Vega/Claw[details=Spoiler]
Vega doesn’t have really good tools in the areas of safety and invincibility, but what he does have is (1) good pokes, (2) versatile U1, and (3) the Izuna drop. Vega doesn’t have any easy [SAFE] answer to rush down pressure, all of his normals are more than three frames (fodder for normal throw and CH jab).
His answer to rushdown pressure is the single and double flip which are extremely unsafe; they can be punished by sweep and walkup throw, respectively. Vega’s U1 can hit on the way up, or he can go straight to the wall and attack. It’s easy to block/backdash (at max distance) and punish accordingly. The ONLY reason you might want to backdash the ultra is to avoid a possible cross-up, this can happen about 3/4 screen crouching and standing. U1 can also be interrupted in transit with any strike since it has no invincibility. U2 hits low and has a significant amount of invincibility (6 A & I frames) and pretty quick startup on par with Dudley’s U1.
Izuna drop is the equalizer in this matchup because Balrog doesn’t have a great deal of reliable options to beat izuna drop. Flying Barcelona (the actual wall dive) is an exceptionally unsafe move because of the recovery frames, so izuna drop is a particularly unsafe move because the recovery on whiff. During the ali steps he can get punished hard. The two best moves to avoid izuna drop seems to be j.mp and LATE hp.hb . Jumping strong reduces the size of his grabbable box and puts his hitbox in front of his body while, headbutts are throw invincible. hp.hb is the best since it moves you furthest away and your legs aren’t in range for the claws. Brief tests show that he can’t really do any specials to get to you let alone maintain back-charge before you can block unless you headbutt into the corner (situational). Although it’s a really good tool against vega, footsies should make this move useless outside of combos. Also TAP IS NOT throw invincible, you can be ID’d during startup.
Only his wall dives can be done without back-charge (flying barcelona and sky high claw). This is important when jumping over him after a knockdown, all of his moves are greater than 4 frames
and have no invincibility. Keep in mind Vega has variable charge time on his moves. Most charge characters have to charge 55f to do any move. Vega’s rolling attack is 60f, while the others are 42 frames. Vega has a singular unique mechanic and that’s his mask and claw. Vega can lose each after sustaining enough damage/successive hits, this doesn’t reduce over time like stun/grey damage. When he loses the mask he deals 10% more damage, but takes 10% more damage. The claw gives an extra 10 points of dmg for each punch as well as extra range. When he loses the claw he loses a small bit of damage, and range reduction makes some combos harder/impossible at certain ranges.
Simple strategies that Vega’s will use involve a mixup after df+hk, hk.st df+hk corpse hop mixup into instant overhead hp as well as crossup ex.shc walldives. Beware corner blocked hp.rolls cancels into super, you will be compelled to jump back fp, don’t. The super ruins your back-charge, just late hp.hb out of the corner and re-establish back-charge if he attempts to slide to punish your recovery.
Moveset notes:
[LIST]
[]Flip kick and ex.shc breaks armor
[]Beware crossup ex.shc, if he turns yellow and doesn’t hit you while going behind you, block the other way.
[]The flips are punishable during the last recovery frames, but are completely invincible.
[]Roll is unpunishable on block, but can be interrupted in transit by a normal grab, or ex.ru for a full combo.
[]Izuna drop grabs standing, crouching and in the air (this means backdash too). Punch attack hits OH and can cross up.
[]If Claw whiffs a flying barcelona he can be punished almost full screen with U1, a whiffed claw recovers a bit faster, but it is still punishable. It is possible to punish hard with charged TAP, if charging to very high levels, dash then TAP.
[]hk/ex.st is 4 frames, that’s his fastest special.
[/LIST]
Ultra Options:
[LIST]
[]Keep an eye on his Ultra meter if he has U1, you can interrupt it really quickly and not know, this still isn’t an invitation for full screen dash punches.
[]Vega doesn’t really have any reversal options for U2 (cr.hk is safe because of pushback) except non ex.dash low.
[/LIST]
Other notes:
[LIST]
[]df.hk is safe on block.
[]df.mk is an OH but can’t be comboed after CH, beware tick throws and setups after this move, on block it is punishable with jab reversal.
[]Only cr.hk is a UKD.
[*]Can Instant Overhead with j.hp (needs claw to hit you crouching), it’s punishable with U1/Super if you have backcharge, completely safe mid screen if combined with corpse hop. In the corner you can punish with hb.
[/LIST]
TSwizzle’s Post
[/details]
Yang[details=Spoiler]Dealing with the twins in AE
[LIST]
[]Yangs U2 has no strike invincibility on startup.
