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

Classic Fighting Games Ultra Street Fighter IV
1921

Yeah, when used from ful screen it does leaves them in frame advantage, but so does Hadouken.
The problem is that it is very easy to react, we can ST the first one and BHC the second one.

That idea was stolen from Reiketsu, though :stuck_out_tongue:

1922

I just pissed away a 1000 pp to two pretty good Adonā€™s today in ranked. I have no idea what to do in this match-up at all. I find it to be very frustrating as soon as Adon getā€™s in iā€™m a sitting duck. Any advice on anything to against Adon at all would help me immensely. Iā€™m at the point where this is by far my worst match-up.

1923

[media=youtube]ex-uCQzaHNE[/media]
uenis alternates between a typical vega poke offense and jump back into cr.mp to shut down jaguar kickā€¦ without jaguar kick adon is pretty horrible as a character

Also every single one of your vega oki shenanigans works on adon except: back throw safe jump (only get hit if you attack during jump in) and cross up EX FBA after either throw.

1924

Thanks; this is actually very helpful it seems Uenis doesnā€™t try to anti air that much and instead focuses on air to air. Which seemed to be a lot of my problem i often wouldnā€™t even trade with standing RH and even when i would they werenā€™t good trades. Also his patience against Adon relentlessly spamming out shoryukens is good i canā€™t tell you how many kara throw attempts iā€™ve had after a couple pokes get shoryuken spammed out. In fact during the match he went for maybe 1 throw, prob knows itā€™s a bad idea to get that close to Adon.

1925

Air throws are very useful against adon =D (i actually love facing over-confident Adons and mixing air throws with pokes!). And as i am concerned, against Adon, I donā€™t even consider ground throws!!! (trust me, you donā€™t want to learn it the hard way), just use it as a tech, as adon seems so predictable when he goes for a throw!! :wink:

1926

Hey guys!
Donā€™t cosmic heel against Zangief
He can catch it with Ultra II

1927

You know that thing could even catch backdash or PoMā€¦ =o

1928

Iā€™ve shaken off the curse on me and really stepped up my game. Learned many of the tricks out there to learn. The players Iā€™ve once feared now became beatable. Every one says I have stepped it up. I even beat the best Viper on PC half of the time. The best Akuma has avoided me as I beat him now. Etc.

Except for Abel. I donā€™t know this MU as there are literally no Abels out there except for the best Abel on PC who is my friend. We used to have very challenging and exciting matches. The beatings were going 50/50. He said no other Vega gave him the creeps like me. I was flattered.

Now, since this stepping up has occured, we had our first encounter. Me, who has been beating the top online players which seemed unbeatable before, now lost to this Abel who I could beat before.

We had 5 Ranked. I have lost them all. My face turned to red with anger. I have closed the game. Came to my senses and invited him to Endless. We had nearly 15 matches and I have won just 3 of them. I was helpless and pathetic. Even started to laugh during some matches, shouting ā€œHOW THE FUCK CAN I STOP THIS THING!ā€.

I will not upload any of the matches as they are really pitiful. As I cannot find any other good Abel on PC, I will be watching the videos of this MU and Iā€™m asking people here for pointers. I hope Joz also can reply.

After a KD, it is impossible to keep him coming. He starts the side-to-side mix up. I watch him and block to the correct side, but I get command thrown. If I grab the command grab is unthrowable. If I hit, he grabs me before any of my hits come out. If I flip I donā€™t have enough time to punish with cr.mp and he step kicks and whatever I do does counter hit for him. If I backdash, it turnes out he didnā€™t command grab, just baited it, so punishes me. Same also goes for many flip attempts. It becomes a simple guessing game after I get knocked down.

I know someone will say ā€œdonā€™t get knocked downā€. Thatā€™s bullshit. The man has one hundred ways to knock you down. It is like saying ā€œdonā€™t get hitā€ The brute even cancels his slide to roll.

Even without know down, he has various ways to get close, and Vegaā€™s brilliant footsies are insufficient to stop him. When he is close he starts to jab, and between those jabs, he will command throw. As a great player, he doesnā€™t follow a pattern. It command throw comes after a random number of jabs. Even if I prepare to block the jabs, it turnes out he was not gonna jab but com.th. directly. His jabs and many normals are unpunishable on block so I wait for the step-kick as I feel com.th. will come after the step-kick so I ex.st. It turns out he was not gonna com.th. and I get punished.

