Thanks for the post, good perspective and helps keep me in the right direction! Gonna keep on working on playing patient and smart, not burning thru meter for no reason, and getting good spacing.
Your low Tiger Shots are your best footsie tools.
Pretty much a beginner/intermediate here. Is there some sort of guide on controlling space, spacing, good tiger shots vs bad tiger shots and keeping people out?
I am really struggling with this. I play and play but I can’t seem to make any progress in this area because it doesn’t seem to matter what I change, my opponents can very easily find a way in. Once there is a hard knockdown I’m trying to guess what’s coming on wakeup. Pretty soon I’m in the corner and stuck.
I know other posts in this thread have said “Learn to tiger, it takes a while” but I think my problem is I don’t even know what I’m doing wrong. I try to keep them out with tiger shots and get punished. So then I stop the tiger shots and try using normals or other things but I also lose that way.
I feel like if I can grasp this concept it will make a huge difference. It’s really standing in my way to making progress. Thanks.
Of course, but they are also one of the worst if you abuse them.
Stick up a couple of matches and we can have a look. It’s pretty hard to explain.
You have to sort of split the screen into zones in your head then play each zone slightly different. From far you would be aggressive with shots and looking to kara uppercut , from mid you can still be aggressive but you need a lot of button faints and crouching faints thrown in to bait jumps. From close you have to start using your st.mk, st.hk, cr.mp and throwing shots very carefully. Also make sure you are mobile, Sagat is SLOW and beginners make him look even slower. Make sure you dash up , dash back, focus etc etc. you have to move with Sagat. Too many new Sagat’s I play think they can just throw out some shots, some random tiger knee’s and slowly walk themselves back to the corner where the die.
Honestly the best thing you can do when cornered or KD’d is to block and block a lot, block for 10 seconds if you have to. Wait for a space to maybe EX knee or wait til they make a mistake.
Abuse your Tiger Shots. Sure… very occasionally my opponent manages to jump over my Tiger Shot and get a full punish. But honestly, I don’t get discouraged, quite the opposite actually. Why? The way I throw my Tiger Shots ensures that my opponent can NOT react to the Tiger Shot. Either he has to perfectly read I’m going to throw one or he randomly jumps in and gets rewarded. The reason I don’t mind is because I encourage my opponent to randomly jump in at me. In the long term jumping in like that against Sagat is not a viable strategy.
Your opponents brain works in patterns, sequences.
Also a tip for beginners is if you get bodied a lot playing Sagat. Whenever you lose a round look closely what part of the screen you are located. I don’t like to spoil Sagat entirely, I think you should figure it out yourselves, but another tip which is actually derived from my previous tip: the simplest way to win space with Sagat is to just take it.
Depends. Not a lot of match ups can be played the same, keep throwing close low shots and you’ll eat a focus crumple or a rekka to the face. Either that or you could eat a sweep for the hard KD.
I agree you can’t have any fear throwing shots but you can’t expect your opponent to play by the rules either. Good players won’t guess a jump they will read the your own patterns themselves or force you into bad positioning. Also some characters I’m quite happy to give up some space to , like Fei Long because my corner game is pretty good and I can toy with his own spacing.
The thing with Sagat is there’s no mould or rules. Playing Adon and then playing Abel is a competely different game, same with Sim or Guile. You can go through the cast like that, he probably has the most varied game play in the game.
You just need to know when to throw them. Sagat’s strongest quality is his fireball game. In one form or another you’re trying to force it, regardless of the match-up. It’s a brick wall your opponent needs to break through before he’s even allowed to come close and press buttons. And everytime your opponent gets close you’re trying to bring the match to a neutral game-state in order to push your fireball game. True there’s a lot of ways around the fireballs, but you have to keep throwing them.
If Sagat were a car dealer the cars he would sell are his fireballs. Some days he wears his blue tie, some days he wears his yellow tie. He’s selling the same thing.
