Next is Blanka, then Rufus, and I figure I’ll do Ryu
Note on the Rog match. ST murders all of his long range/EX dash punches, so keep charge when you’re at mid/long range on defense. Also, if you’re willing to just block low and punish what dash punch you can on recovery, you can ST any over head punches on reaction (counter hit damage). And try poking more with low jab/ far short when you can (for all match-ups). Not only can you hit-confirm into a safer low strong/far round-house for more damage, but you also run a smaller risk of being caught by a jump-in on your poke’s recovery (double low jab into neutral-jump round-house, for example).
For lesser effect, prep ultra on reaction to dash punch when you have it stored (even if it’s just level 1). Thing works really well on long/EX dashes/TAP and should reduce some of the dash punch pressure (do it once against an over-head and see if the Rog doesn’t start second guessing his offense).
Nice breakdown on the Rog matchup. I really appreciate in-depth posts like this because it helps to confirm or deny the effectiveness of the tactics I run into and use.
Hey everyone,
relatively new guy and mediocre Vega player here, I thought I’d start out contributing a bit on the Gen matchup which seems to be rather rare, but since I’m sparring with 2 very solid Gen players a lot, here we go.
Note first please: The current matchup thread links to Jarekov’s post here http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=168370&p=6440704#post6440704 , however I find it contains rather partial and even wrong infos.
Concerning this:
All of Gen’s different wall dive kicks have armor break properties, so focusing is out of question. He has different ways of setting the Oga kicks up: first, he can dive to the wall at 3 different heights, altering range on the kicks. Additionally, like Vega, he can choose the side of the screen to dive at, making any of the direct wall dives potential crossups. After the inital dive, he gets to choose whether he cancels (lands at edge of screen without attack, usually to bait jumps / ultras / whatever), to kick at a wide angle (long range), to kick at a small angle (short range, preferred for crossups against charge characters) and to dive above you. If Gen goes for a direct walldive kick you can punish with a well-timed ultra. Make sure he’s already flying towards you, though, else he’ll do a ceiling dive and your ultra will whiff.
There’s different ways to deal with Gen’s walldive game: First, you can EX-FBA after him on reaction and beat his walldive on startup. However, this will often launch Gen too high to follow up with Izuna Drop, claw attack might work though. If Gen goes for the ceiling and your reactions are good enough, you can neutral jump on reaction after detecting the ceiling dive and air throw. If you don’t, he can choose 3 different kicks with one of them having crossup properties; even with good reaction times, you usually will only be able to dash out, there’s definitely no time for a df.hk response. Instead, if Gen’s wallkicks are blocked deep by you, st.hk is a decent punisher.
As for the matchup in general, I find it difficult to dictate range against Gen because of his higher walk speed and jump speed (if he’s in the correct stance). While his normals shouldn’t outpoke yours (even his Mantis st.mk which ist used for mk.hands seems to loose consistently against Vegas pokes), you’ll usually not get to play a lot a poking games against him.
In general, I wouldn’t use walldives against Gen unless you managed to score a ST knockdown beforehand; his Crane j.lk stuffs anything your FBA has to offer with ridiculous active frames and upwards range. Thanks to his jump speed, he’ll catch you with it more often than not. Additionally, he has one of the best focus attacks in the game, making Izuna Drop attempts very risky (his hitbox shifts worse than Akuma’s, would take quite a bit of training to get a feeling for that).
Most Gen players try to go for their ambiguous crossup game. Be on the watchout for tick throws which Gen often resorts to once he realizes you can actually block his j.mk. If he tries to cross you up after knockdown and you’re feeling ballsy, you might want to try autocorrect EX-ST, it stuffs both his Mantis and Crane crossup kicks if executed correctly. Chances are you’ll find yourself caught in blockstings of his mk-hands-fadc chain most of the time (you’ll use your equipment a lot this match, but as stated earlier, the range on your claw isn’t that useful anyway). Punish badly timed st.mks with ex-ST. Jump back air throw may work if they’re going to pressure you after the mk-hands chain, but be careful once they catch on; Gen’s Crane j.HP stuffs everything you have.
