Free Step Dodge

Somehow what you said reminded me of Gundam sir. LOL

Uh huh cheap self LOL

Yeah, I can't imagine what that's like. I guess it'd be akin to losing all of Pai's throws. But hey, you still have absurd damage =P so that's always nice.

I can still break people's guard any day of the week. Guess I'll be doing that a lot more now on top of his 12 frame throw. You adapt because you have to.

I kind of (partially) understand why they removed it. Throws like that are what keep Pai from sucking since her damage output is pretty low, while Sarah and Akira don't need to rely on throws to get the damage going.

I felt it was a really necessary clutch tool. Helena, Sarah, Pai, Christie all have ways to constantly keep pressure that Akira doesn't really have. He breaks your guard and gets the damage then it returns to neutral, he can't keep pressure except for that grab.

Now that it's gone it's going to be a lot harder for him to keep pressure going and he's lost is real answer to holds. Meanwhile Sarah and Pai can still vortex you to death.

I don't know. Sarah doesn't really have a vortex. She just has absurd frames and mix-up. And Pai's vortex requires counters to work. But you're right. I would think that if they'd nerf his throw, they'd also give Pai and (at the very least) Sarah a nerf as well.

Sarah's mixup and advantage is enough to keep you stunned forever, her and Pai also have deeper stuns, faster attacks and sabaki as well as tracking. Akira is easily sidestepped, easy to slow escape and very mid-punch heavy. The answer to all of those things was again, that grab.

Now with sidestepping getting get another buff it'll be even harder for him to keep pressure as well as getting his opponent off of him (especially if he/she's faster). I hope he gets even more advantage or at least something to compensate.

Pai's sabaki is almost worthless. It can only ever be done at the end of certain strings, and if you know those strings, it's not really a threat. Besides, Akira has one too (his high/low punch one). Pai is also high heavy and easily sidestepped as well, so you're in the same boat as her on that one. Sure, she has 4K, but that's practically the only good tracking move she has.

In all, she has (disregarding the kick at the end of her strings) 5 tracking moves, 3 of which are highs, and 3 of which don't even give you a stun on HCH that can be followed up. But I do wonder - in all, from what I can see, Pai has been left alone, and maybe Sarah, so I wonder what Akira will have that'll compensate for his lack of a throw game.

The difference between Akira and those two regarding sidesteps though is that Pai and Sarah are string heavy and even if sidestepped the next move of their string will auto-correct and hit the opponent. If the opponent waits for them to finish and try to sidestep the last hit they risk them string canceling and getting a free counter throw.

Akira's parry is rather nice but it's not in the same league as Sarah's. Unless sidestepping got a huge buff and you can beat out strings entirely, Akira will still suffer much more from them than any character who is string based. Making his 46P+K +1 on block like in VF instead of -10 would be a pretty darn good answer though.