It gives you a few more frames to charge. Claw’s flip kicks have a longer charge time than say, Guile’s sonic boom, and to get the double flip kick without doing this motion, your timing has to be more precise.
With the extra frame(s) of motion to charge, it allows for a little more leeway in executing the second flipkick.
This in turn makes it easier to do more consistently, and being able to execute consistently is one of the many keys to better play.
The reason nobody uses the jumping crossup is because it seems too risky to use in a real match. First off, it’s not at all common where you’re close enough to an opponent for the aerial to cross up and and even rarer where you’ll still have a need to crossup instead of just throwing. It’s certainly not a bad third option to his throw/low close situation if you can get it to work almost as easily.
Then, in the okizeme situation, why bother with such strict positioning when claw has a free and easy crossup in his wall dive? I know j.MK crosses up fairly easily against large characters but besides a gamble against a tough turtling Sagat in the corner, I haven’t seen any practical use for it. If you can position it well and consistently follow up with a nice combo (esp. on okizeme since the STHD wall dive doesn’t have as much damage potential anymore) or incorporate some other use for it, all the more power to you. Show some folks in a major tourney setting that it can be done.
As for charging, if you can always do the double kicks without preemptively charging, then fine, you won’t need it if you play claw; it doesn’t decrease your charge time or anything. However, as stated, some characters like boxer heavily depend on those few frames to maintain their rushdown pressure. In an ideal situation, it’s only necessary to hold db the same frame as you press K to charge for the next one but since we’re all so imperfect and the game is so lenient, we may as well hold db earlier. If you plan on playing other characters, it’s a good idea to get in the habit of preemptively charging since it won’t hurt you any.
I don’t mean to seem so dense on this subject, and won’t bother replying to it any longer after this, but I simply don’t see how going db,f,db+kick actually does something more than db,f+kick,db. Same inputs within the same time frame, you’re just actually hitting the kick button a millisecond (?) sooner the second way, yet both are hitting the second db at the exact same time.
Yeah, crossing up with Claw isn’t exactly the best idea in the world. Most people will eat the hit and go for a throw which does more damage. And crossing up Gief? Yeah, good idea. I’d like to go the entire match SPD free.
Jumping in over a fireball and hitting j.mk c.mk c.mp is a better idea and just controlling the space in front of you is better overall.
I’d totally agree with you if it wasn’t for one small detail…
If you’re able to successfully crossup with j.hp or j.hk…or even the Wall Dive, you gain access to a dizzy combo that’s possibly a ToD.
j.hp/j.hk, cl.hp, cr.mk, cr.mp or j.hp/j.hk, cr.mk (x2), cr.mp.
That being said, the information being stated is just information. I’m not saying it’s the most practical thing to try for…much like Dhalsim trying to jab Yoga Fire and then teleport behind your opponent and headbutt them for the dizzy. I’m a combo enthusiast. What can I say? 
But, I’m with you on the jump in combo…although I always use j.hp or j.hk because I take every bit of damage I can get and still combo the cr.mk, cr.mp link.
j.HP/j.HK cl.HP c.MK c.MP combos?
Also, are you implying to combo off a meaty deep walldive?
Ah! You didn’t know? That was his ToD from SSF2. I found the ground portion of the combo while I was doing the SSF2 Link FAQ. Once I was able to do crossup j.mk/j.hp/j.hk, I found that crossing up with any of those attacks and then performing the series of links consistently produced a dizzy…and a lot of damage. It’s a lot of work, timing wise, but the payoff is there.
So, again, if you can land any of those crossup attacks deep enough to combo into the cl.hp (which may actually come out faster than cr.mk does), you have yourself a ToD.
I believe there are two combo videos that show that you can at least crossup deep with the walldive and end up right next to the opponent with them still in hitstun. (I don’t think it’s been recorded as working from the front.) If you can cr.mk (x2), cr.mp after it, per the video, you can also cl.hp, cr.mk, cr.mp too. So, a meaty deep walldive would be a good tactic to at least try. Claw still does that little hop when he lands from the walldive, so a safe jump wouldn’t be possible. It’s risky for sure, but the payoff is there.