Gen’s crane cr.lk (Launcher Kick) is super punishable on block unless they FADC.
j.HP can beat his waterfall kick / Gekiro antiair if timed correctly. Gekiro can sometimes be baited after scoring a knockdown on Gen, if you managed to do so, caution: Gen can vary his landing speed a bit by mashing another kick while in the air after whiffing. Since he recovers quickly, this might foil your punish.
df.HK / ex-FBA will at medium to long ranges beat / trade favorably with Gen’s jump-in attempts (unless it’s crane j.hp). ST can also be used with caution.
So all in all, try to keep the Gen matchup grounded and don’t let him bait you into jumping too much, especially at close ranges. Many of his jump normals will outpriotirize yours and his low jump arc often makes air throws impossible. jab xx rcf is a good tool to get some space if he pushes you into the corner, but actually his corner pressure game is far less threatening than that of most other characters. You’ll wear him down with countering after his blockstrings, tickthrow setups and anti-airing eventually, watchout for the Oga-Mixup game once you’re sitting on a lifelead, though.
against balrog i would not recommend doing walldives at all unless they’re ex walldives that are a part of a combo. it’s far too dangerous, since TAP alone completely shuts down vega’s walldiving game (aside from maybe meaty izunas?). the problem is that if balrog charges TAP and releases it just before vega’s fba hits, one of two things will happen:
A) fba whiffs and balrog remains unhurt
or
B) fba whiffs and balrog remains unhurt and vega eats a fucking tap to the face
it varies, but scenario B tends to happen a lot more often! to make things worse, you can’t just walldive out of the corner to run away from balrog either, since he can take a few quick steps across the screen and hit you with TAP on your recovery. it’s not even that hard to do really
balrog offense is also very scary due to his close standing roundhouse. if he mixes up jab jab walkup throw with jab jab walkup cl.rh, it’s a perfect 50/50 frame trap. if you’re option select teching you’ll get counterhitted by the cl.rh which can then be combo’d into a sweep. it’s really scary. the cl.rh will hit you even if you try backdashing, and it also happens to have frame advantage on block.
add this on with the fact that balrog’s jumping rh is difficult to antiair and it basically means that you’re going to be playing a dangerous guessing game everytime balrog is up in your face (which he eventually will be since walldiving to run away is no longer a safe option)
ALSO! my match with coffee is not a good video reference. neither of us knew what we were doing really. if anything, it was only weeks afterwards, thanks to my matches with keno and bryant the tyrant (top socal balrog players) that i was able to figure out how terrible this matchup really is
don’t underestimate balrog. this matchup sucks more than you guys think it does. fuck him imho
and while i’m at it, fuck chun too. this wasn’t in jozhear’s writeup, but she can punish blocked rcfs with super
^ its true one guy I play with punishes my rcf’s with super
Shitty deal
And what you’re saying is true… I just haven’t played Balrogs who have been doing that to me yet
thank god?
That character has one of the most brutal tick throwing games. You can’t even afford to whiff a throw, or you’ll be sent straight to hell, because he can punish this really hard.
I noticed this once, so I did crouch tech instead. Haha, you know what that Balrog player did? He used the level 1 Focus and crumpled my cr.lk :'DDDD
Here’s to super…
Interesting you mention that. I played one Balrog here in Japan who did exactly what you said. The mix up with jab, jab, grab / jab, jab cl.rh completely destroyed my techs. There’s not much you can do against that. Actually, you can only guess at that point.
Don’t forget that you can safely cr.mk against Balrog if he wakes up with headbutt (NOT EX).
Chun does pretty bad against Focus. Without focus, I wouldn’t have much luck against any of these players here. They tend to jump after I focus too much, so you can whiff a jab or two and get ready to air throw / jump back mp. One thing that annoys the hell out of me is when Chun players mash cr.lk when i TRY to mix up anything into a throw. I eat damage big time. Not too mention her dash-cross up after she knocks you down.
