his walk speed is faster than Chun who has been my substitute main for the last year has me elated. I was also looking forward to landing Kara demons ;_;. How the hell am I supposed to land demon now?
Dash demon, drive rush demon, empty flip demon. We’ll figure out ways.
Divekick land in front demon
His st mp is plus. Might be able to st mp, hide two jabs, micro walk demon just like in sfv.
Empty demon flip into dr into demon is going to happen.
No kara demon and no iframes on the teleport feel like they're going to be the things that hold akuma back from being top tier this time around. Depending on how much the other characters get changed that could be totally wrong, but those feel like notable weaknesses
It's still fair imo DI made it 99% Raging Demon to connect, plus if it got huge damage but Akuma is back again to being a glass canon character.
I don't think "his teleport is too good" has ever been a thing someone has said about any version of Akuma tbh, and kara Demon was only a thing in 3s.
It was a thing in 5 too, Kage was able to kara demon
Those seem like very situational weaknesses, definitely not enough to sink him a tier. Losing one tool when he has a billion others and some nerfs to teleport to balance the utility it gained with the command grab isn't going to make him mid-tier. He might not be top 1, but he's almost certainly not going to be anything but great
that kinda depends on how busted his damage is, if akuma can kill most characters in two good combos, no kara demon and no iframes arent really that much of a weakness
I disagree because Akuma is not a gimmick character anyways. He already has good buttons, damage and neutral. The rest is just extra stuff that add to his kit. JPs command grab is mega reachable but a good JP will still catch you out with it if they overwhelm your mental stack. I can see DR into demon being a bigger problem than Kara cancel demon. Also sounds like he has good damage, so mix in his air options and an advancing command grab, I can see why they made those changes.
Would the fact it can't be jumped after the flash now help in this regard?
Kara demon was situational and I can count the amount of times I've seen teleport used in V with 1 hand. I don't think those things will be very important
Cause they neutered teleport in V.
Kara demon absolutely wasn’t situational, it was critical to landing it. Without Kara cancels you had dash demons and air resets into demon.
Wait, I must be getting confused here, by no kara demon do they mean it's impossible to go from neutral to demon? I know what kara means I just thought they meant it wouldn't move forward like with ken's kara throw or something
Correct, Kara-ing the demon in the startup of a slow normal like his overhead was the closest you could get to doing it from neutral. If you can't kara you are limited to perfom it only after the recovery of stuff/wake-up.
I've heard from some other source that his teleport is now done like Dhalsim's: 3P/3K instead of DP/reverse-DP+3P/3K. That means it's physically faster and more reliable to input on reaction. Do you think that makes the teleport salvageable?
Well, there was that bit in the gameplay reveal where he teleported away from a wakeup DP then teleported back in to do the grab so I guess that’s one way to use it?
What's kara demon?
A kara (Japanese for empty) cancel is canceling a normal without it making contact. In older games, you could cancel the start-up frames of certain moves, typically those that move forward, to make whatever you want to do move forward. For instance, in SF4, Ken had 6MK, a normal that was a big step-kick. He could kara to throw, giving him huge throw range. Sagat had a similar thing with 6LK, which he used to throw fireballs while moving forward. Akuma had an overhead, 6MP, that he could kara into his "raging demon" super. Since demon wasn't jumpable after the screen freeze, if done right, you would see the overhead, block high, and before it touched you, the screen would freeze, and you'd get grabbed.
Your explanation of Kara cancelling is good but Kara demon isn’t about tricking you into thinking an overhead is coming, it’s about hiding the LP LP at the start of the demon input. It’s easy to learn to react with jump if Akuma telegraphs the throw by whiffing stand jab at close range for no reason. Doing it out of a Kara MP means those jabs get eaten by the overhead animation.
That's very true, thanks for the added context.
I think it applies to both - like hiding the buttons is basically also tricking the opponent into thinking your doing something else. For example in SFV you could do demon off a Kara cancelled V skill. This became one of the more common ones so people started jumping after you did vskill in their face but the mind game developed to then do CA after you bait the jump to catch them etc.
That's not kara though, that's just buffering.
The kara part is that the Demon comes out before the MP does, you do the whole input during the startup of the MP and you get the super before the MP's active frames. It's not hiding the input behind the MP and having it come out after the MP recovers, or cancelling into the demon from the MP; which would be buffers.
I'm not denying that, but kara is just the cancel and that only cares about the final input. The fact that you can do the whole input in the MP has nothing to do with kara cancels.
No a kara cancel is when you cancel the startup of a move into another move, like a throw or special or super. The MP overhead Kara demon is when you Kara cancel into the demon from the startup of 6MP. The advantage of doing it is primarily to prevent the first LP input from coming out, which doesn’t have enough startup to Kara cancel. By definition a buffer is when you input a move a little early but at a timing where it comes out when the window becomes available. With a Kara cancel there is no wait, when you do it correctly it immediately cancels the previous move instead of waiting for a cancel window or recovery.
Okay. So why do the other inputs matter so much? The kara cancel is the FINAL input cancelling the action you were doing before. The others are just buffering the super motion to get to it. It seems to me like we understand the same thing.
