As an exclusive claw player, I can vouch that Ken can be a very difficult match for vega, since his walldive is negated by Ken’s dp and reach. This match is slightly in Ken’s favor.
As a mainly Ken player, I wouldn’t say that the Claw match is in Ken’s favor. However, it is more in Ken’s favor than Ryu, for the reasons you stated. If the Claw player uses his pokes wisely and mixes up his Wall Dives well, it’s over for Ken. At high levels of play I would put this match at 6-4, pretty even with a slight edge to Claw.
Ken’s crossups, throw loops, and psychic dps which can break through pokes can be a problem for Vega. Now, between scrubs, it is typically a no-brainer with Vega winning easily. Between experienced players, I would see it as 5.5-4.5 Ken. Again, strictly opinion, and my experience with about 3700 matches, all Vega.
Perhaps as a Ken player, it looks different. Understandable. What is black to me, can be white to you. LOL
How can you so easily ignore the fact that Claw’s mid-range poking game gives Ken fits? There’s only one way you overcome it…the psychic Jab DP.
This was already explained somewhere else…probably the Ken thread, so I’m not going to repeat myself.
I’ve played both characters a lot, by the way, and, as I said before, I completely agree with blitzfu’s assessment fo the match…'cause he agreed with mine…which…I have to admit…I kinda stumbled into assessing it correctly.
The invulnerability of a dp, plus its great damage compared to a Vega poke, makes it a deadlier weapon, and you really can’t compare the two, since the payoff on a successful poke doesn’t outweigh the fact that the dp is more advantageous. Throw in an awesome anti-air game which gives Vega problems, plus crossups which Vega has little answer to, and it totally becomes a game where you have to outwit the Ken to win with Vega. Again, still 5.5-4.5 Ken in my opinion as an exclusive Vega player.
As stated earlier before, every person has their own opinion and is entitled to it =)
I’m going to have to disagree with you as well. Yeah, if Ken’s able to consisitently predict your pokes, you’re going to eat a lot of DP’s, which will add up to more damage than you’re dealing out. If he doesn’t guess right, he whiffs a DP, and you hurt his feelings (and his face). You make him second-guess the DP, and he’s back to playing your game. Ken’s Psychic DP winning the match requires either him to be a fantastic guesser (less likely), or the Claw player being somewhat predictable (more likely), and if the latter is true, that’s not really something you can use to attribute advantage to Ken in the character matchup, because that’s purely a player fault.
I guess I can say that perhaps your assessments could be correct and that I’m basing this off of a couple of exceptional Kens that have Yomi going for them. Overall, I tend to eat Kens and Ryus alive for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Most Kens are just Vega fodder for me and practically free wins, few exceptions. I may be giving those pesky blonde fairies too much credit. I think 6-4 Vega is accurate in light of what all three of you are saying. It’s not to hard to say that there are a minority of Kens that can make these numbers better in their favor, but that’s more the exception than the rule.
Psychic dp is as from how blitz/oj explained to me, how ken starts his offense. If he cant start an offense and get close vega will take the win. A psychic dp although a tool is very player dependent and not as character dependent. A psychic dp can only work if the vega is careless on poking.
Take a look at most of Claw’s pokes and compare them to Ken’s Fierce Hadouken and Jab Shoryuken. It should be pretty obvious that it’s riskier for Ken to try to counter Claw’s pokes than the other way around. It’s much easier for Claw to reasonably punish a missed Jab DP than it is for Ken to psychic DP one of Claw’s pokes. Don’t forget that Claw can jump Hadoukens on reaction and punish Ken pretty well. Claw has several tools that out-range Ken and he can bait Ken pretty easily. That being said, it’s not like we’re saying this matchup isn’t winnable by Ken. We’re just saying that Claw has to be pretty predictable in order for that to happen.
I won’t debate speed of the attacks, that one is pretty obvious. If you look at my latest posting above, you will see that I have conceded this point after further reflection, and have called you correct since psychic Kens are more the exception than the rule. If the Ken is fairly unpredictable and doesn’t use the same BS used by the majority of Kens, then Ken can win, and I acknowledge your correctness in this matter.
Thank you for the frame data page. I find it quite helpful to read and learn more.
I appreciate you insight on this matter, and helping me rectify my opinion
Take a look at the last two matches between Justin and Tokido from the previous year’s Evolution ST finals. Here is [media=youtube]-6Nn8O5bsxs&feature=channel_page"]Match #2 and [URL=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgXY-bYJUQg&feature=channel_page”[/media] (Match #1 was a Claw mirror).
Pretty much everything you guys are talking about can be seen in these two matches. Look how tremendously difficult it is for Justin (as O.Ken) to control space directly in front of him when Claw is dancing in and out of standing medium kick range and then mixing up tick and walk up throws.
O.Ken was (and is) better than N.Ken (simply because of the differences betwen their dragon punches) but they both without question have losing match ups to N.Claw. It’s not one of the most lopsided matches in ST but I would honestly not argue that the match was ever in Ken’s favor in ST and I while I would be interested in exploring if R.Ken is even or better than R.Claw in HDR in their own match up but I would assume that the change isn’t so dramatic between the two from ST to HDR that somehow Ken has a winning match up.
In HDR Claw still has the far superior ground game in my opinion, and I believe that O.Ken’s DP is invincible up until the apex where as in HDR R.Ken’s DP is based off of N.Ken which has less invulnerable frames meaning the close distance ground game is even harder in HDR for R.Ken compared to O.Ken (who Justin uses in these matches).
The only saving grace in HDR is that Claw can’t knock down wall dive you to death repeatedly (and if you want to see an example of that just watch [media=youtube]P-PmNGOjGTw&feature=channel_page"[/media]).
Its interesting that even the decent claws I have come across don’t use that s.mk as their poke, but rather the cr.lp/cr.mp instead. You can learn something everyday.
Oh yeah, gotta love the s.mk as a poke. Roughly, Vega’s kicking shin is out of range of retaliation. Just try hitbox mode in training and you’ll see why Vega’s love this move. Not only that, but you don’t have to worry about getting up and can hit many crouching opponent’s safely. C.mp isn’t as safe, but is an okay counter.