Anti-air with Vega really is a mental thing more than with any other character. It’s a game in and of itself. I like to use airthrow to condition them to throw out early air to air attacks in anticipation. From there I can either ST em out of the air from far range, wait for em to land and throw/attack (dash under) or just backdash/block if no better options are apparent. It’s easy to practice reading your opponent on this since most everyone loves to constantly jump on Vega. It can be rewarding when you out-think them every time, but yeah, the second you become predictable it’s game over.
You’re the same guy who said Vega was “top-tier” and that you could easily beat Sagats. My god, every character has good anti-air if you anticipate and do a j.hk at the right time.
If Vega has good AA, Rose has excellent AA. And yet they still get spammed by jump-ins all day.
Anticipating a jump-in and being vulnerable to other moves such as LOWS and THROWS is much different than simply mashing DP when you see your opponent jump. Even if ST is buffed, it still needs 2 seconds of DB charge while DP can be used at any time.
If Vega does not gain a decent reversal/AA, then he will not be higher than lower-mid tier. Honda does have similar weaknesses, but he makes up for it with great damage and high-priority normals.
I’ll agree with Mago/Fudo, who’ve played countless of professionals in Japan, in that Vega is weak than agree with people that started playing SF4 in 2009. There is no offense in it, but many people simply do not know what they are talking about when they say Vega is “tournament-viable”.
The thing with Vega is that you spend more time fighting the game engine than your opponent 
Risk-reward ratio is high in opponent’s favour. You eat that jump-in, expect to lose the Claw/Mask and lose. Air-throws are risky in that if they whiff, your opponent gets a free punish.
Not that you really need jump-ins to win against Vega. Characters like Balrog or Ken will simply jab-spam and mindgame you all day until you lose.
Risk-reward ratio is high in opponent’s favour. You eat that jump-in, expect to lose the Claw/Mask and lose. Air-throws are risky in that if they whiff, your opponent gets a free punish.
Not that you really need jump-ins to win against Vega. Characters like Balrog or Ken will simply jab-spam and mindgame you all day until you lose.
Vega being weak overall has little bearing on how good his AA is.
If you all want Dhalsim b+Rh so bad play Dhalsim, I think he has that. Vega has excellent options for beating almost any air assault other than deep jump ins. It only takes a few minutes of testing in training mode for you to realise this. Your name doesn’t have to be Mago to talk fact. That’s all I’m doing.
Whiffing air throws? I almost never whiffed an air throw, and I never even got vega to a level where I could really call him my main sadly.
I think improving the hitboxes on some of his ground normals could help him out alot without making him to silly. But in my opinion, giving him sim level normals is way too far.
I also highly doubt we will say standard df hk into ultra, he would be a fucking terror with that.
I don’t see myself throwing out ultra’s as reversals very much with other characters, even those with very poor reversals, I don’t think it would be that different with vega. The only reason I mention sagat, is because his loop is just too obvious when he knows you have no reversal. I don’t understand all the fear of meaty jump ins, there are plenty of characters who have to block meaty jumpins, it’s not THAT big a deal. Ultra won’t help that anyways unless it has extremely fast startup.
Additionally, I have always had a bit of trouble landing sakura’s ultra as an anti air because I have to throw out my ultra very early, and the opponent can choose not to attack and block as soon as they hit the ground. Sakura’s is similar to vega’s new one in that they both hit only at ground level.
Honestly I see this being used mostly as a dp punish, post focus attack option. Which is still pretty good though for low damage vega. I am more interested in any normal changes and the wall dive changes.
vega needs a dragon punch
dhalsim cannot use his knee to escape out of meaty jump ins.i honestly dont know what you guys are talking about.
i dont kno why but for some reason i feel like i am going to be playing with adon when super comes since he looks like has the speed and agility that vega should have had in sf4. and yes sims knee is near godlike as an anti air because of the ridiculous hitbox
I have been writing up some responses, but then just erasing them. No point in arguing Vega’s strengths and weaknesses now that so much has changed.
