Zangief Section
I’m not going to do in depth break down on his normals but i will mention frame data that i remember.
Moves:
:360: :Punch Spinning Pile Driver
:HCF: :Kick: Running Bear Grab
:DP: :Punch Glowing Hand
:DP: :Kick: Air Throw
:Punch :Punch Lariat
:Kick: :Kick: Lariat
Supers:
:360: :Punch :Punch Final Atomic Buster
:360: :Kick: :Kick: Ultamite Final Atomic Buster - Lvl 3
:QCB: :QCB: :Kick: Mega Zangief
How you Play him / Overview
Zangief mainly has to worry about getting in after that he can usually do damage. He has to work harder to get in usually relying on assists like sent v, juggs b/v to keep them in block stun long enough to get in by super jumping which covers your assist if you land on the other side or by using his biggest space covering special, Air throw.
Tick Throws
Once he’s in he can use any number of ticks such as:
crouching lp (4 frames his fastest normal and 2 frames faster than c. lk) (can be blocked) >>>>>> Spinning pile driver or tiger knee lp spinning pile driver
combo into heavy glowing fist (can be blocked) (E.g: Crouching lk, crouching mk, Hp glowing fist, wait, spinning pile driver)
Blocked splash >>>> Df + hp (the launch) (blocked) wait Spinning pile driver
remember if they tend to jump away from your ticks you can still catch them by using the air throw if you guess which way they’ll jump (uf/u calls for lk air throw) (ub calls for hk air throw)
he can also use his 2 cvs2/sf2 style cross ups, down lk (knee drop), down hp (body splash) to make it ambigous to block, especially since zangief has a easier time controlling when the attack hits so he can do a fake cross up (make the attack hit before you actually cross up so if they expect it to hit behind them it will hit in front).
The knee drop has much better priority than the body splash, but the body splash has a huge hit box, around zangief’s neck to the end of his underwear.
If you connect one of these you have good options to do 50 - 75% damage :
There is even a way to do a unavoidable (unjumpable) final atomic buster in a combo.
Comboes/Resets
You can Cross up with the body splash or knee drop (the knee drop has less hit stun) and then go into :
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Standing Hk (1 Hit) lariat (2 hits) Final atomic buster. (knee drop has less hit stun so i suggest you do crouching lp into standing hk)
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Crouching lp, Crouching mp (launch) j. lk, j. mp ( experiment with this, try hitting the j. lk early and doing a slow dial into j. mp) then wait as late as possible and then Spinning pile driver (they look like they are about to fall out of your combo)
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You can get some wake up options by doing, standing hk (2 hits) into lk air throw
and on the Air Throw:
a) The hit box for this seems to be starting somewhere on the lower part of his arm all the way down to the rim of his under wear, so your goal should be if your trying to make it unavoidable to have the this area (i’d say his chest) right next to your opponent when they fall out of hit stun the combo : Standing Hk (2 hits) into lk air throw seems to be intended by the creators because it comboes easily and flawlessly.
b) It should be mentioned that you can attack after you do this move it’s really great for covering distance if your covered correctly.
- Crouching lp, Kick Throw
On the kick throw:
a) it seems to do bugged damage if you mash it the way zaza says you can easily get more damage than lp spinning plile driver, this move does 24 damage if you do nothing, and i have gotten 36 damage by mashing, it seems to have commando kick throw properties but i doubt you can mash it forever.
- Air combo ending with neutral HP
The reason i mention this obvious combo is because he has incredible wake up options from this, zaza said that for ground based character to get their comboes in they usually need to pin down the opponent via flying screen, well zangief has one of the best fierces in them game, this usually lands the opponent right below him and you can choose if you hold foward to land right on top of them, or you can be tricky and hold back which causes him to fall off screen which will lead into him doing his mandatory flying screen dash, and his dash is a throw, so when the opponent wakes up he’ll get thrown, choose kick thorw for the best damage.
