SF4 Biweekly TACV 17: Sagat

Sagat may not seem like an exciting combo video candidate at first glance, but how could the consensus strongest character in the game not to have at least a few interesting tricks? Between his overall damage output, generous juggle potential, frame advantage across the board, and kara-cancel movement capabilities, there’s plenty to work with.

0:11 Sagat’s whiff F+HK xx HP Tiger Uppercut catches Zangief’s rotating feet from maximum range without sacrificing damage. In fact, every regular Tiger Uppercut in this video registers full first-phase damage. There’s a slight delay before the F+HK juggle to avoid slipping under Gief, but the rest is airtight. Although he doesn’t bounce higher than average, Zangief is a useful combo dummy because his falling hitbox is bulky enough to reach up into the fourth phase of Sagat’s EX Tiger Uppercut.

0:20 Dhalsim’s c.LP extends into Sagat’s LK Low Tiger Shot roughly 17 frames after its first active frame, generating a counterhit in the process. Sagat pushes some buttons and finds himself at the perfect distance to cross over crouching Sim with two-hit EX Tiger Knee. At this point, Dhalsim is the only character who floats high enough to get hit by EX High Tiger Shot, which allows Sagat to follow up with a few bonus hits of Tiger Destruction. Note that the spacing for the EX Tiger Knee crossup was actually established via the starting point of the combo, because projectile pushback doesn’t reflect off the corner. Furthermore, this combo only works in the right corner. EX Tiger Knee strictly refuses to cross into the left corner, and the downward portion always whiffs midscreen.

0:32 All three of Sagat’s command normal attacks are contained in this combo, along with a pair of Fake Kicks for good measure. Although Sagat’s j.HK hurts less than j.HP does, only j.HK strikes low enough to make Seth lean forward into F+HK. Otherwise it simply whiffs over his head. Normally Sagat’s close s.HP grants +4 frame advantage while his far s.LK connects on the 6th frame. However, Seth’s crumple animation visibly dips under Sagat’s fist, then rises into s.HP as a meaty setup to round out those 2 missing frames. Everything else is fairly straightforward. This combo tallies exactly 750 stun to dizzy Seth, amounting to 518 damage.

0:45 Standard projectiles generate 30 frames of combined impact freeze and hit stun. It’s uncommon for non-knockdown attacks to outlast a fireball interrupt, but the first hit of Sagat’s HK Tiger Knee causes 14 frames of impact freeze plus 24 frames of hit stun – leaving Sagat at +8 after the trade. With proper spacing, the second hit of MK Tiger Knee can avoid most crouching dummies until its descent, reducing Sagat’s recovery time dramatically. Evidently Rose’s falling hitbox is special, because sometimes the first uppercut of Tiger Destruction hits her once then misses the last hit – which happens to be the trigger for the flaming cinematic uppercut. The ultra simply halts without it, allowing Sagat to step into the corner and juggle her out with five-hit LK Tiger Genocide. This combo deals 377 damage and 490 stun.

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1:03 Ken’s crouching hitbox is far more conducive to this combo than Rose’s or Guile’s, but his LP Hadoken travels much faster than LP Soul Spark or LP Sonic Boom. After several hours of experimentation, he’s finally capable of orchestrating an effective fireball interrupt setup. When Ken kara-cancels HK air Hurricane Kick into EX Hurricane Kick, he gains a huge momentum burst until he lands. It’s even enough to transport sluggish characters like Sagat across the stage. There are six Tiger Knees in this combo – all HK versions except the two-hit MK Tiger Knee near the end. Since HK Tiger Knee xx FADC, c.LP is a one-frame link, Sagat can’t use any other attacks during those loops.

1:15 Sagat’s High Tiger Shot normally provides +2 frame advantage, while his quickest attack is c.LP which connects on the 3rd frame. It’s actually quite easy to whiff a High Tiger Shot right over Dan’s head after j.HP, but landing that meaty LP High Tiger Shot requires precise timing and spacing. Dan’s body naturally sinks and rebounds during crumple animation, so avoiding the first active frame of LP High Tiger Shot following lvl2 Focus Attack is purely a matter of timing. The rest of the combo is conventional.

1:31 Blanka’s notoriously elusive hitbox makes him a prime candidate for meaty High Tiger Shot setups. It’s difficult to delay fireball impact by one extra frame against most dummy characters. With Blanka, c.MP xx LP High Tiger Shot produces +6 frame advantage! That’s enough to link far s.LK and cancel into another fireball. Of course it requires absurdly precise spacing, and Sagat needs to walk forward during every frame gap throughout the combo to stay within range, but the end result is six fireballs via three loops. Lastly, whiffing Blanka’s s.HK provides the meaty counterhit setup for the seventh fireball at the beginning. Every High Tiger Shot in this combo is the LP version except the final one, which must be the MP version because Sagat gradually loses ground and the LP version doesn’t combo anymore. Killing Blanka with the last fireball would create a free juggle state, but Sagat can’t seem to recover in time to add anything further from that range.

1:42 What sets this combo apart from everyone else’s damage attempts is the eleven-hit Tiger Destruction ultra at the end. Usually it juggles ten times, which would fall short of killing Seth at 742 damage. There are two keys to extracting the eleventh hit against Seth. Firstly, the Tiger Knee part of the ultra must juggle four times, which only happens when all four hits come in quick succession. By contrast, the ultra connects on its first active frame against Dan, which gives him too much time to float upward before the second hit becomes active. By the third hit, he’s flying clear above Sagat’s head. To prevent this, the ultra must be initiated while Seth is high in the air to bypass its first few active frames, thereby compressing the gaps between the remaining ones. The problem is getting close enough, fast enough, without relying on the corner – because using the corner to land the Tiger Knee part of the ultra always sacrifices four of the cinematic uppercut’s six hits. After optimizing everything else, it turns out the trick is to kara-cancel HP Tiger Uppercut into Tiger Destruction. One frame of HP Tiger Uppercut covers more ground than one frame of Sagat’s walk speed. Secondly, whenever the Tiger Knee part of the ultra juggles four times midscreen, the uppercut whiffs. That’s where the corner comes in – it can be utilized to finish the ultra, but the gap needs to remain wide enough to keep the cinematic uppercut from sliding all the way in and bouncing Seth out. Finally, all three versions of Sagat’s Tiger Genocide have identical damage data, but the MK option recovers significantly faster so it’s obviously the best version to employ here. Another HP Tiger Uppercut kara-cancel was used before the super, but that’s not as essential because there are other ways to handle that. This combo inflicts 767 damage and 450 stun.

This is a tool-assisted combo video recorded with two ASCII PAD V Pro programmable controllers. Absolutely no cheats, hacks, or game-altering devices were used in the making of.

34 thoughts on “SF4 Biweekly TACV 17: Sagat

  1. Maj Post author

    It’s been less than three weeks since the last episode! That’s gotta count as biweekly, right?

    Check back in a couple of days for the complete transcript. In the meantime, please don’t hesitate to ask questions about any specific combos.

  2. Maj Post author

    Before i start working on the transcript, here are some random extraneous notes while they’re still fresh in my mind.

    At 0:40, Sagat can sneak into the corner by whiffing LK Tiger Knee and still have enough time to throw out one Fake Kick before landing F+HP as meaty as possible. Problem is, Seth doesn’t turn around when he wakes up dizzy. The back side of his dizzy hitbox is wider than the front side, so the Tiger Uppercut whiffs and Tiger Knee doesn’t combo either.

    I like the combo vs Dan, except it irritates me when i can’t add a Focus Attack trade in front of jump-in combo that isn’t geared towards damage or dizzy. Since it’s so rare, i always think there has to be a way. Sometimes there isn’t.

