SSF2T HD Remix, Part 8: Sagat
This article is reprinted with permission from Capcom Unity.
Sagat—well actually “Old Sagat”—is one of the best characters in ST. He’s even soft-banned in Japan, meaning there’s a tacit agreement not to play him, even though you are technically allowed. He might not be as strong of a character as Balrog or Dhalsim overall, but the problem is that there are several matches where he just dominates. His Tiger Shots (fireballs) are so powerful that many characters spend the entire game trying to get around them. I think everyone knows that this nerf is coming.
Tiger Shots
Sagat now has fireball recovery that’s better than New Sagat and worse than Old Sagat. In ST, the difference in recovery times was about 12 frames between Old and New (huge), and Remixed Sagat’s recovery is about 4 frames wore than the terror that was Old Sagat. It’s still very good, but not as abuseable. It’s similar to Ryu’s fireball recovery.
Various Boosts
In exchange for this loss, Sagat has several new bonuses. First, he is based on ST’s New Sagat, so he now is able to soften throws and he has a super move (with the reversal bug fixed, even). Furthermore, the super travels farther than in ST, and it does more damage, and it always knocks down on hit. It’s now a viable tool. [Clarification: it does LESS damage than in ST if you are point-blank in the corner. Less than 50% in that case. It does MORE damage than ST in practical gameplay situations.] He also has ST New Sagat’s ability to crossup with medium kick. This gives him a way to apply some up-close pressure.
Remixed Sagat has Old Sagat’s fierce Tiger Uppercut, meaning it hits only once for good damage rather than juggling five times for low damage. The five hit juggle can be fun, but one-hit version is just more effective in most situations. As with all Dragon Punch motions, the Tiger Uppercut has a more lenient (non-random) input timing window.
Tiger Knee
Finally, his Tiger Knee is now performed with a Dragon Punch motion, it always knocks down on hit, and (as a result of that) it can juggle for three hits. Usually this means if he hits with Tiger Knee, he can do one more because either the first or second knee will get 2 hits. This is good damage and it pushes the opponent back into the corner. Note that the Tiger Knee’s damage is now reduced, but that’s only because it can juggle. Although the knee doesn’t have any better frame stats or hitboxes than before, several people have said “Wow, is that higher priority now?” when they play against it. I think the ability to walk forward and do it because of the Dragon Punch command, coupled with the usefulness of scoring a knock-down even on a glancing blow makes it a much more useful tool. And no, you can’t juggle with a super after a tiger knee.
Normal Move Cancels
Old Sagat could cancel his stand short, stand forward, and stand strong into special moves, while ST’s New Sagat could not cancel any of those. (Well, he could only cancel the first hit of stand short and stand forward, not the second hits.) Remixed Sagat cannot cancel the second hit of standing forward because that was only used for combos anyway, and the ability to juggle with tiger knees is good enough already! He also cannot cancel the second hit of standing short, which is a somewhat controversial decision. In ST, this is mainly used in the following strategy:
Tiger, tiger, tiger, tiger, tiger, stand short because enemy got near, cancel into tiger, tiger, tiger.
If the enemy gets near, he deserves his chance at Sagat without having to block a very far stand short cancelled into another Tiger Shot. Remixed Sagat can, however, cancel his standing strong into special moves. This is mainly useful against Dhalsim and Balrog, which is fine, and Zangief.
I’ve been told several times that playing against my Remixed Sagat is actually fun, so something must be going right. I think this is because standing in place and doing nothing but Tiger Shots isn’t so effective. It’s better to mix in Tiger Knees, crossups, supers, and even jump ins, so it feels like more is going on when you fight Sagat now.
Despite his slightly slower fireball recovery, Sagat still seems very strong, just not dominating like before. Plus, more characters now have more options against fireballs, such as Cammy’s Spinning Backfist, Blanka’s faster “rainbow roll,” and a few other things I’ll mention in future articles. Sagat managed to go to one of the most boring characters (to me) to one of the characters I now have the most fun playing.