- If doing from a body splash you can do something really risky.
Sweep xxx lk air throw, do the spd motion when they wake up and watch your opponent get air spd’d while they are still on the ground!, if they try to jump away they’ll probably get nailed anyways. This is suceptible to rolling though so watch out. but of course if they roll you can always try and either use hk air throw to catch up to them when they roll behind you or even do a hk running bear grab that will grab them on wake up if they are asleep :P.
7)End air combo with lariat (any version)
this will pop them into the air a little bit and allow you to wait for them on the way down creating a ambigous cross up situation. If they form a habit of attacking you on the way down and breaking it up just block and call a assist such as juggs b/v or cyclops b, until they learn and if you happen to have cyclops b, you can probably fit in aair throw off a hit or possibly on block (?).
If they dont’ attack you have very good cross up options
a) Lariat, since you can move this foward or backwards you can choose whichever side you like, keep in mind after the fourth hit they are dead weight (ala psy a assist hit stun) so you can use his instant start up super final atomic buster to dhc into super of yoru choice.
b) mix up of you choice, you can jump straight up and do a body splash, or walk under and crouching lk, and launch up again.
c) spd/kick throw them when they land or even if done in a certain way (the lariat combo) jump up and regular throw them.
Move Properties
I will do a break down on the properties of zangief’s special moves since it is very very important and not all that obvious which moves do what.
Spinning Pile Driver
Air version has been proven to not take the opponent’s air to ground position into consideration, as long as the hit box of the spd makes contact with the opponents contact boxes he will get thrown.
Spin the stick for a little more damage, lp version does less, the air versions of these moves do less than the ground versions by about 5 points.
All versions have alot of horizontal range you can grab someone about a ryu character size away dont’ expect miracles but it does have good range, especially good to know your ranges for tick throwing. You can also whiff to build meter in the air and use it to halt your decension.
Lariat
Punch version hits 4 times, causes dead weight on the last hit, is invulnerable to most non-negatable beams and projectiles from his arms all the way to his feet can move foward or backwards a distance by pressing the joypad in the desired direction can be essential in setting up correct distances for unavoidable fab’s. A good note is that using standing hk into this move is essential at getting a possibility of a unavoidable fab, the lariat xxx fab doesn’t work unless you hit them at a certain height.
Kick Version hits once and causes a specific type of hit stun (not deadweight), and if comboed into (without standing hk) in the corner can lead to a unavoidable final atomic buster. Seems to have a invulnerability to low attacks such as sweeps and shorts.
Glowing Fist
At the ending portion of this move you are invulnerable to most non negatable projectiles and probably a few beams too. The Hp version moves you a bit further to your opponent, close enough to spd after being comboed into while the lp version usually does not.
Does not knock down, making it a very good tick and leaves you safe from my knowledge.
Running Bear Grab
Although a bit predictable you can tick into this move too and is more reliable to get the right range, zangief has super armor when walking towards your opponent and loses it when he grabs so if he whiffs it in front of your opponent don’t expect super armor to save you.
Air Throw
lk version goes about 1/4 of the screen about halfway you’ll gain control and can attack, and you’ll land just short of the half screen point. while the hk version going 3/4 of the screen about with you gaining control afterwards landing about full screen distance.
in case you missed it here’s a recap on the hit box :
and on the Air Throw:
a) The hit box for this seems to be starting somewhere on the lower part of his arm all the way down to the rim of his under wear, so your goal should be if your trying to make it unavoidable to have the this area (i’d say his chest) right next to your opponent when they fall out of hit stun the combo : Standing Hk (2 hits) into lk air throw seems to be intended by the creators because it comboes easily and flawlessly.
that’s enough for now.
edit: Keep in mind this was made for a herv thread : http://highervoltage.net/mb/showthread.php?t=9419 about universal low tiers and most of that forum hates mvc2 so it included things that are a bit gamefaqish :karate: