In my view, the best EXGH would be: An enhancement of the current version.
a) +3 on hit: So you can o/s against jump or back dash, tag them in pre-jump easier, and gamble Ultra 2. Plus, you can more safely defend against throws
b) 2 hits: So you can hit confirm into FADC back dash, but fix the 1 hit EXGH, so you don’t get punished. It’s a glitch.
c) Start up remains unchanged, so you can o/s it in pokes.
The other option of a slower startup with knockdown EXGH, would be great against projectile chars. But would weaken Zangief across the board, especially against non-projectile chars. Up close, even against projectile chars, you would be weaker. Overall footsies would suffer. To compensate for this version of EXGH, they should make LPGH -2 on hit. So you can hit confirm into LPGH, and o/s xx LPGH.
EX RBG should be buffed to have increased speed and grabbing range, instead of armor. I reason EX RBG to have the shortest running distance of all RBG (L M H) but the fastest running speed. Effective grab range should be better than regular throw, so you can’t get thrown out.
EX Atomic Suplex should be 1 frame startup. (1 frame hit and throw invincible would be asking for too much)
I forgot to mention that the idea was - if ex gh gest kd and lower start up, then regular gh are also buffed.
This is what Renegade said:
EX Green Hand knockdown: but increase startup to 14 frames thus removing the possibility of knockdown in combos.
-This makes Green Hands anti fireball abilities dangerous, as well as retains zangiefs strong counter poke game with CH jabs and shorts into EX
but after a knockdown: landing a cross up doesn’t combo back into the knockdown.
2. Normal green hands safe on hit,
with the EX hand not combo able, Gief needs a combo option. Green Hands need to be buffed to actually have a use as well. You just never see them
LP Green hand. faster startup (7-10f), unsafe on hit (-3 or -4).
MP Green hand, same startup (13f), slightly safe on hit (-1 or -2)
HP Green hand, slow startup (16f), positive on hit (+1 or +2)
-Reduce Damage/Stun
Increase active projectile hatbox from 2f to 4f
increase hitbox size to adequately nullfy high/low tigers and juri fbs.
Currently, normal green hands are practically useless. They are difficult to nullify fireballs with, they are all unsafe on hit, and they’re not very effective movement tools. Sometimes people are caught with green hand Ultra 1, but you have to be online or sleeping.
With this balance, LP green hand will be a fast movement tool, but still is punishable on chance it hits.
MP is mostly safe and would be the preferred combo ender. Whether it’s -1 or -2 depends on how weak/strong the developers want the SPD mixup option to be afterward.
HP is +1 and would only combo from MP/MK. This gives Gief the option after a close medium (rare) to knockdown w/ EX, or go with the +1, allowing for more variation when he lands a hit, and rewards the non confirmability as opposed to using jabs/shorts.
I really like this idea.
Ex RGB: many people expressed concern that buffing rbg is a bad idea - it would make a big impact at lower level, while not much at higher level.
Ex Atomic Suplex: I’ve read your idea at cu, but I didn’t understand it - why do you want a 1 frame cmd grab ? Gief already has Ultra 1 and Super, both having 1 frame start. So, what’s the purpose for this change ?
Btw, based on capcom unity sugestions, this is what I think for Zangief:
Zangief
RBG: Change RBG motion to Half Circle Back or a Reverse DP kick command.
Ex RGB: Fix the armour grab, to make it quicker after the first absorb
far st MK: reduce the recovery by 4 frames (14, so blockstun becomes -6, hitstun -3)
Ultra 2: grab box needs to be larger
cr LK: +1 hitstun (5)
cr MP: +1 hitstun (4)
M SPD: throw invincible property
Super: increase the range to 1.55
EX Green Hand: kd on hit; increase start up by 1 frame (14)
Green Hand: L: reduce the start up by 2 frames (9); +1 hitstun (-4)
M GH: +5 hitstun (-1)
H GH: +8 hitstun (+1)
KKK Lariat: needs to have full Fireball invincibility from the startup; lariat should NOT hit crouching opponents even on startup.
cr LP: extend hitbox downward
Explanations:
[details=Spoiler]
Rgb: Russian Bear Grab is the worst move in the game. Not only is it completely useless slow, it also is the “mistake move” that comes out when zangief attempts two other moves: instant Siberian Blizzard and Atomic Suplex. It always leads to full combo into ultra, and almost never is intended to come out.