–Sirlin
March 30th, 2008 at 3:19 am
I take this to mean that in HD Remix mode, you don’t have the choice between SSF2 and ST characters? Not that any of the original mode characters (besides Sagat) were much good, but it would’ve been interesting to update THEM as well to be balanced…
Changes seem quite good and likely to make Sagat fun to play with, as well as against. Keep the blog entries coming!
March 30th, 2008 at 4:06 am
I think we all saw the tiger shot nerf coming (duh), I like the idea of the juggle and more use of tiger knees, and a forward pressure game with Remix Gat, good stuff.
March 30th, 2008 at 4:38 am
gxx, Sirlin (or someone else on the dev team) already said that every character will have only one “mode” in Remix gameplay
You can still select Classic Arcade gameplay if you want to choose “Old” and “New” characters, but Remix gameplay and Remixed characters are exclusive to each other.
March 30th, 2008 at 6:24 am
Thanks Amp, must’ve missed that.
March 30th, 2008 at 9:18 am
original mode dhalsim was pretty good from what I saw. there was/is a player that does very well with him against any of the “top” players.
March 30th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Sirlin wrote:
“…and Remixed Sagat’s recovery is about 4 frames *wore* than the terror that was Old Sagat.”
Pardon me; I normally don’t point out typos or spelling errors, but in this case, clarification is needed. Is the word in asterisks supposed to say “more” or “worse”, or something else?
~Z
March 30th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
*slaps forehead*
Oh wait! I guess it’s the same either way. Doh!
March 30th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Nice fixes, although canceling the short into low tiger will be missed. Still seems like he has really good recovery on his tiger shots, and has become a better all around character instead of a one dimensional fireball trap machine. A 8 frame improvement on new sagat’s recovery is still really significant, along with the use of a super, tech hit, and the various other goodies you’ve given him.
I just want to applaud the work you’re doing, and can’t wait till the next installment. I know my request won’t make it come any faster, but I’ll jump on the fei long request bandwagon anyways. I know you’ll do his rush down character design justice, and will most likely change his wheel kick command to a more practical one. That being said, keep up the good work bro.
Peace
March 30th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Can Sagat now do ducking forward into tiger shot? If so I imagine that could fill up the loss of short into tiger shot.
I would have prefered the 5 hit Tiger Uppercut staying; it’s a nice humiliation move. Isn’t the strong version of Tiger Uppercut just as good? If not, perhaps the damage/priority of the strong version could have been buffed a bit.
Anyhow, I love these posts and can’t wait to get my hands on it!
March 31st, 2008 at 8:20 am
come on sirlin, you gotta keep the 5 hit fierce uppercut. the juggle looked crazy and like robert said, good humiliation move.
and thanks for gettin rid of tiger knee motion.
March 31st, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Dude the 5-hit uppercut doesn’t even make logical sense.
One frame of animation for that many hits? This isn’t KOF. :-P
-A
March 31st, 2008 at 11:47 pm
I’ll miss the 5-hit Tiget Uppercut, even though the 1-hit was way better in all aspects besides humiliation factor!
March 31st, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Kudos for these changes - Old Sagat is the thing that turned the most people off of SF2 in my experience. “It doesn’t take any skill to throw fireballs all day!”
April 1st, 2008 at 12:26 am
Hmm, seems like new sagat gets more boosts than some og the low tiers.
New sagat is considerd around mid-tier, right?
ST sagat gets:
- Better super, more range, more damage, always knock down
- Better tigers
- Better uppercut
- Tiger knees that juggles (more damadge) and always knock down
- Cancelble standing strong
All Blanka (whos considerd low tier) got was:
- Better super, faster, safer and always knock down
- Safer horizontal roll
- Better diagonal roll, faster and advantage on block
- Slighly better forward hopp and slightly worse back hopp
Cammy (also low tier) got:
- Faster spinning back fist
- safer cannon drill
- Unsafer cannon spike
To me it seems lika ST Sagat (that wasn’t THAT bad) has gotten a whole lot more upgrades than Blanka and Cammy.
