The distance is tricky - I get punished a lot when I fuck it up - you have to be really far and hit them with the tail end of your foot on the slide kick.
Pros:
-They’ll try to counterattack on block, which you can punish. My bnb for this is c.mp but I’m sure there’s other things you can do if you’re a better player than me.
-They’ll get hit, then you repeat.
Cons:
-Wake-up ultras. Be really weary of these because I’ve eaten wakeup ultras and felt like a moron for slide kicking right into them.
So I had the pleasure of fighting a very good Sakura today and here is what I gathered from her and her panties:
Sakura is a rush character, you gotta keep that in mind before even starting the round
Your first mistake will be holding down-back for the entire round, being a turtle will not be rewarding against Sakura
Sakura is fast, she doesn’t do much damage, but her mixup game is good
She doesn’t have a reliable AA other thatn cr.HP and her Shoryuken
There is one jump atttack of hers that beats your j.HP and j.HK, but I don’t know which one, I think its j.HK, I didn’t try j.MK tho so that may be the answer
Some of her specials have alot of recovery, like her Shoryuken and that funny looking jump attack of hers.
I personally have trouble with rush characters like Fei Long, Sakura and Rufus, it may be the fact that Vega lacks an answer to these attacks, that and this was the first good Sakura player I have ever fought, it took me by surprise, I mean fighting a girl n her early 20’s with her panties exposed comes in a shock to me…
It’s the panties that do it!! I usually just keep up with my confusing keep away game because her DP moves a bit more forward than everyone else’s so by the time she starts it I can steer away from being hit. Then again I don’t think I’ve fought many good Sakuras so I’m looking forward to one kicking my ass and then putting the stuff you listed to work.
They’re bloomers :lovin:
Holding downback can be good if they’re locking you down (and she WILL be trying to do this often) so you can scarlet terror out. But This didn’t work agaisnt Fei Log because he’s too fast for it =\
I have 4470bp with Vega, but high BP doesn’t necessarily = good player. I honestly get all my wins against shoto/sagat/chun. I have trouble with Blanka and sometimes Rog. Worst matchup would be Blanka.
Anyways, here’s my strat for shoto:
Jumping rush attacks doesn’t work too well, especially against Ryu. He can simply trade with upper and ultra / super. Not pretty. Jumping against Akuma will make you eat a free demon ultra (don’t do wall jumps again Akuma either, the freeze frame of his ultra will cause him to grab you). Ken can simply uppercut or ultra you as well.
Ex Sky High claw pushes fireballs cleanly. I know this is common knowledge, but this is essential to the matchup.
Towards the beginning of the match I tend to spam cosmic heel/throw as they wake up. Once they start blind wake-up SRKing you, use that to your advantage. It’ll turn into a guessing game with him (in my case, most of the time) whiffing a blind wake up SRK in fear of the heel. Once they whiff, you get a free throw or cosmic heel / ex wall dive or down fierce punch. Just be careful of a wake up ultra. If they’re walking towards you from full screen, a ex wall dive (towards them, of course) will often catch them off guard and net you a free hit/throw.
Ultra beats fireballs. Again, this is common knowledge but you’d be surprised how many people in the 3-5k bp range still throw full screen fireballs when you have an ex or ultra.
Down medium punch beats most shoto pokes (down medium kick, ken’s forward medium kick, akuma’s double roundhouse kick). Alternating between this and cosmic heel definitely nets you great damage.
As said in previous posts, sliding under crossups followed by a cosmic heel or medium claw is great. Besides back flipping or ex scarlet terror, this is your best option for crossups (besides blocking).
Was fighting an El-Fuerte the other night that was giving me some trouble (although he quit after i tied it up). I know his splash prioritizes over most of my stuff, but he seemed to be able to use that AA twisty thing on my roundhouse launcher…seeing if neone knew of a way I could bait him better???
I’d pos rep you if I had any idea how. Good (and … kinda scary) stuff. It’s a good thing most opponents seem to be too busy trying to figure out which direction to block to buffer their shit.
