Dance with the Claw: Vega Match-up Guide/Discussion

sure i vote tatsu, makoto, theonly_J and Agent_Hoy.

I’d stick myself in there but… i’m like at the bottom rung of being good. If i’m better than you, then you have lots of work to do.

Makoto? How would you want to get matchup numbers from Makoto? Hahaha. Well, anyways, I’ll open a new thread.

dont know if any of you know this. but jump in hk and early one will eat moves like guile cr.hp, or sakura’s alive.

Damn… and here I was respecting turtling Sakura’s because of that darn c.fierce.

This makes me very happy!

thats what i like about vega he has a normal for every situation.

i think juri is going to be a bad matchup

i played the first juri who knew what they were doing yesterday
it was frustrating

her fireball strings are incredibly safe, leave her at +4 on block =((((((((( of course if you eat one you’re toast, she’ll combo you

any senpusha is punishable by c. mp and st. RH and c. lp, but lk is only -4 so it’s hard, you should just try a reversal scarlet terror since it’s easier to get the reversal timing and i doubt she can space it to be less than -4. any senpusha harder than lk version is an easy punish, and EX can be punished by reversal ultra. No reversal cosmic heel punishes, but if you’re out of range it’s easy to punish the senpusha with CH / slide

her c. mk, i don’t know if this is cause of her frame advantage on the fireballs but it seems like it goes RIGHT UNDER c. mp, which is total bullshit… complete bullshit. it even goes under c. lp. SIGH. as far as i remember, my claw would literally not touch her at any time, no trades at all. i think it just straight up beats vega’s c. mp, which is infuriating and doesn’t make much sense considering you ALSO can’t jump in on her cause of her stupid looking c. mp. she has some dumbass kick thats really good at beating barcelonas too.

And of course her stupid ass jump staright up roundhouse has the same “Beat everything you do in the air” properties as Chun’s does and in addition to that she has a “Beat everything you do in the air on an angled jump” j. mp that of course juggles into her entire moveset, great

So… she zones you and then she’s got guile-like pressure with fireballs but a pretty shitty throw game, i don’t think her damage output is that fantastic and she’s totally free on wakeup w/o EX, but like chun and guile and the others she’s much stronger on her feet so you have to find ways to knock her down first. her c. mk is -5 which should be nice, but i get the feeling that izuna is not very useful on her since EX pinwheel is pretty good at hitting everything around her. Also that move hits in some really stupid ways.

In other words keep it to the ground, poke pressure her since your pokes > hers and only jump in when you think she’s investing in a poke, for her fireballs OF COURSE cosmic heel gets hit by every single one including the low one (:bluu: ) so… Fuck. the worst part about this matchup is you’re trying to get close, she lets loose a random fireball and holds up, you’re screwed after you block the fireball. so stupid. once again another matchup where you CAN’T air to air them cause they have a beat-everything juggle move (great move capcom make air-to-air completely irrelevant even though she can still combo more out of her jumping move yes good design)… FUUUUUUUCK

as you can see i am incredibly salty because i still don’t know what the fuck to do. it’s probably going to be one of those matches just like the chun one where it’s like “Wow. the vega player actually won. what a miracle.” Shit doesn’t make sense, it’s another character where they’re like “Zoning character yeah!” And give her top-notch anti-airs, air to airs, an EX invincible move, great pokes, safe offensive moves, in a nutshell she’s a Vega killing machine. what do you have? Pokes, I guess, find a way to use them. it’s probably best just to not get close but always be backpedalling, as when you’re in the corner she’s not like guile who can make sure you stay there. get a knockdown and coax the EX right out of here, or something.

Also the worst part is she didn’t even use her dive kick on me once. So I don’t know how the fuck that move is going to factor in … /sigh. just have to figure something out i guess.

