Vega Q&A: Ask simple questions here!

Classic Fighting Games Ultra Street Fighter IV
1641

I’ll be biased on my ones:
Links: lp > lp > lp > MP (Can chuck HP on the end but it seems to split the link).
Probably one of his most common links and probably his easiest.
His Cr.MP combos lovely into both EX FBA and ST, It’s good.
Obviously then just go through Trials 3 & 4 on his normal trials and you have his basic links.

My little combo I love to do and it links together with timing:
Jumping in: J. HK > Cr.Lk > Lt.ST > EX.ST
It should total, I believe 4 hits and will come up as such if performed in succession.

A recent one, which thanks to watching Ruggie spar with Tatsu on his videos I’ve grown very fond of:
Jump-in HP > Standing HP (cancel out of second hit) > Heavy RCF.

Everyone else here probably have better ones out there than me so wait to see what comes out.

1642

It seems I have a fan.

One combo I’ve been able to hit more and more consistently is st. lk > st. lk > cr. mp
It’s really a nice combo because if your opponent is standing you can substitute the cr. mp to st. hk
Or overall you can just use cr. hp instead of cr. mp. That works best on tall characters of course.

It’s all about those damned 1 frame links. If you can master them then more power to you.

1643

You don’t need to learn every link Vega has, but make sure you can pull off the links signed with an asterisk reliably in any clutch situation. 2 asterisk-links are a bit more advanced, but IMO crucial to his gameplay.

2 Frame Links

st.lk, cr.mp*
st.lk, cr.lp
st.lk, st.rh
cr.mk, cr.mp*
cr.mk, cr.lp*
cr.mk, st.rh
cl.hp, cr.mp*

1 Frame links

st.lk, st.lk
cr.lp, cr.lp**
cr.lp, cr.mp**
cr.lp, st.rh
cr.lp, cr.lk
cr.mk, st.lk
cr.mk, cr.hp
cl.hp, st.lk (only after jumpin)
cl.hp, cr.hp

Those should be all of his links. Note that they can be mixed and matched, for example you can do

St.lk, cr.lp, cr.mp or cr.mk, cr.lp, cr.mp. Whatever, you get the idea. The 1-Frame links as they are aren’t really that hard. But by combining them, the timing gets trickier and trickier, mainly because the recovery of each move is different. The frame gap is the same, but the short amount of time you need to wait until you push the next button varies. Cr.lp, cr.lp, cr.lp is easier to memorize than cr.mk, st.lk, cr.lp, cr.mp.

1644

I tend to find players who I can look up to. You’re one of them :slight_smile:

1645

Great stuff. What I’m more trying here is to LEARN links, since I just kind of have a very bad game with Vega, and I do okay with it, and I think I’m just learning wrong. So even the links that aren’t fantastic, I think it would do me a world of good, even outside of SF4 to know them

1646

Nice list Sasaki! Helpfull to see them all written out like that. I could be wrong but I don’t think you can link cr lp > cr hp? Cr lp > st. rh but not cr hp.

I have a lot of these great meterless combos like j. rh > cr mk > st lk > cr hp down in training mode, but I always have trouble incorporating them into real matches. I think I get afraid to go out on a limb and leave my comfort zone of the less technical combos I know.

Another one of my favorites that I never really see people use, but I like to do as a punish when I know my jump in will hit:
j. rh (or hp) > st mk > lk ST > ex ST. I believe this is the most damaging 1 bar jump in combo Vega can do on smaller characters like Ryu, doing 327 dmg and a whopping 525 stun! That’s better than any of his combos into ex fba that I know of, except for j hp> cl hp> cr mp > ex fba, which only works on some of the cast.

The drawback is its only usefull as punish imo, and doesn’t hit crouching characters. The st mk has to be done between the db charge and the fwd lk of the ST so you can’t really hit confirm with it.

1647

I cannot do st.lk, cr.mp for the life of me

1648

Are you sure you’re trying the far st lk? As far as I know, close st lk is gutter trash and doesn’t link with anything. Everything Sasaki listed is referring to far lk. A good visual cue for landing rh or cr mp after the far lk is to do it the instant his kicking foot comes back to the ground, maybe slightly earlier for the cr mp.

If you’re still having trouble, try plinking: hit mp and lp almost simultaneously, with the mp just barely sooner (karathrow-style input).

1649

Deuy: Yeah, I made a mistake there. Thanks for pointing out :wink: cr.lp, cr.hp links only on counter hit.