Some would perfaups say that safe cannon drills and vertical ball is a much bigger upgrade than what Sagat got,
April 1st, 2008 at 1:27 am
As Sirlin described it, not much was keeping Blanka from beating high tier characters. He’s got great potential (high damaging moves, a good crossup, and a great throw), but there were just a few quirks that always screwed him over.
April 1st, 2008 at 8:09 am
Ugh. ST New Sagat is garbage. Yes he is THAT bad. It’s easier to consider Remix Sagat vs Old Sagat. And anyway, putting cancelable stand strong on your list makes it look like it has equal weight with other things in these lists. None of these lists are about number of items in the list.
You guys vastly, vastly underestimate the upgrades to Cammy and Blanka. Cammy’s safe Cannon Drill is so large of an upgrade that it’s led to toning down her Cannon Spike and slightly toning down her the invulenrability on her Spinning Knuckle just to keep her even reasonable. Incidentally, Spinning Knuckle was never faster, but it does go through fireballs. And you forgot to add “Hooligan throw easily, whenever you want, still for lots of damage.”
And Blanka, oh my. Used to lose to Sagat BAD. Now? Probably has advantage. Used to lose to Ryu, BAD. Now? Probably close to even because he can safely ball, not to mention the rest. Used to have advantage over T.Hawk/Zangief/Guile/Vega. Now? Probably still does. Again, your question should not be “does Blanka need more upgrades?” It should be, “Who beats him now? Maybe Balrog? Is that it?”
“Worse back hop” is also not accurate. It should be “very, very good back hop, just like before.” The only thing worse is his super meter gain off that move, but since his super is waaay better, it’s actually more powerful to gain a little bit of a fairly good super than a lot of a really terrible super.
April 1st, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Remix Cammy still sounds scary to me.
April 1st, 2008 at 4:05 pm
I’m actually a bit afraid of safe horizontal ball; alot of characters will have to do well timed reversal moves or jabs or psychic fireballs. I know a very good Blanka player where I live and when I play with Vega, Guile, Zangief, T. Hawk or any other character that cannot punish the ball, I’m constantly in the defensive.
Now I’m glad that Blanka can use it against most characters; but I worry it’ll be too dominating. Perhaps Blanka should get more damage when hit out of it? (making jabs a more effective counter?). I don’t know, I haven’t played new Blanka, but it sounds like he can get away with doing alot of ball spam.
April 2nd, 2008 at 1:31 am
A long post here, very sorry.
I have no argument with the super change with Blanka it was required, I also understand the meter change on back hop is required, Blanka can stay away and charge meter easily, not a good thing. Horizontal ball being safe on block means that going for random HP roll is actually not a bad tactic. If Sagat goes for Punch tiger shot in retaliation not only can you jump it you can probably slide it for free as well, against Ryu, Ken, Dhalsim, and probably charge based projectile characters you can probably get a free jump hit (please correct me if I sound wrong).
This is a guess jump, you can’t wait to see the fireball and then react at that range, you have to guess the fireball but if it was guaranteed it would be truly STUPID and so I understand this too. Vertical ball remaining the same is great, yes it gets beaten by normals like Claw’s jumping HP and others but if Blanka had an invulnerable wake up move with 1 frame start up he would be a silly character.
From here though, is where I get a little lost, getting around fireballs and getting in is still going to be a pain, a smart character will put out fireballs and low taps intelligently, meaning HP roll will still have a hard time getting you in and MP roll bite/ LP roll Sweep mix-up won’t change as HP roll looks very different to LP (unless you have changed that too?). I don’t think Parabolic roll will make much difference to this fact although I can see it being a great tool after a blocked HP horizontal. What I would of proffered to see rather than a supped up parabolic is a vertical jump that could go over slow fireballs, a very simple game play feature but I can understand if that would be hard to do.