It really hurt my self esteem to experience this helplessness. I know I have more to learn and am not the best I can be but I got closer to it. But seeing this made me think I canā€™t beat an Abel who is as good with his character as I am with mine.

The playerā€™s name is Erzbrecht by the way. Trias, Star or Darkaine (if he is in this forum) can know him. Erz directed me to the Vega section in Abel forums and I have seen a huge article written by Tatsu and -HAV- on the MU. Here it is. Iā€™m waiting to here additional pointers on the MU by everyone.

[INDENT=1]-HAV- says:[/INDENT]
[INDENT=1] [/INDENT]
[INDENT=1]I feel like Abel has an advantage in the fight, but itā€™s not so serious that Vega canā€™t compete if you donā€™t know what youā€™re doing. Iā€™m not sure what I can say that Tatsu didnā€™t already say, but the fight is won and lost on the ground. From mid-range, Vega can fend off Abel very well. If Abel is going to lose to Vega, 9/10 times, itā€™s because the Abel was too impatient at mid range trying to get in. Vega does good damage in SSF4, so you canā€™t be reckless here. On the other hand, Abel has no real threat from mid range, so you canā€™t just wait it out completely. That strategy bears no fruit.[/INDENT]
[INDENT=1] [/INDENT]
[INDENT=1]One note of extreme importance is that normal Step Kick combos donā€™t work on Vega unless youā€™re hitting it from close to max range. Stand Fierce just wonā€™t combo. So at mid range, Step Kick isnā€™t a huge threat (though you can still get your Counter Hit combos off of one if you draw out a CH). What this means is that you have to take other risks to get in. I find that trying to jump is actually a decent enough risk to take. Vega has strong anti-air, but itā€™s not terribly damaging, and getting AAā€™d by Vega doesnā€™t really leave you in much worse shape than that from which you started. Other risks that you can take carry larger risks (like fishing with EX CoD, though the pay-off here is pretty hugeā€¦ no larger than that of jumping though) or lack the reward (fishing with Step Kick) of jumping. Stillā€¦ EX CoD definitely plays a part in this fight, though Vega can land a huge neutral jump combo on you for that. NJ. HK-> s. HP-> cr. MP xx EX Wall Dive fucking hurts.[/INDENT]
[INDENT=1] [/INDENT]
[INDENT=1]You need to get your knockdown to win this fight, though. Once you get this knockdown, Vega is really, really, really fucked. He literally has nothing to stop your offense at that point. He is forced to just block.[/INDENT]
[INDENT=1] [/INDENT]
[INDENT=1]As Tatsu already mentioned, he doesnā€™t have a single reversal that will beat meaty attacks. Roll mix-ups are golden against Vega as long as your timing is on point. He canā€™t stop them. I opt away from trying to throw on Vegaā€™s wake-up. While they do work well in the mix-up, throws are the only things Vega can beat on wake-up. Itā€™s still a big risk for him to try to do that, butā€¦ to meā€¦ thereā€™s no need to even open myself up to reversals, when I can just keep with the side-switch mix-ups into meaty attacks that keep him in the same mix.[/INDENT]
[INDENT=1] [/INDENT]
[INDENT=1]When Vega gets Ultra, the side-to-side shit kinda goes out the window, but at that point, you can just safe jump the shit out of him, since his Ultra, while fast in terms of Ultras, is still way too slow to stop safe jumps. Keep Vega locked the fuck down. Make him block your shitā€¦ wellā€¦ attempt to block your shit.[/INDENT]
[INDENT=1] [/INDENT]
[INDENT=1]When you knock Vega down once, you can completely end the round. The match basically comes down to a couple of points.[/INDENT]
[INDENT=1] [/INDENT]
[INDENT=1]1. How little damage can you take before knocking Vega down[/INDENT]
[INDENT=1] [/INDENT]
[INDENT=1]2. How many times do you allow Vega to escape your mix, once heā€™s been knocked down.[/INDENT]
[INDENT=1] [/INDENT]
[INDENT=1]If you can minimize both of these points, you canā€™t lose. If Vega is successful in pushing up either of these factors, he has a shot. If he pushes up both of these, you lose.[/INDENT]
