Here are two other chars I’m having problems with at the moment; wondering how you handle them:
Last week I fought an Akuma and all he did was:
A. Long fireball from a jump, jump towards Sak and he used his slide (when I defend) or that annoying hand (when I jump to avoid) that takes away so much damage.
B. Short fireball from a jump, and then the same thing as above or he can just double punch you.
It’s really annoying me that most Akuma’s start spamming like that.
Blanka’s. I know how to fight most of them, but it’s such an unbalanced match I often just give up. All they do is roll, electricity and Ultra. There’s one Blanka that starts of with a roll, or he’ll find a way to hit you at least once and the rest of the match he’s backtracking for 95 seconds. If you move towards him spamming the s.lp he’ll slide, if you move towards him he’ll roll and chip/hit you.
If he’s jumping towards you throwing Air Fireballs you can EX Shou straight through them if you’re quick enough, kinda risky but he’s probably not going to be blocking.
Can’t really help you with Blanka, I have issues with him, short is there’s not an awful lot you can do about it
I always use the same tactics against Zangiefs, throw fireball when im away and charge it hoping he will jump and land on it, sometimes it will screw his green hand. If he is too near tatsu over hime and most of the G2 Zangief will react to this doing a Lariat which I punish with a Shou. Yes I run away and let the time goes by. But GOOD Zangiefs in G1 are a pain in the ass. Once they’re near me, I can say my prayers. The problem is with Sakura you need to be close to be effective and With Zangief you can’t stand near him… I’m not going to write about Blanka because it’s a waste of time.
hmmm i guess blankas are a more of experience thing. one of my sparring buddies and my tournament partner for team tourneys plays blanka, so im very used to the whole blanka match up. and theres nothing funnier than going to a tournament and hearing a blanka bitch because you destroy everything he throws at you. keep in mind im not saying its an easy fight. i do work my ass off for my win, but we usually go around 50-50. hardly a one-sided match up. honda on the other hand… ugh dont get me started on that.
as for god giefs, ive played good giefs. ive played tournament level giefs. ie: the ones who know that gief actually has combos. the one thing i get told when i play giefs: "what the fuck man, i cant get in with all that bullshit"
when you get a gief saying that, youre set. and once again, its NOT an easy match up. just easier than most other match ups. with sakura, unless youre playing fei long or cammy, you have to work your ass off for the win
as for akuma, it is imperative you learn the c.hp > lk tatsu > s.lk > hp shouo or the c.lk > s.lp > s.lp > c.mk > hp shouo combos. cause he is pretty much immune to all your extended tatsu combos. not to mention mind games are semi pointless on him due to teleport. i also have difficulties with akuma because i can never keep him where i want him since hes got a lot of outs. but learn those and at least youll snag a few games =)
i dare u to play my friend matts gief. he would ruin u. he can option select against sakuras crappy back dash. and as for ex shou i show u this
[media=youtube]8LLIPx-MGbk[/media]
yes that did just happen.
oh and i for got to metion how u are completely screwed once he starts he cross over bs. my friend uses the lk knees to cross over most the time because it catches everything and he can land and spd, or he can land to combo. what is so hard about this is that if u think he is going to land spd and u go to jump and he goes for the combo u eat a lot of damage, or you sit there expecting the combo so u block he spd which is about 1/4 of your health. oh not to mention the grab could be ultra. as for zoning gief with fireball, if he jumps use shou. he can actually trade with it by using hp which ends in his favor so yeah. gief is a 9-1 his favor. and good giefs dont use lariat besides to pass through fireballs or anti air
I like to use hp/mp/lp shouoken to pass under Akuma’s air fireball. So the only air fireballs he can throw are from very far away. It doesn’t always catch him in air but akuma players have a tendancy to always go forward when they’ve recovered from the jump :).
If your sixth sense is strong you can also catch his demon dive/flip/hand in in mid-air with j.mp. I’d rather just use lp. shouo to mess up the distances though(works against Viper mix-ups too).
I’m glad Akuma’s f.hk doesn’t make opponent stand up anymore in SSF4. That shit was just too strong -_-.
and if u think sakura - gief is a 9-1, then what the hell is ryu - gief. a 10-0 they way your thinking gief shouldnt even have a chance against a shoto. even seth vs gief isnt a 9-1 and thats practically impossible for gief. gief is high B tier in this game for a reason. he is good against practically everyone. he only has 3 bad matchups. what you are doing is fighting people that dont know the match up while u do. its a unfair comparison. Im gonna give u my friend matts xbox gt. he has a really good gief. ClUtCh AcTiVe. i dare u to beat him 9-1. oh and he aint even g-1, he doesnt play online thats why he is better
I can’t claim that it’ll work, but I played an akuma the other day who was doing a real predictable demon flip pattern, and I started beating it by jumping towards it with j.hp. Maybe he just wasn’t doing what he was supposed to, but once I shut it down, he couldn’t win and eventually switched characters… to another counter-pick.
hmmm… seems ive been misinterpretted. i never said gief-sakura was a 9-1 match up in sakuras favor. i simply said it was an easier match up than most her other match ups. at best its a 5-5 and thats giving credit.
as stated above, you still have to work your ass off for the win… meaning no mistakes. saying gief is a 9-1 match up in his favor simply means its time to re-evaluate your style against gief. in all reality a lot of times people complain its an impossible fight for them, but its really just the player isnt adapting to the techniques of the other player. and im down to do some casuals against your buddy. itll help me learn new things against different giefs. i prefer if he does it on ps3 though cause im using that xcm converter on 360, which has some input lag sometimes…
ahh damn… well ill try and play him this weekend. cause im trying not to drink on the weekdays anymore, and you know i have to play drunk. im sure it will be good times… i havent really seen an impressive gief since i played crizzle. but i hear hes messing with c viper now
I’ll be at NCR if you want to play. However, Aquasilk, one of the top 3 best Giefs in America, just declared SSF4 Gief is trash and he is picking a new character. This is disheartening for the rest of us. Apparently Gief’s empty jump is garbage now and gets hit by everything (Sakura’s cr. FP). Sakura got a couple buffs and Gief is the third most nerfed character, so the match up will probably be a 6-4 against Sakura in the new game. I do think that the match up in vanilla is a 7-3 or even a little worse.