    In this instance, the meaty setup at 1:19 relies on the opponent kneeling under the High Tiger Shot during Focus Attack crumple stun, then rising up again. Unfortunately Dan’s hitbox never fully reaches his normal standing height at any point during his crumple animation. Towards the end, he does peak high enough to get hit by Sagat’s j.HP, but always reacts with low impact (leaning forward) hitstun reel. He never gets high enough for the j.HP to cause high impact reel (leaning backward), which is necessary for the first High Tiger Shot to land meaty.

    Essentially, these two meaty setups would require opposite behaviors from an opponent’s crumple stun. The first case needs Dan to stay high and the second needs him to sink low, so they can’t coexist in the same combo. Proving something like this to any degree of certainty (enough to satisfy me) takes forever.

    Moving on to 1:32, that c.MP xx LP FB, s.LK xx FB sequence only seems to work against Blanka and Bison because their hitstun animations curl away from the fireball. In fact, Blanka and Bison were the second and third dummies i tested this (long-shot) idea on.

    Why? Because they’re spectacularly awful combo targets. Those two lean away from everything! Sometimes it pays to be familiar with both ends of the spectrum – even on the “general usefulness” scale.

    Lastly, Vega really needs a counterhit trade button (such as Rose’s far s.LK). I’ve tested all of his non-knockdown attacks with and without the claw, even his jumping attacks. Nada.

    It’s a shame, because that last combo is actually worth 1005 damage against maskless Vega – partly because you can get five hits from Sagat’s super instead of four against Seth. Keep in mind that HP Tiger Uppercut yields 213 damage against maskless Vega while counterhit boosts it to 267 damage. When the ultra at the end is averaging less than 30 damage per hit, sacrificing 54 points is no joke.

  3. wilerson

    Awesome that you managed to include a solution to Combo Challenge 7 that no one could do at the time.

  4. Numsigmernen

    You know, the good side of the delay is that it’s just much more impressive that you can still find so many original combos in this game, even with one of the most popular characters. That was simply beautiful.

  5. onreload

    what was the attack interrupted against crouching Rose via her Soul Spark? was it a Tiger Uppercut?

    also, awesome video, every combo is something unique that nobody else could have thought up. one of the best of the series

  6. error1

    I really think this is one of the best tacvs so far, yeah it surprised be at the start of the blanka combo, beacuse he is such a bad dummy for combos
    @wilerson I eventually posted a sagat solution
    @onreload it’s a tiger knee, tu would have launched her and has invincibility, see the seth combo for what it would look like

  7. Maj Post author

    Yeah it’s the first hit of HK Tiger Knee. It’s uncommon for non-knockdown attacks to cause enough impact freeze and hit stun to outlast a fireball interrupt, but Sagat’s TK has plenty of both.

    For reference, here’s the order in which i discovered/recorded all the combos: Sagat vs Seth (KO), vs-Seth (dizzy), vs-Zangief, vs-Ken, vs-Rose, vs-Blanka, vs-Dan, vs-Rose (revised), and vs-Dhalsim.

    That vs-Rose combo was originally recorded as j.HP, c.LK, s.LP, c.MK xx HP DP (FB interrupt), ultra, super. But i decided that ending it with MK Tiger Knee, ultra would be more interesting – which required crouching Rose, which meant s.LP wouldn’t connect anymore. Maybe i can throw it on the DVD under “Deleted Scenes” or something, i don’t know.

    I had the vs-Dhalsim idea fairly early, but i knew how it would shape up so i left it for last. The actual last concept i found was vs-Dan, which is why it only has five fireballs instead of six.

    If i hadn’t made the vs-Blanka combo first, the combo on Dan probably would’ve looked something like j.HP, LP FB, c.LP, c.LP, c.LP xx HK FB xx lvl2 FA xx dash forward, LP FB, c.LP, c.LP, c.LP xx HK FB xx lvl2 FA xx dash forward, LP FB, c.LP, c.LP, c.LP xx HK FB instead. But since i already had seven fireballs against Blanka, it gave me the freedom to mix it up with Dan.

    Btw am i doing something wrong or does High Tiger Shot xx lvl2 Focus Attack not work? According to frame data, high and low fireballs cause the same exact hit stun, so why does Low Tiger Shot combo into lvl2 Focus Attack when High doesn’t?

  8. error1

    yeah I’ve noticed that, you can always get a low tiger into lv2 fa, regardless of spacing or anything, but not never a high tiger lv2 fa
    No idea why this might be, perhaps low tiger can be canceled earlier.
    there is something that doesn’t add up in the frame data.
    low tiger has five frames more recovery, but is only four frames worse on block.
    I think the hit stun numbers are right, just beacuse all fireballs cause 22

  9. Maj Post author

    Are you sure about that? How did you find that number 22?

    Sagat’s lvl2 Focus Attack reportedly has a minimum startup of 29 frames, connecting on the 30th frame. It couldn’t possibly combo if Low Tiger Shot hit stun was only 22 frames.

    In my second video, i used Rose’s LP FB to interrupt Gief’s s.HP and then linked c.LK which hits on the 3rd frame. Frame data says Gief’s close s.HP causes 22 frames of hit stun.

    Those numbers don’t include impact freeze since normally it doesn’t matter for clean hits. Including those 12 additional frames, you get 34 frames of total hit stun. If the fireball interrupt only cost 22 frames, Gief would have forever to link anything he wanted, but i remember it being a fairly tight combo.

    Counting frame by frame in my Sagat clip, it looks like Rose’s LP FB actually causes ~30 frames of hit stun. That’s a lot more believable than 22.

    Also, Akuma’s air fireball and Dhalsim’s Yoga Catastrophe definitely cause more hit stun than “regular” fireballs, so not all fireballs are universally standardized either.

  10. error1

    Maj :
    Are you sure about that? How did you find that number 22?

    same place under frames of hitstun
    the 22 number doesn’t account of impact freeze ether. I can believe fireballs cause 8 frames of impact freeze, and that a hard attacks causes 11.
    ex moves are a little weird too, but 90 of the projectiles seem to cause the same hitstun, and there’s nothing that indicates a difference between high and low tiger.
    I did some testing and it seems the reason you can’t higher tiger falv2 is that high tiger cancels 1 frame later then low tiger for some reason so it ends up connecting after 31 frames

  11. Maj Post author

    That’s cool, thanks for testing it.

    It’s strange of them to write the frame data that way. I guess they decided that since all their hit stun values omit impact freeze, they should subtract it from projectiles as well.

    But the fact is that projectile impact freeze doesn’t affect the attacker at all. So even in non-trade situations, 8 frames impact freeze plus 22 hit stun is essentially the same thing as 30 frames of hit stun.

    For projectile attacks, impact freeze only means the opponent is frozen in place – pushback doesn’t begin until those 8 frames are over. In every other sense, it’s the same damn thing as pure hit stun. So for all practical purposes, the number is really 30 frames.

  12. error1

    yeah there is something to be said for consistency, if it where me I would have probably made a another column for impact freeze, just beacuse that matters in trade situations.
    Do you know where this frame data originally came from? It seems to be from some Japanese source, but I’ve never seen the originals

  13. Maj Post author

    I’m pretty sure it was all transcribed from the original printed Japanese strategy guide, probably by someone on SRK.

    Btw i happened to find the Dhalsim ultra and Akuma air fireball exceptions through direct testing a long time ago, since both were great potential interrupts. I pretty much ignored the published hit stun data for projectiles because i knew it didn’t make any sense.

    But i checked out of curiosity just now and Akuma’s Zanku Hadoken is indeed listed as 24 hit stun. Dhalsim’s ultra isn’t specified since it knocks down at the end, but from what i’ve seen it’s definitely longer than regular fireballs.