EDIT: Yeah my strategy is to pin her down from the start. just rush her down as soon as every match starts. If she can’t do her stupid fireball charge moves then she can’t let them go, and senpusha is not a good wakeup move. If she likes to press buttons, see how well cosmic heel does but knowing matchups like these all she has to do is spam c. mk and it’ll probably never work. I fucking hate these matchups, where they’re on your level at outside-range and the threat of them easily jumping in is always there but they can also just spam c. jab or whatever the hell up close and it always beats your throws and shit. Gah idk wtf to do, seems like the best strategy is to find a way to stay on top of her at all times and make EX senpusha irrelevant, I think that’s really the only smart thing to do. Poke pressure, make your slides safe so you can keep the game going.

you should play floe. damn that wall pressure is so insane.

her cr.mk and cr.hk give her Ryu cr.mk/ chun cr.mp, like properties. it lowers her hit box so moves whiff. not frame advantage.

as for dive kick, that move eats, focus attac/back dash/st.hp/st.hk alive. if you whiff them while she is in the air you are going to get thrown in the corner.

and yes she can keep you in the corner easily, if you dont know what to look for. cr.mk xx fireball kick strings keep you pinned down pretty easily.

be happy she cant do dive kick like cammy.

Okay well what I have learned by looking at same frame data is Juri is at her scariest if she has fireballs stored. If she’s trying to blockstring you with c. mk, store fireball, c. mk, let it go, you have frame advantage after the store fireball cause she’s -1. c. mp wil beat her. If you can find some way of having Juri pinned down enough to not store fireballs, then up close there’s not much she can do that’s that insane. She can hit confirm into Senpusha’s of any strength but the links are tough and the damage will get scaled to mean it’s pretty insignificant. If she does hit you though you’re probably in the corner, which is the same problem with her forward ( and I think back) throw also. Generally if you can avoid those you can avoid any SERIOUS threat of getting pwned, as if you’re in the corner she can do more of the same stuff, despite the fact that it’s still not that threatening damage wise, just more so position wise. If she can get a fireball to hit you though I’m pretty sure she can combo out of it into some heavier moves which make for easier hit confirms on her behalf and less scaling from heavier moves in the first place… so… make sure that you aren’t eating any fireballs.

Try not to press buttons and don’t let her throw game bother you, it’s not very good. She’s slow as hell and can’t mixup into anything threatening aside from c. lk which she can use to combo, but again, the above restrictions of shitty damage and etc apply. Her overhead is 70 damage and goes right overtop of all your pokes so you might as well defend yourself with st. RH and c. lk at most points, since like I said in the last post her c. mk goes under the c. mp it seems like. So yeah. Up close she’s not very scary at all, she just has the benefit of being able to put you into the corner REALLY easily. Make sure you don’t eat those throws. Seems like Backdash is really useful against Juri since she doesn’t hjave a good way of catching them or a good slide, but she can jump in on you repeatedly to make your life miserable, which is where i get to my next point: Juri is easily the most scary when she’s in the air.

Her air combos seem to do more damage and have higher priority, so if anything the best methods of staying away from her in the air are to space yourself properly and jump out mp, fp, lk, rh, and mk. I don’t think neutral jumping or air grabs will be something you can rely on in this matchup. If she’s having trouble cracking you she might try laying into you with some heavy jump ins and frame advantage to get easier throws but in that case you still have the means to defend yourself from jump ins using air grab and etc. It seems air footsies are going to be really important when it comes to defending yourself, but always be aware that she doesn’t have much to loes by trying a j. mp and she WILL throw it out there… defend yourself from the ground with something that capitalizes on her active frames running out like a solid c. fp or even cosmic heel. MAke sure she isn’t having an easy time in the air, cause as much as she might win in this MU up there, you can still give her a run for your money.

Anyway just keep brooding about losing to that Juri so figured i’d so some frame data research. seems like some good info.

EDIT: Also, get this! Juri doesn’t have a 3 frame jab! Praise the lord! Her only 3 frame move is close lk which I’m pretty sure is easy to make irrelevant. So for those fireball situations where she’s at -1, you actually ARE at a distinct advantage.that’s a first. If she tries to jump out, she eats a frame perfect c. mp. Woop woop. (I hope i have the frame data for all this fireball crap right)

Phew, I’m glad it’s not just me who thought the Juri match up was tricky. At first I thought it was a fairly decent match for Vega, then I played one who knew what they were doing. Makes you respect her a little more that’s for sure! Pretty much all you said is spot on, Joz. Back to the lab to figure out some anti-Juri technology.

She can spam her c.strong and it totally negates cosmic heel pressure. Counter hits for her all day. :lame:

I think the answer here may lie in tagging her with a c.strong of your own for whiffing that thing, because if you don’t punish her for spamming it, you can kiss cosmic heel tick throws good bye.

