I can’t think of anything to write here. Do we have it all? haha
just a quick question, i’ve heard of “safe” tiger knee. Is this just the LK at max range or what?
Just a well spaced LK or MK knee that hits at the end of the move.
This next bit of info is sorta match up specific, but it’s worth mentioning.
Been playing a bunch of great ryu’s for months now, chris hu, he’s one of my training partners and we travel to events together; and now arturo is playing some ryu.
2 things you need to watch out for:
-
Ryu has super, they try to start a fireball war. Don’t get caught in it thinking (boy oh boy my tiger shot is faster than his fireball, what a moron). That’s how you get duped. Ryu can toss out a fireball and cancel into super, goes full screen and punishes any level of tiger shot, from light to hard - high or low.
-
Ryu has ultra, and he’s staying up close. A good ryu is going to stay at jump in range so you can’t really tiger shot, while at the same time spamming crouching forward because if you decide to knee (this is perfect knee distance) your knee goes over his head and he gets a free combo. If you decide to dash up, you eat cr.forward into fireball. If you dash back / jump back after his cr. forward he will just dash up and repeat - pushing you further into the corner. If you jump in you eat an SRK fadc ultra. If you neutral jump you eat ryu’s jumping medium punch juggle into ultra. Last weekend at a tourney I was playing art in winners, he won first match, i won 2nd match, third match we go 1-1, last round I get stuck in this trap. He’s constantly moving forward too, pushing me into a corner, so I have to low ts to push him back. I got into a ts pattern and ate a reaction ultra from up close.
Best way to finish off an opponent with a pixel of health:
Tiger Uppercut.
Most people think the best way is a fireball on opponent wake up, but it’s not. They can ex-srk out of it, ultra through it etc. You cannot do that through a tiger uppercut.
But bob sagat, what if they are far away? Simple! Kara hk tiger knee or kara ex-knee across the stage, and upper cut that fool on wake up. Safest, most effective way.
For all the daigo fans out there - he does the same with ryu.
For most this was self explanatory, but for others it’s enlightenment, enjoy the knowledge.
they can just wakeup backdash and probably will do so
Yeah I saw daigo do EX SRK on Mago for chip finish.
Too bad SFIV doesn’t have parries. haha maybe that’s a good thing
are you sure? I haven’t seen one person survive a chip DP - from any of the dp characters. I’m not saying you’re wrong, I just want to know for sure if that would work, hence - taking sagat to the next level.
Even if it does, your opponent has to guess. Not only does he have to guess that you will TU - the odds are in YOUR favor.
For example. You’re up close on wake up, he has no hp etc. here are the possible things you can do to finish him off:
1. quick normal / meaty overhead. He blocks - safe. If he was going to back dash you recover from a meaty over head or quick normal fast enough to punish his back dash - or if not, at least protect yourself / reassess the situation and reset the fight.
2. special move of any kind. He blocks - dead - but what if he back dashes?
2a. TK. He can ultra you out of it - but, if he was going to back dash he would be dead.
2b. TS. He can ultra you out of it - but, if he was going to back dash he would be dead.
3. grab - you have to wait for him to get up to grab anyway - and if he back dashes you have the option of not throwing him and tk/ts etc him. But if you accidentally hit grab because you were too nervous, you can still recover in time to protect yourself / and or tk/ts for the chip.
4. TU. If he back dashes he is safe (assuming you’re right, not saying you’re wrong, just saying I haven’t seen someone survive a tu on wakeup from chip), if not he is dead.
You have a total of 6 options: quick normal, meaty overhead, tk, ts, grab, tu - back dash only solves 1 of them. So basically, this guy is gonna guess - STATISTICALLY IN YOUR FAVOR for this to work. Whereas most players will see all of the other options first and decide “boy if I back dash I’m toast.”
Also, you don’t need to Fierce TU for a chip win, you can LP TU. You get punished either way - but the recovery is quicker, and depending on the reaction speed of your opponent you have a good chance of getting away unharmed.
Hey PGL, you mind if I add you on XBL? My work schedule is kind of off the wall, so hopefully it won’t be too much trouble for me to be on as much as I can. lol
Wouldn’t mind more competition considering I don’t get any. 
Other than Dr. Chaos.
