I've been a pad player pretty much my whole life. I bought a MadCatz TE when MK was released, and I've been using that with great success in that specific game.

But for AE and Third Strike, I'm failing miserably. It's so frustrating to go from a moderately competent player to being almost useless at a game. Since the stick has become a permanent part of my approach to MK, I would like that to universally true for all fighting games, so PLEASE, if you can offer ANY advice, you would be giving me worlds of help. I truly mean that. Here are some things that are causing me problems.

Down+Fierce into Shoryuken
- Actually, it's all crouching cancels into Shoryuken. I can mash it out if my character is facing right, but it's difficult to say what I'm doing correctly. Am I suppose to let the stick return to neutral and then do a fresh dragon punch input? If so, that's a pretty short time window to do so. Or, after I input the crouching fierce, am I suppose to quarter circle forward, quarter circle back down, then quarter circle to forward position again to complete the input requirements? Honestly, I struggled doing this on pad back in the day, but I mained Rose, so it wasn't an issue.

Ibuki's Air Kunai
- No idea why it's not working consistently, but I believe holding toward after the button input has increased my success rate. No other theories beyond that.

General Starting Points for Quarter Circles
- In SSF4, I noticed that starting my quarter circles one degree back (EX: down-back, down, down-forward, forward), my ultra inputs would come out more consistently. That doesn't doesn't seem to be the case in Third Strike. Third Strike is all like "you're extending your quarter circles with a fourth directional? What a simpleton!" I realize Third Strike doesn't have the same kind of input leniency that SSF4 has, but is there any leniency at all? Is less more in this game?

I've been focusing mostly on Third Strike, so reading my exact inputs in AE's training mode will probably steer me in the right direction, but that isn't going to be a dream remedy. I still need some solid advice from real players. So help? Anyone? Anything?