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Vega (Claw): Street Fighter 4 Character Guide

Last updated on Nov. 16, 2008

6 Comments

Character Overview

Speed and range, this version of Vega is most like his Super Turbo counterpart. His EX moves compliment his normal arsenal really well.

Vega's main problem is that his damage is on the low end, so you're going to have to hit your opponent a lot to finish them off. He also dizzies very quickly

He lacks options to keep offensive pressure on his opponent, so most players lean towards a defensive style with him.

While Vega is considered to be the worst character in the game, Street Fighter 4 is very balanced, so it's still possible to beat people with him consistently.

• Strengths •
+ He's very fast.
+ Excellent range on most of his normal attacks.
+ Not easy to anti air him because of the speed and trajectory of his jump.
+ Strong 'zoning' game and tons of pokes.
+ Crouching Medium Punch is still great and can be Cancelled.
+ Air Throw has tons of range.
+ His Ultra is pretty good.
+ Leaping Kick (down-forward plus Hard Kick) is a great normal attack.
+ Has great range on his Focus Attack.
+ When you select Vega, your opponent may think he has any easy win coming and won't try as hard. ;-)

• Weaknesses •
- Low damage output.
- Aside from Akuma, Vega gets stunned faster than any fighter in SFIV (Tied with Dhalsim and Guile).
- Lacks high damage options when punishing the other player for making a mistake.
- Trading hits with your opponent is almost always a losing scenario.
- Losing your claw hurts your range considerably.
- His anti air options aren't good.
- Hard to get your opponent off of you in some situations.
- Usually has to play a ranged counter-attack/keep-away style.

Special Moves

A (2) next to an arrow means to hold the joystick in that direction for 2 seconds to 'charge' the move.

With moves that charge by holding back or down, you can use the diagonal positions to charge up as well. For example, if you're holding back, you can jump backwards or block low and still maintain your charge.

• Rolling Crystal Flash (Rolling Claw Attack) •
Does good chip (block) damage, and is useful to in some combos. Also you can Focus Attack Dash Cancel this roll to throw your opponent off guard who's expecting to have to block further attacks. If you catch them off balance, simply walk up and throw.

A alright trap is to repeatedly loop Crouching Medium Punches into a Light Punch Claw Roll. Chip damage is nice and you can bait your opponent into doing something dumb.

You can also Cancel the Claw Roll into Vega's Super move, which makes it difficult to counter. See the Super Move section below for additional information on this technique.

     (when close)
• Flying Barcelona Attack & Izuna Drop (Wall Dive and Throw) •
You can also use the diagonal-up positions to execute this attack, he'll normally jump off the wall his back is facing, but pressing diagonally-up towards will make him jump off the other wall instead.

Executing this attack makes Vega quickly dive at his opponent after jumping off the wall. Press the joystick left or right and a Punch button when you're close to grab them. If you press Punch at any other time while diving, Vega will attack by spreading his arms.

This move is not as fast as it was in Super Turbo, so your opponent has more time to react to it.

To mix things up, fly over your opponent's head to hit them on the reverse side (their back) to "cross" them.

When you get your execution and angles down, you can time this so it's difficult for your opponent to correctly guess which way to block. And when they start focusing on blocking — throw them with the Izuna Drop.

• Sky High Claw (Aerial Claw Attack) •
Vega's Sky High Claw is alright. There's a high risk, low reward factor going in most situations with this attack because the damage isn't great.

The Light Punch version makes you fly at about mid screen level, while Hard Punch will hit most characters in the chest if they're standing. Medium Punch is a mix of the two.

• Scarlet Terror (Flip Kick) •
An alright defensive tool, and the Medium and Hard Kick versions hit twice and do pretty good damage if both attacks land. Best used when you're getting up off the ground as a counter/reversal attack.

Unfortunately it doesn't seem to have the priority a lot of people were hoping for. It gets beat cleanly by some jump in attacks or trades with others.