    However, i noticed that Dhalsim’s EX Yoga Fire is listed as 16 hit stun. And the same might be true of all non-knockdown two-hit fireballs, because Ken’s EX Hadoken and Guile’s EX Sonic Boom have the same data. I tested it real quick and those numbers might be accurate!

    When you interrupt Sagat’s non-counterhit Tiger Uppercut with a standard fireball, he doesn’t recover in time to juggle F+HK. Against Dhalsim’s EX Yoga Fire, he does! You can use a slow Tiger Shot to strip away the first hit, then trade non-counterhit Tiger Uppercut with the single remaining EX Yoga Fire hit, and there’s plenty of time to juggle F+HK.

    Anyway Sagat doesn’t really gain any revolutionary breakthroughs from this improved setup, but i’m sure i’ll find a great use for it with another character.

  14. error1

    yeah, I’ve known for a long time that the ex fbs had different numbers, but I’ve always suspected they where wrong.
    just did some testing with kens ex fb, it has the same 8 frame impact freeze and only 16 frames of hit stun, so it takes a total of 24 frames instead of 30.
    ex yoga doesn’t dissipate in ssf4 right? I’m surprised I’ve never seen a setup with it.

  15. Maj Post author

    Damn, if i’d seen those numbers earlier i definitely would’ve used it in a combo by now. 6 fewer frames of hit stun is huge.

    Anyway it makes sense. Two hits means two 8-frame impact freezes, which would’ve meant 8+8+22=38 frames total. I guess Capcom (wisely) didn’t want to give EX fireballs an extra +8 frame advantage, so they compensated by reducing their hit stun by 6.

    You still end up with 32 total frames instead of 30 for regular fireballs, which makes it a lot easier to combo lvl2 EX Focus Attack. The frame data confirms this because Dhalsim’s EX fireball has 2 more frames of recovery than his LP fireball, but yields the same frame advantage.

  16. error1

    yeah it ssf4 dhalsim gets +10 on hit with his ex yoga, and it’s the slowest fireball in the game, and it never goes away, oh and it causes 6 less hit stun. Why hasn’t anyone done a setup with it.

  17. Maj Post author

    Hey don’t blame me, i only played that game for three weeks. Not sure where you got that info though. SRK’s SSF4 frame data says EX Yoga Fire is only +4.

    It doesn’t dissipate but it’s not very slow either. EX Yoga Fire looks faster than LP Yoga Fire – clearly faster than LP Soul Spark or LP Sonic Boom.

    But the speed doesn’t really change much. EX Yoga Fire running through a regular fireball in SF4 arrives on the other side of the screen at basically the same time as LP Yoga Fire would. Dhalsim can’t teleport more than once anyway, because the camera doesn’t scroll fast enough to catch up.

    Bottom line is, it makes a perfectly good setup in SF4. We’ve just been sleeping on it all this time. I don’t even remember which combos failed because of too much fireball hit stun, but i’m gonna review all my old transcripts/comments while i’m working on the DVD for sure.

  18. Maj Post author

    The transcript is ready. It should answer most questions, but don’t hesitate to ask for clarifications and whatnot.

    There are some minor details i left out because it’s already long enough. In the combo against Dhalsim, i actually kara-canceled HP Tiger Uppercut into Tiger Destruction, but it didn’t change anything whatsoever. The ultra still juggles three times either way and the uppercut still misses.

    It’s not that difficult to execute either. Obviously it’s a one-frame kara-cancel but the motion is simple. You just do D, DF, F, D, DF, F, F+HP, F+KKK. You can execute the whole thing as slowly as you want, as long as the button inputs at the end are pressed quickly.

    By the way, i’ve also tried whiff F+LK xx whiff DP xx ultra and it doesn’t work. The super comes out instead of the ultra – which is technically very surprising as well, but practically useless.

    The combo against Blanka is a true corner combo. They start outside the corner for purely aesthetic reasons, but the expanding startup animation of High Tiger Shot pushes Blanka all the way into the corner anyway. By the time Sagat recovers, he ends up standing exactly where he would’ve if they’d started all the way in the corner. Just thought i’d clarify this to avoid any confusion in the future.