I can agree with that, I’m still of the opinion though that more often than not it’s the low shot that get’s you in the shit. That’s not to say I don’t use them a lot because I do but the extra recovery really does matter. Mid range I’ll spray them all day, but a little closer I mix it up quite heavily.
Characters like Adon just bypass shots completely. Sometimes it’s better to drop the wall and actually go on the attack IMO.
OK there’s no need for me to stick up a couple of matches then; that’s basically how they go.
I’ve been turning this around in my head for a bit.
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My goal is to keep my opponent far? I assume this is where Sagat has the best advantage.
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Thinking about it, the mid is where I have trouble. Poorly timed tiger shots at that range get me killed. I’m pretty confused about what I should do in that range, but I’m starting to get the idea I should mix things up. Feints, dashes, focus dashes, etc. Not just tiger shots.
Thanks for that. Some feedback I’ve gotten elsewhere has been “you’re too passive” and I’ve taken that to mean I shouldn’t just sit there and block when the pressure is on. But obviously what they mean is your other point about moving around.
OK. Obviously my patterns are too predictable. Even from where on the screen I throw them is too predictable. I’ll have to break my habits.
I’m not sure what you mean yet. I’ll keep thinking about this.
Not exactly. Your goal is to just keep your opponent from getting into a range which is good for them and bad for you. It’s perfectly fine to sit mid range or closer. At these ranges you need to use your st.lk/st.mk or jabs/cr.mp cancelled into TS (there are a lot of buttons you can use but just some examples) to slowly keep the opponent out and throw your shots a bit more carefully.
I’m not sure if you are familiar with Bonchan or any other of the high level Sagat’s but load up some youtube video’s and concentrate on the spacing and the tools they are using.
Also play the player. If you play online against a lot of bad players you don’t need to make them jump , they will usually do it anyway. You don’t always need to zone, try experimenting with your own offence. Learn some block strings that end in safe knee’s and practice meaty cr.lk on characters with poor wake up options. There’s a lot to learn but they are subtle.
Your AA needs to be perfect with Sagat, you should rarely let a jump go unpunished.
so new change for ultra:
Light/Medium/Heavy Tiger Uppercut: Disadvantage on block after focus cancel dash forward increased (-5 on block). Angry scar version also affected
correct me if I’m wrong, but this means that TU with two bars, we won’t get the dash up throw/TU mix up/gimmick on blocked uppercut? (i assume it will get beat with any 5 or less frame move, or thrown.
correct me if I’m wrong, but that should mean sagats will have to stick with fadc backdash to stay safe if trying to avoid pressure.
What will that mean if sagat is knocked down in the corner?
it means if u tiger uppercut fadc on wakeup you get punished for it if u dash forward. In the corner u simply get punished either way.
It’s a fair change although it should be for reversals only. Nerfing more attacking options whilst making defence stronger makes this the most bat shit boring game in sf history.
quick note though, apparently the frame disadvantage nerf is only for regular uppercuts/reversal moves, ex uppercuts will not have that penalty, although it will cost 3 bars for the safe uppercut & followup pressure.
They should have made it Angry Scar too. It already costs you a bar anyway.
It’s yet another reason not to attack. This game’s going to be played at full screen…
super simple question: is there or is there not a safe jump setup for 5f reversals? Can’t find that anywhere.
Yeah , forward throw, heavy TK tiny pause jump HK works on 5 framers.
He’s got some in the corner as well if you want those?
There are soooooo many bro.
The one Highlandfireball mentioned, that one can also work as an OS.
Forward throw in the corner, Cr.hp into cr.mp jump forward
Back throw back into the corner, crouch cr.mk, jump forward.
I’m pretty sure forward throw in the corner, forward dash, backwards dash and jump forward is a safe jump on 5 frame reversals.
Forward corner throw, dash up, hk, neutral jump mk, another safe jump on 3 frame dp’s, yes, 3 frames lol
You can do foward throw , LTS , jump HK as well from memory I think, I don’t use the corner jumps much unless its one of the rare unblockable situations