The Sagat Thread

Classic Fighting Games Street Fighter x Tekken
81

This x 1000.

The Juri matchup feels unwinnable to me right now. She has an answer to him at every range on the screen. At full screen she can just eat his shots while firing back or storing for a combo, anywhere shorter than that and she can threaten with dive kick if he thinks about throwing one. Her normals have better hit boxes and more range and they are FAST. And once she is in, that’s it. Jump cancelled block strings into ambiguous crossups and all you can do is mash out a TU and hope it auto corrects or you eat a full combo. So bad.

Ryu just does everything Sagat does but better. Better damage, better block strings, better links, better footsies, better crossups, better jump ins, better zoning, better mobility, better anti-airs. It’s just bad. Come to think of it, I don’t see any reason to play Sagat instead of Ryu.

It sucks because I really love this character and I WANT to play him. I just cant justify it though. Someone talk me off the ledge please, before I join the Ryu army!

82

You are not a fireball character anymore. Get that out of your mind. You are a footsie character. Point blank and period. Your Tiger shots are not zoning tools. They are pressure tools. You aren’t trying to control them you just want to pressure them into doing something that you can rape them for like a silly wave dash or jump in. I don’t think its possible to punish a shot on reaction with a jump in just because jumps are around 36 frames and Tiger shots are around 30 overall so that being the case, they just predicted you because the reward for a jump in happens to be fucking huge.

Also Sagat mauls Ryu in footsies IMO. If Ryu even thinks about hitting low forward you whiff punish with a boost combo and Ryu’s x-mas is now ruined. Match feels truly even now.

Step HK is way better at close ranges then it used to be thanks to range reduction. For longer ranges strictly kara tus. He is still an AA monster you just need to re-adjust.

Declawed? Compared to what? Super? Jokes my man. Thats what you got. JOOOOOOOOOKES.

Lets see what he got.

Buffs

  • No more Ultra glitch in the corner. Tiger Genocide now has a true movie animation when it hits so losing damage our getting punished for hitting this in the corner is not an issue.

  • TK was buffed. Damage is still low, but it now has great frame advantage on block when well spaced and can lead into full juggles in the corner.

  • Several of his normals give great frame advantage giving him many frame traps and ways to apply pressure.

  • Tiger shots travel faster so they are better for pressure

  • EX TK wall bounces and sets up for good combos

Nerfs

  • Tiger shots deal less blockstun making them poor for block strings.

  • Range reduction on high step kick

That’s it. Those are his two nerfs. They fixed all his issues and system changes make him much stronger overall. For an SF char his damage is damn good. Only a few SF chars really outdo him in this department. Step kick sets up for juggles and does huge damage by itself. Nailing 360 because sumone too a huge risk is really nice for no meter and its something that Sagat can CONSISTENTLY set-up for.

Sagat’s TU is fine. TU later to blow through moves. All moves have bigger hitboxes so this just test your ability to TU correctly and to know which button to hit. Remember that Sagats hp TU has him step forward a bit so often times attacks will hit you and avoid the hitbox of the uppercut. Know which version is best for your situation.

St.hk was NEVER Sagat’s best button. Talk like that makes me wanna burn down orphanages and drink the blood of the innocent children that live there. It is now strictly an AA normal. Use it as such.

Asuka and Steve do hit harder then Gat. Let me ask you this. Who can set-up damage consistently? Them or him? They better hit harder because their mix-ups are ASS and their ability to put opponents in bad spots is ASS. They are ASS in general just looking at their options. Sagat having average damage is a mitigating factor to keep him from dominating.

Sagat is fucking good and im figuring out new shit everyday. He just plays hella different now. More different then even in CvS2 because he has sum new tech and sum Vanilla SF4 tech too.

Also your last posts disgusts me. If you wanna play Ryu go ahead. No one is stopping you and its no ones job to convince you of anything. I actually regret making this post trying to refute your claims.

Go ahead and drop Sagat if thats your desire.

83

^Well, I’m glad you made that post. Lots of good info there, even if it was a rage rant.