Characters with really good backdashes will avoid this. A fellow Sagat can’t backdash far enough though.
heres my 2 cents .you guys prolly do it already . but if im playing close game… i like to cross up with lk then tu them. 80% of the time they will try to grab you but they always eat the tu.
i kinda mess with there head and play gief style on them. crossup back n forth grab or lk to tu or play the block string game.
it works 80% of the time for me. hope this helps. i didnt really read the thread to see if it was mention.
edit… n dont forget to fadc to ultra when possible
Yeah man, you don’t have to ask. I only get better based on the people I play. This goes for anyone. If you wanna get your ass beat / kick my ass in sf4 add me up. Someone’s gonna learn one way or another. And either way I think that’s cool.
Good Idea
It’s super risky, as you are relying on chance/luck. Why use luck (which is not always in your favor) when you can take the same move and “setup” your opponent into thinking you got lucky :). You’d have better “luck” to just empty jump over, as most empty jumps = grabs with most characters anyway. I like to lk cross up into crouching lk. If they block the first one - grab. If they don’t, BnB combo.
This way, when I empty jump they assume it’s for a grab since I condition my opponent to expect normals after a cross up only when I use an attack cross up as opposed to just an empty jump over. When they see empty they go - “gasp I haven’t seen this before. But this guy is so easy to read and uses so many patterns - what a noob. IT MUST BE A GRAB! I’M SO SMART! I mean - why else would he empty jump? He only follows up with normals with a lk cross up, and since it’s not a lk cross up I KNOW he’s not going to throw out a normal.”
Then I tu - and if I don’t like the person (rare, I like most people I play with / against unless they act like a douche off the start) I’ll say “smart stuff!” - which in turn makes them super pissed / aggressive which shows how scrubby they are.
Now, I just used the word scrubby - let me define the word as I know it, I don’t purport to be a god at this game, but I’m not scrubby and this is why. A scrub is someone who plays the game often, want’s to improve, but doesn’t take the necessary steps to improve his/her game so they always end up falling short - blaming it on characters - broken moves - bad day (you can have them but with these guys its every time they lose is a “bad day”).
Now, back to my point, a scrubby person will let emotions effect the way that they play. Your tactic and the fact that you’re playing bullshit broken noobfriendly S tier asshole homo sagat will most definantely bring out their emotions. The reason why this makes absolutely no sense at all is they forget that they are playing a video game, and video games have rules. You are confined to a pre-determined amount of outcomes and results in each possible scenario. Use that to your advantage - as well as the the ability to gauge your opponents emotions. A dead giveaway that someone is going to lose a fight is when they start talking to themselves. I don’t mean going crazy - I mean “ahh shit my TU didn’t come out.” “Wtf i hit grab!” or “man why did I do that.” Never focus on a mistake - that’s why you have a health bar - to forgive you for your mistakes. Once that bar runs out, then you can get pissed because that last mistake just cost you the match and possibly even the entire tournament.
Just because you have 100% hp or 1% hp does not change your ability to win. All YOUR hp does is determine the tolerable margin of error you are able to take. The more health you have, the more mistakes you can make and get away with. All that having 1% hp means is that you can’t make mistakes - your “allowance” for mistakes has run dry. But it does not mean that you cannot win, all you need to do is rid your opponent of his HP or his tolerable room for error. And what’s hysterical about all of this is that the more HP a “scrubby” player has the more willing he is to make mistakes. Whereas a pro doesn’t care if he has 1 hp or 100000hp, he’s going all out perfect play - to the best of his/her ability all day every day.
You don’t have to be that intense all the time, but just realize that YOUR hp has nothing to do with your ability to win a match. You don’t win a match just because you have more health than the other guy (unless you have more when the time runs out) you win a match by removing all of your opponents health. Once you come to this realization you will actually get amped up when your health is low because you know how your opponent will react making it easier to read them; and reading your opponent is what makes j.wong daigo arturo etc. so great - it’s not their combos and reaction time, it’s their ability to read someone almost instantly. And especially with sagat you have the best chance of a come back considering his damage output and ridiculous combos. You can do 400-600 damage just because you linked a cr. jab - in 3 frames. 3 frames just cost your opponent over half his life bar.
The reason why me, and people like me aren’t scrubby is that we made that mistake once - but learned from it, and try our best never to repeat it.