If you’re not going to buff (I recommend not, this is a move that would only victimize low level players if it were better), please assign it to a Half Circle Back or a Reverse DP kick command. I always do 360 motions forward so as to get that motion, so this move won’t come out by accident anymore. Whiffing Atomic Suplex grab is fine, but being out of range and lumbering towards the opponent so they can ultra me for free is VERY depressing and makes me not want to play this character.
far st Mk: it’s unreasonable that Guile can punish far st mk on counter hit with flash kick, don’t want a huge improvement just want this to be safe on hit
Ultra 2: When U2 whiffs against an EX Shoryuken or other airborn moves with high invincibility, it is incredibly disappointing and punishes a good read from the Zangief player. U2 is already a huge gamble and being a move that can only be used once or twice per round, should be rewarded if the opponent is airborn and within a reasonable distance.
cr Lk: 3 frame short? Just kidding. I know this isn’t coming back. But +5 on hit would be nice. I don’t really think it’s fair to require Zangief players to hit 1f links just to have a low threat.
cr Mp: to allow combo into cr.lk xx Lariat
M Spd: Zangief gets owned by throws on wakeup, which isn’t very true to the concept of the character. I would recommend normal Atomic Suplex or MP Piledriver be throw invincible. That way Gief has to choose between throw invicibility or strike invincibility/armor. T Hawk has this, Abel has this, why not gief ?
Ex Green Hand: EX Green Hand knockdown: but increase startup to 14 frames thus removing the possibility of knockdown in combos. This makes Green Hands anti fireball abilities dangerous, as well as retains zangiefs strong counter poke game with CH jabs and shorts into EX but after a knockdown: landing a cross up doesn’t combo back into the knockdown.
Green Hand: with the EX hand not combo able, Gief needs a combo option. Green Hands need to be buffed to actually have a use as well. You just never see them.
Currently, normal green hands are practically useless. They are difficult to nullify fireballs with, they are all unsafe on hit, and they’re not very effective movement tools. Sometimes people are caught with green hand Ultra 1, but you have to be online or sleeping. With this balance, LP green hand will be a fast movement tool, but still is punishable on chance it hits. MP is mostly safe and would be the preferred combo ender. HP is +1 and would only combo from MP/MK. This gives Gief the option after a close medium (rare) to knockdown w/ EX, or go with the +1, allowing for more variation when he lands a hit, and rewards the non confirmability as opposed to using jabs/shorts.
cr Lp: His cr.jab whiffing on a crouching opponent after a body splash still exists. [/details]
Normal gh being safe on hit sounds like a great idea.
**Initially I would have agreed with this, however I’ve since changed my mind.
Its problematic for the opponent to differentiate between LPGH, MPGH, and HPGH as to apply the appropriate course of action or punishment.
Thus, at the end of the day, you wouldn’t chance it. Especially when these regular GHs are being backed by Ultra 1, EX AS, or EX SPD. Heck even regular SPD. At present after SPD, its hard to tell between a LPGH or MPGH approach**
Thus I don’t think regular GH could ever be buffed in this way. It would make Zangief broken. Which only then leaves us with using regular GH for anti-projectiles or as an approach. If its too good against projectiles, it would nullify the zoning game for these characters.
I see the possibility of increasing the window in which to absorb fireballs, whilst still retaining the HUGE startup frames, so you need to predict or guess to use the move. They could make the active frames appear more towards the end by increasing startup and reducing recovery. But again, that could break Zangief, and make his footsies too powerful. As it would be hard to counter him during the startup of these GHs, due to the threat of LP SPD.
In short, to punish shoryuken/Tiger uppercut FADC forward dash which is -1 on block WHILE you have Ultra 2 stocked.
**Buffing EX RBG again is difficult. As you don’t want it to be the mother of all anti-airs. Especially when it does 200 with position.
At present there is a huge overlap between EX SPD and EX AS in terms of use. Either rework it, so that in one move you get the superior post positioning, and in the other you get the invincibility frames. But not both.
And to be fair, EX RBG is the penalty for missing EX Atomic Suplex. Just like the regular version. So EX Atomic Suplex needs to have increased damage and gives the current EX SPD post positioning. EX SPD retains its invincibility frames but you get regular SPD post positioning.
This will greatly bring about balance to Zangief’s EX moves. Instead of 90% of the time using EXGH.
You can use EX AS as your primary punishment, best damage (like HP SPD) and best positioning (like EX SPD). Remove armor from EX RBG, and you have a HUGE penalty to deter inappropriate use.
EX SPD will be your invincible move to bust through frame traps.**
A lot of people just seem to over analyze and make things much more complicated than they should. Imo Capcom is not going to make all these changes that people are listing or wishing for for their respective characters. I think they will just give slight buffs to the lower tier characters, slightly nerf the top tier ones, and keep the mid tier ones about the same. As far as Gief goes there’s no way that they’re gonna do all those things that people are listing and quite frankly some of those are just plain retarded. Just look at the previous two updates, this one should follow that same pattern.
So some people say that giving him back his old ex.gh would make him too strong? What the hell are they smoking? That was the only move that gave him hope in a lot of bullshit mu’s and they completely took it away. I say either give us the old ex.gh with kd or make current ex.gh +3 like some are saying. That’s it plain and simple. A slower startup for ex.gh is just stupid and makes no sense imo but that’s me. I think another must is to have damage buffs on most normals, ex.gh, definitely jab spd, and maybe u2 as well. A lot of people also seem to be fixated on rbg fixes but do you really think they’re gonna do anything to that useless move? I’d say just get rid of it along with close st.lk cause that’s also useless.