Once again though I understand that if Blanka could get in easily he would be silly, it’s just that once he gets in, his mix-ups and cross-ups should dominate, and as you implied in the very beginning of your Blanka post is that he has lots of tools once he gets in, so why boost the parabolic? Would it not be fairer to give him a vertical jump so that he wouldn’t have to forward jump over fireballs into the enemy giving them a free anti-air, it would keep the situation neutral by virtue of Blanka’s neutral jump HP. Doing this would of meant that Blanka players could be more patient and time their advances as they pleased as opposed to blocking or being forced into attack.
In addition, Boxer as a character is not an incredibly hard match due to his play style it’s more down to a few facts. His hit box is ridiculously small for a big character meaning he can walk around your cross-up attempts more easily then pretty much any other character and net a free throw, combined with the fact Blanka has no invincible moves apart from super and back hop makes Boxer’s throw loop silly and a frequent occurrence. You have done a bit to this in the revision but it will still be a nasty tool that will still destroy Blankas.
Boxer’s crouching MP and MK combined beat pretty much anything Blanka has poke wise, the only thing that works against this is Blanka’s sweep which out ranges Boxer’s crouching MP but is beaten by the MK. If you attempt to jump over those taps, you are likely to receive a headbutt or see a walk forward and throw loop. Lastly Blanka has zero options against a low dash punch.
To change this I would of liked to see Blanka’s crouching MP or MK hit boxes changed (give MK more foot invincibility or move the hit box on crouching MP around his foot area back, the animation even looks like he is leaning forward) so that he had better options against Boxer’s crouching MK and MP combination. These changes wouldn’t throw the match in Blanka’s favor at all, it just would have meant it was more balanced.
I suppose what I am confused about is why you have changed certain things with Blanka, not why isn’t he good enough because I think he is. It’s just the question of why certain changes have or have not been made goes hand in hand with why haven’t you respected certain match ups and I just can’t think of an answer for that one yet, so that is why I pose the question, why change what you have changed?
April 2nd, 2008 at 2:42 am
sorry meant to say standing medium kick or crouching medium punch, look what happens when you don’t proof read.
April 2nd, 2008 at 11:06 pm
Yay for a worthwhile (New) Sagat!
April 2nd, 2008 at 11:36 pm
Theory Fighter: Cammy vs Sagat vs Blanka vs Actually playing the game. WHO WILL WIN?!
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:14 am
I didn’t think to ask this before, but how do the frames on Tigers compare to Hadokens now?
April 3rd, 2008 at 9:34 am
I was expecting(hoping) to see that you made cr.MK cancelable(will this ever be a real word?) but after reading your explanation of toning down his spacing tools, I understand how that would be counter-productive.
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:37 am
Actually playing the game? You mean how sirlin and a number of top players have been doing? I think sirlin does what he’s doing, and if something ends up being broken upon further inspection he will change it. (*cough* t hawk dive *cough*)
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Robocop2: I don’t know what to tell you here. First of all, I saw all your trash talking comments on other forums saying I don’t play Blanka. As the other forum goers guessed, I’ve played Blanka for years. Yes I know all about him. Sure it’s hard to beat Balrog, but Balrog is slighty worse and Blanka is better so it’s at least less bad. Balrog’s headbutt isn’t so safe on block now, remember. And Blanka versus everyone else is fine. If you can’t beat Vega, maybe take your game up a notch. Also, yesterday I repeatedly did parabolic roll (as I often do now) in real matches and during the matches I said “What would Robocop 2 say? That this move is not useful?” and my opponents frowned. It’s plenty good.
You say I haven’t “respected matchups” and you don’t understand why I made these changes. I made them because now Blanka’s bad matchups are greatly reduced. Your complaining about Balrog’s throw loops just shows how off base you are, considering Blanaka’s throw range is probably the longest in the game and Remixed Balrog’s is now shorter. He should be afraid of your throws, not the other way around. Blanka has all he needs to compete. Maybe you should be asking for gameplay tips rather than saying I don’t know how to play Blanka. Also, this is the Sagat post.