Going back to post #84, and my match with Arturo’s ryu. I lost because I’m a noob, I wasn’t used to that kind of pressure from a ryu in that fashion. But, having experienced that kind of play I know what to do when I see it in the future - I learned from my experience. Making me graduate from noob to experienced in that scenario while also determining that I’m not a scrub because I chose to learn as opposed to ignoring the match and brushing it off as a fluke.
**
Disclaimer: **If I’m going to do this it’s going to be with 2 bars stocked up. I NEVER TU randomly without 2 bars, well on xbox I might, but I try my best not to in person or at an arcade$ or tournament. I save my TU’s for jump ins. If I’m super fucking desperate… maybe I’ll do the above thing without meter, but by not randomly dp’ing during the match it increases the odds that my opponent will not expect it - so long as I have more than a pixel of health left, if not it’s obvious. It only takes 1 random DP to give away the fact that you love the SRK motion. Believe me when I say, since the advent of xbox live, you’re definitely not the first person to rando-dp with Sagat - you’re not fooling anyone.
P.S. sorry for the semi-rant but other things came to mind when I started writing and I figured at least 1 person out there could learn something. If not, my bad.
Wait what, a backdash will get you out of pretty much all meaty normals too unless its a slower 2-hitter and some slides (nothing sagat has as far as I know, maybe close HK or close MK)… It also gets you out of meaty grabs, it’s got invincibility just like an SRK. It won’t get you out of the block-> wait for reversal DP? -> if no -> grab option if they react fast enough to do something else instead though, which they can.
The odds are in your favor to some extent, but you have to keep in mind that most people will have the intention to finish with a chip, so when people are at 1 pixel of life they’ll be aware of this and play accordingly.
If a sagat walks up to me into tiger uppercut range when I have one pixel of life there’s a good chance that he’s going to A) Tiger uppercut chip, B) throw me. Backdash beats both of these options. So maybe walkup tiger shot or walkup unsafe tiger knee is a better option simply because of the surprise factor. But both of these aren’t generally the first assumption that people make. You also of course have to be wary of characters that can beat the tiger uppercut (rufus). Many ultras will beat it too, but people aren’t likely to do that if they have any sense. Now granted, this doesn’t make chip TU a useless option at all, in fact it’s a very scary one as it limits their options, but it’s not a guarantee and it’s not a safe option. I would be fucking scared to do this against a character with a high damage ultra that they can punish with like gief.
Many times when I get people down to 1 pixel of life I don’t actively try to chip them unless they’re not very good because I notice that people play around my intentions to chip them and take advantage of it with calculated gambles. If I just play the same game I play normally with sagat regardless of their healthbar they’ll get hit eventually. And generally they will be taking risks to avoid any potential chip tiger knees or chip tiger uppers, so I will just punish their risky maneuvers. This is why chip tiger uppercut is awesome, not because I use it, but people are scared of it, so they try to do all sorts of weird stuff to not get hit.
Though I haven’t tried it, the best option if you have meter might be a meaty ultra so they can’t jump out of it but it should be a character who doesn’t have something that can beat it (ex messiah kick).
You sure? I don’t know about tiger uppercut but i’ve for sure dashed out of attempted chips with ryu’s shoryuken and just ultra punished the fool. I could see the 2nd or 3rd hit of the ex tiger uppercut hitting but that’s still odd. I’m the only sagat locally and I don’t play online so I’ve only had to play the mirror match in tournaments when I travel though. edit: this can’t be right, yesterday at the tournament I won the last round of my match against a sagat by backdashing in his face after knocking him down and he tiger uppers and it just whiffs and just punish. I’m assuming he was going to FADC ultra attempt. Maybe I backdashed early though, I’ll get one of my scrub friends to go in training mode with me and we’ll thoroughly test it tomorrow. Also, if you’re referring to EX upper it was a regular uppercut. hm. Ex uppercut might catch backdash just because it has those extra hits. If so, then my bad.
hmmm. Let’s theory craft this for a minute. I like your idea: “So maybe walkup tiger shot or walkup unsafe tiger knee is a better option simply because of the surprise factor. But both of these aren’t generally the first assumption that people make.”