What’s broken about this? We WANT it to be problematic. They’re not supposed to get out for free once we get a bit of damage; they’re supposed to be scared out of their mind that all that time they spent keeping Gief out for 40 seconds is about to go down the drain if they guess wrong. All of the top tier can meterless hit confirm/OS into knockdown, so what’s the problem with Gief hit confirming into something that keeps them standing? Especially since his vortex is not nearly as oppressive as Cammy, Akuma or Seth. It’d pretty much be the same mixup he gets now off of EX GH, which isn’t that good. It would just be meterless, meaning he can save up more for super, which gives Gief a nasty 50/50 of U2 or super.
Ryu, Ken and Sagat’s uppercut FADC forward dash are all -2, so you can punish those. You can’t punish Akuma, Seth, Cammy and a few others. I agree with that change though.
I wouldn’t mind EX RBG having a bigger grab box so it could punish lariat safe jump attempts, but other than that it just needs a different input or be removed from the game. Also, I don’t see the overlap. There’s no reason at all to ever do EX RBG/suplex. It’s just 20 extra damage; not worth wasting a bar on unless you need to win the round on match point, and even then you’re better off just doing HP SPD cause it does 250. Suplex gives you positioning and damage. EX SPD gives you positioning and invincibility. They’re independent enough.
If there was one area where Zangief should be nerfed, it should be damage, in exchange for versatility.
Who needs an ultra that takes 60% damage when you can have a Sibberian Flip vortex, that leads into Gief dive kicks, russian aerial grabs, red cyclone kicks, sweeps and other various knockdowns.
Nerfs and buffs should be match-up specific - I’m thinking Dan, possibly twins.
On the other hand, when I see Sagat, Akuma, Dhalsim, T Hawke, I’m thinking buff.
I really don’t see why Zangief would be nerfed although that would suggest that Capcom’s balancing seems to have proper reasoning behind it.
At low level play, I could understand why people have an issue. The risk/reward is off kilter since he just needs to land one HP SPD for you to eat a load of damage. Get to the level of play even I was at, players understand zoning and suddenly match-ups that seemed alright are awful and when you finally do fight your way in, there’s little reward.
I agree with Evansgambit; it’s not just a matter of ± damage but I don’t have high hopes when they previously gave moves that no one uses KD while EXGH is missing its own.
Far st.hp with the knockdown is actually a good move in my opinion. The startup needs to be 2 frames faster, from 12 to 10. So you can option select or reset with it.
It’s always been about the read, used in prediction of the opponent’s jump or back dash. And just like cr.lk, cr.lp, st mp - you eat reversal anyway. Although your more at risk to random Ultra with far st.hp. And much more at risk against FA by using far st.hp
Of all the back dash punishes, it is one of the safest, being -3 on block while distanced at range - compared also to LPGH, MPGH or EXGH if you guess wrong. And you don’t get jump backed into full combo had you went with regular GH or EXGH.
Startup in 10 frames, means you could use it in resets where you land cr.lp - tag them when they jump (which means EXGH). Giving the move 4 active frames instead of 3, would allow you to catch short ranged back dashes off of that reset or post SPD-LPGH.
And finally, if they increase the float state on hit, it would be so beautiful, as you could always juggle EXGH - setting up the cross-up or cross-over jump.
It sounds like those changes would make it actually useful. Whenever I tried it, it seemed like more of a joke than anything since it’s just so slow. Pretty sure I saw a pro player elicit a few laughs by cheekily trying it shortly after the patch, too.
For such a relatively simple character, there’s a lot they could do to really change him for the better. I’m rather pessimistic but I’m still looking forward to it all the same. If he makes it out of the patch looking good, I’ll get back into SF4. The worst thing that can happen (after getting directly nerfed of course) is that he gets left behind and that seems quite likely to me.
LP SPD should be 0 frame startup, 1 frame active, and 0 frame recovery. Damage = 1200. Super Meter Gain = +1000 Range = infinity (beyond full screen).
*Note: Fully Invincible, Able to grab in hit stun, able to grab in block stun, able to grab opponent in jump and pre-jump frames.
Opponent down time after the hard knockdown is 4800 frames (80 seconds), so Big Z can build up and whiff two whole supers while pushing opponent’s corpse to the corner.
Motion is activated with F+LP+HK and can be kara-ed cancelled for double full screen range.
Wow, these are the changes they sent to Capcom Japan…
Zangief
• Far standing middle kick have less recovery.
• Stand middle punch nerfed a little bit, Combofiend wasn’t sure how to nerf it.
• Light Spinning Piledriver to have less range.
• EX Banishing Flat to knockdown again, if knocks down it’d have to be slower.
Are we really getting nerfed again…? I may be done with this game if this stuff happens.
I know they will reduce jab spd range, I’d bet on it. Nerf st.mp? I guess since they murdered his best special move(ex.gh) might as well ruin his best poke too. So if we get the ex.gh to kd again the move will be slower? What the hell does that mean? If this really is the complete list they’re sending Capcom then that’s just pathetic.