Good vids. Watching that Zangief player, I was like “sweep, sweep, sweep, dammit sweep his pokes!!” 
That billmjninja has a good Ryu. All around good matches tho.
Unrelated, but who is Claw’s toughest matchup? I know I used to think it was Blanka, but not anymore. I’m thinking Dictator, but they’re pretty close to even. After that it might be Dee Jay, but Claw maybe has a slight advantage there.
^ Honda, Dee-Jay, Balrog, Dic?
EDIT: I’ll be watching these videos closely, Shari. Thanks! Its funny but my play style is somewhat similar to yours. Seeing as you helped me out that one time, might I become the next Sharizord? …Norizord?
Serious question:
Wall dives. What do the different kicks do to change the dive? I only use the roundhouse dive. Also, at what point do you release punch so that the tip of your claw hits? Many thanks!
Blitzfu: Just throwin my 2 cents in here. As a fairly experienced Vega, I can pretty much call Claw’s most difficult matchup: Mr. Bison. It is just horrific. Nearly all of Bison’s sh*# can cancel out most pokes. Scissor kick shenanigans can cause headaches. Don’t get me started on his jumping mp juggle BS. Winning this match boils down to being psychic and anticipating Bison’s moves cause attacking and trading can end really badly for Vega. 7-3 Bison in my book, assuming equal skill.
Honorable Mentions for hard Claw matchups: E. Honda. Headbutt and buttslam used by experienced players can be rough to deal with. Honda can be quite the defensive beast here, and a mistimed poke leads to a headbutt. ouch! 6-4 Honda IMO.
Balrog and Dee Jay are 5-5 even in my book. Most pokes work on Balrog and as long as not cornered it is not too bad, and Dee Jay is highly defensive but there is still plenty of openings to take advantage of.
Blanka? Initially, I hated this matchup. If you look in this thread, you’ll see my disagreements with other members about this. On further reflection, I call this match 6-4 Vega. Why? Because if you can keep Blanka out of close range, he’s cooked. Play Ninja turtle and counter, and the match is a win in Vega’s favor. Blanka will tear Claw a new hole if he gets close range or cornered, so don’t let this happen.
To Noriega:
The type of kick used for dives doesn’t make a difference, they all dive the same.
Extend the tip of the claw once the opponent is within range. Too close and you’ll slam them. Extending the tip early can work if playing against a Blanka player who likes to counter with vertical ball. If timed right, you can cut the bastard out of his roll. This requires precise timing though. Most of the time, you will get knocked out by the roll if you miss. It’s risky, but if you can get the timing right, you can surprise many Blanka players.
Thanks for that Heavenly Claw. I was trying to decide which alternate character I should really focus on, and was looking for my top tier killer. Now it’s gonna be between Dictator or Zangief. It’s probably gonna be Dictator since Zangief has a tough time vs Dhalsim, and Dictator can at least go even with him, but dammit, I love using Zangief. 
Now, if only I could decide which of my mains to drop: Ryu or Ken. :bluu:
What are the, if any, advantages of using st.MK vs using, for instance, cr.MP? I know MK has a longer recovery, but is it good to toss in as another poking tool? I don’t see many people use it as much, but it seems too have good priority and comes out pretty fast.
There was a discussion on st. forward a while back. St. forward locks down shotos pretty well, barring random shoryuken because of the way the defensive and offensive hit boxes are set up.
S. MK is golden for Claw. It’s all in the hitboxes. Essentially, from Claw’s knee to his toe is offensive hit point, and is also invincible. Check the hitbox in training mode. This move is effective as a poke because Vega can’t get hit in the knee while executing the move. It’s quick enough to stop a hado on reaction, SRK whiffs it at the right range, and it also cleanly cuts off their hurricane tatsu. Bread n butter vs. Shotos.
It seems to me like Dictator is a great high-risk character who trades defense for an incredible offense. If you love keeping the pressure and making the first move, he is definitely suitable if you learn him well enough.
Ok, so I’m new to SRK and relatively new to ST as a whole. Never plaed OG ST, but HDR has been my fav game over the past few months. I really learned how to play strictly on PSN games, so yea…that’s my crappy background. So I’ve mained “Claw” for the most part, and I read the first 8 or so pages of this thread before skipping to this last one. I totally agree with 99% of what I’ve read, but I guess I have some questions…I’m not sure if these are all lag related since I don’t get many sessions of this game locally at all…so PLEASE let me know if I’m PSN-lag-ignorant here.
