IMO, Vega’s air normals are fine. More frame advantage/faster start-up on certain ground normals and his normal game is fine. Then it’s just a matter of fixing specials/glitches and adding whatever else is needed to balance certain things out, while leaving his main weaknesses.
How about if backward EX walldive had start up invincibility to retreat?
Its awesome that they’ve made claws recovery overall better, but i’d still like ST to be better. So many normals and jumping normals beat it.
If Claw’s pokes are upgraded significantly maybe invincibility frames won’t be needed and will restore a good deal of his old poking game back. I would trade Invincible EX ST for a faster vertical jump SK that beats Abel’s j.SP anyday. If he is to not have proper wake-up options, give him the tools to prevent such things happening. His walk speed and dash is fine the way it is. Chun-li is Chun-li and Claw is Claw, his back dash shouldn’t resemble Chun-Li. But I sure as hell want him to reach his jumping peak 1 frame faster than it is now (making his jump 2 frames faster than Ryu) and drops 1 frame faster. That would give him a deadly offense. Give him a relaible cross-up (like making cross up box bigger for j.SP).
All those things then poof, he now his a overhead, a good jump offensive. Like Ssasaki said, quick offensive with a few pokes then run back for a keep-away game. But that doesn’t seem likely to happen. The ez answer is invincible EX ST for options. Changing normals is usually a hassle. I rather be realistic with my wish-list for Claw. If Claw had the pressure on the opponent with a potential reversal, he won’t be rushed down nearly as relentlessly as he does now. Invincible EX ST would almost be gauaranteed a rank up in the tier list. Either way would work. The question is… if Capcom will actually make the effort of tweaking normals when they have a simple solution plastered on their faces.
the only problem I face in trying to decide what would be better for Vega is finding where I lie, playstyle wise
lately i’ve been rushing down like MAD in which case… yes, an invincible move would be greatly appreciated. you know you’re always going to get reversal’d at some point so having the ability to return the favor would be great. good mixup too.
however, i’ve always been more inclined (and forced, playing against better players) to use my defensive style of play. Pokes, and the like. i’ve been convinced that the lack of an EX ST would be compensated for by better normals and mobility, but because I’ve been playing mad rush in most scenarios I find myself in shit a lot more often. So yeah I’ve been thinking about the merits of invinc. ST for that reason. I think that, considering how obvious it is that Vega is a hit and run character, that the better pokes and mobility would work more to support his character. Part of the flaw of Vega’s poke game is in most cases if you whiff one of his good pokes someone can always jump over it and begin rushdown. All it takes is that one mistake and you could be dead from a full life bar against Abel, Zangief, Viper, Rufus, or Cammy. If Vega could whiff a poke, and still have time to deal with the jump in by backdashing, or even ST’ing, or going air to air, then so many problems would be immediately fixed.
I’ve only recently begun too see how godlike Vega’s backdash is compared to his flips, especially on wake-up abuse. I rarely use flips anymore. and if i do, its the KKK version, followed by a backdash. Vega’s jumping speed definitely needs to be upped, aswell as speed all-round. This alone could boost his offense significantly. Faster RCF for chip damage, 3-frame pokes to keep the pressure on without easily being punished by a reversal, etc.
I don’t want to sound like an elitist or something, but the only way alot of high-level players beat me is simply spamming of wake-up, forcing me to backdash in the corner and not letting me get out. EX-ST would crush their gameplan and they wouldn;t stand a chance. For all of us Vega players that have mastered him to the point of knowing all of his normals, knowing how to punish everything possible (since we basically have to), and learning every match-up, EX-ST would make us borderline godlike.
What do you mean by EX-ST? I use his normals so much it is ridiculous(someone called me a poke spammer on the Sakura forum!)…except his backdash, I’ll start using it lot more on your recommendation…
Blocked EX-ST wouldn’t crush any game-plans, it would just make the opponent re-assess his approach (Vega has a move to punish me if I become sloppy, like everybody else). I don’t see how a general tool that’s held by the entire cast (on some level outside of ultra) would move him up in the tier list at all. But, that’s just my view :lol:.
@Ken B
Yeah, back dash is a really good escape tool. It’s basically what PPP back flip wanted to be, with less invincibility. Atm, EX-ST is pretty weak outside of combos and juggles (fireball punishment option is pretty rare). The only thing it effectively reverses is a throw attempt. :sad:
EX ST is good for juggling off lk ST, going through up close fireballs, and comboing off a crouching normal or piece of mercury
using it as an anti air, probably works half the time
Fixed it for you. :china:
gah! i always mix up the names for both of them
thank you lol
I’m pretty sure you could ask anybody what their gameplan against Vega is and I’ll bet you they all say, “knock him down, abuse jump-ins, wake up pressure, get him into the corner”. This is all based on the fact that he has no reversal. I-Frame EX-ST would significantly help prevent 3 of the 4 gameplans that I listed.