    Regarding dummy selection, the first combo works against Zangief and Balrog for different reasons. Zangief’s hitbox is just plain big while Balrog simply bounces higher. It would work against more opponents without that lvl3 Focus Attack stuff at the beginning. But for example Honda’s legs aren’t as long as Zangief’s so the problem becomes landing that HP DP from far enough away that you don’t slip under when you try F+HK.

    Rose isn’t unique as far as inducing Sagat’s incomplete ultra. I’ve had it happen to Dhalsim as well. There might be others, but Rose probably requires the least precision.

    The combo against Ken can work against Rose and Guile as well, but you’d definitely end up sacrificing some of those jabs. Keep in mind that Sagat’s first c.LP causes a ton of pushback from point blank range – way more than c.LK, which isn’t an option there.

    The combo starter against Dan works on a few others: Sakura, Dhalsim, Ryu/Ken, etc., but Dan is actually a pretty wide character, plus the ultra’s first uppercut hits him twice, so i think he’s the best choice for that combo.

    The rest of the clips either require Seth or have been discussed already.

  19. error1

    yeah idk where the +10 came from but at max range vs a crouching honda b+hp,ex fire leaves you at +12 in sf4 and +20 in ssf4

  20. Doopliss

    Lol, I just realized the Rose combo was a hard solution to my challenge. I attempted something similar, but could find out a way to get enough moves before the Ultra, and I didn’t know how to space the TK to be able to do the ltra afterwards. I tried to get Soul spark to hit me out of TU, into f.HK into Ultra, but f.HK didn’t come out in time, like you said.

    “By the way, i’ve also tried whiff F+LK xx whiff DP xx ultra and it doesn’t work. The super comes out instead of the ultra – which is technically very surprising”

    Not really. You got Super because you cancelled a move, and therefore, Super was the highest priority move that could come out, as Ultra’s can’t cancel other moves. “Kara” cancelling f.LK and f.HK is just normal special/super cancelling.

  21. Maj Post author

    Well, i was able to kara-cancel Sagat’s HP DP into ultra after all. It just doesn’t work in the middle of an F+LK kara-cancel.

    I meant whiff F+LK xx whiff DP xx super is surprising because for example you can’t kara-cancel Ryu’s c.MK into HP DP then kara-cancel that into super. Normally you only get one kara-cancel opportunity per sequence, until you return to neutral state.

  22. Rufus

    Maj :
    Well, i was able to kara-cancel Sagat’s HP DP into ultra after all. It just doesn’t work in the middle of an F+LK kara-cancel.

    Yeah, SSF4 kara cancels only work with two moves that would individually be possible.

  23. error1

    video wouldn’t show anything beacuse no frames of the teleport actually happen
    but the input db,charge,cl.hp,f,df,d,b,f,PPP,K does teleport if you don’t have super and super if you do

  24. error1

    never mind that’s not actually a kara, beacuse I can delay the super input, it’s just the game doesn’t care what order you do them in, it will always do the super

  25. Doopliss

    Maj :
    Well, i was able to kara-cancel Sagat’s HP DP into ultra after all. It just doesn’t work in the middle of an F+LK kara-cancel.
    I meant whiff F+LK xx whiff DP xx super is surprising because for example you can’t kara-cancel Ryu’s c.MK into HP DP then kara-cancel that into super. Normally you only get one kara-cancel opportunity per sequence, until you return to neutral state.

    Well, as I said, “kara” cancelling f.LK start-up isn’t really kara-cancelling, it’s a normal special/super cancel. It has cancellable frames during start-up. I guess it’s the same as normally cancelling Ryu’s c.MP into HP DP, then kara-cancel that into Super… but does that even work?