At least we got a release date for SSFIV!
And I hope to GOD they release that shit in arcades
Anyone got some advice against super defensive Ken players, constantly jumping back when in hp lead and always staying on the ground doing pokes into combos or safe jumpins into mixup play with kara throw?
I’m not talking the typical flowchart Ken players here but actual good ones. Having trouble with a Ken player that also know all of Vegas shenanigans by now. Wtf is a claw without shenanigans?
Ok, after many many losses to Rufus, I’ve decided to test run some anti- rufus strategies. Personally I think rufus is Vega’s hardest matchup, with his dive kick rushdown he can shut down vega completely (well almost). One of the most important tactic for Vega to learn against Rufus is to find ways and means to get out of his corner games.
[media=youtube]LpSrfMoreEA[/media]
Many Rufus’es like to use st.lk x 2 before finishing the combo/block string st.hp xx HP Galactic Tornado. Not really sure why they prefer st.lk x 2 instead of st.lk x 1 (perhaps want to hit confirm?) but this is Vega’s ticket out of the corner trap.
Aim for the startup of Galactic Tornado before doing the ex. Scarlet Terror. Due to the distance after hitting 2x st.lk , st.hp, Vega’s ex.ST is able to fire before Galactic Tornado hits. This doesn’t work if Rufus use 1x st.lk to st.hp though, but a ticket out of corner in certain situations is better than nothing. Any little thing that will help Vega is important.
Also, keep in mind that Standing Jab is your best friend to interrupt his little rush down.
Anti-Rufus Strategy Part II - Reversing the tide.
Finally found a small trick to kill off Rufus st.lk, st.hp (1kick version) galactic tornado trap in a corner. (And it works off corner too hurray!!)
Some background information on why Rufus can trap characters like Vega.
- His galactic tornado when used in a combo (cancelled thus negating the startup time of the move) has a -1 frame advantage on block and puts opponents a bit of distance away. Extremely hard to punish given Vega’s skillset.
- His dive kicks shenanigans give Vega a hell of a time. Only effective normals that counter the low dive kicks are st.lp and st.hk. St.lp has low damage potential (non-chainable/linkable) and hence many Rufus’es don’t give a damn since they can give it a shot to trade for greater damage and a chance for a combo of big damage.
Now for the trick to counter Rufus. Not really easy to do/time but it works beautifully and gives Vega enough breathing room. Vega is able to return with a combo of his own (thus reversing the tide lolx) in a corner with this, but when not in corner he can only return with a c.mp or c.hp. Which I think is good enough.
[media=youtube]CNGUwMnqlVY[/media]
Hope this will up the ante in securing our win vs the pesky rushdown Rufus. :3
edit can anyone help me check whether Rufus is able to block the c.mk after his st.hp whiffs (and the player is already ‘cancelling’ the galactic tornado). From framedata I think Rufus is able to block it but in reallife situations I personally don’t think that the rufus player expect the ‘tide being reversed’ at that moment. :karate:
Had a match the other day where Honda did nothing but Butt Slam mix ups. Once he got me on the ground I lost most of my life. Tried jump back air throw, jump back fierce , jump back mp, focus and block and punish. I couldn’t figure it out, so any suggestions would be helpful.
Focus the butt slam on the way down.
yeah, Honda is another bad matchup for Vega.
For some reason, Honda’s :hk: butt slam armour breaks, right? I’ve tried focusing it starting from the beginning of Honda’s descent and it’s broken my focus before (it wasn’t cross-up, either).
It was probably a reversal.
Ah, that makes sense. >_>
hey guys i got 2 questions,
1.does the izuna drop do zero stun damage or what?it just occured to me that even people who loose 80% of their health in an izuna loop never get dizzied.
2.what is your ideal method to bail out of a tiger knee trap?cause once trapped,the only method i use is to trade with an ex sc or something of that sort.