O. Hawk or R. Hawk gridman, that is the question?
If O.hawk could walk 720, o.hawk. if R.hawk had O.hawks dive, R.hawk. i like R.hawk cause he can walk up and constantly buffer 720 against scared opponents. I hate r.hawk cause fighting guile is neigh impossible. I love O.hawk cause of no whiff animation and proper working command throw (R.hawks command throw whiffs for no apparent reason) AND the old dive.
OJ, I also used to think you had to guess when to follow up your booms and punish Honda, but you can actually backfist him on reaction! From full screen, you only need to take a step or two forward and then backfist him before he lands. It gets a little more complicated if Honda mixes up headbuts with butslams, but I think you should still be able to punish Honda a good portion of the time. The only time its really safe for Honda is if he headbuts on anticipation.
Edit: On second thought, maybe its better to just mix up walking forward. You don’t really lose a whole lot if honda just blocks. idk
Hawk and Zangief are on their own tier.
I’ve logged some major time with Sagat, about 500 matches or so in the past few weeks since the patch and here’s my revised take on him
Ryu 6-4
Honda 4.5-5.5 (the jab torpedo cancel does make a difference, jump ins are the only way to make this close which can be punished with AA torpedos)
Blanka 4-6
Guile 6-4
Boxer 3-7
Ken 5.5-4.5
Chun Li 5.5-4.5 (easier time against the nerfed projectile closes the gap)
Zangief 5.5-4.5
Dhalsim 3-7
Claw 3-7
Hawk 6-4
Fei 7-3
Dee Jay 4.5-5.5
Cammy 5.5-4.5
Dictator 2-8
He’s got the best AA arsenal of any player. His super is best used as an AA for jump-ins just outside his TU range. It adds extra effectiveness to his anti-air arsenal but he already dominated in this department. Unfortunately most of these are usually ineffective against the top Dictators. The Knee juggle properly further enhances his AA by giving him a wider range to punish the naked jump in TU bait tactics.
His weakness is in his ground game. He’s just so slow and bulky and all of his specials get punished by the better players. Tiger Knee whiffs get countered a lot, the tiger shots are mostly ineffective from close range without block stun to work with. Moreover, entering a projectile battle from behind leaves Sagat at a disadvantage he has difficulties overcoming.
Too many players have developed strategies to deal with the projectile spammers and well, Sagat’s nerfed Tiger Shot just becomes that much more exposed for all the reasons listed above.
I don’t think even the top Sagats in ST/HDR could make a top 4 at a major tourney like Evo with R-Sagat. So much so, I’d put up $250 for a SRK tourney on PSN if they did using him as their main. That’s how confident I am about this. His bad matchups are against the higher tiers which are usually better represented in these environments and the gap has closed for some of his historically advantage matchups.
Having said all this, I’m going to develop a new main and start playing SF4 soon. I was playing HDR because it was the most popular game that I’d be familiar with and have the lowest learning curve to be competitive online with since I built all of my previous experience on CE/HF in arcades.
Well it really doesn’t make sense, there’s absolutely NO reason for him to have kept it. Hawk gets a whiff animation, yet Honda not only does not get a whiff, but gets to keep his stored ochio? Really though, if you’re rebalancing a game, one character should not have an amazing tool that nobody else gets. If you store ochio and release three punches, you get 3 seperate chances to land ochio at what risk? Every other character has to take a risk to get damage… At LEAST make it so he can’t negative edge the shit. NERF
I don’t agree with this one, a good dictator has more options than this against a good sagat.If i can play a get in>hurt>retreat>keepaway game and use spacing well it’s got to be 3.5 or 4 at least. I think you might be a little biased because of a lack of good strategic dictator players online messing up your numbers.
I’m a strong dictator player.If i can keep out of corner traps, and guess your tiger shot, knee, or uppercut, and my spacing game is on the money, you’re dead. IMO a high level sagat has to be very savvy against a dictator of the same level, because if you fuck up i am literally going to nail your big, slow, easy to combo ass to the wall.I can poke at you all day for free (short of psychic TU counters i’m fairly safe), scissor kick you from as far away as i like, and put 2,3,and 4 hit ground based combos together straight away that will grind you down bit by bit.I can get across the stage and hurt you with headstomps quickly.You can’t spam me with tiger shots, because i WILL hurt you for it every time.Your low tiger shot is useless against me (fast crusher, headstomp) and if my spacing is right i have a half-decent anti air (standing LP, crouching HP) that i can use on your pressure jump-ins.
I might be wrong, but i think 2-8 for remixed dic is way off against remixed sagat.It’s a tough matchup but no way is it that tough.I think dic picked up a couple of useful tricks for it in the remix, but more than anything sagat lost a lot of his usefulness, particularly in the projectile department.Anybody else got any oppinions?
^ Agreed completely. For me that match-up is all about getting the pressure out as fast as you can.