Faster Rolling Crystal Flash
New Amazing Overhead (Probably the farthest overhead normal in SF/Fighting game history, which is great and fits him perfectly in VI)
Goes higher on walldives (I think this will be really useful)
New Ultra (Great damage, and looks very comboable. It has to be because your probably not landing that any other way unless it has some properties like invincibility or goes through fireballs)
Some Better Normals
New Vega is a new character. I’ll probably just keep checking for new info.
first of all I definitley think Vega is tourney viable in SF4.
Second if your playing vega the way he should be then DHevil is right, his AA options are more then good enough. keeping someone locked down with good footsies and Cr. MP keeps them at a distance where his AA is very good.
Third Vega has plenty of tools to deal with sagat, its all about being patient and using your superior poking and building meter. Everyone has there heads up there asses about sagat, ive played alot of great sagats because the local scene around chicago is fucking filled with them, and trust me vega can exploit some of his faults.
to be honest theres like 4 people who ive met on here who have actually brought out some of the good things in Vega, thats me knucklez dreadz and tatsu. No offence but i would have to play some of you to get a good idea of what you actually know, it seems like alot of people on here spend all fucking day theory fighting and watching japanese match vidz and then thinking there fucking experts. When SSF4 drops i fully intend to get reinvolved with the community but shit fell apart when beebop/knucklez left.
I agree that Vega’s ST doesn’t need to be invincible like it was in super turbo, but I do think his EX ST should have invincibility on start-up. I think even Guile’s EX flash kick has that. It requires meter, so it should not get beaten by a meaty attack or jump in. I’m fine with it being beaten by a cross-up since there should still be some thought going into whether or not to use it and even SRKs can get beaten by cross-ups, but straight on jump-ins and meaty attacks should not beat EX ST. It would also be convenient if EX ST had enough invincibility that it goes through a srk (doesn’t beat it out, just keeps you from getting hit).
This is the type of comment I hate. Any sort of suggestion for a great tool for a character that clearly needs help, shot down with some kind of vague comment about how the single buff would make a weak character instantly overpowered somehow.
Rufus is better than Vega at pretty much everything and he has several normals that lead directly to ultra.
So you aren’t proficient enough to play him at a competitive level and yet here you are saying a basic ultra set up would make him OP or that he just needs buffs to his normals? This is like saying you aren’t a doctor, but you think these blue pills would be great for an old man’s heart disease.
I don’t want to criticize your skill, but knucklez, DHEvil, and you all started playing in February 2009, when SFIV came out. The Japanese have been playing since the game hit in arcades, and for a lot more years during the SFII era. Winning a tournament in a small Calgary town is one thing, but winning in GodsGarden where all the best players in Japan play is an entirely different thing. I mean, Justin faced Daigo with great characters (Rufus, Balrog) and he got utterly destroyed by his Ryu.
The Japanese players have a solid understanding of the game, the tier-lists have been very consistent in SFIV. They instantly knew which characters would be bad (Vega, Guile) and which would be insane (Ryu, Sagat).
Vega is near dead-last in ranking and tournament wins, so even statistics say that he is bad.
It’s possible to win with Vega, but it’s very hard. Nobody here wants a broken Vega, just one that is viable in tournaments and won’t lose to the lamest gimmicks/shenanigans. Right now, there’s no reason to choose Vega over any character in the cast. They simply have superior tools.
Speaks the truth.
Speaks the truth.
Lol @ Vega being Tourney Viable
a character that doesnt have overheads , has specials with no priority , slow ass start up and arent safe ( only lp RCF is safe ) and some are unsafe ON HIT ( shc , mp rcf ) , has health penalty for fuckin blocking , FREE on wake up , and has a useless ultra that does abysmal damage is NOT tourney viable
Why did they disable rep?
im sorry??
makoto is a vega grandmaster
cat k won two tournaments in the last quarter of 2009
hakaba poemer placed 2nd in the trf tourney last month
there are a total of 3 vega’s in the top 200.
also excluding all of this vega players consistently placed in the top 8 around a dozen times.
please dont use the american scene to judge a character,since its flat out wierd.a scene where the
games best/broken character(sagat) rarely places in the top 8 cannot be taken seriously.
i mean,i saw how alex valle(who is the best ryu from what i know) struggling against wongs rufus.
i was like wtf??its a known fact that ryu vs rufus is hugely in ryu’s favour.
so in the end,the last thing i would do is use the sf4 american scene for reference.its flat out wierd.