I’ve heard that top level Japanese players consider Sakura and Gouki God-tier in Alpha 3 and I was wondering, since sho-sho-sho became discovered… is Sakura rising to a similar status in CVS2?
Obviously many characters have potent strats and tactics, especially the top tier, and Sagat/Blanka will always be strong, but it seems to me that in Japanese footage (and increasingly US) Sak seems to boss any round she’s involved in, and she’s usually involved in more than one. Because she’s got such a solid poking and anti air game it seems the opponent has to play defensive, and yet she also has the offensive capabilities to just smash straight through turtlers. Am I overreacting or is she taking over CVS2?
She is very good in cVSsnk2. she is like Ryu and with some extra moves. its like you said she can smash straight through turtlers.
i also think Yuri is very good in cVSsnk2.
CvS2 Sakura is weak. She was unbeatable top tier last year, but everybody I know (including myself) have been dropping her recently. Aside from about one of the Japanese and one of the Americans, nearly every person I know who loves A-Sak in the US is a roll cancel scrub and is easy to beat.
Stay out of range of RC qcb+MK. Roll though and painfully punish every single RC qcb+HK. Sakura has a major weakness again far jump in moves like Sagat j.HK and Yamazaki j.MK. Meaty attack her all day, since no person (short of a person using a programable pad) is going to be able to one frame reversal a roll cancel on you every time.
The best and cheapest thing Sakura has going for her is random CC activate in your face and start with the “unblockable” low short. Walk back and forth far s.HK is really, really good, but it’s definately not unbeatable. It does 1000 damage, but whenever Sagat presses d.HP at the same time, Sakura takes 2000 points of counter hit damage.
RC hurricane and spark are really good on P and K groove, and shoshosho kills P-Groove on turtle power alone. Sakura has good solid tactics without super too - good normals with good priority, a dive kick, and a really good cross-up. As for lack of good anti-air, there are other things you can do about jump kicks besides waiting for them to do it and anti-airing.
A lot of really good characters in fighting games have bad wakeup games. You shouldn’t base your belief in a character around what they can do after a knockdown. It’s nice as a backup plan, but you should be going for not getting knocked down at all. Sometimes, even with a good wakeup game, blocking is the best option.
GOOD sakura players aren’t gonna RC hurricane kick when their opponent is out of range. And there are a ton of characters who have a weakness against far jump in moves like Sagat j.hk and yamazaki mk. Meaty attacks work… except you have to knock her down first… which is a bitch to do because of her excellent footsie game.
Umm, maybe I should start using sak… How is her CC done exactly? I think you start it with a low short and just mash Jab shoryuken, am I right? Do you need timing or is it easy?
I use C Sakura and generaly do OK, IMO she’s good when she gets going but takes damage tooo quick, also I cant counter sagat effectivly with her, he just fucks my Sakura up majority of the time.
Tell you wot Lebowsk1, Pulpasis at times makes C sakura seem god tier.
Yeah, you really need to watch out for that jump of his and crouching fierce as well. The good part is Sagat can’t spam s.LK on you because you have your Sakura far s.MP to counter him. Far s.MP is probably the anti-Sagat move in the game I think. It builds meter really quickly so you can get your A-groove meter up (although it’s useful in C as well), it stuffs the s.LK, and it beats d.HP at times. Sagat can use his far s.HP to counter you, but that’s what you have your roll, sweep, and walk back far s.HK for.
Good Sakura’s versus Sagat --> far s.MP, far s.HK, almost nothing else until you get the knockdown
Do you know how to quickly tap to get rapid whiff s.LP’s out? Those beat Sagat’s moves a lot of times for no reason as well.
Focus on building your meter up, but walk back and forth far s.HK is simply the strongest gameplan you can go for I think. Every fierce attack that Sagat sticks out, you can kick his limb back for free every time. If you’re playing against scrub Sagat, that’ll frustrate him into doing something random like a roll or a jump in from less than optimal range (ie. too close… your d.HP anti-air is free then).
On the flip side, never go for anything random with Sakura yourself. When I’m playing as Sagat, I’m always specifically looking for scrub Sakura to lose patience and do random a jump-in dive kick, roll-in, RC’d qcf+P, or RC’d qcb+MK/HK. As long as I have my finger on my Tiger Uppercut, d.MK, fierce, and roll buttons, Sakura is going to lose a lot of health every time she tries something dumb like that on me.
Sagat can’t duck your close s.LP. Once you get close and have Sagat cornered, short of alpha countering a hurricane kick, it’s ridiculously hard for Sagat to get out. Keep abusing walk forward s.LP’s, counter hit close s.HP xx qcf+MP, walk forward low shorts/throw, and block string that make Sagat have to block all three hits of Sak’s qcb+HK. The cheap frame advantage you get from qcb+HK, qcf+HP, and the super fast speeds of close fierce, down fierce, and low short (which all lead to knockdown combos), make it so Sagat doesn’t stand a chance once he’s cornered. :tdown:
As for the the midscreen battle, guard break and damage potential (rush her down with FIERCE!), and punishing each other’s mistakes however, Sagat is simply the beast IMO. I think everybody should try using him out for yourselves first before just dismissing my opinion and jumping on the A-scrub fanwagon.
Cheers for the info kcxj, that MFer Sagat better watch his damn steps from now. I’m gonna give him another eyepatch and then beat the blind bastard around. LOL
Lebowsk1 Let Pulpasis know when you are spendin time in London. Go out for a Bev and then bust some fighters if possible. P
A European country that doesn’t hate us. I feel the love already. As long as nobody loses to Evil/French people doing roll, roll, super anymore I’ll be a happy man.
Just one random thing:
When I was playing BAS and watching him play this weekend in casual, he was anti-airing people with RC jab DP into CC. Since Sakura can build meter pretty quickly just playing her normal game and has a solid enough defense to keep people from rushing her freely even with the get-off-me effect of CC activation, it was really frustrating to fight his Sakura.
Then again, most of the people who played didn’t have good enough Sagats to do much more against BAS than jump into anti-air CCs, do Roll super, and get kicked in the face for whiffing fierces. I know I saw a lot of problems in my game from all the times BAS OCV’d me :sad:
Check out Vol.2 and Vol.4 there, savage stuff in the corner exactly how you described it. Mind you my opinions are based on watching loads of vids as opposed to actual play, something I hope to change once I’m back in London.