Rioting Soul: Sagat’s crouching medium kick is cancellable as Old Sagat, New Sagat, and Remixed Sagat. Note the shorter range than stand short and stand medium kick though. Nothing changed about this move in any of those versions.
April 3rd, 2008 at 2:19 pm
*Bangs head on hard object*, I came off of playing him in A3 and didn’t think twice before clicking that button.
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Sorry for posting this in the Sagat post, but Sirlin only seems to check the newest post.
Blanka do not have the longest throw range, Honda has (unless that has been changed ofcourse). Blanka has always had better throw range than Boxer, so the nerf to Boxer shouldnt make any big difference.
For reference, check this:
http://nki.combovideos.com/data.html#tame
Something i think would help Blanka in the matchup against Boxer (and probablly some other) would be to give Blanka access to his close MP without having to be close to the opponent. The hitbox on that move would easily beat the runshing punches. For the hitbox, see:
http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/9860/blankampos9.jpg
And as a bonus you would no longer accidentally get close back+MP when trying to anti air with far MP or whiffing far MP on crouching opponents when trying to comdo with close MP.
April 3rd, 2008 at 11:12 pm
Sirlin great job on all the characters ur really making the game better sum people just can’t understand ur not making a new game ur just fixing the dumb shit in a old game. I like everything you did with Sagat its perfect as far as blanka goes he’s always been the underdog character maybe thats why peps luv him so much. To all u fools bitching about blanka he’s gonna be just fine other than safe roll in stead of his old useless 1 THE CHANGE I LIKE THE BEST IS LESS TAPPING TO DO ELECTRICITY that gonna open so many new ways to play him right now it takes so much tapping ur hand will get too tried to do it or it takes so long its useless HOPEFULLY U CAN DO IT NOW MUCH FAST WHICH I’M SURE U CAN thanks to u Sirlin.
April 4th, 2008 at 6:55 am
I don’t know if I should post like this but as I have been addressed personally I will answer accordingly. My question was a leading one, to simply ask why certain things have been changed but on to why over others. I know that Boxer’s throw range has been decreased, headbutt isn’t safe now and that parabolic is great as it’s faster but in saying that, it doesn’t tell the whole story. Consider when you described Hawks new dive you said it lands just in range of a dragon, and inside Guile’s crouching MK range, this tells us almost exactly where it lands. When you say Boxers headbutt isn’t safe anymore, it just doesn’t tell me quite what’s happening and so I ask questions of how safe? Safe like a HP Blanka roll, which isn’t entirely safe, just mostly. I know you can’t reveal everything to us but in that grey area is where I ask my questions.
As far as rubbishing you is concerned, the only point I wished to raise on the forums that I use is that you are not renown for your Blanka use in tournaments, so your playing experience may be limited to playing against but not with Blanka, which is where knowing some one like say, Komoda or AFO *could* help. I don’t expect you to have used Blanka in tourney’s (he’s fairly niche), the fact that you have played high level competition speaks more loudly than many other people making/designing/producing games today but it doesn’t stop me asking questions. If I have offended you I apologise whole heartedly and I will stop this debacle that is my questioning (until Fei-Long’s info is released :D ). Thank you for responding to my posts
April 4th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Small, additional change Id make to Sagat (if that is technically possible) > change the low tiger shot hit box, so crouch forwards, roundhoused can hit him at tip of shot instead of at actual body.
April 4th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
I’m kind of surprised you consider claw a good matchup for blanka. simply because he can’t use his walldive? In my experience (and in akiha’s tier list, and matchvids), it is a rather simple matchup. roll on block punishable with HP, super on block with c.HP, whiff roll -> throw can be nulled by jumping back or up, HP.