I find s.MK, s.LK and df.MK incredibly useful against Juri.

s.HK and HK ST beat or punish her dives easily (unless theyre perfectly spaced).

her c.MK can be punished by c.MP xx EX FBA on block.
if you predict a low fireball you can just tap lvl 1 FA for a Counterhit crumple, assuming you’re in range of course, you can also df.MK over them but its a bit hard.

any blocked Pinwheel is punishable by c.lk xx HK ST or c.MP xx EX FBA. HK and EX pinwheel are punishable by either Ultra, you can also punish them with s.HP>c.MP xx EX FBA

j.HP beats her c.MP and j.HK beats her c.HP, however j.HP gets beaten by c.HP and j.HK gets beaten by c.MP :confused: so alternate depending on the situation i guess.

her j.HK isnt nearly as good as Chun’s and her jump doesnt go as high as Chun either, Juri’s only saving grace against an HK dive c.MK when you’re close to her to lower her hitbox, HK dive will be too high for her aerial moves to hit you so you can Izuna/slash her mid-air easily if she tries that. this is also her only viable option when she’s in the Izuna Vortex. all her moves including EX can be grabbed at start up, EX pinwheel can sometime get one or 2 hits from the back but it’ll do like no damage and you made her waster 1 EX bar :smiley:

j.MP beats her j.MP, nj.HP as well. j.HP can stuff it if she’s still on the ground and you see it coming.

errr thats all I have for now, just so you know guys Juri users consider this match up a 6-4 in Vega’s favor ^^

^^ Above post, I find incredibly useful, thank you Blaze. All I’ve fought on the Juri end are dive kick spammers, which is just block and punish, but at least I know what to do against Juri’s that try other things now. :smiley:

Deejay and Ryu-throw problem

Sup guyz, just found out something useful on the Deejay matchup, and i thought i’d share… before moaning.

When fighting Deejay, its best to empty jump (jump forward) over the fireballs. If he sweeps, your safe in that case and can punish, but you can still get hit by Up Kicks. However thats dependent on the distance. Deejay will sweep you if your far, and UK if your close. To get around the UK, just do a late air throw, you will win ALL the time!!! Unless its an EX lol. I accidently figured that air throw out while learning to play with the arcade stick lol… still don’t know where all the buttons are xD.

Also, ive been posting about how to tech throws, but no one gets back to me :’( . I really think throws are broken in this game, i win whole games just throwing people, guessing cause they can’t tech me. But it sucks to be on the other end of it, i can’t for some reason tech Ryu’s throws! He j.hk’s me from half the screen away, into a throw, which seems to have the range of a kara throw :S ; and i swear i time the tech perfectly, just to get thrown anyway. I also tried early, late, and mashing non stop, that deosnt work either. cr.lk works sometimes, but its upto the distance. Its just not just j.hk though, it everything he does, all tick throws, normal throws, and walk up throws! I thought it was just me, but my bro struggles aswell, but he has a flash kick, and doesnt need to block spams lol.

Im really getting annoyed with the throws in general. I contantly get thrown out of my normals. When i get thrown out of cr.mp and cr.hk, it really annoys me! I just left the game the other day when i got thrown out of a deep j.hp… i mean how the hell did that happen???

Also have you ever thrown someone, see the motion in their body, only to get thrown back… not a tech!

Sooo are throws broken? is it just me? has Ryu become a even more noobtastic player? (I hate Ryu lol)

Note: Mostly struggle with Ryu throws, no one elses. I manage to super late tech all gouken throws (2 sec delay, then techs on screen), which again goes to my point… broken throws?

Throws arent broken, especially not in this game. S/SF4 is one of the few fighting games where throws in general are very meh. they do abysmal damage, they can be teched for no damage and you’re be both at a neutral position after the tech, they have a start up and whiff recovery. In general throws in almost any older fighting game are infinitely better.
Play ST if you want to know what a broken throw really is.

If you’re having trouble with teching it may be one of the following:

you’re mashing the input, this doesnt work… at all.
you’re doing it on SF4 timing, Teching apparently has a smaller window in Super so you’ll have to be more strict with timing techs
you’re not OS teching, this will infinitely help your teching game. here’s a vid to show you what it is/how to do it in case you didnt know already: [media=youtube]aHHoGHcgK9k[/media]
But you have to be careful coz it can be baited and punished.