What if we were to incorporate both ideas into one. Stay at walkup tiger shot or knee range - then kara dp?
actually I just saw daigo do meaty fireball FADC then uppercut to mago and it made me think of how sagat could use this too:
[media=youtube]adQdxB49nzc[/media] end of round around 3:20
at some spacings vs. some characters you might backdash. For example vs. rufus you could throw the tiger shot meaty, FADC backwards, and if he EX messiah kick you will be at a distance where his invincibility runs out and you can tiger upper the end of it. same principle vs. gief’s ex green hand, though with giefs you’ll just make it not be in range to hit. gief can’t kara the green hand because then there will be few frames where he’ll not be projectile invincible vs. meaty. this will work against probably some of the characters that can ultra through fireball too. so you can just not tiger upper and then block and punish their ultra (or possible just jump the ultra depending on exactly how safe the fadc would be, not sure).
focus attack slightly outranges ryu’s c.mk, use a level 1 to either get him to block it so you can dash in safer or dash out of range a little safer and start fresh, not sure if this is of any help since I don’t have any good ryu competition locally but I notice this is how mago uses it and i’ve been studying what you’re saying in training mode since you’ve mentioned it.
edit: try messing with standing LK at medium kick tiger knee range if he sticks out his medium kick you’ll beat it or sometimes trade almost equally but slightly in his favor but you can also cancel to a tiger knee or a fireball off it if it hits. this might be risky for other reasons like ryu probably can do other stuff to it but it’s another option. edit: just to clarify, this at a range where if you’re standing, the c.mk will whiff just barely, but if you crouch then you’ll get hit because of the crouching hitbox being wider, so just take advantage of the standing like that. same range ish you can use FA, just the lk can work from a little farther. you’re hitting his foot with the lk
Just want to clarify some things.
First off Sagat only has one true block string with normals.
Low short linked to low jab a.k.a c.lk, c.lp.
That’s it. Anything else could be dped or backdashed out of.
But that doesn’t mean low short strings will automatically be countered. If your opponent wants to dp a low short string they would have to be pretty fast and if they mistime it, the character will stand up and eat the low short and then you get a hit confirm into TU for good damage. Overall I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Only concern yourself with it when your opponent starts to fish for them or you could test the waters by throwing out a low short and seeing how they react when it’s blocked. But I would think that most opponents will not risk this.
Against characters without a dp don’t worry about it really.
Of course Sagat still has his basic one hit pokes cancelled into TS for pressure. Those are still viable.
The second thing is that after doing alot of testing with Sagat’s safe TK on block I have found out that low jab is a tight block string. It’s a one framer it seems, but it is a true string. Your opponent can’t reversal. So after a blocked knee this gives Sagat guaranteed pressure and a safe way to continue his offense. It also opens the door for his mix-ups.
Also bear in mind that with any shoto, any light attack to a fireball is NOT a true block string. Anyone with a dp can dp you inbetween the attack and the fb. Of course this isn’t practical. Same thing with Sagat’s low short strings. But if it happens to you know that it wasn’t because you messed up the string. That’s just the way the engine works.
are you sure that c.lp cannot be reversaled after a safe knee?? wouldnt that theoretically mean that we could spam c.lp xx lk.TK repeatedly. pretty sure ive been shoryukened out of it many times when abusing it.
No. Because no string into TK is tight.
And it’s VERY spacing specific. If you are too close when you land with the TK they can reversal. At least that’s what I got form my testing.
The low jab just gives Sagat a way to pressure safely.
And remember what I just said in that last post. Any jab into a fb isn’t safe. Anyone with a dp can mash one out and tag you. So technically alot of the shit we consider safe isn’t truly safe.
alright man jesus christ I showed my ryu playing friend this post, and he got a million times better.
seriously, before we would play 50 games and he would win 4 maybe and now we’re going 50/50 (I think he got better in other ways too, but just this combined with all that and suddenly he’s a million times better than the last time we played a week ago). This shit is ridiculous, the lk and focus attack are definitely helping me but we need to find some better ways to shut this down if possible. If he uses it at the wrong distance, from farther away, we can c.mk his limb but that’s only if he does it at the wrong distance.
Also, Ryu can super punish a blocked c.mk, a closer blocked fireball, blocked c.rh, and blocked standing rh.