I guess the moral of this story is go for Izuna and to try and cross up to break back charges. Or just stay on the ground.
I just had my first Rufus beatdown yesterday as well. I second everything you just said, and sadly out of the 10 or more matches we played I only won one of 'em.
– Be patient. You can block the dive kicks crouching, so that takes away from the mix-up a little bit.
– Downside to the above point is that nearly everything that fat fuck does is safe and if you try to interrupt or jump away you may very well have just sealed off 30-40% of your lifebar if not more.
– I had limited success with guessing when to focus attack his dive kicks. Trade-off is so small though that it was REALLY risky (wrong guess means Ultra).
– EX Jesus Kicks ruin everything you have on the ground. Not so much in the air, but as Jadow said you’ll eat a huge combo if he lands j.HK to EX Rapid Punch or whatever fatty calls it.
– Maybe keep him at mid-to-long range and fish for pokes/EX wall dives? I don’t remember hitting much with d/f+HK.
– The few things I could do for damage consisted of kara throws, dives (risky as hell on block), and occasional c.mp to EX Wall Dive or just randomly EX Wall Diving from mid screen. Sky High Claw also had some success when paired with whiffing Wall Dives at full screen or when used on their wake-up. I also u/b+HP a lot and poked to keep him the hell away from me. If he didn’t have EX, I tried to rush…dunno if that was a good idea, but I took any chance I got to get damage.
– On the plus side, I think combos using Jesus Kicks sometimes whiffed 'cause Vega’s a short little bastard when crouched.
Good for cross-ups and stuffing people that jump in the air. The active frames for Barcelona Claw Attack are quite high.
I agree though, you should be doing the Izuna most of the time because blocked walldives hurt you a lot. It kind of sucks how you have to be near-perfect to land it now.
I remembered this video from back in January from the SoCal Regionals, Tatsu fought Gooteck’s Balrog and Sextaro’s Rufus and won both matches, with Bebop hyping the match of course. I was analizing the video against Rufus and I noticed how Tatsu jumped backwards everytime Sextaro jumped in himself. I also noticed Scarlet Terror works pretty good against Rufus, probably because he is a fat fuck.
That being said I got murdered tonight 4 nil vs. a Ryu.
He was patient…very patient. Knew his cross ups (If I blocked I got tossed…need to work on techs), bit on NOTHING. If I flipped I found a little breathing room, but often it reset the situation. I couldn’t sell him on anything. Every wall dive was jump back RH whether I faked it or not. I had the most success (I lost in 5. Round 5 was really close) just outside of sweep range, but then he would retreat and I would be left looking for other ways in.
The hardest part was the fact that I couldn’t sell him on any fakes, which makes life much harder. I’m guessing, his game being what it is, block the jump in (if its not a cross up) , poke and be ready to tech.
I had a few matches with JR Rodriguez just now, and learned a few things vs. Akuma. As Bebop says in the first post, mp RCF is REALLY good for countering air fireballs. If you anticipate an LP frireball, you can dash and hit him while he lands, though it will trade, it’s in your favor, FOR ONCE. And if Akuma goes into crazy rushdown mode with his demon flips, you can jump and airgrab him out of the flip if you can anticipate it. EX Sky High also wrecks his sh*t.
If he jumps in and fireballs, you can Focus it and let the attack go before it lands, it’ll usually hit him. Also, CH will stuff his super, but it will NOT stuff the ultra. If he does Ultra, jump backwards, and you can usually punish him with a CH combo.
All in all, I lost 10/12 matches, though I came close in a lot of them, he’s really good. I got nervous and messed up a lot of combos too, combos I would normally be able to do in my sleep. Though that’s not my excuse for losing, he would have won those anyway. I learned a lot from fighting him though. I think I got perfected 5 times. =)
Oh, and Bebop was right, do NOT abuse jump back HP. If you use it too often, it loses it’s purpose and never hits. I used it sparingly vs. JR, but it hit every time BECAUSE of it.
