In all honesty, Gief and Sagat aren’t even the problem. Comparatively, they don’t even come close. Let’s start talking about Dictator and Blanka, yea?
dictator if u can read which ones are his headstomp or jump u can just either dash back or forward to avoid his headstomp and the jump just abuse your air throw because sometimes Dictator jump mp > claw jump fp
Man, I wish I knew that I can EX walldive off a blocked Honda headbutt when I was playing today. It would have helped me so much. Whatever, I’m gonna just sit on that last EX bar every time I play against Honda now.
Oh yeah, is backflip a good way to deal with Ryu crossup j.forward or should I just block it?
according to http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww5.atwiki.jp%2Fkoko100%2Fpages%2F28.html&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=ja&tl=en you can also punish Honda Headbutt with Sliding? i guess thats down Fierce Kick not just EX Izuna can anyone confirm? so if you got no ex bar and can afford the chip block we can slide now?
according to the v2 guide, only standing MK and Ex walldive can punish the head butt
against blanka’s roll you can (apparently) punish it with EX walldive, dash -> cr.MP, or Ultra.
Here’s some vids from a recent tourney. A Vega player came in 2nd. Honda won it all. So much for the tiers, eh? 
Thanks. It says that claws flip-kick is his armor breaker and it almost looks like you can do a super without landing the grab?
Anyone know about this?
Edit: Google translates the Kanji for Chun Li’s name literally, so it says “Spring Treasure.”
yeah, its the super barcelona flying attack. its a 3 or 4-hit version of the move.
exactly
st. fierce is officially the go to normal against sagat. i’m too tired to go in depth about it, i might later, but until then, like, just trust me.
That was me who came in 2nd. What tier is Vega in anyway? I really only use him because of the Classic. I use Dsim too now. Vega is offensive and Dsim is Defensive. What a combination?
If you don’t see crossover after Izuna, then that’s not me.
I wish he labeled them but i can’t complain.
Edit: I got murdered in the Finals. Probably because of the long wait time everytime. I lost fair and square so i’m not making any excuses. Other than that, I think I did ok with my other matches.
NeoRussell
Vega was considered the worst character by a Japanese player. I knew which Vega you were; you mostly used the red/yellow Vega. You played very well! Thank you for adding some extra spice to that tourney! There were so many Sagat/Geif players, but you were able to get to the finals. Keep it up, man. I think the main problem with Honda is that he does so much damage, and Vega’s defense is low. Wall dive cross-ups gave that Honda player major problems, though. I don’t think Honda has a great answer to those. Your giving Vega players hope! :woot:
This is the second time that a Vega player has gone far (2nd in this one, and 3rd in the other tourney posted). I don’t think Vega sucks at all. He has some damn good match-ups. In time, Vega will get the respect he deserves.
By the way,i was wondering for a quite some time - how is the “save”(where you jump of the wall without leaping to an opponent) wall pounce can be done? Is it an lp version of it,or is it just advanced SFIV Vega steering?(since i can’t recall this being in any other SF games)
Yea, I’d be getting top 4 every time if I didn’t have to deal with:
Alex Valle - best U.S. Ryu/Dictator
Combofiend - best U.S. Sagat
Bobino - best U.S. Rufus
Ken I - second best U.S. Rufus
Xoynoy - best U.S. Boxer
Gootecks - second best U.S. Ryu
UltraDavid - best U.S. Gief (probably best Sim also)
Ed Ma - best U.S. C.Viper/Ken
and a slew of other excellent SoCal SF4 players.
I mean, I don’t wanna come in here and rain on anyone’s parade, but you can’t just get all excited because some Vega player worked a bunch of scrubs. To be perfectly honest, that Honda player was garbage. I mean, I’m not trying to knock Neorussel, but give me a break; Burning EX on random EX walldives? Not punishing blocked ultras? etc. If you brought that to SoCal you’d get shit on. I really don’t wanna sound like a dick, but it’s true.
Think about this: Japan is, without a doubt, the pinnacle of SF4. And it makes sense because they hold a majority of distributed SF4 cabs. So, understanding that, has anyone here seen or heard of Vega getting top 4 in any tournament over there? Or any tournament in SoCal (which is the pinnacle of SF4 in America). You haven’t seen it because Vega has some really shitty match-ups, atm. So I guess my point is, don’t just base Vega’s strength off of some random tourney with scrub players. Look at good players (Nisepachi) playing other good players for reference.
Steering.