1. a bette punishment for that would be cr.mk - cr.mp xx EX FBA.
**2.**yes but a good juri that does that move will cancel into her fireball kick, pinwheel, or charged fireball to begin her barrage. there is a reason why its -5 on block. because of the things she can do. if she does it from max range she can cancel into pinwheel and hit you with the few frames giving her enough time to block your punishment. If she does it up close she can do fireball kick and continue her pressure. If she does it mid range she release fireball and thats the scariest option. once she releases fireball she can pressure you for days.
**3.**that boils down to where you are positining wise. juri’s cr.mp will always win in the air if she is on top of you. If you jump in at Juri she will always AA with cr.hp if she does it at the right time. again positioning/spacing comes into play here.
**4.**no she has some moves that hit up there. nj.hp, nj.lk.
**5.**are you sure. EX pinwheel has invulnebility frames. So if she does it extremly late she will get out.

I don’t mash for tech, but I am using the sf4 timing, guess thats the main problem!

Thanks for the video on OS, never even knew that existed, although ive been hit by em a million times lol. I kinda figured out that hitting lp+lk while holding db will either throw or kick, but i press it the same time as when i get hit, i need to do this later right, at the last active frame or something??

Thanks for this, it should really help, il ask questions on OS in the Q&A thread after some testing :wgrin:

FYI Gouken’s back throw has longer startup than a normal throw, I believe it’s 5 frames vs the usual 3. I guess this is to offset the cheapness of being able to throw into Ultra. But that probably explains your super late techs.

Always late tech. Learn it. Its the best and safest bet. What would you rather eat?

Fat juicy combo, or a measly throw…

I learned a lot about the Honda matchup yesterday. The biggest problem I find is that it actually is really easy to lame him out if you space yourself correctly, but if you need to do damage to him, you can be patient and everything and bait headbutts, but its much more difficult to defend yourself if when trying to move in and push him to the corner he just decides to jump in on you. if you’re not spaced you can’t really AA him w/o charge and alot of his air-to-airs beat air grab when you try to jump and react. obviously his throw mixups are a big problem as a result of him jumping in so, i figured in most cases sweep under his jump in might work really well, if not for the fact that c. jab hands might hit you. In most cases I think you just need to clutch it out and pick the right air to air by either neutral jumping or jumping out. I think NJ Fierce is really useful against Honda.

Also apparently Ibuki’s c. fierce is a really good anti-air. Found that out yesterday, the hard way of course.

I also am beginning to realize that I am seriously wasting my time FADC’ing out of blocked RCF’s against anyone other than Vega and Dhalsim. I always seem to think that c. jab and c. short are not necessarily a part of footsies because they are so short-ranged and that they are your only reliable up-close moves. The point is, Vega’s up close moves suck for a reason. You’re not supposed to be close. C. short is either a plinkable hit confirm into an RCF / ST / EX FBA off a jump in, a great OS tech move, and generally a good addition to your kara throw because of its frame data. C. Jab can do the same stuff from outside right next to people. I think I am going to try and use c. jab as more of a counter for other people’s jabs now instead of for a pressure move. As far as pressure is concerned I don’t think there’s much of a point at all pressuring someone without knee or just safe jump in RCF strings. I just realize this because my RCF fadc’ing is totally useless againts good players. It always puts me in a worse position than when I was before. By all means though if you’re playing someone like Chun or Rog or even Guile, you can still keep them guessing by keeping the frame advantage on your side. But against anyone with a half-legit invincible move or a better 3 frame jab, or really if you’re looking for a much safer option, you should just stick to spacing people with the knee and air-to-airing their attempts at escaping.

ALso I think RCF is a way better move than people give it credit for. RCF does great chip damage. When you play people that actually know how to block, it becomes really useful because 2 fierce RCF’s getting blocked is something like 80 damage. IT’s just a shame that fierce RCF is sooooo unsafe and relatively useless compared to the much safer strong RCF. If only they tweaked the startups so that when you did something like c. strong, strong RCF, it were a frame trap. Also of course if people eat the RCF’s it’s combo city, but only if you practice doing that combo, like, non stop. RCF FADC c. jab is IMO too hard. It’s not worth trying to do all the time but RCF FADC st. RH is easy. And ppl should use EX RCF more. Even if you don’t hit someone through their fireball, if you manage to get chip through, you push them far into / out of the corner and generally are in a better position than they are cause a blocked RCF leaves you at about max poke distance.

Joz I’d love to hear you expand more on the Honda matchup. I just posted a vid of me VS Mike Ross in the video thread and it would be cool to hear your point of view.