84

idk is just bugged me. It was like my friend saying he was gonna drop Ken in this. For what? The game is fun as hell. EVERYONE is fun in this game even the “bad” chars. Ok so the char isn’t what you wanted. So what? Learn to play this new version and hey, AE Gat still exist. AE is still at evo. It’s still being played online. It still has a community and I’m still part of that community too. I love AE Gat. Only Gat I don’t really like is A2 Gat but I digress.

New game. New char. This is nothing new. If you dislike the new char drop him. Simple stuff imo.

85

Dunno Emblem, I can’t really agree with too much of what you are saying. Sagat maul Ryu in footsies? Ryu has better range on his primary footsie tool, better walk speed and can actually cancel it into something. All you get off a successful st.LK at max range is a derpy chain combo into launcher and switch. Those are like, the lowest damage combos you can do in this game and they give your opponent the most recoverable health. Not to mention that you may not always want to switch your character every time you win in footsies just to get some damage. Also, at closer ranges, Ryu has a 3 frame jab with plus frames. I don’t think Sagat beats him at footsie range or closer at all.

st.HK is no longer an AA normal in any way. You can get it to trade on deep jump ins if you hit it late or if you get a psychic read on a jump and press it at max range right as they take off. But unless they are jumping from 3/4 screen you aren’t hitting anyone out of the sky with it on reaction because the hit box is so terrible now.

What block strings and mix-ups are you talking about? He doesn’t have mix-ups outside of having an overhead, just like everyone else in the game. I mean, he has cross-up jumping LK I guess. So he has an overhead that leads into nothing and a low damage cross-up. So? Welcome to the rest of the cast. As far as block strings what does he have? st.Lk, st.LK, cr.MK into losing the initiative. I guess you could cancel it into a light TK and at that range it would be kinda safe, but you are still giving up the initiative.

I don’t know why you would call him an AA “monster”. As you pointed out, his HK step kick has shorter range. His st.HK has no hit box above the waist between his body and his leg so you can’t use that. TU is…so so. It’s invincibility ends on it’s first active frame so it trades a lot.

I’m not gonna go too much into Asuka and Steve, I was only using their damage as points of comparison for where Sagat stands damage wise in the scheme of things. But it’s funny that you think Asuka doesn’t have options. She has every tool you need in this game. I find it difficult to believe that you see a wealth of mixups and opportunities when you look at Sagat but think Asuka’s tools are limited, but I guess I’ll just agree to disagree there.

And why don’t we keep it civil dude? I asked for help. I didn’t say it was your job or anyone’s to convince me to play the character. There’s no reason my thinking one character in a fighting game is a better than another should “disgust” you. Just be cool. We’re all fight nerds here. No need to be prickly.

86

The ignorance on these boards are baffling to me. A few posts up I put out some great tips on how to effectively utilize sag in this game. Emblem lord has also made some valid points. The thing all of you guys are missing is that this isn’t sfiv with tekken characters. It’s a new game a characters are to be played as such. I wouldn’t go into 3s or alpha trying to play ryu like sfiv ryu, so why should this game be any exception?

87

Sigh…I’m not suggesting he should be played like SF4 Sagat. I didn’t even play him in that game. I played him in Championship Edition a million years ago. I’ve put some pretty detailed observations up about how I see this character at this point and asked for feedback. There is no ignorance here. Whatever. If you don’t want to help that’s fine. I’m just pointing out some issues with the character to open up discussion on it. So far all it’s gotten me is some good old fashion internet smugness.

So if anyone has any actual ideas on how to address these concerns, great. If you want to call me ignorant and rage against me, that’s great, just PM me instead of cluttering the board. Sheesh.

88

If you played him in CE he damn sure aint the same. CE he was a god of zoning. No one could fuck with his fireball game cept Ryu. Dude if you didn’t play him in SF4 you wouldnt know this but…trading is what you want. He gets a free combo when he trades so thats null and void. Honestly alot of what you are complaining about is cuz you didn’t use him in SF4 otherwise you would be used to alot of this shit. Gone are the days where TU had tons of invincibility to blow through everything in CE days. In ST it traded all the time in ur opponents favor or got outright stuffed. Now? Capcom turned one of his biggest weaknesses into one of his greatest strengths. Just TU late if you dont wanna trade though. Period.

