invincibility start up frames for lk cw -> fireball hopping.
Hawks new dive , hit or block is “safe” but doesnt knock down. I say “safe” because it can be punished by some characters hit or block depending on where you hit them. Hawks old dive was less safe but rewarded with a knockdown when you connected with it. Only certain characters under certain instances could actually punish hawks old dive but a lot of people think its unsafe like 99% of the time.
You wanna talk balance patches, Zangiefs invincible feet lariat NEEDS to be changed. I seriously don’t know how anyone could possibly think “Hey, we’re gonna give him an untrip-able lariat, but the way you can tell the difference between the two is the way it SOUNDS.” Great idea! Lol… umm, for a game that was supposedly tweaked with tournament play in mind, who here EVER has been in a tournament environment where they can hear ANYTHING from the game their playing, nevermind something that specific. You can’t!
Seriously, the removal of recovery frames, faster running pile driver, instant recovery on hop, and completely brainless inputs with absolutely no thought of toning down damage to compensate for these changes, while also nerfing practically every other character turned Gief into a super low risk, high reward character by making him so easy to use that a person who’s blind, has no arms, 1 leg, and an IQ of 3 can win without breaking a sweat, the LEAST that should happen is some sort of visual difference between lariats to give you a chance to know what you’re going up against instead of just handing free SPD’s to your opponent because you couldn’t HEAR something and actually tried to go on the offense.
If we’re unfortunately going to be stuck with this version of the game from now on and there’s going to be actual gameplay changes, at least put all the moves in the same context, which is VISUAL, not AUDIBLE.
I hope you weren’t just being sarcastic, Lethargy, 'cause if you are, I’m gonna look stupid for falling for it but… um… Wha–???
I have yet to EVER experience a benefit from the new Kick Lariat’s invincible legs. It’s only invincible for the first spin, and then can be hit super easily. Other Gief players I have spoken to have all agreed that it doesn’t even feel like the move has changed at all, and it hasn’t added a single bit of usefulness to his game. Most people’s reactions are so slow that they end up sweeping the latter, vulnerable part of the move anyhow!
- James
Yeah the lariat isn’t really different, because when I was still maining Ken I used to sweep him out of all lariats all the time later, I never knew it was invincible on legs at startup until right now… who cares? 
I 100% agree with all of Johnny’s changes.
About the demon though, if they made it so that you could block air fireball and then jump out of air demon no matter what, I wouldn’t have too much problem with it. I lose to Akuma scrubs because of air fireball bullshit playskool mixups and random dizzies off of bread and butter hurricane kicks, not the demon.
KKK lariat changed?
Lol, no, not sarcastic at all. I really find this AUDIBLE Zangief change to make absolutely no sense in regard to the overall way the game works, especially considering how brainless he’s become to use due to his changes. No other move in the game is reliant on audio to tell the difference between a potentially non punishable move, and an obvious punishable move. Why should this one be different just to compensate for Gief’s supposed shortcomings, when he’s already been WAY overcompensated for with every other change he’s had?
James, I’m sure you don’t remember me from a hole in the wall, but we’ve met a couple times, played a few times, and I’m pretty positive I’ve seen you at the 4 Evo tournies I’ve attended, but I don’t think I’m even remotely out of line in saying that knowing the difference between a move based on audible difference as opposed to visual difference is ludicrous, when you, I, and a ton of other people here have been in a tournament setting, and know that it’s damn near, if not completely impossible to tell the difference between something just by the way it sounds in that setting as opposed to visual confirmation. Maybe you have some sort of super sonic stupendous hearing and can use that to your advantage, but for the other 99.9% of us, that just doesn’t work. 
And if we’re going to be stuck with this version of “fixed” ST from now on, that’s supposedly catered towards having a more “balanced” game for tournament play, the least that could be done is to put ALL moves in the game on the same playing field.
HDR EVO2K8 To be played with headphones.
Get hype ?
To be supplied to all players by Evo staff? Lol.
I can think of one…Ryu’s Fake Hadouken. Just saying. It’s there.