Interesting. I guess I have something to mess around with in training mode.
Yeah, out of the years I’ve been playing Claw for(3 so far), I never really knew that would combo.
Yeah, I saw those combo videos(which is why I threw out that question). I think it’s a little too risky because most people can just reverse against it(only people with excellent reversal timing, mind you). It’s good because it auto-dizzies, but it’s too risky to land in an actual match. That’s just me, though.
I mean, you can still get a c.MP off a non-deep walldive. Sure, you don’t get the dizzy, but it’s still more guaranteed.
And you probably wouldn’t have found it unless you decided to do a link FAQ. I didn’t know it was there either before then.
While you’re at it, try some links off of cl.hk. Not as useful as cl.hp, but worth exploring.
Or you could just find my FAQ on GameFAQs and check it out…making the appropriate translations from SNES SSF2 to ST, of course. With Vega, the only thing to be concerned about between those two games will be how far back hits knock your opponent back.
Your trepidation is understood. Like I said, you’d have to be sure that you could trick them into blocking the wrong way to escape without some type of reprisal. Mind games. Gotta love 'em.
None of your advice helps. He trades with EVERYTHING. HK is shit anti air against Gief. It doesn’t anti up close at all and it trades in all other situations. You can’t slide his lariat from poke range he recovers too fast now. Jumping up gets me beat clean 90% of the time when every Gief is close enough for jump up to hit. Also one wiffed jump move he’s in on me for SPD. It takes like 3 hits from me to equal one from Gief. All I’ve beening doing is playing this match up and nothing is working. He just keeps gaining ground or trading until I get stuck in a corner. It doesn’t matter how many times I hit him. I can’t control the space on gief effectively with out moving if I move I lose charge for for Flip Kick, if I lose charge for flip kick he owns though the air(excluding FC FP from long distance). It’s frustrating as hell. I’m trying to think of some way to beat him consistantly but I can’t.
With all due respect, that simply is not true.
There are clean attacks against him, but it sounds like it is not so much the attacks, but your style that you should consider tweaking against gief.
The HK should not be the first AA option against gief up close. It should always be the flipkick, and you should almost always have a charge when on the ground against him. Yes, his jump loop is extremely annoying and can prevent you from building charge, but you should never let him get that close to begin with (and it’s before that you should have a charge).
Unless he is close to you, I wouldn’t try and slide into a lariat from a distance. It just serves to close the distance between you and gief, and that’s always a bad thing.
Well, I wouldn’t recommend jumping in on gief to begin with as it seems you aren’t comfortable with it (yet). I’ve recommended j.HP against gief specifically in the air in another post on this thread, but some disagree with it. If you get the timing down, it can work, but if you aren’t confident in it, then don’t use it again (e.g. I am not confident in using s.HK as an AA, I just don’t have the timing/spacing down on it yet).
Well, that’s his trade-off, speed for power. :wgrin:
The point I’ve been trying to get at this whole post is that you should be able to keep gief at a distance using c.MP, slide, and flipkick. It seems like you might be playing him a bit aggressively, whereas you might benefit more from a turtle style in this matchup.
Also, I highly recommend using the sky-high claw (d~u, P). Most Gief players I have seen don’t seem to be able to counter this move in the air or on the ground. As always, if a gief shows that they do have a counter, then don’t spam it, but I assume that goes without saying. I recommend using the FP version (the one that is lowest to the ground), since gief is too big for claw to miss on low-block (unlike some other characters).
Backflip against Gief if you find yourself next to him. You can force an obligatory greenhand just so he can move forward and you might get a free slide punish. The backflip(3P version) builds enough space where he can’t get in without getting punished.
I don’t agree with that at all, You can (and prolly WILL) get grabbed, The only thing up close I do to that motherfucker is Forced Block Claw Roll during his wake up - the final hit pushes back to safe distance.
In short, you can get yanked out of backflips - TRUST ME. 
Can you get thrown out of a backflip while Vega’s hands are touching the ground? I can’t remember.