[]Can hit yang during the palms startup and the palm’s brief recovery, even the feint too, think of palm as a fireball and once you notice the pattern you can punish.
[/LIST]
[/details]
Yun[details=Spoiler]On paper, Yun is meant to be an unbalanced character with really bad defense. This is apparant in his walk speed, his lack of an FADCable DP and an attack with a long invincible startup (e.g. TAP, Zonk Knuckle). For example, ex.lung punch does not have invincibility on startup, but has it closer to the end of its anmiation. So in most cases, you absolutely have to block or avoid it or you will trade while attempting to punish on reaction (yes, even with ex.hb or Ultra). You have to do the invincible attack as late as possible to beat the attack. Yun’s weakness is rushdown, and as Balrog has no safe rush down; here is what boxer does have.
Patience, it has more meaning in this matchup than any other. If Yun is blocking, then he has lost the match. Most Yun’s will be dancing around or applying psycological pressure by walking forward and back. Yun doesn’t have the health or tools to really turtle without a life lead. With some Yun’s, you can play really patient and they will eventually kill themselves trying to apply pressure. Boxer’s main goal is to block and avoid throws until you have an opening to safely begin your jab pressure. Don’t attempt to ex.dash or jab during his blockstrings, they will not work, and ex.hb is too slow. You have to make sure you have enough life to survive a Genei Jin combo. You have to play assuming that he will get the meter and will get the opening. It’s after he blows all of his meter that you want to apply as much pressure as you can since he loses his anti-rushdown (respectively far and close) tools like ex.lunge and ex.dk (you can safe jump and meaty him for free then). It’s also very important to be aware of his mixups after Genei Jin like cross-up shoulder, dive kick air reset, or oki after UKD.
Save your meter for combos, super, and ex.hb. Ex.dashes from neutral are too easy to beat on reaction by breaking armor or TCs. If Yun starts palming, don’t attempt to punish it, just move forward creating space safely. Controlling space is really important, i think the optimal space for balrog is with Yun in the corner, right outside of Balrog’s st.hp range and well within range of Yun’s mk and hk dive kicks from neutral jump. St.hp has almost as much use in this matchup as with spacing Gief in AE, you should get a lot of mileage out of it. Yun doesn’t want to attempt to dive kick in and trade with st.hp or cl.hp. If Yun attempts to low profile it with cr.mk, you can switch to st.hk which he can’t low profile. The idea is to put Yun in a place where he thinks twice about how to get in (this is much easier when he doesn’t have meter) and it will force him to burn meter, delaying the inevitable Genei Jin.
Palm loses to headbutt, super, and ultra. Feint palm recovers rather quickly, so from a distance, Ultra can’t punish feint palm and lp.hb will punish up close if you have really good reactions/reads. Dive kicks can be beat at distances, use cr.hp/cr.mp for general anti-dive kick. Use st.mp for up close lk.dive kicks (you have to trust the hitbox and react quickly). Punishing lunge punch is…complex. Similar to Bison’s psycho-crusher, you either want to be really close to him where it’s frame advantage is intuitive, or you want it to whiff altogether. non-ex lunges can be positive on block, but usually they’re negative and not in range to punish. EX is very seldom punishable, it recovers the fastest of all his lunge punches on whiff and is ALWAYS positive on block.
Moveset Notes
[LIST]
[]st.mp xx shoulder isn’t a blockstring at MAX range.
[]There’s a 5f window to punish non-feint palm on whiff.
[]Feint Palm has lower body invincibility
[/LIST]
Ultra Notes
[LIST]
[]Auto-correct U1/Super whiffed cross-up dive kicks on you’re wakeup, it’s recovery on whiff is punishable, it has to land behind and not in front, he should still be in the air in front of you during the screen freeze.
[/LIST]
Other Notes
[LIST]
[]Meaties and safe jumps are much easier when he has no meter.
[]His Target combo: st.mp, st.hp, b+hp . The final b+hp whiffs when st.mp trades.
[/LIST]
[/details]
Zangief[details=Spoiler]This is a footsie battle. Do not hold back. On the ground, Gief doesn’t have the tools to keep you out, he has to walk forward and block. If you never get knocked down in the match, Gief can’t do anything to apply pressure. Pushing him out of non-lp.spd range is where you want to be, where only his df+hk will reach you and you’re just out of range of st.hk. The range where if you’re crouching and st.hk goes over your head just slightly, is where he will want you so he can get you in a semi 50/50 mixup with st.mp or U2 (in case you jump) or lp.spd/ultra in case you block.
