So far the ones I’ve flagged as terrible (and I mean terrible) are Juri, Nash and Balrog.
The fact you cant punish Rog straight makes that match free as a bird for him. Rog players leave brain on floor that was already on floor anyway.
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Like I said, with the stuff I do and generally the fact that my internet is like gigabit fast, I dont have problems with most matches online. I just got done playing with Jerom who plays on PC and lives on the other side of the of the US from me in Cali. We always list as 4 or 5 bar connect and its about as smooth as it can get.
If you want I’ll invite you to a PC match tomorrow and see how good of a connect we can get. Frost is about the gold standard for dealing with Euro people (not dropping Falke s.MP, s.MK link or s.HP one hit confirms is a good sign), but I have had a few Euro people I fought where it got sketchy. Since one sided is a thing hopefully it’s not something where I dont see anything and your shit is flying all over the place lol.
Also you can EX DP Birdie EX bull head, was hoping st.lk would reach or a regular dp, but no luck.
VT or in general?
I suspect it is my side tbh, other people I played with yesterday reported it as playable when I would suddenly have them halfway into a jump above me.
But sure, we can try. CFN is Naeras. I’m profoundly terrible at this game though, keep that in mind.
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I’ve managed to come across a few non G/Sagat players and one super crazy Ryu and it’s super hard to tame full crazy with Sag
I was telling @FatalError about Juri. Yeah sure SFIV Juri is different from V, but Juri’s V Skill alone should rock Sagat’s world, let alone her other options. Funny enough I think Sagat may do alright vs Sim this time. He can’t put horizontal fireballs on the screen and his gameplan is about hovering over standard height hori fireballs. While Sagat’s high tiger shots can constantly flood the space he likes to V Skill in. Plus his heavy kick buttons, j.MP and tiger uppercuts seem great for threatening that space he likes to stay in.
Rog sucks for Falke also. I think Bison and Rog are her two worst matchups. She has other “difficult” matchups but they’re either zoning based matchups like Menat where I dont mind playing life lead games in or some other character that scurries along the ground easily but she severely outranges and keeps from going airborne to make up for it. Luckily my Falke has gone from getting rolled over by anybody playing Bison or Boxer to actually being able to beat more of them unless they somewhat outplay me.
Oh and it’s good to see the highlander return to the king and fire shot again. I would have bet and lost that they weren’t going to put karas in for Sagat, but I guess they felt it was that much of an identity for him from IV and adds some tech and spacing options for him. Glad they put it back. Plus now Fang can kara too woo.
So I’ve been thinking about it…s.LK is cheaper than I was already thinking about and history lesson sets it up.
So if you go back to O.Sagat. What was a key thing that made him super cheap? 2nd hit of s.LK was cancelable. Allowed him to just bully the shit out of people in mid range with safe button into shot and comboed at everything but close to max range.
Vanilla Sagat for some reason they forgot how cheap 2nd hit s.LK cancel was. So they instead made his s.LK one hit and made it cancelable (no knee, just the long kick) . Which allowed him to again dominate mid range into safe ass shots and people hated it. s.LK, HK shot comboed from everything except his toes. Capcom hated it too because they reinstated the “1st” hit of his s.LK and made it so you could only cancel off the first shorter knee hit.
Now SFV is here and we have what’s basically Vanilla Sagat properties on a one hit s.LK except he has better walk than IV Sagat did and even more +/safer shots than Ultra. I’m not sure if Capcom forgot that far range cancelable s.LK was removed from a ton of Sagats between SF2, Alpha, CVS and IV for a reason, but here we are. Let’s see how it goes.
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What made o sagat cheap was 3 things:
Speed of tiger shots.
Damage of tiger shots on hit and block.
Damage of tiger uppercut.
Outsideoif these things he’s just a baseline character. St.lk was good to great but wouldn’t have been winning matches on its own.
Biggest difference from o.sagat to ST sagat (has the super) was ST sagats fireballs and TU were way less cheap. It’s like using a different character. Like using ryu fireballs then switching to ken and trying to use his fireballs.
Vanilla gat on the other hand had lots of dumb stuff but the thing that put him really overeveryine else was the insane damage.
TU fadc>fhk>ultra did no lie about 75% damage to chun in the arcade. I know. I got hit with that shit often.
Still would say that far cancel s.lk for Sagat is a huge deal considering how historically the amount of games he has it in is very small and that he only survived Vanilla IV with it. Like shotos and guile can’t tap you with a light button that can’t be whiff punished and string that into a fireball that can combo and true block string at the right range.
Though do also agree that the things you mentioned on a basic level are powerful.
St.Lk was a huge deal in SFIV. When the arcade version of USFIV was rocking (i.e. before the console release) he had gotten back that cancel from vanilla, and he was suddenly considered the best character in that version of the game. They removed it in the console patches, and that by itself reduced him to a decent-but-not-great character.
In ST it was really good, but not a huge deal compared to his retarded fireball/uppercut.
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Crouch and standing heavy punch can be late canceled for hit confirm
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So they actually tried to reinstate 2nd hit cancel in ultra and took it away? Lol. Guess that went with Juris 5F c.mk that supposedly Aiai himself said was too stupid.
People considering pre console patch ultra Sagat the best in the game makes a lot of sense. It just allows him to dominate mid range in ways that are familiar to how Elena spammed up Ultra with full combo conversion light buttons that you couldn’t even bother to whiff punish.
Definitely a big thing that the veterans and pros aren’t quite thinking about for this Sagat. I guess you could say the trade priority system alone helps keep it in check a bit, but if you use it safely and more reactively could definitely have similar implications
In 4, st.lk was a major problem. In ST, not really. His st.lk was annoying in ST but it wasn’t 4 st.lk that couldn’t be wiff punished, yet wiff punished everything and was hard to counter hit. In 4 it was extremely annoying to deal with. Having played a lot of higher level bats in both 4 and ST… the ST gats were definitely less about the st.lk abuse at higher levels. At lower ones, sure. But those guys tended to be easy to beat and never really put the fear of gat in a negro.
G’s Sthp can be one-hit confirmed even without the crush counter OS, feels like Cammy’s fierce punch in that regard
But try having his VTII active and try one hit-confirming with any of his normals that normally aren’t cancellable
ALL of said normals (stmk, crmk, sthk in particular, his best non-cancellable pokes) get delay cancel frames into the V-trigger attack. It’s like they all turn into Ken’s crmk with that active. It’s pretty neat.
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I think G need to be a bit faster.
Overall though, i honestly believe that Cody is still probably the best S3 character so far.
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Turns out Punk can beat Tokido if nobody’s watching and when he’s not on the tier-whoring train:
Watching this I’m kind of surprised he’s always lost so bad before. Karin gets about 30% damage and complete corner carry off of one hit confirm mid-screen. That said I have no clue about this matchup.
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Nerves matter.
Edit: speaking of which: did Tokido beat Punk this year as well? I didn’t pay attention.
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Sagat has made me do something I haven’t done in years… Search Youtube for match footage to get a better idea of how to deal with certain matches.
Seems like @DevilJin_01 was right. The difference between having Cammy run a train on Sagat, and Sagat dominating the match really is as simple as taking the air way from her. Bonchan only misses like two AA TUs on divekicks the whole game. My reactions aren’t what they used to be from my days running sets back home with London heads, so it’ll take some serious concentration.
Also, Sagat’s st.LK is buff as fuck and might actually be one of the best normals in the game period.
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Alright, as promised/threatened, here are the ramblings of an EVO initiate:
About EVO
This was my first time attending EVO after several years of watching it online. For anyone that can go and is a fighting game enthusiast, I highly, highly recommend it. Even cutting out all the eSports production shit that I could give or take, it is an amazing thing to be in a huge convention hall full of people who are all talking about, buying stuff for/from, cosplaying as characters from, and playing fighting games. It is almost worth the trip alone just to walk around and see all the stuff there and what people get into.
Pertho mentioned this at another point talking about EVO but I want to re-iterate it because it is interesting and especially relevant: while there is a lot of talk about the FGC, what you really have with the FGC are a bunch of smaller communities of folks playing similarly themed games that can sort of coalesce around that idea. EVO really highlights that because the way everything it set up really highlights how many communities come together to form “the FGC” as we know it. It’s not even a stew; more like a buffet or salad bar. No real point here, just something interesting to see (and also why I can imagine it can be a bitch pulling people together as a TO for smaller events).
The event itself was run decently well, so far as I could tell. More than enough space for the different pools of players to spread out so nothing felt cramped or like people were playing games right on top of each other which is fairly logistically impressive considering the fuckloads of people there at any given time. The facilities in the convention hall were fine – bathrooms were okay by those standards (though I never dared the stalls) and the concessions were at least in line with the regular Vegas resort shakedown prices – but the best thing is that you can easily just walk out of the convention center and walk like 5 mins around Mandalay Bay to find anything else you could want. And although they made people ditch non-water drinks they were carrying in, no one gave me static for my water bottle or checked my backpack so I started every day with a decent store of snacks and water.
Decent footwear is key. It is still a big ‘ol convention hall which means you’re just thudding around on a hard floor the whole day. Even with sitting down to play games you’re still going to be doing plenty of standing and walking so plan appropriately. Chairs seem to migrate as the day goes on and people want to crowd around certain pools matches so you may not always be able to find a place to chill. Though worse comes to worse you can just queue up for some random casual match just to sit long enough to get bodied.
Speaking of casuals, with this being my first tournament event I didn’t know what to expect for casuals. Turns out, it is exactly casual: people just post up where the fuck ever, how the fuck ever. Some use the BYOC area, some post up on the pools stations after the pools start winnowing down (though in a lot of cases it was the players that finished higher in the pools just sticking around and playing), and people hopping on any old monitor that was around (BenQ had demos of the head-to-head monitors up as an example and folks were on and off that all day). Now I know for next time. I am very minorly tempted to pick up a PS4 on the cheap at some point and load SF5 on it just so I can set up shop at the BYOC area but that is an extravagance I’ll probably have to do without (plus I’d hate to lug that and the Obsidian out to Vegas).
Sunday finals were cool. Was really easy to get in and out of the area; just had to keep getting the ticket scanned. So if you wanted to dip out between games, totally doable (and exactly what I did during Melee and DBFZ). I paid for a floor seat which I would do again despite the premium. It was nice to know I had the seat to come back to and I actually got super lucky: aside from the guy sitting in front of me being tall and animated, the seats around me were empty all day. Wouldn’t always get that lucky but great when it works out that way. I think it is most worth it if you want to watch enough of the games live (3/5, at least 2/5). Otherwise if you’re just there for one game it is probably more cost effective to get gen admission seating and snipe a good spot between game transitions.
About SF5
As stated earlier, I failed at getting casual matches in so the only games I played all weekend were in the SF5 tournament. Even with so much of the weekend spent watching though, I feel like I learned a lot. Being able to watch so many people play (many of which are very good players) was very insightful and I had some legit lightbulb moments. Heavy caveat to this: SF5 is the first fighting game I’ve put real time into playing against other people, so a fair chunk of these things are probably rote to vets of previous games. But I wanted to share for anyone else that is likewise still learning how to get better at this game.
The first one was sort of a reinforcement of something I’ve been thinking for a little while: I’m too “by the numbers” in this game. Up until fairly recently I’ve been playing SF5 very “safe”: don’t press while negative, don’t press on wake up, don’t press after plus frames, don’t throw out negative moves that can be blocked (even unpunishable ones), only do tight frame traps, stuff like that. While a lot of those are good directives, if you always play by the numbers and by the book in this game I feel it is easy for your opponent to get a sense of your rhythm and tendencies. Calculated challenges are necessary to keep your opponent guessing. I started to realize this when I thought about how much better I felt playing UNIST: it is because I don’t know what is “right” or “wrong” in that game so I’m more willing to try shit out and see what works in each situation, as opposed to coming to a scenario with a pre-arranged idea of what I should or shouldn’t do. At least in this game I think you need to play “smart random” sometimes.
The second thing is that I came away feeling like I can get anywhere with enough practice and experience. That may not actually be true – at some point I’ll hit the limits of what my old man brain and hands can do – but watching the really good players impressed upon me how much that pays off. You saw it in the GF – Problem seemed to have more experience and research into the Bison vs. Akuma match up than Tokido did the opposite (and in fairness I think most players would) – but I also saw it during pools. It is one thing to watch someone playing really well on a stream; for whatever reason that skill was impressed upon me much more when I saw it in person. I guess it is more the reinforcement that these players aren’t grown in a vat and periodically set loose to ravage the competitive fighting game world. They’re guys and gals like the rest of us that have put in the time to be badasses. Except for CJ Truth. That guy is clearly a robot. Basically I need to keep at it, get games in, and keep practicing. Don’t get too down on myself for when things don’t go the way I’d like; so long as I’m learning and trying to work on good habits, even losses are good experience in the long run. I sort of knew that stuff already but it was impressed upon me how much of a long haul it is to get really good at this or any game. Gotta settle in for the grind, whether it is in training mode or in matches.
Overall I came away from the weekend feeling massively motivated to continue working at SF5 and UNIST. I haven’t magically developed more free time, unfortunately, but if I spend what time I have focusing on practicing smartly and I spend my match time learning, I think I’ll do just fine. Whatever that means in the end. Hopefully one of these years it means I can make it to day 2 of pools but however far I get in general it’ll be fun working to get there.
Last rah-rah bit: fighting games are great. Even though we are a bunch of disparate tribes under a really loose banner that common thread still unites a bunch of people in a cool way. Like I’m pretty sure one of the people I played knew just enough English to get matches rolling but we were able to play a set no problem and just from watching him play I learned stuff. Not a lot of hobbies have that feature and I think it is pretty cool that we can all be united by mashing buttons.
I also managed to fight off another round of character temptation with G and decided to stick with Laura for the foreseeable future. Although she has some issues to her I still really like the way she plays and more practically I think my bigger issues are fundamental things that shifting characters isn’t going to fix anyways, so I might as well stick with a character I enjoy and know while I work on that stuff. I do want to get back to work on a pocket Falke, both because I like the character and because then I’ll be primed to capitalize when S4 comes and buffs both those ladies up. Surely they’ll both get buffed, right? 
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Going to have to watch this later. I know trade DP with Akuma’s air fireballs takes a chunk of health off of Akuma and it sends him flying back regardless, even if Akuma’s in VT so fuck respecting that move.
Also crmp is a good counter poke tool for those CC fishing Akuumahs.
Edit: Also by habit I still try to fHK after a trade DP, I’m wondering if it’s a big enough gap to kara dp instead