Buffs required to make Sagat solid in USF4

Classic Fighting Games Ultra Street Fighter IV
1

So it’s still early, but it seems many of you are not happy with Sagat in Ultra.
Combofiend had also indicated that they would be looking at Sagat for the next patch.
So my question is, what buffs does he need to make him solid (not overpowered)?

I’ll start, he needs:

  • Revert s.lk to vanilla version - Sagat has always really missed this since Vanilla. It’s so difficult to keep characters from walking you down and exposing you at mid range.
    The question is, would this make Sagat too good?

  • Revert High TS - Ridiculous nerf. It’s already way too easy to jump in on Sagat or Ultra through his Fireballs. I would even go to the extent of saying that they should reduce the recovery frames even further if they want Sagat to be played as a true zoner.

2

Revert Tiger knee single hit damage back to Vanilla 100.

Pretty ridiculous that a safe tiger knee when used in neutral does like no chip and even if you hit or break focus with the single hit you only get 40.

That and the two buffs you mentioned and I’m good. They can even keep their stupid damage nerfs just give me a good neutral.

3

100 would be far too much. They should just swap the damage values around so that the second hit is the most damaging hit.

The st.lk either needs to be in or out, none of this “certain range” shite that it is now.

If they want to keep the shot nerf then the Tiger Uppercut damage needs upped in light of the Ultra distance nerf , it’s as simple as that, you want to jump on gat, you MUST pay. Either that or give us a more damaging whiff punisher, that’s one of my main beefs with Sagat, is that he’s not got enough damage output to counter his shitty zoning game.

Let us link or cancel from two hits of the st.hk instead of one for something new then we can start talking business, or up the damage on his grounded Tiger uppercut.

4

Alright let me put it another way, what made vanilla Sagat so good? What could we then take from vanilla without making him too good? It seems to me that Capcom has never really been able to find a balance for Sagat since vanilla.

5

again my frustration with capcom is they can’t decide what kind of character to make sagat. In my mind in SF theres about 4 different character styles:

Pure zoners/defensive characters (Dhalsim, guile): who’s zoning tools are amazing, or can make people hurt for trying to get in
Footsie/midrange characters (Ryu, chun-li, adon): good foot speed and buttons to dominate in the midrange game
Mixup/rushdown characters (cammy, yun, rufus) : tools to get in (and around projectiles) and blow characters up real fast. Might take 20 seconds to get in, but can end the game the next 10 seconds
grapplers (duh 'gief, hawk): ultimate risk as they will eat damage getting in, but rewarded with HUGE damage

What is sagat? Obviously not a rushdown or grappler (although honestly I feel get more wins going in with Sagat than hanging back), as grappler is self explanatory, and he doesn’t have the damage, setups, or mix ups to effectively put pressure/keep people in the corner.

Zoner? should be, but the fireball nerf screwed that up. tiger shot obstacle course does not exist any more. unlike say sim, who has buttons that are effective at every range but point blank, and guile, who has solid fireball recovery, and buttons/walkspeed to punish jump in attempts/attempts to get around fireballs. shoot, I’d be happy with the fireball if I had guiles walk speed and could walk up to dp (or even st. hk) jumps over full screen fireballs. And theres pathetic damage to boot, not enough to scare anyone from going HAM.

Footsie/midrange? the tools just aren’t there, thats where sagat gets bodied the most. st lk isn’t as effective, cr mk (only attack with range) is super slow, st. hk goes over everyone. safe tiger knees give zero damage, and sagat has no walk speed to walk in and out of poke range.

After that gripe-fest (but tell me what I’m wrong about?), I think capcom needs to decide what they want and give us some tools.

If they want sagat to be a zoner:
either

  1. give old high shot back, and take 1-2 frames off low shot to actually make fireballs effective
    OR
  2. give a BIG boost in Tiger uppercut (180-200 damage) to give an appropriate level of reward to us for baiting a jump in through taking big risks of committing to a zoning game.

if they want sagat to be a mid-range-er

  1. give an effective poke (stand lk) that actually works
  2. more damage distribution on tiger knee hits. safe knees were supposed to give the reward of full screen pushback to get back to shots, but shots don’t do anything any more. Make safe tiger knees actually hurt. the force stand wasn’t a buff, it was a bug fix.
  3. increase walk speed. sagat does not have the overwhelming tools from vanilla to justify his molasses level speed. if he has shit buttons specials and damage, give him mobility.

thats my coffee rant. :slight_smile:

6

Reverse to AE2012. I don’t care, I’m even ok with U1 bugged in the corner and U2 not hitting completely in juggles.

7

100 is too much. A better ratio would be lk doing 70:50 Mk 80:60 and HK 90:70.

Sagats tu DMG used as an anti air is fine. Combo wise its a bit weak but it is what it is. Knee could definitely benefit from a damage ratio change without breaking the game. Back when capcom asked for suggestions I suggested most everything ppl are talking about here now. Glad people suggested force stand on knee though, it never really crossed my mind. I hope we get a patch that addresses all of the issues ultra brought with it. No ones asking for a lot, hell Sagat’s just wanted the character to work properly and we got punished for even that ha. At the moment he isn’t the best at anything, hes a jack of all trades character like Juri. That hits like a little bitch and makes for the perfect combo dummy for the rest of the cast. Either sprinkle a little bit toward his offense and zoning or focus on one, something needs to happen here though. Just the knee damage swap alone would net quite a bit of damage per round.