Worm: It’s a little weird at the beginning but once you got the timing down, it’s easy and doable all the time. It’s a 2 frame link after all. If you want to practise hard links in general, try:

a) Akumas jab, rh, jab, rh, jab, sweep on Sagat.
b) Try some of the more difficult Vega combos, like the one Deuy listed above:

J.hp, cr.mk, s.lk, cr.hp
St.lk, st.lk, st.rh (tall characters)
St.lk, st.lk, st.hp (tall characters)
Cr.mk, cr.lp, st.rh
cr.lp, cr.lp, cr.mp

c) Try some FADC combos-> J.hp, cr.lp, cr.lk, lk roll FADC cr.lp, st.rh

Oh, and don’t plink if you play games besides SFIV. You don’t even need it.
And make sure that you press your next input AFTER you landed on the ground when you do a combo that begins with a jumping normal. Else your timing will get screwed up because of the input leniency of SFIV and you’ll fail the combo. Always remember this.

1650

I was NOT trying the far lk, I didn’t even know there was a difference, they both looked like knees to me.
EDIT:
That was it, I’m slowly getting it. I’m relatively new to fighters, well at least properly playing them. One question, is j. hp into cl. hp a link or does having a deep j. hp just make it a pretty easy thing to combo? So what I’m trying to do is just get out both buttons once and do the link, I figure this is a good habit generally? Like my goal is to see the attacks only once on the command log. Is that just masochistic or what?

The main reason I’m working on this is cuz I’m very hype about SSFIV and want to at least have a few tricks. Also I played KOF2k2 on GGPO and was aghast to see I could barely do Iori’s Rekka. So I figure I might practice just generally.

1651

J.HP into Cr. HP can link, yup. You can also link J.HP into Standing HP.
I wouldn’t say masochistic, just trying to improve your game and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

1652

I have a question.
After switching back to a pad about a month after I tried a stick, I’ve played nothing but pad (As in Dualshock controller) for pretty much a year.
I didn’t use HP nor MK for a while and realised how much my game has suffered as a result.
I’ve now switched everything around on my controller to compensate and put them back in.

Anyone have any advice for dealing with a switch of position for buttons because I really want to get back to the swing of things?
Since it’s gone from being:
R1: KKK
R2: PPP
L1: FA
L2: Throw
Triangle: MP
Circle: LK
X: HK
Square: LP

To:
R1: HK
R2: HP
L1: KKK
L2: PPP
Triangle: MP
Circle: MK
Square: LP
X: LK
(The ones on the 4 buttons are placed that way so I can tap them together for focus attack and throw).

I’ve found that with the change, my initiation of ultra and super have become very very consistent compared to before, but now it’s just conditioning myself to remember I no longer have 1-button throws and FAs and my backflips are on the other shoulders now.

1653

Jump-in :hp: -> low :hp: is a terrible link. Missed damage opportunity and low :hp: will go through some characters when done too close. Use low :mk: instead and link into low :hp:/low :mp:/ far :hk:.

1654

I learned this one the hard way D:

1655

Um, Worm, it’s not masochistic. You should ALWAYS be thriving for all your links to only show up once on the command log. Mashing is an impediment to your progress. Trust me. I used to mash links. Then I attempted to beat all hard trials (for all 25 characters) and I quickly learned NO MASHING!

To expand on what previous people said, Jumping Fierce, cl.s.fierce is actually a fairly easy link, you just need to pay close attention to the slash mark that Claw makes on the opponent. It is shaped like this \ (when Claw is on the left of the screen and the opponent is on the right side) Just cut the \ mark in half (horizontally) and hit your standing fierce when you see the bottom half of the slash being animated.

You’ll find this will make his 4th and 5th hard trial a piece of cake (since Claw’s trials are amongst the easiest.)

1656

Well in my HEAD it seemed like good form I just wanted to know if actually was or not.

RE: Guy telling me j. fierce cr. fierce is a bad link, I know. I said cl. fierce. What I’ve been doing is j. fierce, cl. fierce. cr. mp, and hopefully one day I can get the EX FBA on the end of it. Though not linking the EX FBA will be a lot less safe in SSFIV :frowning:

1657

I’m quite annoyed with the last one at present. Picked it up this morning, got right down to the last light kick then my attention span wavers and BAM I miss the last link. (Seriously I can have the attention span of a slug at times, I get distracted by the slightest of things.)

Anyone have any advice on actually doing it since it’s been bothering me for months, my links on everything else bar this are fine so I’m like “Dammiiiiiiit!”

1658

I’m kind of ignoring the challenges because 1. I can’t get past the first one of normal #4 and 2. the titles aren’t transferring to SSFIV right?

1659

Titles don’t transfer, no.
Which sucks. Because I only wanted to do up to Hard 3 because I adore the title “Acrobatic Dancer” Which I now have XD.
I did all of Bison’s because I wanted something Bison related to represent that I use both so I have Bison’s Icon and Vega’s “Acrobatic Dancer” title XD.

Which part of normal #4 you having problems with? Is it the first first bit, which I think is Jump-in > HK > St.MK > RCF?
Start charging backwards the moment you leave the floor and roll across the pad or stick or whatever you’re using right on the end of the St.MK.I find it always works (I rinse the trials on occasion just to make sure my initiation into linked combos is still there).

1660

I just can’t get the mk to link into the rcf, is this something where I can’t use the close mk?