Sagat destroys Asuka so thats prolly why I’m biased. You lose no initiative off a TK block string. You are + frames. Please continue to do as you like after they block a well spaced knee. Yeah his overhead does 100 and ground bounces on a crouching opponent when it CH. Not that hard to get one of those in a game where mashing jab nets you 50% life combos.

All Ryu gets off a low forward is a fireball. Don’t contradict yourself. Also Gat gets + frames off his jab as well. Again wuts ur point? Also st.lk is + on block and outranges all his stuff cept sweep.

He has tons of blockstrings now that blockstun is back. Do w/e you want I’m serious. Lots of stuff works. BTW guys mess with st.hp. Its fucking retarded. Safe on block. Massive range and pushback.

Sagat is a good char bro idk what to say and I’m not the only one that thinks so. Wander into the tier list discussion thread and pretty mcuh everyone agrees sagat is top ten easy. You can’t look at things in a vacuum. Compare him to everyone else. Not just damage but how well they control others and the screen and limit options of others.

89

I apologize for sounding a bit like an asshole in my post but I wasn’t directing it specificly at you, but more of the community perspective of this game in general. There’s a lot of things to work with in this game and people are letting sfiv or whatever game they played before cloud their vision on how to play. Let me try and be a bit more helpfull in this post. I’m using my phone so sorry if I make this difficult to understand.

Frwd. Hk is actually a great aa in my opinion. You want to use it more as a sniper move so basically get a feeling for what makes your opponent want to jump. Sometimes I’ll get a pressure string going, stop, dash back and do a fake kick. If I see them leave the ground frwd.hk x2 into tu.

If someone is jumping at you constantly a better aa method would be jump back hp or lp tu.

A normal string I will do with sag is something like j.hp,cr.mk,cr.hp or st.hp if all of that is blocked I can continue the pressure by walking up with fr.st lp, st.lk chain pressure. If they mash after cr.mk I can combo off the ch cr.hp. Stuff like that.

Practice cr.mp,cr.mp,st.lk chain into tag or ex tk. That’s basically an introduction into his pressure game.

Another interesting thing to use is his frwd lk in your pressure game. On ch it seems to give you a safe jump.

One of the most important pieces of advice regarding sag’s pressure game is spacing your tk’s to give you frame advantage.

Hit the lab with that tech, and I feel you will have a changed perspective.

90

At what range are regular tiger knees safe? Any tips on how to space for those safe TK’s? Im guessing there arent any blockstrings that you can end in a TK for free safe pressure.

91

Since TK becomes active at 8 frames, there really isn’t any true block string that leads into it. But there are some ways to get proper max spacing. For example, against a crouching opponent (tested on Lili), these sequences will combo on hit, and leave you just outside of LK range, which is where you want to be for an advantageous LK tiger knee:
cr.LP, cr.LP, cl.LK
cr.LK, cr.MP, cr.MP
cr.LK, cr.LP, cr.LP, cl.LK

Like, I said, all of the above strings will combo on hit with proper link timing, and leave you at just about max range for a LK tiger knee with atleast a little frame advantage (or alot depending on if it hits). This is assuming you don’t cancel the last hit into TK, which would be fine anyway, as you could easily hit confirm.

Only drawback with these strings is that they are not block strings, and even have holes of about 3-4 frames in them, so someone mashing a 3 frame jab will interrupt you, but it’s worth the risk imo, and they probably won’t even attempt to mash out (unless you’re fighting an online masher, in which case you probably won’t need these strats anyway).

Another interesting bit of info about max LK TK range, is that it happens to be the same as for standing HP. EmblemLord mentioned it’s potential usefulness above. But, damn this fucker is rangy. It might become some people’s favorite button to replace standing HK. It has the same range as LK TK, hits crouching, gives atleast 2 frames advantage on hit, and is completely safe at max range. It also doesn’t knockdown, which considering forward roll, may be preferable in some situations, like in the corner. It hits for 90 damage opposed to LK TK’s 40 damage you get on second hit only. The only thing it doesn’t get you advantage pressure on block. But, it’s safer at closer range, so works a little better as a raw poke if you’re not confident with your spacing yet.

92

anyone have tips on dealing with vega?

I’m trying to adjust to the new sagat playstyle and i am struggling hard against people like vega. His jabs and pokes are owning me.