2-8 might be harsh but even the mediocre dictators can be difficult. If it’s not 2-8 then it’s 2.5 to 7.5. or 3 to 7 but it’s still a really bad matchup and against a good Dictator, I’m just crushed. If they get the lead and spacing, it’s game over. If they trap you in the corner, game over. The other bad thing is with jump ins, I’ve had many a Dictator just jump into me while I’m jumping into them and 3 hit air combo which is ludicrous. It’s a really unfair matchup and 2-8 is what I picked because I had just played about 14 ranked matches and about 6 of them were against Dictators. I was really have to work it to beat a bad one, and I mean he wasn’t even top 500 material. Then I played DarkMob who is like top 50. Checking out his stats, he’s ranked 41 with a 269-12 record using Dictator. Easily one of the top Dictator’s I’ve played and well, it made me puke. I was his tool the first match and the second went to 5, but it wasn’t really even that close. He just frustrated me so badly I had to send him a “Nice Tier Whore Job with Dictator ;-)” message. His response, “whatever works.”. Hahahahaha.
Also look at your comments. Dictator pickced up a few useful tricks, Sagat lost a lot of usefulness. Wouldn’t that mean 2-8? Wasn’t it like 3-7 in ST? And yes, overall Sagat lost a lot of his usefulness and gained a tiger knee juggle and different tiger knee motion making it easier to use. The difference between O-Sagat and R-Sagat moves him down the pecking order slightly because the tiger shot is his main weapon. Nerfing that and improving his 3rd option, the knee (2nd being TU), doesn’t make for a lethal Sagat! Tiger Shots are essential to controlling space. And if you look at how they did it, they nerfed his tiger shot on both ends: 2 frames on startup and 3 (LK) 4 (MK) and 5 (HK) on recovery. Everyone improved against him by doing it this way. You basically have to play Sagat with strategic tiger shots using the Tiger Knee whiff into DP/throw as your weapon. Well if that’s the case, I rather play Boxer or Dictator using that strategy (buffalo into throw, scissor kick into throw), especially when those are two of his worst matchups?
Ah, OK my bad, i see what you’re getting at now, apologies for my confusion, i’m not into tier lists, i had read yours wrong. I was assuming 2(dictator) versus 8 (Gat) but it’s the other way round.Gotcha.I was gonna say i don’t think i EVER met a Sagat that really scared me, but i didn’t wanna sound like i was boasting, but yeah i never, ever, EVER have trouble with this matchup.Didn’t realise it was ranked as so tough for sagat though…
I honestly think that as dictator i have an answer for everything sagat can do, so i can imagine it’s be a bit frustrating being on the other side.Thanks for clearing it up for me.I would say 3-7, seeing as i beat sagat 6.5-7 times out of every 10.
Are you sure about this? Is this confirmed? The Sirlin articles just said he got +4 recovery frames for all fireballs I thought.
The Japanese list pegs this as N.Sagat(3.5) vs Dictator(6.5). Do you really think R.Sagat vs R.Dictator is worse? N.Sagat sucked pretty bad.
On another note, I like that you put together a match-up list. This thread needs more of that if we ever want to come up with any kind of real tier list.
Since you’re saying that, here’s my expierence with Hawk.
Ryu: 5-5, 4.5-5
Ken: 5-5, 4-5
Edmund: 1-9, 1.5-9
Blanka: 4-6
Guile: 2-8, 3-7
Chun-Li: 7-3
Dhalsim: 5-5, 4.5-5, 4-6, really crazy fight.
Zangief: 5-5, 4.5
DeeJay: 3-7
Fei-Long: 4-6
Cammy: 4.5-6
T.Hawk: 5-5
Balrog: 4-6
Vega: 3.5-7
Sagat: 4-6
Bison: 7-3, 8-2
When posting matchup lists, please specify which character is on the left and right, please 
By default, the chosen character is on the left, correct? Usually it’s obvious (ie, “everybody” knows T. Hawk gets owned by Honda), but it would be nice if it were clarified.
These are my feelings for Chun-Li:
Ryu: 4-6, maybe 3.5-6.5
Ken: 4-6
Guile: 5-5
E.Honda: 6-4
Dhalsim: 6-4
Blanka: 6-4
Zangief: 7-3
Fei Long: 5-5. maybe 6-4
Dee Jay: 5-5, maybe 4-6
Cammy: 6-4
T.Hawk 6-4, maybe 5.5-4.5
Balrog: 5-5, maybe 6-4
Vega: 6-4
Sagat: 5-5
M.Bison: 7-3, maybe 6-4
I’ll elaborate on them later, if anyone cares to discuss.
JigglyNorris has T. Hawk beating Chun 7-3.
skankin garbage has Chun beating T. Hawk either 6-4 or 5.5-4.5
From: http://www.sirlin.net/articles/sf-hd-remix-complete-change-list.html
And even though I didn’t state it explicitly before, I was comparing O-Sagat to R-Sagat since N-Sagat was garbage anyways.
Version Startup Recovery (Short/Forward/Roundhouse)
ST Old Sagat 11 38/38/38
ST New Sagat 13 46/48/50
AE Sagat 11 46/46/46
HD Sagat 13 41/42/43
Hawk does not have an 8-2 advantage on Dictator.
At best for Hawk this match is 5-5.
Chun v Hawk is a weird match, but I would say, it’s definitely easier than before, and it was considered 6-4 in ST. What really makes the match look bad for Chun is that there’s a lot of weird shit Hawk can do that Chun has one - and precisely ONE - answer for, and if the Chun player doesn’t know the answer, and isn’t ready to respond to several different possibilities, she gets reamed.