Are these strats true and practical in local play?..
Blanka - wake-up roll attack seems to kill any poke vega has except stMK which stuffs it. Any other pokes I’m not aware of? Any Claw moves to reversal rolling attack WHILE he’s flying?
Honda’s sumo smash, Chun’s CHd,u+k, DJ’s similar move - seems to me if they like to spam these ON WAKE UP, the well timed wall dive claw beats them out clean every time. Very useful, because from knockdown time, you can loop it with wall dive shenanigans until they respect it and move onto something else. And are whiffed wall dive claws punishable? I’ve never had it happen to me.
Vega mirror - as everyone says, wall dives are important, jump back/up mp/hp to anti-wall-dive, and be ready to slide counter flips. My main problem in this is getting tick throwed. I’m still only good at getting out of tick throw setups when I have lots of room to work with.
…sorry for the long post and if I sounded like a noob in there at all…but I want to get better and am having a hard time without knowing people really into HDR and not just 3s and SF4…aka GayFighter4…never did like that game. Any input on this is HIGHLY appreciated! Very cool forums here btw…took a long ass time for kara_parry to get me to join SRK.
In bold. All the best.
If you wanna attack Blanka while he’s Rolling, and you have charge, Flipkick is your best bet. But, like Norieaga said, the best thing for Claw is to turtle and punish Blanka’s offense, rather than pre-emptively countering him.
I may be wrong but isn’t Vega extremely vulnerable to roll into bite if he does just the above mentionned.
You have to be careful and react well. The basic premise of the match is an easy win for Vega, but that’s only if you have good reflexes.
Just curious, have any of you heard of Vega uno or Vega dos? I played both of them last night on ranked. Vega uno was 26-0 (before he met my Ken that is…) and Vega dos was right up there with him. They appear to be from Spain and know their shenanigans pretty well.
I’ve got the hitboxes for Vega/Claw up.
http://www.pedantic.org/~nate/HDR/vega/
Against a knocked down Blanka, the hitboxes suggest a well timed/spaced slide, the claw extention at the end of the rolling rolling attack, and diagonal jumping fierce punch in particular.
Reaction is key. Either Flip Kick or single back flip to create space.
You do not want to be cornered by Blanka. Period. Bad place to be.
My advice: Play Ninja turtle. Blanka is an inside fighter, and Claw is an outside fighter. Stay outside and counter accordingly.
Dive will usually get stuffed by Roll, unless your timing is good and you slice him out of the air. This is possible but hard and I’d recommend not diving.
However, you can jump to wall, and once they react with vertical ball, fake out of dive, and punish them for their insolence.
Claw can also attack Blanka with forward j. fp and this can usually beat roll.
One more tidbit: Blanka can be super or regular izuna dropped during his electricity. Press punch as Claw is positioned a little behind his head.
thnx for the replies. nice to know about the hitboxes. that’ll help me personally. I’m so bad at turtling tactics. I do lose matches to turtlers a lot. I just don’t have the patience unless there’s something at stake besides an online win. But yea, I guess I jus have to against that big ugly carrot-top. Thought def gotta watch out for over-turtleing him. Roll into throw/combos is tricky. Also, I know I should be able to drop/super drop electricity…but I almost always miss it. Lag? Need more practice? Both? …yea. Welp, see you guys on PSN!
Just adding in my two cents as a Vega Player.
Bigger characters like Zangief and Sagat can be hit in an unusual way. If you jump in with a forward j.fp, you can immediately do a j. lk going upwards , hit the opponent, and land behind them. This can be quite a surprise tactic if used sparingly.
Using crouching lk to simulate a slide can bait opponents pretty well.
Many opponents expect Vega to slide all day. Go back and forth between crouching and standing during the match to fake the opponent into reacting to defend against the slide and counter from above.
My personal favorite opening move of a round: Neutral J. FP. This can counter many opening moves clean. Hurricane kicks, walking Giefs, beast rolls, and most jump ins.
one thing i noticed about a third of all vega players is they spend 90% of the time in crouching position as if vegas standing normals arent some of the best in the game cough cough*.
vega has amazing footspeed and yet so many turtle vegas dont utilize it so it actually makes vega slower.
Apparently its supposed to be an advantage, but I’m having HUGE issues with the Ken matchup. It goes like this: SHORYUKEN, SHORYUKEN, SHORYUKEN.
I can play most of the other matches pretty darn good. But blasted Ken drives me INSANE.