im going to a SFA3 tournament on sunday, i dont know if i should stick with a-gief or learn his v-combo.
I’d go with A-gief, Just land a j.hk for counter then do his qcfx2 K super. Its easier than learning his V combo, because half the time you could panic and fuck up the combo. Its not that hard, but its better to just go with A ism.
V-Gief is probably > A-Gief, but if you’re talking about going to a tourney in just a few days time, stick with A. It’s probably what you are the most comfortable with. You can practice VC’s in training mode all you like, but you need real playing time in order to get a feel of when and how to hit them. Typically, you want to bring your best to the tournament, not your experimental stuff.
Since the first couple posts were pro A ism. I’ll do a pro V ism one.
Well, you might get into trouble with certain characters when youre in A ism. For instance, vs V Sakura. And if it’s a tournament, v sak is probably going to be a common appearance.
With V Gief, you have the option of counter activating, to top that off, just having a full v meter is a strategy in it’s own right. Allowing you to do things that are typically unsafe. Example, A-Gief can’t jump in on Sakura, by all circumstances. V-Gief can. Just cause your meter is full, you might do a v drop in, or you might not. That allows gief to jump in, cause if Sak goes for the aaVC you can counter activate on your way down.
You dont even have to know his VCs to get away with stuff. If you cross up splash your opponent(blocked or not), activate immediately, and then SPD. If your opponent doesnt have any meter, you could probably get your way in again for more 360s while activated. Because you can actually combo into 360s while in activation.
And if your opponent picks V Sodom, they cant blindly spam st fierce because you can activate to get through it.
It’s not just about the VCs in v-ism. Just having the meter itself, does alot of things.
There’s no reason to use A-Gief if you’re serious about the game.
V gives you tons more options:
Counter activate
Cross-up unblockables
Kattobi cancels
Reliable anti-air
Guaranteed SPD’s
Etc.
You will seriously struggle against Dhalsim/Sakura/Sodom/Cody players without V.
a-giefs alpha counter is horrible
only thing that a gief has over V, is his splash has more priority.
like what was mentioned, you dont have to know his vc’s. you can just jumpin, activate vc, hit em on the way down with a jump attack, ground normal xx spd. then keep trying to do that. stil ldoes good damage. not as good as a real vc combo, but still good. and like what was also mention, with VC’s, you have a defense against the opponents vc activation.
but at the same time, if you arent comfortable with V and are going to a tourney in a couple days, i would stick with A, since he will be more comfortable to you. which was also mentioned earlier. A-gief has major matchup problems without VC, but its irrelevant if you cant use v-gief confidently. you’re better off with A this time.
in the end, you pick who you want.
in A, use only level 1 FABS. try to always keep 2 levels handy for his AA super. the super sucks as AA, but it has great guarunteed setups. use s.jab as AA, then go into super, if s.jab is counterhit, they cant flip. if it isnt, they can flip, but the odds of them getting away is extremely slim. also air to air counter attack( j.jab works best), then land and go into aa super. same results. massive damage. its only good at level 2 and especially level 3.
kyokuji: gief struggles against v-sodom no matter what. gief has the hardest time getting past b+fierce and slide. v-gief obviously handles it better cuz of V-ism’s natural ability to blow thru shit, but its still not really in his favor IMO. sim and sakura, i definitely agree. cody, not so much. i think gief flat out beats v-cody. gief has more effective ways to land spd’s cuz of the dodge. plus his hitbox is the most annoying in the game and it makes it hard for cody to land real good midscreen vc’s. i think the matchup can be a tossup now that i think of it, mainly cuz cody infinite is obviously a good equalizer in any match. but i think i lean towards gief, even in A.
I would agree about the Sodom thing. I just meant that on A, it’s going to be a lot worse.
I dunno about the Cody match-up though. I play V-Cody as my main and I generally don’t have that much trouble with ''Gief players. V or otherwise.
You can essentially zone all day with rocks, and if they jump or whiff, I just VC and then infinite. I can usually get at least 50% meter back during the infinite, and if I don’t, I can just zone again until I get enough. 50% is usually fine since Cody can start his infinite mid-screen anyway. His hitbox is annoying, but it just means that you gotta time stuff a little later.
I honestly don’t see what he can use to get past rock spam besides a kattobi cancel.
Well timed banishing fists work, but if you vary the timing even slightly it’s pretty easy to force him to block the next one. Of course if he knocks you down, you’re in big trouble, but other than that, I don’t see how that match-up’s in 'Gief’s favour at all.
Obviously this makes for some really long and boring matches (I’ve gotten shit from a lot of 'Gief players for playing the match so defensively), but it’s honestly one of the easier match-ups I can think of for him. It’s especially bad for A-Gief, because he can’t counter activate against an anti-air VC.
The only tough spot is if he manages to back you into a corner, but I find I can usually jump/roll out and then continue the rock spam again (especially since Cody’s cross-up is easy as shit to nail on 'Gief). They can’t really be overly aggressive in trying to keep you there without risking being hit by a VC either. Obviously 'Gief AA VC is a danger, but that’s what counter activate is for and you’ll be going over him so you can set up the cross-up unblockable.
If Cody didn’t have his infinite then I might be inclined to agree, but you can essentially stall him with rocks until you land a VC and then the round is over. Sort of like how V-Akuma players will just VC you and then run until they’ve got enough meter to do it again. If you choose to fight him head on though, then yes, I think the match could be considered a toss-up.
The only nasty match-ups I can think of for Cody are A/V-Chun’ (she can stuff 90% of your offense with s. RH and c. FK, she can walk right under your rocks, both your hopkick and your RH miss her and her jump-in out prioritizes all your anti-air normals), V-Claw (Hopkick is useless on him and he can play runaway on you all day if he wants) and to a lesser extent A-Blanka (being put into danger from 2 hits is not fun. Especially since rocks usually go over his rolls, and you can’t punish a blocked one with anything. You can VC him pretty easily, but you’re gonna have a much harder time keeping him away as opposed to someone like 'Gief) and V-Karin (if you lose momentum against her, she can easily GC you to death in the corner). V-Sakura can be a bit of a pain too, but honestly who doesn’t have trouble with her.
Out of curiosity, is there any particular matchup where A is generally a better idea than V?
As previously stated, the capabilities V-ism can give an edge in certain matchups, but is the reverse true in any situation – EG. Does A give an advantage in any particular match?
lol, I read Sabre’s post backwards somehow. God damn I’m dyslexic sometimes.
Probably vs Adon.
You can jump jab Adon’s air attacks for a CH into his kick super. Adon has the ability to escape Gief’s V shenanigans outside of combos, with jaguar tooth and the like.
Gief can get hit by a jag tooth on the ground and still get an SPD, so the extra damage that A ism grants the SPD, is much better than V.
Adon’s ground moves have slow recovery, so you could almost on reaction leap at Adon upon seeing pokes of medium and up. In the process, baiting short rising jaguars.
The obvious longer guard meter in A ism, allows for Gief to last a lil bit longer if he gets pressured with Adon’s reach. You could say X ism in that respect, but Adon’s level 3 super is essentially a free move with the punch ending, V Adon is a different story though.
Probably vs V-Juni.
Juni has pushblock. So gief has to make every hit count, so he’d need the extra damage for SPD and his pokes from A.
I dunno though, cause it seems like even then it’d just even A out with V in those match ups. It depends on how your gief is played. a turtling V Gief would probably do just as well as A gief in those 2 match ups.
Btw in my first post i meant b+fierce from sodom, not st fierce. obviously. I’ll edit it anyway.
Good read gents. Thnx for the info.