[INDENT=1] [/INDENT]
[INDENT=1]Itā€™s really just that simple.[/INDENT]
[INDENT=1] [/INDENT]
[INDENT=1]As far as Ultra goesā€¦ I pick Soulless in this fight, though some differ since you canā€™t land Step Kick combos. I donā€™t really see how Breathless lands in this fightā€¦ but Iā€™ve been told that itā€™s useful, so Iā€™m putting it up there. I donā€™t really see how thoughā€¦ -HAV-[/INDENT]
[INDENT=1] [/INDENT]
[INDENT=1]Tatsujinken AKA Tatsu said:[/INDENT]
[INDENT=1]abel is really scary for me[/INDENT]
[INDENT=1] [/INDENT]
[INDENT=1]scary! i guess thatā€™s the best word i can use to describe it. sure, vega has good pokes, footsies, and fast walking speed, but his overall ability to keep an offensive-oriented, mixup heavy character like abel from pinning him down is severely lacking due to:[/INDENT]
[INDENT=1] [/INDENT]
[INDENT=1]a) his lack of reversal/wakeup options[/INDENT]
[INDENT=1]b) his lack of reliable anti-air options[/INDENT]
[INDENT=1] [/INDENT]
[INDENT=1]vegaā€™s only reversal options are his ultra 2 (7f startup, invincible, break armors, catches trip guard off jumpins, but loses to empty jumps and safe jumps) and scarlet terror (4f startup, but only invincible to grabs. loses to normals completely).[/INDENT]
[INDENT=1] [/INDENT]
[INDENT=1]i guess a third option is for vega to use the KKK and PPP backflips to escape pressure but quite frankly these moves are garbage and heavily punishable[/INDENT]
[INDENT=1] [/INDENT]
[INDENT=1]basically what it comes down to is that abel can get in on vega just by guessing and having a little patience. itā€™s more about how hard vega has to work to keep abel out if anything. abel has so many ways to get inside, whether itā€™s a random ex rekka through one of vega pokes or a random j.mk or a random focus absorb dash in, the risk reward is almost always worth it. abel may not beat vega in footsies but he doesnā€™t need to. just know that once abel gets inside on vega and gets a knockdown, thereā€™s nothing to fear. rush that shit down, guess right a couple more times, and vega is probably going to die. that pretty much sums it up. even a blocked f+mk xx dash is VERY scary for vega.[/INDENT]
[INDENT=1] [/INDENT]
[INDENT=1]idk. iā€™ve always felt that abel had an advantage over the other command grab characters in the sense that he has a much easier time getting in even though his mixups are just as deadly. normally against honda or zangief, vega can win just by getting a comfortable lead and running away until the time runs out. these characters have trouble dealing with ex walldives as an escape option and their walking speeds are very slow. the same canā€™t be said for abel, who can punish EX walldives most the time ON BLOCK with jump forward fierce before vega even gets to reach the wall. the only time walldives are ever scary for abel is if vega gets you in an izuna drop loop in the corner since it will grab you out of your rolls and pretty much everything you try to do. i havenā€™t tested whether or not abelā€™s ultra 2 will beat out the izuna loop yet, so if someone figures it out, feel free to add that info to this writeup.[/INDENT]
[INDENT=1] [/INDENT]
[INDENT=1]fun fact: abelā€™s ultra 2 punishes vegaā€™s jump back fierce on hit[/INDENT]
[INDENT=1] [/INDENT]
[INDENT=1]in summary, abel beats vega convincingly. by how much i am not sure, but the matchup is somewhere in between 4-6 and 3-7 in abelā€™s favor. i am scared of abel to the point where my entire gameplan against him is to rush him down before he rushes me down. the difference between my rushdown and his though, is that i have to guess right a LOT more times and work twice as hard. vega is pretty much a glass cannon to abel[/INDENT]

1929

T_T I keep losing to this Abel at Next Level in N.Y named Rico Suaveā€¦I canā€™t do ANYTHING against him. I donā€™t know what to do either so I treat him like Ibuki.

1930

I understand in what state of mind you are, Serhat.

I have fought some pretty good Abels out there. One of them being AngeReveur for example (whoā€™s not french btw ^^).

