EntropicByDesign
It's all so very confusing.
I feel like they are pretty strong.
TL;DR - Claw On for pokes, spacing and patient, keep-away. Claw off for MOAR DAMAGES. No great AA option in either stance.
Claw on, I dont have a ton of damage except in certain situations, but I have great pokes that really add up and can frustrate. The ability to land a st.fp and cancel in to claw off then cr.mp means I do maintain meaningful damage in the right situation and I can transition to up close pressure fairly well.
The claw swipes are a tool that I dont use well but need to learn to use.. I feel like a lot of Vegas dont fool with them much but they have a lot of power used right. People either dont know, forget, or still get caught off by the fact that the LP swipe is a low and you can cancel off st.FP. It can turn in to a bit of a mindgame too because you can st.FP x Claw Off x Command Grab if they arent paying attention. Now, that isn't real obviously but it works way more than it should. I like to test the waters with it and see what they do. The swipes can do a lot in the corner as well. If you have established the command grab enough you can get opponents to NJ, and if you bait or read it, you can do some neat shit with hp.swipe in to lp.swipe. I'm pretty sure if you CC a st.rh in the corner you can combo hp.swipe in to lp.swipe as well and its not far shy of 300 damage. Situational again, but not as out of reach as it seems. In the corner I always try to keep hp.swipe as an option in my head to punish the NJ.
Claw on also keeps your st.lk which is your three framer, and its range is deceptive. You keep cr.mk too which is a low, semi-active combo starting, +2 on block normal with decent range. It will combo in to cr.lp and cr.mp claw-on, so you have some ability to follow it up with a little damage. Mp just pokes, but it will combo even if you hit with the outside of cr.mk, so its nice to just tack on an extra 50 or so damage. The cr.lp will combo in to lk.roll or ex.WallDive doing 149/258(stun) and 192/303 for claw hits in the air, leading to a setup on the ground, or 221/303 air grab if you want pure damage.
VSkill has some *nice* range with claw-on and can get you some work done early on, or late if you sit on it, vs fireball happy characters, but the timing and spacing isnt braindead so you cant just mash it and win. Claw off Vskill feels pretty meh.
AA is still a weak point of course.. You have st.rh for both claw and non and in claw you have cr.fp (you have it in non-claw too and honestly they both work *about* the same). You have fp.swipe. Vega can a2a well though with his normals and his air throw, so take that for what its worth.. but in the end, you really dont have a good AA option. Ive tried to defend his AA game but the more I play him the more I realize we can be bullied by intelligent jumping. We have options though and something Vega seems good at is punishing poorly executed jumps or jumps the other player thinks are safe. A lot of people like to jump back to get away (Jump back OS too of course) which you can chase down with ex.walldive a lot of the time and you also get players that like to forward jump just to eat up space.. you can step forward and cr.fp to catch them landing, you can wall dive, if you're really feeling froggy you can time a late slide for a side switch as they land, etc.
Claw on vega is meant for pokes and careful, mid/close zoning with some followups in to damage, but not a ton. Its MU specific. Vs Gief and such, claw all the way. Its player choice though how you want to approach any MU.
Claw off though, we can do so much more.. Vega has *very* good normals. st.lp is +3 and you can link 3 of them if your close enough. cr.mk is +2. cr.mp is +2. St.mp is +1 and has better range that it appears, and starts your mp/rh TC that leads to DAMAGE. cr.mk x st.mp>st.rh x Vskill/Vtrigger/ExWallDive/CA/ExRoll/Roll/Whatever all hit like a truck thats hauling bricks with pictures of other trucks hauling bricks painted on them.
Vega claw-off is a very strong pressure character character if your spacing is on point and he converts meter in to damage very effectively. Vega has some of the highest damage output in the game IMO. You can do really interesting stuff, and you can run great setups and weird situations with him to follow up his pressure with setups leading to more pressure and pain.
You can ex.walldive, hit them, land and lk.roll, causing a sideswitch *just* as they stand up.. You can fake it. You can just throw them for 360+ damage for a bar (depending on the combo in to the wall dive). You can Vtrigger when you land off the air hits of wall dive to convert that in to damage, etc. his CA can even be timed to hit meaty on wakeup AS A CROSSUP. Its tricky, but doable ( i am NOT consistent, but I have maybe 20m of practice at it). That works claw on or off. Hell, Cancelling a claw-off normal in to claw-on gives you plus frames. I'm not sure how many though, but I know that you can land, say, st.mp, cancel in to putting the claw back on and catch their attempted poke with your knee.
(more to come when I can, I have to get ready for work)