I don’t do enough double backflips to speak 100% but I’m a single junkie (so many wiffs) but gief can and will yank my ass out of a single.
Also the kick 360 (where he throws his hands up and runs at you) will eat doubles all day…
Maybe I play some good giefs?
So I’ve been practicing the flip kick juggle, but I can only land the 3rd hit if my opponent gets caught on the end wall on the way down…more practice needed.
And I’m sure most, if not everyone here knows this, but I didn’t. You can 2-1 into the flip kick from cr.short.
Fundamentally you are charging at least one more frame by doing hold :db::r::db::k: I don’t know how many frames exactly you have to push the button for the flipkick to register, I’m going to guess its under 3.
I can’t come up with an example where it shows for Vega’s case but check out this [media=youtube]CMsLIBc5LaI&fmt=18"[/media]. At :30, Guile could not be able to pull off the repeated sonic booms and flash kick unless he was preempting the charges. Mind you the combos in this video were tool-assisted with programmable controllers but they were all humanly possible.
Believe it or not but 1-3 frames do matter in this game in general. FYI- frames are 1/60 of a second.
Take a look at this page. http://nki.combovideos.com/data.html
In order to properly preform reversal attacks you have to do the command at the first frame from out of stun or while getting up. Some safe jumps require a 2 frame window.
In short, you’re just a bad player. If you’re at mid-screen range(or Gief is cornered), you can backflip after a knockdown(which counts as a reversal). You obviously don’t do this if you’re cornered because Gief will just walk forward and SPD on recovery, ALTHOUGH, it’s a lot hard to time for him. 3P backflip is that good. If you’re using 3K backflip, then that’s your fault.
So here’s what you do: s.fierce his ass to keep him at distance and start waiting for lariat because he wants to build meter and you get a free sweep. Then backflip to build space(because he WILL reverse with SPD if you do anything meaty). It’s not that hard.
Your best AA is c.fierce. It’s really hard to hit s.roundhouse clean if he’s coming in TOO close.
Your words toward Mycah seem a bit rough, DS. I am LOVING your advice about s.HP against 'Gief, though. I already felt good about the matchup but I’m connecting a shocking amount with a heavy standing poke. I believe Ganelon mentioned standing pokes earlier in the thread too, which probably made the specific suggestion stand out to me. I’ll try c.HP for 'Gief AA too, haven’t been using it much if at all against anyone lately and I hate getting punished after coming a bit short on a flip. Does it work particularly well as AA against any other characters? I occasionally miss Blanka’s j.HK by a hair with flips as well.
I’m starting to do better against Honda and Dic, j.HP advice from deadontime101 and DanielRGT was huge for cleaning headbutts and crushers. My second-worst matchup to Dic might be mirror at this point, although getting crushed 3x last nite by casperOne doesn’t help Still spending most of my time in the matches trying to get the timing down on j.MP to counter constant diving. Still not even close to handling it, IMO. I’m hoping that the matches will get more interesting if the wall game is majorly squelched.
I’m playing ultra ninja turtle against Blanka with good success, a matchup I really disliked when I started playing. c.MP to hit after a ball and/or flips to hit a jump-in, then run down the clock in a defensive crouch once a life advantage is achieved. Need to work on my timing against good Blankas who know the spacing to whiff rolls into bites and counter-counter-turtle them if they get a life advantage - I was rolling into their crouch with decent success if the latter occured.
I am not very sure about using s.fierce to keep his russian ass away, cr.mp works just one combined with st.mk and a safe slides. Doesn’t Vega’s hitbox becomes wider when using st.fierce? Now I am not sayind dont use it at all, but a mixup of your ground game may work better, or maybe I am missing DS’s point completely.
About the AA, I am gonna have to say that both cr.fierce and st.roundhouse work depending on the situation, both may trade with Gief if the distance or timing is not right, from MY experience I have an easier time using st.roundhouse, cr.fierce works very well, yes, but only if Gief is very far away, if he jump very near to you your best bet is back j.roundhouse I think. All in all why not use both dammit…
Use st.fierce instead of c.mp to punish after balls.