The thing against Abel, is that he can deal as much (if not more) damage with combos than with throws. He is a grappler with combos. But unlike others grapplers (like Gief or Hawk), he does not have as much options to chase your escapes.

But he has command throw, and he knows youā€™re gonna try to escape it. That and powerful combos. => so they tend to always start mix-ups with normals, doing throw only after some frame traps, or at precise moments of their gameplay (after their stepkick, after a reset, etc.).

So in fact, IMO, you should always start blocking. Your defensive mix-up being to make the moment of your backdash/flip/jump out random. So that he wonā€™t be able to adapt quickly enough to prevent your escape. =)

Your weakpoint is your defense GI. Weā€™ve played together a lot of times already, and the only reason why a lowly Claw like me can steal some victories to you is that your defense is really weak. Knowing when to just block, when to tech, and when to escape is very difficult, but is the only way out we have against top tiers. We do not have DP FADC to take our problems away. Your problem is that youā€™re not blocking enough, GI, flips and backdashes can be punished, not to forget ST is not invincible.

You said to me that I should improve my throw tech : well throw tech is useless against grapplers. Just block and observe when to escape. Most Abels will start by normals, remember that.

Now I have a question as well : when they do the rekkas/change of direction, i assume the first one isnā€™t punishable if they go for a second, right ? So if I block the first one, best way out should be focus lvl2, or backdash, right ? =)

1931

I understand in what state of mind you are, GI.

The thing against Abel, is that he can deal as much (if not more) damage with combos than with throws. He is a grappler with combos. But unlike others grapplers (like Gief or Hawk), he does not have as much options to chase your escapes.

But he has command throw, and he knows youā€™re gonna try to escape it. That and powerful combos. => so they tend to always start mix-ups with normals, doing throw only after some frame traps, or at precise moments of their gameplay (after their stepkick, after a reset, etc.).

So in fact, IMO, you should always start blocking. Your defensive mix-up being to make the moment of your backdash/flip/jump out random. So that he wonā€™t be able to adapt quickly enough to prevent your escape. =)

Your weakpoint is your defense GI. Weā€™ve played together a lot of times already, and the only reason why a lowly Claw like me can steal some victories to you is that your defense is really weak. Knowing when to just block, when to tech, and when to escape is very difficult, but is the only way out we have against top tiers. We do not have DP FADC to take our problems away. Your problem is that youā€™re not blocking enough, GI, flips and backdashes can be punished, not to forget ST is not invincible.

You said to me that I should improve my throw tech : well throw tech is useless against grapplers. Just block and observe when to escape. Most Abels will start by normals, remember that. Only question is the number of jabs/frame-trap before they go for the throw, and as their 1080 does have lesser range than other grapplers (1.3 only), they will have to make a close-in move before they do another attempt if they were blocked too much.

I have fought some pretty good Abels out there. One of them being AngeReveur for example (whoā€™s not french btw ^^).There are some samples of our fights in my channel, if that can give you some ideas. One of them is advancing with whiffed cosmic heel : catches marseilleā€™s roll half of the time, if they got impatient. =)

Now I have a question as well : when they do the rekkas/change of direction, i assume the first one isnā€™t punishable if they go for a second, right ? So if I block the first one, best way out should be focus lvl2, or backdash, right ? =D

1932

Well, cause u play Vega :slight_smile: I donā€™t block against Vega when not necessary. You have to pressure him. Believe me, if I was the blocking type, you would get more victories than u get now. As you can realise, I lose only to you in our lobbies no matter if there are some +10K players there. (except for that one match against that Dee Jay last time)

No. You have to make them afraid. Someone, Makoto or Reiketsu said ā€œa good Vega must always be movingā€ and I feel that way. I make them feel I also can brutalise them with my claws. It is a delight to my eyes to see an 16K Ryu is unable to move out my corner pressure and I dizzy him and perfect him. They do not get afraid of you if you block too much. And you start to get vandalized. Of course I block when necessary but thatā€™s it. Iā€™m also a hundred percent sure that Akuma also must be terrorized to be beaten. You should not put yourself in blocking position and always ascape. Thatā€™s why that Thibar (9th or 8th Akuma) started to choose his Fuerte (6th Fuerte also) against me cause he can no longer have victory with his Akuma over me. I just punish his attempts to attack me.