Gief is free to jump-in on in a sense, there are two places where you can jump in to stuff lariat (especially if he’s in the corner): (1) j.fp where the tip is about at his elbow, or (2) j.hk at his shoulder. One of two things will happen: it hits really deep and the lower body invincibility on j.fp beats it clean, or it trades in our favor or he follows up with ex.GH which nets him the UKD in Super but forces him to burn meter. You can vary the jump distances so if he does a reaction lariat you can empty jump and cause it to whiff and punish. (you can also deep j.lk)
Gief does three things: (1) he will jump in with j.mk which is difficult to AA since you have to choose, go to AA’s are cr.hp and cr.mp if he does it lower to the ground. Always look at his deceptive jump angle, because if you whiff a cr.hp, he can land right next to you and U1 you. (2) st.hk tick whiffs into lp.spd to catch an attempted counterpoke cr.hk, just backdash until he starts using ex.green hand, then you can neutral jump/headbutt, block, then start backdashing again. (3) the meat of giefs mixup is on knock down where he will go for meaty knees tick throw/st.mp or meaty cr.lk into tick throw/ex.gh combo over and over again. Try not to exit the corner with ex.ru if he does meaty knees, if it crosses up, you stop in SPD range (especially Ultra 1). Sometimes its best to just hold up and get hit with st.mp or backdash to get the distance. Its okay to take damage and trade if it gets you a techable knockdown and out of the corner/mixup, because he has to walk over to you again.
st.mk, st.lp, st.hp, cr.hk, st.hk, cr.mp are all good pokes to push him out of range. Beware of whiffed cr.mp buffered U1/ex.spd on wakeup. Verify if he’s doing it as a meaty or a whiff, Wakeup backdash beats this. Some giefs may pick U2 in an attempt to punish bad AA headbutts when they jump in. There’s obviously no reason to go air-to-air with gief with normals unnecessarily. All headbutts have ~20f where they can’t be thrown so it’s almost a non-issue.
The longer you sit out of range of gief the greater your chances of winning, especially if you have the life lead. You can max distance charged TAP for DECENT chip damage (and possible life lead) for free if he has no meter/isn’t punishing on reaction.
On a combo note, gief is dangerous to do combos against. Max distance st.lp xx ex.ru doesn’t always combo, always go for the cr.hk if you’re at max distance. If he does lariat and you eat through it with late ex.ru, you’re a single jab distance away, so you can do a combo like ex.ru, cr.lp, cr.lp, st.lp, cr.hk.
Moveset Notes
[LIST]
[]Lariat Punishes: Short Upper, ex.Upper, Ultra, Super, sweep, cr. Fierce, and st. Jab. The vulnerable hitbox on his legs widens during lariat recovery. if you try to use cr.mp or cr.hk
[]non-ex.GH is punishable on hit and block and can be focused/ex.dashed
[]Wakeup lariat loses to meaty throw, unless he does unthrowable lariat
[]df.hk is punishable on block (-11), use cr.hk
[]don’t try to counter his headbutt, it’s a waste and a really bad idea.
[/LIST]
Ultra Notes
[LIST]
[]U1 has godly range, but if you do net the backdash you can hold back and ultra/super/dash punch after you touch the ground.
[/LIST]
Other Notes
[LIST]
[*]Can naked spd through final TAP of Ultra 1 and Super. (can also reversal U1 during U2 freeze, don’t bother). If you think he’s meat spinning, you can vary upper and straights to catch him when he’s not holding back.
[/LIST]
[/details]
Balrog\Boxer[details=Spoiler]The Balrog mirror is easily one of the most annoying matchups any boxer will ever play in SF4. The winner is usually always the most patient player who mashes downback. In general on wakeup, boxer is free. Meaty throw beats the majority of boxer’s moveset. Boxer’s offensive options to beat meaty throws are headbutt, U1, u2, and Super, everything else can be thrown. Defensive options are blocking and backdashing (which can be O/S’d). Boxer can’t punish a meaty throw by backdashing/jumping since you recover before he can attack <<aside from an early nj.hp.>> High ex.dashes on wakeup will beat meaty jump-ins and meaty cr.jab on wakeup. Use cr.hk ALOT this will keep balrog from walking forward. You want to keep him about 1/8-1/4 screen from the wall and keep him there. There will be tons of footsies and ground games. AT mid range, you can react to low dashes and ex.dashes by grabbing and sweeping non-ex dashes (this works for TAP too). This way you can stay about 1/2 a screen away and hover (not in the corner) just out of range and punished the whiffed specials.
