Update 1 Added better explanations to a lot areas, making them more clearly by not just explaining how to do some moves, but also explaining the reasons why it works that way, helping to understand the engine.
Update 2 Special Archetypes are now separated to differentiate them from each other, overall making them just better to look at while increasing the maximum number of [characters] drasticly for each category, allowing Update 1 to happen.
Added my personal keyboard settings
I just realized that this guide is the...
Top rated guide of all time for USFIV on the steam community hub page.

I'm honestly, deeply thankful to everyone who helped made this happen, and it pays me back a thousand times more than anything you got from me in this guide. This fact left me breathless for a few moments, and it truly is, a heartwarming feeling. And again:

Thank you everyone!

Hi!

First of all, I'd like to tell you guys that I'm playing Street Fighter since vanilla IV relase (pretty much 4 or 5 years ago), and I'm using a keyboard from the very beginning. In the following lines I'd like to encourage others to do the same, instead of blindly buying a controller / fight stick just because some others who never tried to play with keyboard recommend those.

Using a keyboard has advantages and disadvantages aswell, but the disadvantages are minimal

• [+] Shortcuts, tons of them, easier to do tons of moves.
  
• [+] Allows faster player reaction because there is no time loss while you move the stick on a fightstick controller.
  
• [+] Much more buttons, allowing you to customize your controls in every way to make it as comfortable as you like it.
  
• [+] More buttons also means that you can set a single button to do something which otherwise usually requires a combination of buttons. Examples: 3 punches, 3 kicks, throw, focus, taunt.
  
• [+] SHORTCUTS, again, the most important, which speeds up your controls and also giving you options others simply can't do with controllers.

• [-] 360 and 720 motions can be a problem, however there are MULTIPLE ways to do them (detailed at the shortcuts title)
  
• [- ]Chicken wing can be problematic too (Fei Long's spinning jump kick, Cammy's spinning jump grab / sweep)

And now, let's jump to the details! Why is it so good to use a keyboard, what kind of shortcuts did I talk about?

On keyboard, you do not have to follow the written commands for specific moves. Those commands show you how to do it with an arcade stick, but on keyboard, you can do them much faster and easier - it's easier from your side, the input side. However if you don't understand the way how the engine works and how to do a simple D,F,P (hadouken etc.) move, this guide won't help you. Keyboards, in general, offer you a lot shortcuts only aviable here, and can make Your Street Fighter stronger if you already know how the controls are working.

You do this as everybody else does, charging backwards, pressing forward and punch, then you profit. As a keyboard user however, you don't have to let go the backwards direction, simply hold it down, press forward and punch / kick depending on what you want to do, while you don't have to give up keeping backwards pressed down. This way, you get back your defense precisly at the moment the game engine allows you (after the cooldown frames of your special move are over). Plus! You can start buffering another charge move into your previous one, much faster compared to an arcade stick, because all you do is: Charge back (keep holding it at the whole time), forward + punch WHILE you let go your charge and tap them again immediatly. The "traveling time" of an arcade stick is almost completely enliminited this way, not only allowing you to start charging again slightly faster, but it's much more comfortable to control this way - you don't have to hurry or do fast moves.

Double charge ultras are not literally "double" charged specials, I'm talking about ultras like Bison's both ultras, or Chun Li's U1, Vega's U2. The command list says you must charge backwards (in Vega's U2 case, down backwards, but it doesn't matters now), press forward, back again, forward again + punches / kicks. On keyboard, you don't have to waste your time with all these commands. Arcade Stick users can't do this, because when they move the stick forward, they lose the backwards direction so they must move the stick backwards again, just as I said at the backwards charges section. On keyboard, you can save time and greatly speed up your reactions and controls by this simple method:

Charge backwards (keep holding it at the whole time), press forward twice, then 3P/3K.