But you have to see me in Ibuki and Abel matches. Iā€™m always blocking cause I fear them. Ibuki has the downside of having too much moves and combos, so they are doomed to do something wrong somewhere and you move in at that point and take off her little vitality right away. But Abel has damaging combos, perfect command throws, a fast roll and a huge vitality. The man is unfair. And if he sees me blocking he command grabs me. I suggest you add this player Iā€™ve told you and have some endless with him to see what Iā€™m talking about. No other Abel gives me any trouble. This man is perfect. Erzbrecht.

It will help me about his throw range Trias, thanks for that. I was not aware his com.gr. range was that little.

1933

Itā€™s like this:

[media=youtube]-_HNA_GDQPg[/media]

The man Iā€™m playing against is better than this Abel. And Iā€™m of course not as good as Uenis. So imagine the scenario :confused: 3-4 command grabs in a row.

1934

There is one mistake that Uenis (and maybe you) made which maybe costed him round 2, round 3 (and victory) : he was teching the whole time Abel was doing his blockstring, and at wake-up.

Teching is useless against grapplers, and dangerous against frame-traps. You can block, or escape, but teching is like giving your ass for punishment.

The other thing you could have noticed is that this abel goes into a lot of command throw : itā€™s at wake-up or after stepkick. 'cause of the range probably. So backdashing, or jumping, or ST at this moment could have helped.

Most abels will mix-it with jabs or cHP, and backdashes escapes all of them. But you should mix-it up (with blocking for my part) as well, or he will adapt.

I donā€™t like KKK flip 'cause itā€™s not reversable, and leaves you wide open if he just jabbed. Itā€™s only good against mix-ups with slow moves IMO (like DP/throw after FADC).

1935

Agree with that^ uenis shoulda varied his defense on wakeup and during frame traps. I would have been back dashing like crazy until the abel could prove he could punish it.

1936

Another interesting fact : his stepckick (fMK) is +0/+3 and dash cancelable. Recovery is 16 frames. Meaning, that his dash also being 16 frames, he should still be at +0/+3 after it (+1/+4 if perfectly meaty, but i doubt so).

Tornado throw and jab both have 5 frames startup.

So we should be able (Abel ? o_O) to jab, to throw, or to sHK out of it if stepkick is blocked and that we reacted in time. We could also ST or bjHP, which should even beat EX tornado and possibly jabsā€¦ =)

Another interesting thing is that ALL tornado throws are throw invincible from the first frame. So it would mean that teching is even more useless than I thought against him, and that we should rely on normals or throw escaping moves after a blocked stepkick, unless he always goes for jabs first. =)

1937

I hit confirm cr.lp into cr.mp ex fba after the abel medium kick dash. It worked for me a lot but I wasnā€™t sure if the frame data worked out or the abels were just crappy or lagging. So I didnā€™t suggest it in the thread.

I find myself not doing it as often now as I did a few months ago because Iā€™m not holding down back against high level abels. I am uber focused on keeping him out (like a sakura matchup) and just zoning st.hk and trying to rush down like tatsu suggests.

Here are two other interesting things with 5 frame normal start ups you could probably run Level 2 FADC pseudo frame traps and spaced CH frame traps

1938

That would match perfectly to my frame data. =)

Another detail is that if the Abel has meter, he can go to EX tornado instead. EX tornado would beat the jabs, but not throws.

Grapplers mindgamesā€¦ ^^

1939

Abelā€™s step kick is +1/+4 and if he goes for cl.hp afterwards itā€™ll stuff any of our normals, and our backdash.

1940

Hmmmm the +4 Iā€™m not crazy worried about because abel would need to perfectly execute a meaty, perfectly execute a dash, and perfectly execute the move after the dash.

Thatā€™s similar to executing three one frame links back to back to back without the aid of plinking.

If the abel hits a nonmeaty and loses 2/60ths of a second between block, dash, and the execution of a normal or torando heā€™s fucked.

Kind of like the corpsehop after izuna knockdown into a perfect meaty or instant overhead, doable but hard execution wise

or FADC level 2 into cr.lp string, in theory it should frame trap and beat 3 frame moves but itā€™s hard to execute