April 4th, 2008 at 11:45 pm
KKY is a master Dhalsim player in a country where each player specializes in one character-only. At last year’s Evolution, when KKY faced Vega in two different matches, each time he switched Blanka to counter. Blanka’s roll is only punishable with stand fierce if Vega was blocking high, not blocking low. If he’s blocking high, he’s vulnerable to Blanka’s slide. As they trade vega-pokes with blanka-balls, the damage is like 4x in Blanka’s favor. This match is a little less bad in HD Remix, but Japanese I’ve talked to agreed the match is bad in ST. I didn’t think this was even controversial amongst experts though it’s not really widely known amongst the masses.
Also, this is the Sagat post.
April 5th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
I’ve seen many, MANY people say that Vega is a bad match for Blanka. Of course, this isn’t a cut and dry thing; if Vega goes to the air a lot, then Blanka will win. However, Vega can stay on the ground and beat everything that Blanka has. It’s possible KKY was relying on his opponent not knowing the matchup, which vs. many people is a safe assumption to make, and would definitely result in a Blanka advantage.
April 5th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Further reference material… This is a post by DSP on the Shoryuken Wiki
“In my opinion, [Vega] ties with Honda for Blanka’s worst match.
Vega doesn’t have to do anything in this match. All he has to do is crouch. If you walk forward, he will do c.MP. If you do Blanka ball, he will do c.MP (it beats it!). If you jump, he will do flip kick anti-air. If you make him block a fast FP ball, he can walk forward and hit you with stand HP for free. Although Vega is played primarily in an offensive manner, this is one of his only matchups where just sitting still and hitting one button, can give him an almost free victory.
The key to winning here is crossing him up and controlling the match, like usual. The problem is, his c.MP has SO much range that you can only cross him up if you jump WITHIN THE RANGE OF HIS c.MP. So, if you are playing a competent player, you will NEVER cross up Vega.
The only real advantage Blanka has on Vega, is that Blanka’s vertical ball will beat Vega’s wall fives 8 times out of 10. The problem is, any competent Vega player won’t be doing wall dives, they’ll just be doing c.MP.
Good luck with this one!”
April 5th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
I don’t know what to say, other than Blanka can sit there and you can’t do anything. Can’t wall dive. Can’t vega-roll unless you are brave. Low strong gets you nothing. Every trade is massively in Blanka’s favor. And if the turtle-Blanka plan fails (why would it?) then you can abort and crossup short (into tricks), which Vega cannot hit with the flip kick.
DSP, of all people, should be able to win that match in ST as Blanka.
April 5th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Can’t Blanka punish Claw’s crouching strongs with his crouching fierce?
April 6th, 2008 at 12:49 am
against blanka, claw can turtle, too - depending on advantage / disadvantage. i agree with you sirlin that c.MP is not the best option of claw against blanka, roll beats it very often. however, there is no need to use the move anyway - if you see a roll, jump back & HP, or block if you think it’s a fast one.
DJ is more difficult for claw, since walldives are (almost) as useless as against blanka, yet claw DOES have a reason to take the incentive - after all DJ has projectiles. can be seen in all its terror on x-mania 7 (ARG getting badly destroyed).
sorry to have brought this up here - but since you mentioned it here, it would have felt off to post somewhere else.
April 6th, 2008 at 1:54 am
I think you’re all forgetting one very important thing…
The new Fei Long rocks.
April 7th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
How hard would it be to allow playing old-vs-turbo-vs-remix matchups in the game, in the way that ST did for old characters? It sounds like a very simple bit of programming, perhaps as a secret menu code (hold both triggers and select options). Clearly, this would be outside the “official” remix mode, so it can’t be done in tournaments.
April 9th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Blanka vs Claw is in my oppinion pretty even, and since Blanka has gotten some boosts and claw probably will get som nerfs, that matchup should be fine.
About to matchup vs Boxer however, Blanka has a huge disadvantage. A very easy solution to Blankas problem could be to simply make his roll safe against boxer too.
I never really could understand why Blankas roll would be safe against everyone exept Boxer and Dhalsim, who both are very tough matchups for him. That makes no sence, care to explain why you made that?
Is the changes to the characters the final verisions, or have more changes been made since you wrote the articles?