Transition from Tekken

The best part is that any character can be played in any way. In fact, Aoi is probably one of the better rushdown characters in the game!

Akira is an offensive powerhouse with lots of safe and strong moves!

 

Actually that's the TIME OVER move kage has :°D when only 1 sec miss and you have life lead you just do that and you'r done. No one can catch you if you jump that high

 

El Blaze body splat from the wall might catch it in mid air

 

Since when is FS Akira hard? People are tripping.

Also, a use for Kage 8P+K: After 66P+G throw, 8P or 8P+K. They'll never know the difference until it's too late. Super mixup.

 

Even though it's easier to get big damage with him now than in previous versions of VF (I've only played VF5 other than this). He's still one of the harder characters to use cause of his lack of strings (I think two hits is his max string), lack of quick half circular moves (He has 3 half circs if I remember right, two are mid which take 19 frames, and one is high), no full circular move, the fact most of his moves require extra inputs, which leads to taking longer to execute.. That's all I can think of for now.

But yea, even though his combos are way easier now along with some other things, besides mixing poking and throwing someone to death, you still kind of rely on getting that one good shot with Akira to score nice damage. Plus it's easier to evade his stuff. So sometimes you get caught giving up your advantage a lot by delaying stuff. And if you go for his half circulars right away, and/or will beat them even when you have a slight advantage.

So I think it's still safe to say he's one of the hardest characters to use/learn to win with. Along side of Lei Fei (due to his sheer number of stances) and Vanessa (All those moves she has)

 

Tell that to Kamaage

 

While this thread isn't really about Akira and his supposed shortcomings regarding ease of playing, I'll write something up anyway.

I didn't know the number of strings makes a character good, sounds pretty gimmicky. IMO Akira's circular game was buffed way up with the inclusion of 4PP, a 16f double high half circ that can be hitchecked, which also comes with the optional yomi string of 4PP+K, which is high mid. For the rest of his circulars, it's just the matter of reading your opponent, like with every other character that isn't Jacky, and using the corresponding ciruclar or a throw. Regarding his moves "requiring extra inputs" I assume you mean his _Just-ish_ Frame moves like 2KP!P and 2_6P!P, both of which are not hard to do at all, or his DLC, which also isn't hard to do anymore at all. The only move Akira has that can get your fingers all tied up is his GBoD, but aside from a very few matchups such as Taka, I really don't see any reason to use it over 6P+K+G. His mixup game is still stupid easy and good; it's just DE/SDE or 6P+K+G with the ocassional 64P+G throw, and if that isn't enough he has a low that's _safe on block_ and gives _+7 on normal hit_, if you call these Akira's "one good shot" then I'm afraid you really are talking out of your ass here. 2P spam or other abare efforts also doesn't do shit against him when he has an 15f elbow NH KND and CH launcher that can be fuzzied on guard, plus he also has reversals and a sabaki that leads into a juggle.

So where was the hardness in this brain dead character again?

 

Yeah definitely not the place for it but after this post I feel forced to reply. Seems like you're just whining about Akira rather than discussing his difficulty, input wise he's not much simpler than vanilla but ease of inputs is hardly the only thing you have to consider when judging a characters difficulty is it?

Anyway...

4p is meh (and high), go watch some matches and see how much it's used in normal play. Helpful for combos though.

GBoD can't really be used in place of 6p+k+g, it's 5f slower. I feel GBoD is there to beat fuzzy and more advanced defensive techniques like ECD etc and 6p+k+g is there to beat lazy TE.

About that amazing DE/throw/guardbreak mixup, how far's that gonna get you in VF? Sure his GB is dumb but if you're losing to shit like that then I feel that says more about the strength of your game rather than the strength of that mixup.

3p+k? Yeah it's nice that he has one half decent low move, I'd love it if the only lows Aoi and Lion had were slow as hell and linear.

15f SDE,? Good luck with that. Unless you're spamming 6 all day (on top of defending and all that other stuff you have to do in VF) then it's not coming out at 15 frames, 16f at the least.

Abare works fine against Akira, keep in mind his SDE was faster in previous versions and still safe. Abare is what it is, you're always going to risk eating a CH.

Brainead? ...don't you use Taka? :/

 

Listen to Ayas podcast with Kamaage and you will get the answers you (don't) search for.

 

Nah, I'm talking about most of his normal moves and launchers/crumplers. Besides his one frame knee thing. To get a crumple, launch or a slam, it takes longer to input the move that will cause it vs the rest of the characters (afaik). i.e. Akira +, +, + vs say Sarahs' + or ++, Jackys' ++, or + (I think that's the direction), I think you can combo off Jackys' +, now too, Eileens' +, Jeans' + or ++.