93

I think cr.mk xx lk tk at max range might be a true block string. It IS a true combo, so it’s a solid buffer tool in footsies. But TK is now back as a solid footsie tool so I feel just fine using it raw.

St.mk also remains a solid poking tool just make sure you buffer into st.hp and go into boost combo from there.

For frame traps st.lp and st.lk seem ideal. St.lp has 6 frame start-up when close but is +4 on block. From far range it’s 5 frame start-up but +3. St.lk is the same from far range with slightly great range but up close its only +1 but hits on frame 4. cr.lp and cr.lk are +1 on block. Still enough to stop jab mashing though if you follow with another fast normal.

CH set-ups with overhead and low step kick are a must if you wanna be a strong pressure Sagat. Mix in grabs to keep opponents from blocking all day and make them want to press buttons so you can net those set-ups.

Off CH low step Sagat can get a full jump in combo but you really gotta be looking for it. Easier to just dash in with cr.mp, cr.mp, xx w/e your meter allows you to do. Off a CH overhead on a crouching opponent your basic follow up will be cr.mk xx HP TU. Cr.mp hits too high. I’ll mess around a bit more to see if he can get more hits with his normals before ending the combo.

94

Looking at the frame data, probably not a true block string, if only the second hit is hitting. It looks like you have 14 frames of block stun on a canceled cr.MK, which puts you into active frame 6 (out of 14) on a LK TK. Probably not good at max range for cr.MK, but the only way it’s really going to be punished is by someone mashing.
I totally agree with the raw TK being an effective footsie tool though. Especially considering the snail walk speed of a big chunk of the cast, you shouldn’t have much trouble with spacing with some practice.

95

Okay, Ignore what I said about using cr.mk in block strings, it turns out that it is minus 2 on block, but you could do something similar with cl.st.lp, which has already been pointed out. I’m going to study this frame data and hit the lab and hopefully have some great stuff to share with you guys.

96

Magnus Reloaded, no disrespect but it sounds like you haven’t play Gat in SF4…EDIT just read the post where it says you didn’t play him in SF4

Every player that played Gat in SF4 thinks Sagat is great in this game because we know how to use him. Sagat can zone, but it’s not his main strength in this game. What is important is that he can zone the characters you need to zone aka heavy weight grapplers.

It’s obvious your out of touch with Sagat. Sagat might not have really high damage meter less combos, but the damage is still respectable and he dishes out damage CONSISTENTLY!

Forward Step kick is a GREAT, GREAT, GREAT move in this game if you played Sagat in SF4 and using it is second nature.

Sagat is a great character and one of the better Capcom Characters IMHO

97

Be glad sagat isn’t a zoner anymore, you’d never be able to kill someone with plasma alone.

98

Now that you say he is not a zoning character anymore, I find it quite hard to find a game plan with him…

99

So I am looking at the frame data and to be honest…he is still a zoner, just really different and no longer STRICTLY a zoner. His shots come out slower but recover way faster. At first it seems broken but when you play him you see why. It’s good but EVERYONE is good in this game and Gat extends his hurtbox WAY far in front of him for Tiger shots. Seriously throw a tiger shot when your opponent does a random heavy standing normal from half screen distance. They will tag you at least half the time its kinda crazy. Plus shots do less block. It will take some getting used too but he can still zone effectively. Just dont go nuts since jump ins give huge reward.

BTW you can’t jump shots on reaction and get a punish. They recover too fast. It’s all in your head. His frame data os just very different from what it has ever been before plus the system changes can make things jarring. Just keep playing and you will get used to it.

I feel like he can really do it all now. Defense, offense, frame traps, footsies, rush down and you are rewarded no matter how you decide to play him.

How you can not love this iteration of the king is simply beyond my comprehension.

100

Man you really have to be more careful with his chain attacks when trying to relieve some pressure off you or at least dont end it with the cr.fp, didn’t know it was so punishable ><

I’m getting a little better at it each day, it’s still scary for me when someone like hei, or chun is right up in my face. Been using the c.lp, c.mp, c.fp hit confirm into cross launcher or just ending it at c.fp, but even then the c.fp on block can get you killed.