This is on a per character basis though. Against some fighters this hits them cleanly almost every time.

But most players prefer the EX version for more reliable anti-air.

You can juggle with Vega's Flip Kicks, but only in certain situations. One is an EX-Flip Kick after an Light Kick Flip Kick. Also, if only the second hit of a Medium Kick, Hard Kick, or EX Flip Kick hits (your opponent has to be relatively high in the air for this to happen), then you can juggle with a regular Flip Kick.

Juggling with a Flip Kick is not easy or common, but sometimes handy.

or
• Flip Back •
Vega flips away from his opponent. The punch version of this move lasts a little longer and causes Vega to hop further back.

This comes out very quickly, and is sometimes the best way to escape a projectile Ultra or Super. Not something to use frequently because it can be countered if your opponent knows you're going to throw it out, but it's still handy in certain situations.

• Focus Attack •
You stand straight for a brief moment in which you're invulnerable to some attacks, and then you quickly stick out your claw. Vega's recovery from this move is VERY fast, so you can combo into some other moves with this Focus Attack making it useful.

The range on this is also very good, for a Focus Attack.

• Claw Throw •
This will make Vega throw his claw at the other fighter. Once thrown, you have to walk over the claw to pick it back up. Doesn't do much damage and isn't really useful for anything beyond taunting your opponent.

The button pressed determines where the claw goes. Light Punch is behind you, Medium is where you are, and Hard is in front of you.

• Mask Throw •
Takes 50% of your EX meter and makes you throw your mask at the other fighter. Supposedly this increases your attack power, but lowers your defense (stamina).

EX Moves

• EX-Rolling Crystal Flash (Rolling Claw Attack) •
This does great block (chip) damage, but it has a long start up time, 20 frames, which is the same as his Hard Punch Claw Roll. It's difficult to find many uses for his EX-Claw Roll because you can't really combo into it.

It's also a fairly low priority attack, for an EX move. The main use for this seems to be rolling under fireballs, and countering a few attacks after blocking, but even then it's not that good.

     (when close)
• EX-Flying Barcelona Attack & Izuna Drop (Wall Dive and Throw) •
Hits once on the way to the wall and then again when he's coming down. The EX version also has better throw range than a normal Inzuna Drop.

This will probably be the main move you use in combos, because you can Cancel into it from several of his normal attacks.

It is not an effective anti-air move though, and it can be difficult to land the Wall Dive part if your opponent is in the corner. Works best when the other fighter is mid-screen.

But this does pretty good damage, and it's probably what you'll be spending most of your EX meter on.

Also if this trades hits on the first attack, it launches the other fighter up into the air and you can juggle them as they come down with pretty much anything.

• EX-Sky High Claw (Aerial Claw Attack) •
The EX-Sky High Claw hits three times, and comes out a bit faster than the normal version, it also goes through projectiles.

It's effective at knocking players out of their projectiles when you do not have an Ultra meter to punish them with.

• EX-Scarlet Terror (Flip Kick) •
The EX-Flip Kick is your 'Get the heck off me!' move. This attack has good priority against jump ins, and it does more damage than any of the normal Flip Kicks. It also passes through projectiles.

It mainly hits the area in front of Vega, so be careful when using it against jump ins directly above you.

Super and Ultra Moves

     (when close)
• Flying Barcelona Special & Rolling Izuna Drop (Super Wall Dive and Throw) •
Unlike Vega's Super move in Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, if you don't land the Izuna Drop (Throw) it still zaps all of your Super meter.

It does have better range than Vega's normal Izuna Drop, but the all or nothing nature of this move and the fact it doesn't do a lot of damage is a big turn off.

But you can Cancel into it after doing a Claw Roll which sets up some interesting possibilities. In this scenario you'll want to jump to the wall to your opponent's back when doing the Super Wall Dive, because it makes it more difficult to counter. Then go in for the kill.