Notes:
- Like I said before, st.fierce is Vega’s best normal against Sagat. It has great range, good priority (but only against Sagat for some dumb reason), stuffs fireballs on start up, and (the best part) will get a much better trade if the tiger shot happens to come out.
deviousj: Don’t backflip cross-ups. According to JWong, you can ex-walldive them on your wake-up (I’ve yet to confirm this). And if it isn’t true, or you don’t have meter, just block.
vs. Blanka there is absolutely no reason to hold down back. This is the #1 mistake that Vega players are making against me, holding down back for some reason and letting me earn crossup range without fighting for it. A down-back charge isn’t going to do you any good really, flip kicks are out of play in this matchup anyways, especially against the crossup. No reason to wall dive either, especially not on Blanka’s wakeup.
Another big mistake that people are making is dancing around with focus attacks. Once I see the windup animation, I’m going to do the ball. Other characters can bait Blanka with this, like Ryu or Sagat can show focus animation, dash back and DP into pain. Vega has nothing like that, so don’t even screw around with it. I know WHY people are doing it, trying to predict low fierce so they can get focus into d/f rh into whatever, but you can accomplish the same thing by walking back and it doesn’t give me free damage if I happen to have a back charge.
This is a CvS2 match and it needs to be played like one. The main objective is getting Blanka to whiff pokes so you can punish them. Blanka has good pokes in low fierce, s.strong and low rh, but they can be baited. The other benefit to jiggling in and out of mid-range is that you’ll get Blanka to lose his down charge. This is important since ex d-u+k ball is the primary anti-air in this matchup. Jump straight up fierce has holes in it’s range. If Blanka breaks his down charge and it’s close enough that jump straight up fierce isn’t going to work, your jump fierce becomes available as a way to start offense, because Blanka can’t stop it with s.rh OR jump straight up fierce.
So in short, in close = bad (every hole in poking pattern I’m either mashing low short or going to do EX ball). Slightly outside of mid-range = excellent. Blanka doesn’t like people who can play mid-range with him. I think Blanka has the advantage in this matchup because he’s stupid easy to play, but it’s not hopeless.
vs. Bison, pick another character. I’m serious, this matchup IS hopeless.
–Jay Snyder
Viscant@aol.com
Nice! This is unbelievably helpful. :tup:
On that note, I think it would really benefit us all if we had threads dedicated to discussing particular character match-ups. Not that this thread isn’t… adequate, but I find it kinda discouraging having to traverse post after post looking for something useful; coming up short, usually. :bluu:
sigh Yea, Sanchez and I were discussing this a couple days ago. It seems like, serious sf4 players, are going to have to learn multiple characters. This might put people off at first, but I think it’s going to make team tournaments waaaaay better.
P.S. In terms of the Bison match-up, I might just have to learn Honda. 
Actually Russell beat some good players, he’s a nice guy and an excellent player. Yes Vega can win but he has some bad match ups. I got a chance to play him (Russell) recently and it was interesting since both of us had completely different Vega styles he was far more offensive and I zoned and turtled. We played a total of 3 matches the first of which his style completely dominated the first match, and the other two matches were down to the last hit on the 5th round. This goes to say there is at least 2 different play styles you can adapt to claw and be successful. Incidentally both of us lost afterwards to a good turtling guile player a, lol. Match was much easer when you know that jumping hk beats flash kick clean!
Both of us are now playing other characters on the side, but that’s not because claw is bad, at least for me its mainly testing the waters.
Good Luck all and GG’s
Som
Do it.
Well, I suppose we’re all entitled to our own opinion. :rolleyes:
Nike, son, nike. 
seriously you hit the nail on the head. It’s fucking terrible versus Bison, I’m still having major problems with balrog too. I’m not sure whether I need to focus on defense and blocking (like learning to block all his shit like the japanese do) or I need to just say fuck it and start attacking before I rushed to death. I don’t mind learning to block but I know the other player doesn’t care if I choose to stand there and get chipped/attacked to death hoping to learn something in the process, he’ll just think I’m frozen and go crazy.
Playing Vega makes sf4 not fun to me anymore. Give me Gief or Rufus maybe sagat but fucking bison and rog, argghh.
I read Jay’s post and he’s basically saying play footsies right (against blanka)? This game is weird man I do better against experienced sfers or guys that play footsies then guys that just pick up this game and haven’t played since sf2.
I.E. I can beat ken players that play “smart” or like 3s ken but if I play a scrub ken who retorts doing throw/fierce DP “mixups” upclose I get beat by the reward/risk factor. It’s weird sometimes. It feels like vega does good against the top tier characters or players but sucks against middle characters and players. It’s probably just me that sucks. I’m probably gonna mess around with bison, blanka, or my first character rufus again.