Things like that. It just takes Akira an extra input or so to get that combo starter. If both players are at even advantage and did their (the ones I posted) launch move at the same time, chances are very high Akira will lose the exchange simply cause it took longer to do.

You just have to be a lil quicker with the inputs when using Akira vs the rest of the cast. Yea one could just do jabs n throws with the occasional + (and hope it's a CH), +, or + which is kind of a hope move. But that's not really using Akiras potential as a character in my opinion. When you start trying to use his potential, that's what makes him a lil harder to use than the others (besides Lei Fei), in my humble opinion.

But, one can play however they feel like using whatever moves if it's fun to them. No problems from me. If it gets you the W, or even if it doesn't, do what ya do.

 

While ease of inputs, or the general execution of the character, is a thing that should be taken into considerationg regarding a character's difficulty, I however would not factor it into Akira's difficulty, as I said in my first post.

Regarding his moves, while 4PP is high, it's still a 16f (read: fast) double circular that covers both of his back and front in two moves, essentially a two part full circular, which can be delayed and/or hitchecked. I'm assuming you're basing your comment about it not being so good because of it being high and ECD sort of wrecking high circulars, and while I don't think ECD is strictly a monster people have made it out to be, I'm not outright denying it's effectivess against such moves either. I have, however, seen 4P and 4PP being used in several Akira matches, wheter or not those players were high level or not.

GBoD is used at least in the Taka matchup if not against anyone else because as far as I know Akira doesn't net too much damage against him from 46P, so using GBoD over 6P+G+K is favored as it does 72 damage, plus Taka's inability to fuzzy in almost every situation works in Akira's favor as well.

15f SDE is easily done because of the game's very lenient buffering system if you ask me, but maybe it's just me coming from Tekken where I also can do while running moves from jabs pretty easily and such, and that game requires much more strict inputs for that. Fast fingers required no doubt, but not an impossibility by far.

Abare can work against Akira sure, but he still has SDE and reversals to deter that very efficently. Just like Goh has his Tsukami and low punch cut among other examples.

And yes, I do use Taka, but never have I spoken against his braindeadness. I'm actually completelly willing to confess Taka's easyness and have, for example, spoken in public about 4P+K being way too strong and a good candidate for nerfing in VF6. He has been ranked as an high tier character in tier lists too. But he still has glaring weaknessess, much more so than Akira IMO, who is still ranked #1 on tier lists as he has always been.

 

If Akira's inputs aren't a factor when discussing his difficulty then difficulty of inputs shouldn't be considered for any character. Sure he has simple options now and none of his inputs are overly complex but it's not like all the other characters have inputs more difficult than his right?

And now we're at the truth of the matter, anyway I'm not sure how new you are to VF but Akira hasn't been top tier for around 10 years. See if you can find the tier lists right from FT all the way up to FS, you'll find that until FS he was square in the middle of pretty much every tier list out there.

The part I like the most is that he always had the moves you're whining about and in some cases they were even better

Check out Final Tuned all the way up to R -12f guard break, yes 12 frame exe! I'm gonna go on a whim here and presume you don't know how much guaranteed damage he could get off that move?

Spoiler

...and he was still mid tier.

Look at Vanilla SDE, 14f exe, safe and it did more damage than FS's. Up to 90+ damage off that thing and the health bars were smaller in Vanilla. Compare that to a max of damage of 85 in FS and keep in mind the changes to the health bar, I don't need to do the maths for you right?

Spoiler

...and he was still mid tier.

I could go on but I think you get the picture, anyway I'm happy to discuss why he's high tier in FS with you but we can't just fling a bunch of shit around and hope it sticks.

 

Whoa, wait a minute, lets get one thing straight:

The most important thing is that you go to the customize screen and make your character look all awesome. But playing the character you like is a very close second.

 

I think Tier lists are quite ridiculous to mention the majority of the time.

I would argue that the tier list for top level play would look one way, the tier list for beginners would look another, and the tier list for the group in between would be a third.

Take lei fei, for example. He is near the bottom of the tier list, akira is near the top of the tier list. Yet, i'd not be suprised if that for the vast majority of people who play this game that lei fei is just as tough (often times more difficult) to play vs than akira. And i think it would be easier for most people to have success with lei fei once they got his combos and stance down. But at the top levels, Akira far outclasses lei fei.

 

Exactly, Marly.

Unless we develop a graduated tier list for varying skill levels, then referencing tier lists is irrelevant, unless you are engaged in that top level play of using characters close to that absolute potential.

For the majority of online players and VFDC members--myself among them, a tier list ranked on character's strength when used far below maximum potential would be so much more applicable.

 

I would argue there will always be Jacky somwehere on top

 

Saisensatkubakoi, I think I derailed your thread on accident. I'm really sorry.

Just remember to enjoy the game!

 

I would too