IMHO, though, there’s a lot more complaining going on concerning Fei Long’s nerfed RekkuKyaku (a.k.a. Chicken Wing), Cammy’s still too slow Spinning Knuckle and no Dive Kick having Hooligan Combo (not that there’s that much more that can be done for her), the removal of T. Hawk’s knock down dive, and Honda still being too good against non-projectile throwers than there is for Zangief’s Kick Lariat. The way the Lariat is designed in HDR would make it avoid low attacks on anticipation. It’s not as good as Hyper Fighting Zangief’s Kick Lariat where you could spam it and then SPD and be kinda safe doing so. If they’re coming at you with it, I’m sure rapid fire low attacks will stop it after the first rotation and even lead to a combo for you. It’s hardly a move to tick with. Even with that improvement, Zangief isn’t mid tier, so I’m wondering what the real deal is.
Ahhh, I gotcha now, Lethargy. The complaint seemed as if the Kick Lariat was too good, so how dare they make it only an audible distinction between the two? It sounds to me more like you are just complaining that something exists that has an audible cue as opposed to a visual one, especially given how tournament settings can be.
If I’m not mistaken, though, these types of cues have existed before. Vega’s Backflips come to mind (Kick one looks different but not immediately). And later versions of Vega, I swear this is true and anyone can back me up if they remember it better than me, but if I recall correctly, some versions have it so that he lets out the yelp if he goes to the wall with the Kick button and is silent when he goes to the wall with the Punch Button (CvS2 is like this I think).
And if I ALSO recall correctly, there was NO difference at all between the two Lariats in vanilla ST. The Audio cue is actually new.
I guess my point of the last post was that, really, the move is so pointless that it doesn’t matter. Had it actually made a significant difference, I could definitely see your point. I’ve always wanted it to be so that Gief would pretty much have exactly the same Kick Lariat he had in Hyper Fighting (three FAST spins, always invincible legs, and cannot slide as far). But maybe that was too hard for Sirlin to get programmed into the game.
- James
Alpha three vega yells as he goes to the wall with kick, but says nothing with punch
yes yes YES
Is it me or has the patch made finding matches worse. Since the patch I have gotten a connection error message nearly every match, can’t join, match connection lost, etc. Anyone else?
I would imagine if you’re patched and you’re paired up with someone who doesn’t have the patch, the game will desync. When everyone has the patch, this issue should go away.
Wait, the patch is out?
Well you’re correct and incorrect in understanding what I’m saying. Do I think JUST the lariat on it’s own make him ridiculously overpowered compared to old Gief?.. no. I do think something has to give regarding Gief’s changes tho, and in a tournament environment, the audio only confirmation makes absolutely no sense. I don’t think there is one specific thing that makes me go "Holy crap Gief is ridiculous now!, but the combination of all his changes, plus nerfing other characters, I do think is overboard/an over correction/whatever you want to call it.
To me, I honestly think this happened, and no offense to anyone involved, but had more to do with having people who couldn’t already competently play Gief to the point they knew the ins and outs in him in ST play testing and making changes, and all these changes are geared more towards say 5ish play testers and Sirlin’s lack of Gief knowledge, and compensates for their lack of knowledge and ability than Gief’s actual shortcomings. If you want to make move inputs easier, ok, fine, but to do that, and also take away Green Hand recovery frames, change the hop so that it has practically no recovery at all, and now I have to guess which lariat I’m up against, it just seems like a huge overcompensation. If anything, at least having some sort of visual on the lariat change would give you an idea of what you’re up against, since it’s already been made stupidly easy for him to advance and land ridiculous strong moves due to the combination of easy inputs, multiple move changes, and nerfing of other characters. And if for some reason no visual can be programmed in, get rid of it, he already has no recovery on hop, and practically none on Green Hand, that’s more than enough to help him advance and take control of a match with ease.
Who knows if we’ll ever get a game play patch anyway, I only bring it up because people were talking specific game play changes regarding characters here. For now, we’re only getting a patch to fix obvious glitches, so maybe we’re stuck with this thing the way it is from now on, and we’ll have to see whether the overall community wants to stick with this, or go back to regular ST after a while. Maybe this ends up going the same way as Anniversary Edition in a year, maybe not. Personally, I’d love to see it die and be buried in a hole in the desert next to the Atari E.T. cartridge hole, as it feels like a sloppy, minimally tested, poor decision making version of Super Sirlin and a Few Friends Fighter 2, not a solid Street Fighter 2 game.
I don’t think you could play online without the patch.
Is Lethargy really arguing that Zangief is braindead and overpowered?
…Zangief?
Really?