I wouldn’t say it comes natural but you will grow as you gain experience. With Sagat you must AA everything. That should be your main concentration with baits and movements. Once you teach people not to jump your FB game grows.
What you should get used to is going from crouch to standing whilst buffering shots and uppercuts. It keeps your hands warm and also fakes out your opponent. Watch top Sagat replay’s an watch how they are always “wiggling” with Sagat. (not really sure what else to call that :D).
In all seriousness though. i’ve mained sagat since vanilla. I place top 8 in every australian major for over a year and won local tourneys and always place top 3-5 havent a handfull of times over 3 years. Most sagats are not good enough why? because you have to be absolutely godlike with him to get anywhere. In australia i’m in the top 2% and i fight akumas non stop as well as bisons viper cammy dhalsim fei a top vega and a seth as well as a top ibuki and top guy. Now all these characters not one of them sagat has the advantage over if anything the best he has is 5-5 do the math. You have a character that is weak on wake up. no low 3f attacks. not very good normals compared to the majority of the cast. not much damage unless you uppercut fadc or get a jump in. And a character that wants to keep you away as well as slow walk speed and a bad backdash. compare it to say cammy akuma or viper. Big damage from most situations great mixups (which i didnt mention sagat doesnt really have) great stun capacity . better option selects and better wake up. Hmmm but maybe we are not good enough even though we’ve placed top 8 for years and done well against international players. well this is my answer i know im more then good enough its just my character is not very good. If i had put this same effort into akuma or ryu. i wouldn’t be sitting here thinking why havent i won a major yet. i woulda been wondering which country i wanna travel to and blow up a big name.
I know your good enough mate. You’ve kicked my as enough times online over the years! I agree with pretty much everything you said about Sagat. It’s shitty because no character has had to suffer such a dramatic change from brilliant to average. Not that I can think of anyway. Apart from Yang who admittedly was also tied up with Sagat whilst the butt fucking was getting handed out.
Facts are facts. I wasn’t being cocky or full of myself just telling it like it is. 4 years putting huge effort into one character and having fought many good players im confident in my game and i know im good enough. As royce 5’9 would say… I’m the shit fool derp.
What exactly does cancelling a normal into angry charge do? I saw KOK do cl.hk xx angry charge, something i’ve never seen before, and i’m left wondering if you get some crazy frame advantage, if there are any mixup or new combos possibilities from that.
The saddest part is, Sagat still has that stigma that hes top tier because he was associated with that ‘pick a top tier’ video from Sanford in vanilla. Nobody appreciates it when a Sagat player wins and they dont recognize how hard it is. Hes mid tier yet people hardly cheer for him winning unlike other mid tier characters. Viscant tweeted something about UMVC3 and Phoenix recently that I think applies here:
‘[S]#[/S]WSRK It’s not even top tier hate. People still hate Phoenix and she’s not a top 10 character. Scrubs care more about “hype” than gameplay’
Now obviously 2012 Sagat is worse than UMVC3 Phoenix but the principal still applies.
I’m pretty sure there wont even be any Sagat players in 2013 as Sanford will not be picking him, and Ryan Hart is most likely dropping him for Yun/Cammy. The last win for Sagat will be Power Up 2012 with Sanford vs Wolfkrone. The metagame has shifted too far for characters like Sagat to be competitive really.
True. I’m mainly a marvel player so I’m out of the loop when it comes to japanese SF4 metagame and the progress of the new and old players. Does he not come across the same problems?
Edit: lol just did a youtube search for this months uploads and I all I see is ‘bonchan (akuma)’.
Sagat is the most played character in japanese arcades and pretty much every 5v5 team has a sagat in it (in which case he’s awesome, because he blows some characters and your teammates can cover your bad matchups). Personally i find sagats very awesome to watch, but most people prefer agressive playstyles over impeccable zoning.
Sagat get’s hard bodied often because no one respects his damage like they did in Vanilla. He was nerfed beyond repair, the only nerf he needed from Vanilla was damage…keep all his frame data the same and just reduce the damage(that’s it).
It’s annoying to be a sagat main because Ryu mains cried during AE that cr.mk became ass, and they got it back+other great buffs(more damage fb and one hit SRK). All I want as Sagat is st.lk back, the way the game is designed with all these rush down bullshit characters, it would be nice to get back a normal that helps you put up a better fight against that…
Highland hit the nail on the head, in order for people to respect your ground game you have to be godly with your AA game. Sagat is all about the AA game, if you got that you can do a lot with sagat.
There is a Sagat named Mosh(I’m sure many of you know him), if you ever watch him play Sagat you will see how different he is from every other sagat. He actually has an amazing mixup game as well as a godly agile Sagat.
Sup guys, I want to pick up a secondary character to play against Sagat instead of Zangief. What are some good suggestions that arn’t Fei/Cammy/Seth/Akuma? I’ve looked around and seen mixed answers everywhere. Heard a lot of Gouken/Juri/Sim.
Quick question. so i know F+HK kara TU are used over lk as they start up much faster and lk has alot more lag but what are the main uses behind the f+lk kara cancels? I can think
fireballs
tiger knees for movement
I have read multiple times that f+lk is is pretty slow to try to use as an anti air so i figure that one is out.
Is there any time you might want to use a f+lk kara tiger uppercut other than for char specific punishes?
The only other think i can think of for f+lk kara cancels is trying to snipe people at near full screen with a kara ex Tiger knee since its safe on block but the damage seems so pathetic that it doesnt seems worth it.
well, fwd lk is great in footsies, as it hits low, and can do a safe string into cr lp xx LTS, and easy link into cr. lp xx anything on counter hit. most folks are expecting a shot to jump over for easy jump in combo, cr. lp can be a great surprise attack when people are walking towards you outside of poke range.
as far as the cancel, it has further range than the fHK kara TU/TK, and a more lenient input window. opponent might be out of range for a safe kara knee with HK, but the fwd LK kara will get the job done, and TU is fast enough to hit people with slow, lofty jumps (chun, dhalsim).
Great mobility too, i know you said kara ex TK damage seems pathetic, but its safe pressure = good mixup opportunities. For instance, against dhalsim, if hit him with a ex LTS, since it knocks down, I’ll kara LK ->ex TK to get across the whole screen to pressure him on wakeup. If he blocks, I’ll go for throw/cr lk string/if i think he’ll press buttons or tech throw, straight TU him.
LK kara, why use it? like most things in street fighter, its all about spacing.