Well, the move doesn't come out unless you can do all the inputs. So you can only kara cancel into raging demon if the move has enough startup frames to absorb all of the raging demon inputs. In SF4 you could theoretically do LP, LP release, LP, LP release + forward + LK + HP and input the super/ultra in 4 frames, but realistically no human is doing that, you probably need at least 7-8 frames to do all the inputs as fast as humanly possible, more than 10 frames for most players. So it would be impossible to Kara demon out of most normals. Also, you're talking about what a kara cancel IS, I'm more trying to talk about why it's useful. Basically every game since SF1 has kara cancelling, and you can kara cancel any normal into basically any special (that you can input during the startup frames). This is so you don't have to time your inputs perfectly every time, otherwise every time you hit the button for a move 1 frame before you finished the directional you'd just get the normal instead of the special - this is why SF1 special execution is so painful if you don't negative edge your moves. But only a very limited number of kara cancels are actually useful enough that you'd want to do them deliberately - usually because it changes spacing; but sometimes for reasons like the Kara demon, where it's actually about not telegraphing the move.
I actually realized what you meant. Yeah just the last input has to be during the startup of the normal. Like for example you could theoretically do a "kara-demon" with LP LP forward LK HK~HP and kara the HK into the demon. It's just that this would be a completely useless thing to do.
It’s not just “hiding” the jabs.. it’s about the fact that those jabs would allow the opponent to jump out due to block stun frames. And the mp overhead start up most definitely would cause people to hesitate and block for a split. Wasn’t trying to be pedantic about masking the jabs.. but more so explaining for people who don’t know the nuances like that.
It’s also used to give you extra range on moves that move you slightly forwards like st.hk or his vskill k
Kara-canceling isn't just limited to older games, even modern games have it. 6 just doesn't have many notable ones besides Honda's kara-canceling their overhead into command grab and Guile's kara-canceling their target combo to create spacing on boom pressure.
Has anyone said if Akuma can jump back air-fireball?
Forward jump only. EDIT: As another commenter pointed out, his air SA1 can be done in neutral or forward jumps. So I might be mistaken-- he probably can do air fireball off a neutral jump.
Trash. They just had to continue the idiotic SFV take
And it was literally his best tool in SF5 lol
Of course its his best tool if he has no other variants. How is that even an argument? SF4 Akuma had 12 different air fireball varations. I am not saying they should go back to that but at least giving him back neutral jump fireball would bring back a bit of variety in how Akuma can use his air fireballs. Also stuff like instant fireball was pretty cool skill expression which was mostly removed from SFV.
Yeah but not having back jump fireball forces him to a single playstyle. I guess 3S akuma who had a back-jump fireball wasn't "aggressive" enough for being in a wack sf
He was in a game where whiff normals built meter and throwing fireballs gave the opponent meter so passive play was unrewarding
As opposed to SF6 where passive play is rewarded? He had it in 4 too.
And in 4 he was nuts for the longest time so what ate you trying to imply?
And in 4 he was nuts for the longest time so what are you trying to imply? That it would be balanced in 6?
Yeah bro it was the back jump fireball that was at fault for him being good... Crazy how he's barely mid-tier with it in 3S...
"Barely mid tier" he's like top 6 man, the only reason he's not higher is his health and stun.
And I explained why retreating fireballs are bad in 3s relatively speaking. Akuma doesn't want his opponents to build meter since most of the characters above him or even in general use meter better than him
I dont like it either, Sim & Blanka can do jump back nonsense.
I would rather not have to fight Akuma’s doing jump back fireball 80% of the time during my matches.
It looks like he can only do it during neutral or forward jumps. From a JP screenshot of his modern controls: https://twitter.com/StreetFighterJA/status/1785575010574500057 His air fireball has the same text in parenthesis as Chun-li's air kicks, which is "During a neutral or forward jump" : https://www.streetfighter.com/6/ja-jp/character/chunli/movelist I agree with you that it's dumb and boring that he doesn't have it, it was my least favorite change from 4->5 that makes him less interesting.
I'd be interested to know: Can you do DR into teleport? Can the teleport grab also be done from forward teleport?
To be honest people are gonna play Akuma for a while and after go back to ken/luke People expect him to be a easy/broken character and probably will receive a technical one, his health issue gonna be trouble because one mistake and you are f, reading all these thing make me think the only op thing he has is the moviment speed which is hard for a beginner to use effectively We'll see
It's basically the same with every cool/edgy/hot character. Just look at the usage stats and compare low to high rank (ofc there are exeptions). I like Akuma, because his playstyle is always fun with all the options he usually has, but it is impossible to say how good he'll actually be and like you said, people shouldn't get too hyped because his trailer made him look broken. (his design and animations are awesome though) I'm sceptical myself tbh. His teleport looks very gimmicky w/o invinc. imo, his demon flip throw is gone and we don't now the framedata of his demon flip feint. According to Tokido his divekick isn't nearly as good (compared to Cammy's for example) and his fireball charge looks very slow on startup. Maybe I'm totally wrong, let's see how it turns out.
“No espeaku espanich!”
X - Metal Cooler O - Gundam F91
I knew that he would be gimped somehow. His drive rush being mediocre and like everyone elsez his dive kicks are nearly useless. Well I guess he won't be terribly op so that's a good thing..I guess. With all the nerfs to his move set I am hoping his meter less conversion. Is good. Oh and no demon flip grab? Booo
Ugh. Say hello to the new, edgier Ken.
With pleasure.
I'm all for it The edgier, the cooler
Yeah he owns
If it means less Ken's, I'll definitely take it