  26. Maj Post author

    Here’s a couple more notes i forgot to mention. I believe the only way to juggle eleven-hit ultra against Seth is via four-hit knee, one-hit first uppercut, and six-hit cinematic uppercut.

    But you can see the first uppercut hits twice against Dan, so that should be another option, right? Well, i don’t think so. I’ve never seen it behave that way outside of the corner, and it’s obviously useless in the corner, so i think it’s fool’s gold overall – at least against Seth.

    Also, you might be asking why another s.LK wouldn’t link at the end of the Blanka combo. Sagat’s second fireball is clearly thrown from further away than the first, so you’d think it would create a lot of frame advantage. It turns out that’s not the case because Blanka’s hitbox after Sagat’s c.MP is a much smaller target for High Tiger Shot than his s.LK reaction.

    More importantly, Sagat’s c.MP causes 16 frames of hit stun while s.LK causes 13. High Tiger Shot is listed as 11 startup with +2 frame advantage when it connects. Sagat’s far s.LK connects on the 6th frame.

    That means in order to link s.LK, the High Tiger Shot must connect 4 frames later than usual in order to raise its frame advantage to +6. However, that would increase its startup from 11 to 15. Since s.LK only causes 13 frames of hit stun, it’s absolutely impossible to make s.LK xx High Tiger Shot, s.LK work.

    In fact, published startup numbers on fireballs are kind of fishy. I have a feeling that “11” number means the fireball is created on the 11th frame, but doesn’t connect until the 12th frame.

    If that’s true, then it would have to connect on the 16th frame to provide +6 frame advantage. That makes c.MP xx High Tiger Shot, s.LK absolutely airtight on two accounts. And s.LK xx High Tiger Shot would provide at most +3 frame advantage, which is only enough to link c.LP which is clearly out of range.

    The bottom line is, as far as i can tell, that combo is over.

  27. Doopliss

    Maj :
    Nope.

    Guess that might be because of hit-freeze then. Try doing “whiffing far s.LK xx EX RBG~Super” or something with Zangief? Or “far s.HP xx Seismo~Super” with Viper?

  28. Maj Post author

    It doesn’t work dude. We’ve tried all this stuff back when we were figuring out armor cancels. Tried whiffing it, tried delaying the cancel to avoid impact freeze, tried renda-kara canceling, etc.

    Doesn’t work. You get one kara-cancel and that’s it. In fact i might even be wrong about it working with Sagat’s F+LK, because that move actually has a minimum uncancelable startup. If you do F+LK, D, DF+HP in 3 frames, the uppercut still doesn’t come out until he’s taken the full step forward.

    What was probably happening is closer to what error1 described, where the uppercut wasn’t even coming out. If i delay the kara-DP input until the last possible frame, the super stops coming out. And it doesn’t work with F+HK at all, which doesn’t have a minimum startup buffer like F+LK.

  29. Doopliss

    I see. Well, that IS weird, then. But Gief’s s.LK is only cancelable during the active frames, even when it whiffs, so shouldn’t that work too?

  30. Maj Post author

    Oh i wasn’t aware Gief’s s.LK had that property too. Seems kind of useless, no? Guess it can keep you on the ground for instant 720, but i don’t even see people using that. Anyway same story, double-kara doesn’t work.

    R.R.D.D.L4.L4.U.R.D.L456.U1. = whiff s.LK xx EX RGB

    If it connects, you get super instead. Or if you take out the LK+MK+HK part, you get super as well.

  31. Maj Post author

    Turns out i can only Focus Attack correctly about 99 times out of 100. The other 1% of the time, someone gets punched in the head while i’m trying to build meter and i have to restart the round. Kind of annoying.

    Thinking about that led to a rather painful realization. One of the things i’ve always loved about fighting games and hated about certain other genres (like MMORPGs or whatever) is that fighting games don’t make you do stupid shit like farm for gold.

    But i realized i’ve been farming meter for combovids all this time, only because SF4 Training Mode doesn’t allow stage select.

    Hurt my soul a little bit in that instant.

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