Picking your Ultras

 So usually when your just casually gaming and playing Street Fighter with your friends for fun, when you get the choice to pick your ultra, usually it's either the one that does the most damage or looks the coolest. Honestly I did this a lot. I would pick Ryu ultra 2 rather than ultra 1. Obviously ultra two is almost useless. In this post I will be talking about the importance of picking your ultras in certain match-ups. Now this becomes VERY character specific but I'll try my best.

Fireball Specific Ultras: When facing a opponent that has a fireball, these are usually the ultras to pick. These ultras are meant to shutdown their fireball game. They either have invincibility at the start up or throughout the whole ultra. This means that you will go directly through the fireball. Now ones that only have it on start up then that means you'll have to be quite close to your opponent and have fast reactions. That's another thing with these types of ultras, you need fast reactions. If you react too slow to the fireball, they might have already recovered from the fireball or the invincibility frames could be gone so you'll get hit by these ultras. As I said before, these are meant to shutdown fireball heavy characters such as Sagat and Ryu. Now as for other characters like Ken and Seth, these characters do have fireballs but they don't heavily rely on it, so choosing these ultras would be quite hard. For example,  If I were to be playing a Ken and I was Chun-li, choosing my ultra would be a crucial decision. Do I choose ultra one in hopes that he will think that Ken is a fireball-ey character (which he really isn't) so I can counter him, or do I choose ultra two knowing that Ken isn't really fireball reliant so I can get free damage? This also goes along with knowing the PLAYER that you are facing.

Anti-Air Ultras: I think the name explains itself. These are meant to shut down characters that have a move that makes them move toward you in the air (eg. Fei Long's chicken wing, Akuma's demon flip). Usually any move that invloves moving closer to you is used as a tool to "get in" on your opponent, such as Fei Long's chicken wing. On a stream that Crosscounter streamed pre-evo, Laugh was playing exhibition matches with Gootecks. I saw Gootecks pick Fei Long and as soon as he did that, Laugh went back and picked ultra two. Now right then I thought to myself, why ultra two? In only a couple of seconds, I was shown why he had picked that ultra. As soon as Gootecks chicken wing'd to get in, Laugh reacted and did ultra two. The ultra connected and went into animation. My mind was blown when I saw that. I'm not sure how far this applies for certain moves but I'm pretty sure that with the right reactions and ultra, you could stop quite a lot of moves.

Counter Ultras:
I'm pretty sure most of you know what this kind of ultra is and what does. They literally counter almost any move that you opponent will throw at you. The only thing that will stuff the counter is any move that breaks armor (BUT not moves that attain armor breaking properties when used as a reversal) or a projectile. Not sure if that made sense or not but moving on. These you'll want to use on mix-up heavy characters, or if you always seem to block with your face (like me). Most characters that you'd use this on are C.Viper, Akuma, and maybe even Ibuki (risk is getting cut by the kunai). Once you've executed it, it will for sure leave a mark in your opponent because later on they won't know whether or not you'll do it again or not. So once in a while, buffer it just to fake them out.

"Match Pace" Ultras: There arent very many of these ultras, but they can help you get out of sticky situations or help you regain or keep a lead that you need. Now this is character specific like always so I will go into to the characters since there are really only two of them. First off is Juri's Fung Shui Engine. Incase you don't know this allows Juri to chain normals that usually would not be chainable. This ultra is meant to rush them down after a knock down. This ultra actually is like a win-win situation. Once you activate, your opponent will be forced to block because of the fact that if he were to attack you, then you would regain more ultra meter and you would simply be able to activate again. However, this isnt always the case. If you were really low on life, then your opponent will just take you out, so be carefull when you activate it. Next up is Rose's "Soul Satellite". Her ultra is sort of wierd in my opinion but it still works. If you need you to sit on a lead or just trying to gain some life back you might want to activate. All I know activating out of desperation is not the best idea at times. Her ultra isn't the type to just activate it because you need to catch up (besides it doesn't even do that much damage), but more to sit on a lead or escape a sticky situation. That's all I know about Rose's ultra.

I think these are really the only ones that need to be REALLY specified on tactics for them but if you think I'm missing one then go ahead a tell me!

-Dive Kick Edition

Akuma-Intro and Normals

I will be making a little Akuma "tutorial" based on my own knowledge. If you find something I wrote incorrect, I'm missing something, or have a question, feel free to leave a comment below! Otherwise let's get started!