The high tiger shot should be reverted as mentioned before. Id prefer vanilla recovery on low ts aswell. They already took away the normal juggle properties for TS that he had in vanilla, I dont see this putting him over the top.

Far stand lk, would be the icing on the cake. He doesn’t need this to be effective and it would likely be too much but if it happens it happens.

8

Thing is he doesn’t have enough block stun advantage to keep anyone locked down. If they are not going to listen to what practically EVERY Sagat player is saying then he needs more block stun on some of his lighter normals or he needs a walk speed buff. You need to be able to fucking move in this game to start any type of offence unless you’ve got ridiculous dashes or specials like Makoto.

I wouldn’t really say Juri is a jack of all trades because she can beat zoners easily, she can beat grapplers easy and she has decent resets and cross ups. She’s way more varied than Sagat.

Sagat shits on grapplers but thats it, he doesn’t beat any other zoners - Guile, Gouken, Dhalsim and Juri all beat Sagat and he’s not particularly good at keeping characters out, it’s merely a matter of time before he’s put in to block stun or knocked down.

9

What hellbox said. And if that is too much to ask, then just take all your buffs back and give us AE Sagat.

10

What he needs is a way to get people to respect his zoning and not get walked down virtually for free.

What I would like is

Tiger Uppercut buffed to 150 and the higher uppercut doing 90. Dont reward sloppy uppercuts Capcom. Reward Sagats for doing proper deep TUs.

Revert shot frame data to Vanilla.

Change Tiger knee damage. The frame data is nothing special now. Make the second hit do 70 for lk and mk versions.

Forget st.lk. How bout fixing his cr.mk which SHOULD have been a great button but the hitbox is retarded.

11

I second that about cr.mk. Hitbox is ass and the hurtbox is no better.

Oh and High, I know man…Juri > Sagat haha. I only mentioned Juri to exemplify having tools for all situations but mastering none, yet ironicly you’re right she still does it better then Sagat.

I don’t even know what goal their trying to achieve with this character anymore. In vanilla it was evident he was meant to be strong at all ranges and was actually really close to being balanced with the exception of a few things. That character wasn’t a win button and still isn’t a win button at high level vs even the current cast. Is he supposed to be a 7ft tall pussy that plays like online scrubs who just jump back hp,ts,jump back hp, random dp/knee all day? Are we playing this character wrong, trying to do combos/frame traps/knee traps/meaties/use our brains?.. Its not very rewarding. Playing like a dickhead against the rest of the cast and being random seems to be his strongest tool now.

Did the Rambo’s, BryanConroys and Tigerupurbuttz foresee the future?

12

lol at tigerupurbuttz, salty as i am, that made me chuckle, i aint gonna lie.

13

I just ended up sacrificing what points I had left after disconnects and the usual online fuckage. Deleted game and im now waiting for mk x. I’m tired of playing a character this bastardized and frankly the rest of the cast is pretty gay. Best of luck to you guys, watch those tiger shots everywhere including full screen. Try to keep moving forward to prevent getting cornered like an animal and keep from getting knocked down. Don’t be discouraged when you see your damage output and don’t be surprised when your ultra whiffs. I’m no masochist, so im out…see ya.

14

Yeah I’ve already moved onto Gouken. What they did to Sagat was uncalled for. They had better revert these changes or give us real stand short back.

15

Lol I guess you guys aren’t good enough to adjust. If you liked the character enough you would stick with him regardless of changes if not switch to another character that fits the playstyle u wish sagat had. It’s like y’all want y’all cake and eat it too

16

So it was too much to ask for Sagat to not get WORSE!!!

Majority of Sagat community didnt want a top tier tiger king. They just didnt want him to get nerfed.

He did indeed get nerfed.

Also this loyalty shit is fucking homo. Sagat is a concept created by Capcom, brought into reality through illustrations, voice acting and computer code. He is not real. Thus he doesnt care who plays him. Feelings of sentiment towards said concept are misplaced and ultimately…

fucking pointless.

17

anyone watch south east majors? Even though bonchan and leslie did decent in the standings (I mean they tore through the other not top players), they literally lived in the corner. round start = go to the corner.

for real, this character is ass.

18

Sagat basically has to pay rent to the corner Landlord…

You CANNOT get out of the corner without taking a dumb risk as Sagat. The entire cast vs Sagat will always be able to walk him into corner. With vanilla St.Lk cancel you had a chance to push your way out of corner with this with counter footsies but now, you gotta throw out a luckyTiger Knee or TU out. Otherwise, it’s inevitable that you’re gonna get out Footsied to death in corner by most of the cast, death by thousand cuts.

It’s pretty much infuriating:

You can throw about 4 or 5 Tigershots each match hit/blocked then you have to turn off Tigershots because majority of the cast can Ultra through it and F’s up entire projecticle character…

I’d take Sagat as is with St.LK vanilla back with open arms. Keep everything the same, but let me have something to fight back in the corner with…

19

Yeah I saw the sea majors and also a recent video of daigo trapping gachikun in the corner with ease. It’s frustrating that’s it’s come down to this. There just isn’t a solution to beating players who can consistently walk you down. Most importantly , it’s just plain boring.

20

I find that saving all meter for TU-FADC in corner is the only way to play Sagat now. If it’s blocked, shit… 33/33/33 mixup (block,TU, or throw). If it hits, great… 10 more seconds until you’re back in the corner lol