The question now becomes, who does more damage - SSFIV Sagat or vanilla Guile?
In any case.
Gentlemen, have you paid attention to other characters? From the looks of it, Dictator’s U2 has the ability to punish fireballs from full screen away. Supposedly, Claw’s U1 also goes through fireballs almost anywhere but full screen away while U2 is a full screen slide attack that looks as though it will easily go under high Tiger Shots. E.Honda’s U1 may function the same as Claw’s U2 expect that it will travel full screen above low Tiger Shots. According to early reports, Blanka’s U2 punishes fireball attempts at a large distance too. Of course, Seth, Abel, Chun Li’s and Boxer’s dash U1s are old news. Keep in mind as well that some characters have also gained projectile U2s that travel full screen.
Please flame me. Call me names. Do what you have to do, but this is how I picture many of Sagat’s match ups AT THIS POINT.
Generally speaking, Sagat will have the advantage at the beginning of each round. You will zone your opponent with Tiger Shots just as you have become accustomed to do so in Street Fighter IV. Obviously, everything will do less damage now, including Tiger Shots, Tiger Uppercuts, f+HK, and perhaps even st.HK. You also take more damage. Eventually, however, your opponent will close the gap, move at mid range, and play footsies with Sagat, which is where his opponents will dominate him. Sagat may still use st.HKs, st.MKs, st.LKs, and cr.MPs to keep his ground and exchange hits. You may land a Tiger Knee, which does pathetic damage, indeed, but it is the move he needs (with cr.LK -> EX low Tiger Shot out of the picture) to send an opponent full screen away resetting his zoning game. At this moment, though, your opponent will probably have lost 50% of his/her life, meaning that the revenge meter will be at least 50% full. If you are playing against, let us say, Dictator who has selected U2, you can no longer zone as well. The Dictator player will close the gap rather easily at this point; he will move in at mid range and play footsies again whether you like it or not, and this “mid range” will ultimately result in Sagat’s downfall as his footsies are tremendously limited due to his foot speed.
The only thing that can ensure Sagat’s high mid/top tier status is the Angry Scar as that is a new addition which properties are not yet fully understood by any player. However, we need it to be effective, and by “effective” I do not mean some flashy combos that you may see in combo videos. The move has to be genuinely good, not a mere gimmick.