    
• Bloody High Claw (Ultra Wall Jump and Slice) •
Vega jumps off the wall and does multiple claw slices to his opponent. You can control which wall you dive off of by ending the motion towards the corner of choice in the diagonally up direction.

Vega flies diagonally downwards from whichever corner he hopped off of — meaning you probably won't land this if your opponent is near the wall you jump off of. Also you need to hit the wall before you're safe from counter-attacks.

This move goes through projectiles and is a really effective attack against fireball spammers. Try to be inside of 3/4ths of a screen's distance to the wall, and if you react quickly you can slice the crap out of your opponent simply for throwing out a fireball.

His Ultra comes out very quickly, so you should know almost instantly if your opponent blocked it or not. Even if they block, you land at an alright distance away from them. You can still be punished, but it isn't easy.

Also his Ultra does quite a bit of chip damage, and you do not need your claw to execute it.

At high levels of play, your best bet to land this is by doing a Level 2 or 3 Focus Attack first.

Combos

• Jumping Hard Kick, Crouching Medium Kick, Hard Kick Flip Kick •
Vega's bread and butter combo. Use it often.

• Jumping Hard Punch, Standing Hard Punch, Link into Crouching Medium Punch, Cancel into EX-Wall Dive •
The EX-Wall Dive will not connect if your opponent is crouching.

• Jumping Hard Kick, Crouching Medium Kick, Cancel into Light Punch Rolling Claw •

• Crouching Medium Punch, Light or Medium Punch Claw Roll •
Simple combo, but the Light Punch Claw can be done at a fairly good distance away from your opponent, so it's effective to punish missed attacks normally out of range if you have a charge stored.

• Level 2/3 Saving Attack, Dash Cancel, down-forward plus Hard Kick, EX-Wall Dive •

• Level 2/3 Saving Attack, Dash Cancel, forward plus Medium Kick, forward plus Hard Kick, down plus Hard Kick •

• Crouching Light Punch, Crouching Light Punch, Crouching Medium Punch, Cancel into EX-Wall Dive •

Normal Moves

Note this is not a complete list of all of Vega's normal moves, just the ones we think are noteworthy.

• Leaping Kick (Launcher) •
Vega hops forward with his leg out. If this lands it launches your opponent up into the air so you can juggle them.

Really good move. Fast, and gives you the option to move Vega forward very quickly. Great recovery time, and you can juggle your opponent after landing it. If you miss entirely you can throw your opponent after wards. Nasty.

• Medium Punch Claw •
This is still a great poke. It's very fast, the damage is alright (for Vega), and if you do it early enough you can use it to stuff (stop) other attacks. Can also work well when you're almost a full screen's distance away as an anti air move.

You can throw this attack out somewhat randomly and use it to bait the other fighter into Shoryukens and the like so you can punish when they miss.

And you can Cancel out of this attack into some of Vega's special moves, which makes it all the more useful. Plus it Links into after a Crouching Medium Kick fairly easily.

• Slide Sweep •
A low attack with a lot of range and it's safe if blocked as long as you hit your opponent at almost the very end of the animation. Use it sparingly to keep your opponent off guard, and to slide under jumping attacks and throw the other fighter when they land.

It's a good idea to follow up a max distance slide with a Focus Attack because of how often people try to counter attack after you do this.

 
• Kara Throw •
The range on this Kara Throw isn't exceptional, but it's not too bad either. It's roughly the same range of Akuma's Kara Throw in Street Fighter 3 Third Strike.

(In the air)
• Air Throw •
Vega's Air Throw has good range. Use this whenever you can anticipate a jump.

Contributions to this guide by UltraDavid, Sev, Reno, Jinofcoolnes, Nagata Lock II, Pat the Great, Chocolate Sausage, Bebop3000, BrentoBox, Sambo, Ryodragoon, Som*, Arlieth Tralare and Tatsujinken.