Akira help needed

I've been playing Virtua Fighter casually for quite a few months now and i've been using Shun-Di the majority of the time. My online win ratio with Shun was 50-50 exactly.
60 wins 60 losses.

I decided to switch over to Akira because i heard he has the most pottential in the game. I've learnt a good number of his moves and can perform them consistantly but i always seem to lose the majority of my matches.

I'm so bad with him that i almost lost to a button basher with a record of 0-0. Yeah that bad.

I just can't seem to figure out what moves are best suited to different situations and i'm finding it hard to pull of certain moves in the split second gaps i get in my opponents combos.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, if a good Akira player would be willing to spar with me on live and teach me a few things, then even better.

 

As far as execution goes Akira isn't as easy as many people think. Shun Di is even worse as he has one of the biggest move lists in the game making him one of the hardest people in the game. Don't worry about your win loss percentage or rank it is all about your overall skill. There are many people that will be willing to help you here all you have to do is ask however if you record the match on youtube etc and show it here the people here will be able to help you even more by giving you even more specific advice based on what they see.

You will be just fine though just keep it up and you will find it out in good time.

 

First of all, Akira is horrible in online. Playing him often requires you to respond very fast with a difficult move. Example, doing a /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/f.gif/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/f.gif/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/f.gif/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/p.gif after you blocked a low punch. Trying this will often get you interrupted in online because lag eats away the time you have for reacting to blocked attacks. Plus the harder inputs gives you a handicap in online because you have to start inputting them earlier compared to, say Jacky who could just /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/f.gif/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/p.gif.

Second, he has another, imo bigger problem. His attacks are linear and their hitboxes are kind of small. This means his attacks whiff against several moves that have evasive properties.There are characters who have lot of those like Lau, Lion, Shun, Lei, etc. (I wish AM2 would limit those in R..)

Also, he is very very linear (the only character in the game without a fullcircular attack) so evading is very strong against him. And since he has no fullcircular to simply deal with evades, you have to mess up with your attacks timing a lot, delaying the attacks slightly so they will hit your opponent after the evade (or from the whiffed evade hopefully). Add the randomness of all timings that online brings into this and you can see why theres more than just hard inputs that makes Akira hard.

If opponent would be standing right in front of him, he would be awesome. However, turtling is a prevalent trend in online, so people will backdash, backdash some more, and hit you on reaction when you dash forward. Dealing with this is harder that I originally expected, especially in online. Ive almost pulled my hair out when people have been succesfully backdashing out of disadvantage in online just because of those few fractions of a second you lose due to online lag making your reactions effectually slower.

However, he has a LOT of antidotes against other characters "bullshit moves". Examples: Akiras /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/db.gif/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/k.gif beats most followups of Leis blocked /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/p.gif/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/p.gif/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/p.gif string soundly (Lei must enter Nehan shiki to avoid the lowkick). /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/f.gif/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/f.gif/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/p.gif+/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/k.gif/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/p.gif beats Aois yinyang-stance. Etc. But you need to know how to apply all the tools that he has. This requires pretty intrinsic knowledge of the game and its characters.

I wish I could be more of help, but theres so much to say. Maybe you could try giving more detailed examples with the characters or playstyles that you have trouble with.

ps. I can spar with you if you live in Europe, cause lag will be bad if you are farther away. My tag is ManjimaruFIN.

 

I tried to have some games with him yesterday, I don't think his troubles are related to Akira at all. He just needs to work on the basics of VF.

 

First, watch videos
Second, play him a lot
It took me some time to figure out how to attack with akira and no standing there doing nothing... /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif