Personally Im torn between what I’ve coined in my head - Active sagat and quiet Sagat. It’s not quite as simple as Active Sagat in good matches and quiet Sagat in bad.
What I have figured out this last few weeks is that sometimes it’s better not to play the SF5 meta of “it’s my turn now”. I’ve been playing mid range from quite far out with his st.mk and st.hk and it seems to be working even against good players ( players in the top 2000 etc). Then choosing my spots for AA.
Also saving the meter might be essential and I think his V2 is a little underated, although it’s not as good as dime makes out lol.
I guess to put it another way, you really need to know match ups, even small details. It’s probably more important than his own game plan.
I mean, that IS the strength of the character. He doesn’t play like an SFV-character, and he’s good at shutting stuff down, punishing things and forcing mistakes. But most players won’t do that when they can pick some generic SFV unga and win with a quarter of the effort.
I also agree on the meter management part. About 70% of the rounds I see Bonchan win are finished with a combo into super.
That’s where the game becomes mentally draining. I mean zoning was always mentally tough , but now you’ve got to deal with your work amounting to nothing.
I think he’s a couple tweaks away from being a legit threat.
Before you could take a half-life ultra and fight your way back. The v system is sometimes too overwhelming, 400 damage, throw hit mix up into random EX move.
I need to try some invictus. Heard nothing but great stuff. I’ve already got acqua and creed though plus the Roberto cavalli so I think I’m good on citrus scents. I’ve got a couple varvatos fragrances as well, but I’ve never been complimented on them. Wore acqua for a week and got compliments.
Need to check out this one million stuff as well. Also need to try out Tom ford grey Vetiver… supposed to be a life changer
You know looking at my bad match list there on repeat reading you could look at it like - can this character put me in the corner with fuck all effort then I can’t get out.
Would you care to elaborate on why those characters in particular trouble him? Bison, Balrog, Menat and Rashid I imagine it’s because they can invalid his Shots and have the normals to trouble him. Ken, I’m not sure why. Is Kara DP viable against Ken’s FB?
Ken unlike the other shotos has a lot of “I’m just Gona throw this shit out” that ends up sending you into the corner. I’m not sure if it’s definitely bad yet, as I’ve not played it enough.
I mean ken doesn’t really need his FB like the others do. Kara DP is a hard read.
Balrog for obvious reasons, can’t punish the rush punches with any kind of consistency plus his V skill. Bison his V skill means he can turtle you or rush you down with his insane buttons. Basically there’s no part of the screen where sagat is stronger than Bison. Menat - dash too slow, jump in rubbish. Knee rubbish. Shots get reflected. Can’t do anything.
Rashid generally beats plasma characters hard.
There are other bad ones, just not notable characters. Blanka I think may be bad , juri I think is bad. Falke seems like she’s bad. So overall he possibly has 7-8 bad matches, which is on the high side if you’re talking about “good” characters. Even though some of them are obscure.
Maybe it’s me…but I don’t see Sagat having a tournament life if he posted as hard as you’ve described. Could he fall into the Ryu catergory in that why would you pick him if you could play Guile, Akuma or Menat?
How bad is TK in general? I found some spacing where it could be up to +2 oB. But I’ve seen Bonchan get punished by 3F trying to use it at neutral.
You need some twitter shit for it to be plus. I mean the twitter videos that show some 1% situation and the comments are like “who said sagats knees suck!” - 5 likes.
The problem is two fold, not only are they slow to start up, the hurt box is on the outside of the hitbox by a fair margin. Any kind of random poke will knock you clean out of it starting up or traveling, so you have a small window that it’s any use.
Basically if you’re a pro, no he’s probably not worth picking, but if youre me , then it’s fine. I think the difference between Sagat and Ryu is that Sagat has a gameplan, even if it only works half the time.
With how volatile this game is, are they not viable in catching random dashes? Or should Sagat players be looking to punish dashes with normal xx special?
Honestly, it’s kinda sad to hear that The King won’t be showing up that much in tournies. I had hopes that Sagat would bring back traditional SF on tournament streams. TS,TS, TS jump AA DP. But I guess not.
Speaking of AA DPs, why did Bonchan miss so many uppercuts during SCR? There was one particular match (I think against Chris T) where he got hit by jump-ins all day which was really weird to see. Did they have some laggy set-up or something?
I think Sagat and Falke share a bunch of problems in their gameplans: they’re both trying to keep control of the neutral in a game with a greatly volatile ground game and where jump-ins are greatly rewarded, and neither of them can rely on strong offense to make up for it like Guile and Menat do.
The difference between Falke and Sagat is that Falke doesn’t have real fireballs and has to rely on her buttons a lot but she’s a lot easier to use overall once you get over holding down a button for her projectiles.
And by the way, in my experience Falke seems to beat Sagat. I’ve beaten people much higher in points and rank than me just by playing lame, messing their Tiger Shots with my low projectiles and then anti-airing and poking once they get antsy and try to get in on me.
Eating a jump in with Falke hurts so damn much, so yeah, she has that problem on her gameplan and I can see Sagat having it as well.
One jump in that they get and you pretty much lose all the work you have done with her till that point.
Regular or intense? I’m thinking about buying a perfume for the first time in my life, and Invictus pulled my attention, since it got 5 stars in the eshop I looked.
Before anyone ask, I’m not an aspiring Smash player. I just use whatever my dad have.
Falke and Sagat are both good counter pick characters that you can play along with another character like your Dus and Infiltrations do. It’s stupid to full main them normally in a tournament, but even in games where zoners are a bit better it’s still stupid to solo main them for the most part. Same with grapplers. They just run into polarizing matchups where you’re beating yourself on the head without an extra character.
Well, I main her with a pocket Gief for the Bisons and Rogs of life nowadays, even though I am pretty bad at this SF thing.
But I still wish eating one jump in didn’t set you back so much with her. I poke Gief with the stick 5 times, he gets one jump or one headbutt into st lk into lariat and there goes my life lead.
Regular. It’s a ‘sweet’ kind of perfume, I feel like he’s good when it’s hot outside. Acqua Di Gio instead can be used always.
I would add even Zeku in the questionable ones, in Young mode he has too many ways to disrespect Gat zoning and it results in a corner carry similar to Ken. YZ doesn’t have good AAs, but Sagat jumps are floaty enough don’t be really a problem. Baiting TS to avoid Hozantos is a good strategy, but better not let him slowly walk you near the corner.
I need to see Sagat vs Cammy or Ibuki, they seems nightmares on paper, even Bonchan prefer using Karin against Cammy.
In general I like Sagat and I think he’s a well made character, the problem is he’s in the wrong game since he don’t have a similar comeback factor like the best ones. He’s in a good company anyway.