Every time I get matched up against birdie I just want to fucking rage quit. I really hate fighting him. What can I do to beat him?
Use claw stance, and don’t try to wall dive against him. Lame him out with range and then go clawless eventually to mix him up.
Sounds like decent general advice, but do you know anything else that could be more specific? What normals I should be using against him? What normals of his do I look out for? What moves can I punish? etc.
Have you tried training mode yet against him. Vega can punish a lot of stuff.
No. I never really thought about using Training mode to learn matchups. I always had the mindset that you can only learn matchups by actually fighting the char. How do I set up training mode to see whether or not I can punish something?
Generally you want to watch out for his standing kick thing and basically anything that he is doing on your wakeup, because good Birdies will be trying to frame trap you with their best normals. Anything that looks really heavy or comes after two quick attacks is pretty much punishable(this changes when he eats the pepper), and you need to watch out for his jab/kick -> walk in grabs. He also will have armor on his EX moves like the dash headbutt, but you’ll find out after a few matches against him; just pay attention. Barehanded you pretty much have the advantage because all Vega’s normals are good; with claw; st.mp, and f.hp(buster claw) can do some good ranged damage, but don’t get too predictable. Aurora spin edge can be pretty safe too when timed right. All versions.
Also watch out for him doing a dive in throw on you from a distance. If you see that coming you can use an HK sweep on him, and a lot of other things… sweep is your best bet tho. don’t let him corner you, but that is what they will be trying to do the whole match, and beware of his can and his jump in headbutt bs… It has great priority so you might wanna try to sweep dash under or something if you see it coming. Use high wall jump to get out of the corner if he has you in a bad spot…not Barcelona wall dive, just the wall jump.
Raging is right, the best way to learn EVERYTHING about the matchup is to put him in training mode and have him do things that you’re curious about then go through each of Vega’s move to see if it’s punishable. Another easy way is to get the FAT and Vframes apps, because if you can read frame data, you can know whats punishable in theory before you even play. FAT even does all that work for you if you can’t read frame data…
Playing against a real birdie will help you learn, but thats more for matchup psychology and learning how Birdies play rather than quickly learning how to punish.
Set up the training mode by going to record action and then you can make Birdie do whatever you want and replay it over and over. You press like R1 in the raining menu I think. You can also make him do things on wake up and after guard stun, so it all depends on the stuff you’re trying to figure out.
Oh yeah, Birides like to sit still and hold down back a lot, so don’t forget to hit him with some mk overheads on his wake up and stuff like that. Not too much, but enough to keep him guessing.
A couple of bulletpoints
-Go with claw at the beggining of the match…stay at fordward HP range…don’t let him even start his can/banana peel mix up game…when you see Birdie eating something fordward HP crush counter his ass…
…the jump grab thing is in the same league that FBA is a deeply flawed move that only looks scary when you don’t know how to react to it…it gets stuffed by any normal…Birdie can be thrown out of it…but if you really see it coming neutral jump and punish with your heavier combos
…the Horizontal chain move is very unsafe…if you block is a free sweep
…Don’t jump at Birdie at all…there is no point on jumping on Birdie…he has a wide selection of anti airs that will blow you to pieces…
…the Good news is…Birdie has no business jumping at Vega either…st Hk blows him out of the air…make sure you punish him for jumping
…st mp is your friend with claw on…use it with gusto
…punish Birdie sweep with your own sweep…Birdie players like to use his sweep a lot cause it is very rangy and i imagine not a lot of characters can punish it at max range…Vega can…made him pay with your sweep
…once you are firmly in the lead Birdie players usually get desperate and start spamming his specials…all of then are punishable …you will do well to change to clawless once this happens…you will be able to punish much harder with tech combo into ex FBA
…Finally Birdie players when they get really mad and desperate will start spamming EX Bull head…they will ususally throw 2 and even 3 ex-bull horns in a row…just block…it can be punished with V-reversal kkk but it takes practice cause there is an specific timming betwenn the 2 head butts when you have to v-reversal to scape the second attack and be able to punish
I understand you i hated Birdie with passion…but it has gotten a lot better since then…with enought practice i think Vega actually does really well against him
As someone who mains both Birdie and Vega, I can assure you that Birdie is in the most trouble up close. Birdie has no i-frames on any of his specials (besides projectiles) they only have armor. Meaning you can grab him on wakeup for free.
If you can corner him, remove the claw and pester him with pokes/frames traps/grabs.
As stated Birdie players will get mad (personally guilty) and spam his ex specials to get you off him. If you feel it coming, just grab him out of it.
It’s no cakewalk, but Birdie does have weaknesses that Vega can exploit.