It also helps to focus fish sometimes even with rogs bad range. If he thinks to mix it up with lk.torpedo to break armor, you can punish on block with st.lp, cr.hk, or st.lp, Ultra 1. It’s at max distance so you probably won’t be able to combo into ex.ru. On wakeup mixing up meaty jab O/S Sweep, meaty throw, and meaty lows will force Balrog to block on wakeup (or ex.hb), <late crouch teching on wakeup will stuff headbutts AND tech throws.> Footsies should utilize ALL of his normals, gratuitous use of preemptive cr.hk can be thwarted with ex.dashes because of its lengthy recovery, but can be beat with cr.hk xx super or with cr.hk xx FA (release) for crumple stun and <insert lengthy combo here>.
Moveset cliffnotes:
[LIST]
[]All ex.dash punches can be grabbed on reaction (Read: Debatable) but are relatiely safe on block except dash low and overhead.
[]All light dash punches can be punished on block by reversal cr.lp (if in range). This is especially true for lp.dash low [-8] and ex.oh [-5].
[]Punishing TAP is dependent on range, lvl 1 is unpunishable on block point-blank, lvl 2 TAP can be punished with reversal cr.lp on block IF in range.
[/LIST]
Ultra Options:
[LIST]
[]Can U2/U1/Super before final TAP of U1/Super.
[]U1 can be beat on reaction by late (non-reversal) ex.hb .
[]Always juggle PPKKK in the corner.
[/LIST]
Random Notes:
[LIST]
[*]cr.mp at match start beats all of Balrog’s options except ex.dash low/straight/smash. You may be able to buffer in headbutt to beat ex.dashes.
[/LIST]
[/details]
Gouken[details=Spoiler]Gouken is a tank with a VERY good fireball. Gouken can zone very well with his fireballs and generally control ALL of the space in front of him. Although at 1/4 screen you can jump over his lp/mp.fb he recovers in time to block (or parry). Gouken’s main weakness is that he’s SLOW, in terms of walk speed and his attacks. Up close, the main thing Gouken has to scare you is his bwd.throw, even with the late tech window. You HAVE to be able to tech his fwd and bwd.throw. Beware of laggy pokes (roundhouse) if your opponent is focus happy, FADC fwd/bwd.throw can punish st.hk and cr.hk.
On wakeup, Gouken has to tech throws to some degree. Only ex.tatsu offensively beats meaty throw. His ex/low/mid-parry beats meaty cr.lp (but you can mix in meaty lows, mids and whiffs to force him to burn meter.
Gouken has OK normals, although they’re really slow. All the close range normals don’t do much damage, but the long range ones like st.hp do a lot of damage. His nj.hp and j.hk cause knockdowns on hit/trade. Gouken may have the safest sweep in the game. It’s very fast (6f su) and very safe on block (-3f), Gouken’s will probably spam this move up close, it has a lot of recovery so ex.dashes, focus attacks, and raw invincibles punish it hard. His dive kick from the air hits OH.
Gouken’s fireball is almost like Guiles, they go full-screen and recover very quickly, dash ultra has to be more than psychic to punish one unless he charges (ex.fb is debatable). At 1/4 to 3/4 screen away do not jump over his non-hp.fb because he can lp.palm to beat your jump-in easy (and parry as well). His flip isn’t as good as Akuma’s, but the animation telegraphs IMO, look at his hands to have an idea of what he’s going to do. The main thing you will be afraid of is his air-parry. From neutral it’s safest to always backdash his flip or air-to-air him before his attack comes out (although this can be punished with high strength flips). Except for attacks on Balrog’s wakeup, he doesn’t have a way to beat air parry. Also his flip dive-kick has a really good hitbox, if you AA with headbutt always use EX or it’ll trade or be stuffed completely.
Moveset Notes
[LIST]
[]Dive kick hits OH
[]Beware the different tech (and startup) windows on his fwd and bwd.throw.
[]His sweep is extremely safe on block.
[]nj.hp, j.hk trades cause knockdown (beware when attempting AA headbutt)
[/LIST]
Ultra options:
[LIST]
[]U2 inflicts stun on block, but you can’t be stunned while blocking.
[/LIST]
Other notes:
[LIST]
[]WATCH YOUR STUN!
[]IF you get in throw range you MUST be able to tech throws.
[]Safe jumps and meaty cr.lp beat all of his attacks except counter.
[*]normal throw beats counter.
[/LIST]
[/details]