Because you keep holding down / down+back, you get a free "back" input between the double forward tap, and you don't need to do anything for that. Don't worry, you won't dash forward, because you are holding the backwards direction! This speeds your ultras / supers up incredibly, allowing you to combo them much easier compared to arcade stick / any other controller users, if your reactions are fast to do an ultra /whatever punish, you won't lose any frames because of your controller.

If you tried to follow the ingame shown command for these moves and you are a keyboard user, you propably couldn't ever do them or realized that they require unnecessarily much precision and time to make the engine recognize your moves as you want it to. You won't belive how simple it is do pull out these moves!

Simply hold down + back (keep them holding for the whole time you do the rest of the inputs, just like at the other charge shortcuts above!), press forward, up and 3 kicks. Voila! You have Guile's U1! Of course you can let the charge go after you pressed the 3 kicks. Remember, the moment this move freezes the screen, you can start buffering any charge direction!

Vega's U1 however, is a bit more complicated because you can control him which direction to fly. If you want him to jump to wall behind you, just do the same you did with Guile's U1.

D+B charge (hold!), forward, up + 3K.

Voila! You have instant FULLSCREEN antiair ultra punish on any whiffed ground normal and all types of projectiles. If you want Vega to fly forward, kicking your opponent up to the air (like EX Barcelona), the input changes a little:

D+B charge (hold), forward, let the charge go + up + forward + 3K.

360 and 720 motions
Well, as I mentioned before these are problematic to do on keyboard. The circle motion you need for command grabs like Gief's Spinning Piledriver / Hakan's and Hawk's command grab is called 360, and the double circle (Gief U1, U2, Hawk U1, Hakan U1) is called 720. Our advantage here compared to controller / arcade stick users is that they must do the angled directions (like down-forward etc.) to get a circle, but on keyboard you need only the for main directions without doing the angled inputs. This really simplifies our needs if we want to play a grappler, however it requires much much more precision and coordination to be used really effective. Overall, circle motions are definitly harder to do on keyboard, because even if you do it correctly, the engine was written for controllers like arcane sticks and controllers with D-Pad, where it's so much easier to make the engine recognize your circle motion as a circle motion. Doing that on keyboard, is the difficult part, but I have some shortcuts and multiple ways for you to do so.

360 keyboard commands.

• B, F, D, U +3P/3K
  
• Any direction half circle (B, D, F, or F, D, B), U +3P/3K
  
• Forward dash, D, B, U +3P/3K (instant grab after dash because you get the 360's forward input from the last forward input of your dash!)
  
• Forward command normal ( Hakan's forward + MP, gap closer), D, B, U + 3P/3K

My personal recommendations (easiest IMO)

• Use B, D, F, U + 3P/3K after a crossup jump
  
• Use half circle, up, half circle up +3P after focus crumple (you can buffer the first half circle, up to the followup dash animation, which prevents you from jumping at the first 360, the second one is easy and you WILL NOT jump if don't mess up the input because you hurry. Remember, press 3P at the same time you press the last up input.
  
• Use D, B, U +3P after a dash. Same works for focus crumple -> dash

As you can see, we need to do only a checken wing motion on keyboard to get the 360 input, and double chicken wing is enough to get 720. You don't need to do full circles.

Raging Demon shortcuts are not keyboard excusive and work exactly the same way as it works on any controller. However it's still a shortcut, therefore it earned a place among the others to help you utilize this type of specials in your game better than before. Just like DP, Raging Demon is also generic name for "raging demon" specials. These are the following:
Akuma: Super and U1
Oni: Super
Evil Ryu: Super

The ingame command says you must do these in order: LP, LP, back / forward (back for Akuma U1, supers always use forward), LK + HP. However you can save time, and get these Raging Demons to work faster by doing ~half of the inputs at the same time. How?

LP, LP, forward+LK+HP. This way you do only 3 inputs, tapping light punch twice, then doing the rest together at once.