I’m not saying I want the guy to be invincible, I just want the opponent to have to actually work for a victory against him. Not by doing simple gameplans that even the least-talented of players could do.
One thing I want is more feints. Faster KKK so you can actually punish after you fool someone with it. (Ryu recovers from LP SRK before you recover from KKK… so you get NOTHING for successfully baiting his reversal.) Feints would help Vega open up the heavy turtlers.
Things I think Vega should have, just because it fits his character:
- Backdash goes from being second best (second to Chun) to best
- Forward dash recovers quicker.
- KKK flip recovers faster
- Empty Wall-dives have great recovery
- SHC has better recovery on full-whiff (like you when basically come and land right beside them)
- Faster pokes
- More frame advantage on pokes both on block and hit
- Perhaps a triangle jump that is maneuverable… like you can make it work like it currently does or you can make it similar to Seth’s.
All of these things do not increase Vega’s damage or change him from the hit and run style. They instead make him a better hit and run character.
Of course, I wouldn’t mind i-frames or damage buffs either.
So your argument for not giving Vega a new, useful property on a move is that it used to have a different useful property that it no longer has?
Well as I said before, its not so much that Vega is even tailored to the “runaway” style in SF4 as much as it is out of necessity because he has so many unique flaws. They can buff him in different ways that further strengthen his runaway game if that’s the direction they want to take the character, but its not like if they give him something like invincible ST back that it will be “against the nature” of the character like some have suggested, because the runaway shit isn’t necessarily his nature in the first place.
Vega doesn’t have I-frames on his ST because that’s how the developers wanted the move to behave. This isn’t a mistake; they didn’t fuck up during development and only realize after the game was released that he had no invincibility on his ST. It’s the kind of special that accommodates Vega’s fast, unsafe, poke-centered playstyle, not a downback turtle-fest style. I really doubt that it’s going to change in SSF4 as if it was all some huge mistake.
There are plenty of other places they can buff Vega, I really don’t see why you’re so hellbent on getting I-frames on that one special. That’s not how they wanted Vega to play in this game (and no, don’t bring up SF2), and I think that’s how things are going to stay. If you’re so uncomfortable with not having an easy “get off me” move, you should probably look into another character.
There’s a couple of SSF4 Vega videos out there. Hasn’t it already been “confirmed” that his ST still has no I-frames?
Maybe I didn’t spell it out, but it seems pretty obvious to me that making slide useful like in older games is what i want. Vega does not need to go under fireballs, he has a ton of ways to deal with them. Just make the slide like ST and it will be fine
Not exactly, if you’re talking about the build from the Vegas showing then that is not the final build. Example : Boxer’s ultra after headbutt didnt seem to fully connect after head butt. After playing the latest build, people have said it’s fixed.
Things can change, especially when I think it was stated that the Vegas build was 2 months old.
I don’t play Vega for how weak he is, much like I dont play ryu just because he’s high tier. I play characters based on how the appeal to me as characters. If Vega has shitty moves, Ill play him. If he has godlike moves, I’ll play him. I just don’t understand how they can totally change the property of a move that really wasn’t broken in the first place.
When you think about it, the developers didn’t change his playstyle at all, they just made all of his moves shitty, forcing him to play defensively. If they wanted to make Vega an evasive-counter character then why give 4 frame jabs? Why make his s.HK trade with most jump-ins? Why make backdashing superior to backflipping in almost every situation? Why does he take 25% more damage when his mask flies off? Why is his ultra the hardest to land, and doesn’t even do much damage? (375 when claw is off, AMAZING!) Just think about how man times your claw falls off in a match.
You can’t deny the developers were a little under the influence with his overall game design in this game. Maybe he needs to become an agressive-quick character like he’s meant to be. If you’re fighting a 6’5 tall spaniard with a foot long claw on his hand, would you expect him to spend the entire fight running away and being defensive? My main problem is that it just doesn’t fit the character or his style.
Yeah, it is true that they nerfed him, but I don’t really believe that this was done to create some sort of other playstyle with him. To me, it just looks like they nerfed everything which made the character braindead or lame/annoying to others in ST. Fast pokes, deadly walldive game, flipkick, speed. All of this was extremely frustrating and pissing people off in ST. Too bad it was everything he ever had and not just ONE aspect of him.
Vega in this game really boggles my mind… its like they made a checklist of how to break him, did all that (slide,specials,super) , proceeded to give him less then stellar new sf4 features (ultra, focus attack) and then added the mask falling off to make him extra shitty.
Then they probably felt a little bad and gave him cosmic heel or something.
Makes me really respect people that bring my favourite character to tourney’s and have some succes with him.
I still love Vega though… cant beat his gracefull style, will always be my main 
totally turned on HDR today for kicks and played vega. Man it felt so discouraging knowing how better he was in that game.