INTRO:
Name- Akuma/Gouki
Life- 850
Stun- 850
Pro's- INSANE mix-up game, able to rush you down and zone you out, has air fireballs, power house when it comes to damage, 3-frame uppercut.
Con's- Low life and stun, spacing needs to be top notch to play Akuma, execution must be spot on.

NORMALS:
Standing Normals:
Jab- Like almost any other jab out there. Comes out it 4 frames, not bad.
Strong- Same as the other shoto's practically. Not to bad of a hit box, I guess at times it can be used as an AA but I'm not to sure about that.
Fierce- This is when I need to specify on the range of it. This move is quite nice to use in certain circumstances. For example, your sitting on your lead or zoning out an opponent with air fireballs. So your just sitting back throwing fireballs and air fireballs and every time you throw a normal grounded fireball he jumps over it and hits you. Well, with proper spacing, when he jumps over a fireball, you can press that fierce button and WHAM! Anti-air him. The range that the far fierce has is actually really nice. Now there will only be certain times when you can combo off of this normal since it's REALLY hard to hit confirm this safely. Best time to combo(into the usual Tatsu combo that is) is when you know FOR SURE that this will hit. If you just throw this out there and do Fierce>short Tatsu, then you will be punished for it. Also, since you can cancel a fireball off this move, it works well for pressure with FADC. I'm pretty sure you guys have seen the usual Fierce>Fireball>FADC combo, but one thing that really caught my attention was when I saw Infiltration(a GREAT Akuma player) burn his entire super meter on Fierce>Fireball>FADC twice just to frame trap his opponent. Now that will cause legitimate pressure. Now I'm not sure if you want to burn your whole super meter just to do that but when you need that pressure, Fierce>Fireball>FADC will catch you opponent if they are mashing. If you do not cancel this move however, then you will be open for a free punish since it is -10 on block.
Short- Just like Ryu's. Can also be used as a "fake fireball".
Forward- Honestly, I can't find any good uses for this move. It's kinda just...there.
Round house- At close range, it's alright, but when you use Forward+Round house, it's a GREAT move! It forces stand so you can do stand specific combos, it applies enormous pressure, it moves you forward(like Ken's step kick but on steroids), and it hits twice so focusing it isn't such a smart idea. This is one of his best normals and has a nice hit box too. I guess you could say this is one of his best "pokes"-ish.


Crouching Normals:

Jab- Normal jab. Use this to hit confirm in your combos.
Strong- Used after a couple hit confirmed jabs for more damage in your combo. Can also be used as a frame trap.
Fierce- Best use is to AA opponents. Other than that...not too many uses.
Short- Probably used primarily as a low to catch opponents off guard when they are blocking high. Example: Demon flip-Palm(whiffs on opponent who is guarding high)>Crouching short.
Forward- Can be used as footsies some what. It's pretty similar to the other shoto's .
Round house- In my opinion, Akuma has the best sweep out of all the cast in street fighter. Comes out in 6 frames and has a nice hit box on it.

Jumping Normals:

Jab- Who's gonna jump in with this button? Really...
Strong- Since it's got some what of a different hit box than Fierce, then it can be used in certain situations(which I don't know yet).
Fierce- Probably the best jumping "punch" button you want to jump in with, but no necessarily the best jump in attack Akuma has.
Short- This is one of Akuma's best ambiguous cross-up normals he has. It can be quite hard to guess when blocking this, but when in the corner, USE THIS! It sets up for a fake cross-up. So when you get the knockdown in the corner, jump in with a cross-up short. What happens is that the opponent thinks that this will COMPLETELY cross-up, but it won't. As he is holding back(or technically forward), when the short connects and as you fall to the ground, you will end up landing in front of them thus being a fake cross up. This is a DANGEROUS tool for Akuma.
Forward- Another one of his good cross-ups. This just gives you more hit stun so it is easier to combo with.
Round house- Not such a great cross up but still usable at points.

Unique Normals:

Forward+Strong- This is his overhead. It's not too bad. You can probably use this when you jump in with air fireballs and catch you opponent crouching. The best use for this is to kara cancel your demon.
Down+Forward(Medium Kick)- Akuma's dive kick, it's not the best though. If only it didn't have height requirements. To perform this move you need to be at the top of you jump arc which means the angle of this kick can't really be changed. However, this moves still has it's pros. If you can space this correctly then you do a fake cross-up, which is really hard to block. Although the spacing will have to be VERY precise.

Next up will be Special Moves!

-Dive Kick Edition