Another interesting thing is Oni's Raging Demon - the only raging demon move in the game which can be used in the air. This move works as a zero frame grab on the ground and it worked the same way in the air in SSFIVAE. Version 2012 patch changed the air version so now it can catch the other player while he is juggle - but doing juggle combos finished with air super require very fast and precise inputs. It's a good thing that the engine works kinda slowly when it comes to input side: you have a long window to finish your inputs once you started a special command, and this window is large enough to allow you to do tricks. Lie to the game engine, if you like it this way. But what am I talking about, you may ask after all this prologue explanation? Buffering. Nothing more, nothing less.

You do NOT have to be in the air to get an Air Raging Demon. It just works the same way as you buffer (or if prefer another word: hide) inputs behind other inputs. Just do the 2x LP on the ground, then press U+F+LK+HP at the same time. You'll jump with a forward angled jump and the moment both of your feet leaves the ground, your Air Raging Demon will automatically come out. Of course it requires practice, but once you have that you can start hiding your double LPs behind other moves. For example, Oni's antiair light DP is an exellent juggle tool. Buffer your double LPs into the fallback animation of your light DP, then do the rest of the Super inputs, and enjoy the Raging Demon cinematic as it destroys your opponent in the air.

DP stands for dragon punch, which is a generic name for every "shoryuken" like moves. You may also hear about this as an "uppercut". Reverse DP is the same motion but on the opposing site, instead of F,D,F it's B,D,B like Adon's Jaguar and Fei Long's Dragon Kick.
The shortcut here is simply holding down, and tapping the direction you want twice.

Example: shoryuken:
Hold down "down", press "forward" twice. Just like with the double charge ultras / supers, you get a free down input between the 2x forward / backward, because you keep holding it while you tap forward / backward twice. Plus! You can do the same while holding down+backwards, which means you can easily do an instant DP motion from crouch defending position simply by tapping forward twice + punch. Of course you can buffer this to crouching normals aswell, making them easier to cancel into a special (extremly helpful for Adon players).

While this can be useful when we look at the time you require to do this motion, I belive it's far less comfortable to do DP motions this way compared to the standard forward, down, forward. This is only my personal preference, if you think you can do EX FADC from a special even if you used the shortcut, well, it's good for you then, you are faster, safer, and more fearsome.

But!

Being a good player is 99% depending on your mind, and 1% on your hands - no shortcut can garantee you even a single victory. My guide exists for the very reason of trying to enliminate the wall you may feel you hit every time you try to play against your friends or members of the fighting game community online. Controls should and will not be a thing standing in your way to victory, and I hope I could help breaking that wall.

!COMMENT AND FEEDBACK ARE MORE WELCOME THAN ANYTHING ELSE!

Check out my in-depth Vega guide! You like Vega but you don't know where to start understanding the unique way he plays? You hate to get beaten by Vega players, you feel they are lame and annoying? Well, those players were propably just smarter at that time, and that's where Vega shines. A chance to see into the mind of a Vega player is a huge step to beat him. Interested? Click on the guide!
http://cs2bus.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=124779778#21734

As additional information, I'd like to share the layout I use to play SSFIVAE. This isn't a "recommended" layout, so if you prefer doing movement with your right hand (unlike me) you shouldn't change to my settings. Use whatever you find comfortable, a setting that fits your personal preferences the best. This is mine.

Movement
W: Jump
S: Crouch
A: Left
D: Right

Punches:
J: Light Punch
K: Medium Punch
L: Heavy Punch
H: 3x Punches Together

Kicks:
U: Light Kick
I: Medium Kick
O: Heavy Kick
P: 3x Kicks Together

Excusive:
E: Throw / Grab
T: Taunt / Personal Action
SPACE: Focus

Overall I use 15 buttons.

I know many people prefers using right hand to move around. Well, since every single game you play propably uses WASD, why would you change for SF? Following this logic I swiched to WASD from Cursor Arrows 5 minutes after I got my hands on SFIV for the first time in 2009. I did not regret it, ever.