Pimp and Bman . . . yeah, your absolutely right. I would even consider Gief a mid tier . . . not even upper. And to have some people “claiming” he’s too easy to use . . . makes me laugh so much when I hear it . . . they are so stupid. If he is easy and can beat everyone why aren’t we seeing more Giefs??? I liked Gief from HDR and onto SFIV . . . i was never a Gief player and now i’m just maining him here on SFIV. Against really good players I lose.
Hitting crouching oppnts . . hmmm . . . well, he has a bit of a weird hitbox buy . . . why are you guys not blocking the lariat in the first place anyway?? They are the ones who cannot count the spins and tries to sweep during the final rotation so they get hit. . . . oh wells, that’s cuz you suck. Leave his lariat alone i’d say.
Why can’t I hit the really good players with the lariat when they are crouching??? Hmmm. Makes ya wonder eh??
I still think Gief is upper mid, but in terms of tornie viability he’s really actually bad. He has bad match ups with Sagat, Akuma, and to some extent Ryu and those are very popular characters on the pro scene. What this means is that Gief actually has a harder time winning tornies than most characters.
Yeah I used to think that too, but it’s not really the case imo. I think he goes pretty even with Ryu or Akuma, maybe slight losses but not to such an extent that the better player won’t win most of the time. Among the arcade cast, the only characters I’m worried about are Sagat and Blanka, but in both cases the matchups have gotten better over the last year. I’ve become fairly confident in the Sagat matchup, enough to say that I think it’s more like 4-6 than 3-7. SoCal only has a few good Sagats, but I’ve played a couple of them lately and done quite well. I’ve been doing well against Blanka as well, to the point that I’d probably list it as an even matchup if I hadn’t seen videos and heard tales of Blankas eating Giefs in Japan.
There are a few better tournament characters than Gief, but not many. It’s basically just like, Sagat, Akuma, and Ryu. Maybe a couple characters are about as good, but nobody else is better. And that’s right where he should be imo, right where the designers should be aiming every character at.
I totally agree with you on that. when i first started gief i didn’t think so but as i played more akumas and learned little tricks and how important it is to keep akuma in the corner, i think its a fair matchup, but akuma wins by a little. And ryu i think is even or maybe in gief’s favor.
Playing gief against sagat or blanka was tough when i was in japan. Whenever you get a solid sagat that knows how to kara into all special moves every chance he gets, sagat really feels too tough. I don’t know if that match has gotten better over time for gief, but I do think blanka has gotten easier since you can kara green hand, spd outta electiricity, and keep blanka in the corner with the threat of the headbutt if he tries to reversal back to forward ex kick (dunno what the move is called). But still, these 2 matches are hard for gief, and unfair. To me, the hard part with gief on every character if played by a top player is getting in. Once you get in, with option selects, its too easy to get lots of damage, but once you lose them, you have to struggle to get back in, making the flow of the zangief match in consistent, boring, and dependent solely on how many times you get in. But, God damn does it feel good to get in.
I’d like to see more of a flow with gief, make his up close shit less bullshit, and give him more of a mid range game so your not always looking for an opportuinty to green hand though shit. Its kinda boring to walk up to sagat (or any fireball character) and try to green hand though a fireball, all you do is just buffer the uppercut motion and hope he does something dumb. If you could challenge sagat with normals that could reach as far as his could, there might be more of a threat. I know you can slapchop sagats whiffed standing roundhouse, but seriously, thats not gonna get you too far. It would be much better if you didn’t have to rely on punishing whiffed normals. Like standing forward should feel more like uriens standing forward. Give it as much horizontal reach as sagats roundhouse, now maybe it shouldn’t be as fast as sagats roundhouse, but as long as its a viable option it would help out a lot. Gief’s sweep should make him get low, like shoto low forward, so tiger knees could be handled better.
His mid-range game would be a lot better if his dash was better too. You can almost never focus a fireball and dash forward on sagat, the dash is too slow for you do anything afterwords (other than ex hand). If his dash was not necessarily farther, but just faster so you had time to do something with your forward advancement, i think it would help a lot.
If you make his up close game a little worse, his low short links should be easier. I’m almost 100% with the shorts now but I had to get that way because it was giefs only low combo and to keep people from blocking straight back and moving away from me, i had to learn it.
A lot of people have been saying to make lariat worse, which is stupid cause its only good online and top players will never let you just lariat in range. If you’re going to make lariat worse (which im afraid will happen since everyone wants it worse and ive been told capcom reads these threads) gief will need a good way to inch closer. Since Im asking for a better mid range gief with a worse close up game gief, maybe you could give him like a jumping up move that moves him like honda or balrog has. That seems kinda dumb, but hear me out. Honda and balrog have them so they can inch closer right. Doesn’t Zangief always need to inch closer? Much more than honda or balrog to be successful. It would help a lot for the sagat match to get closer and not have to focus though or jump over fireballs. But idk, it seems like it might be a really bad idea.
Well, thats about all I can think of right now. I think Gief will get shitty next game because everyone thinks he’s too good, but in actuality, there aren’t that many gief players at top level cause its too hard to get in with him. So, go ahead make him suck, but just make it easier to get in without relying on ex green hand.
Does anyone have a link to what Zangiefs alt Ultra (Siberian blizzard) would look like if it is included? I understand that it is his super from a previous street fighter but I can’t find a video of it and really want to see what it’s like.
I’ve heard it’s an air ultra and I hope that means it grabs you in the air like Gen’s Crance Ultra/Super (The video will answer of course)
My reason in hoping it’s like that is that I would really like his Lariat > FADC > Ultra since not that many people have an actual FADC into Ultra right now. (Really only Ryu, Sagat and Ken as far as I can remember) and it would be nice to see some more uses for it.
In MvC2, Siberian blizzard is simply a rising lariat, and can’t be done in the air iirc. I hope he gets is anti-air grab as a special move, or an air grab, and his f.HP from HDR (I dunno if it is in any other version of SF2)
giefs aa game is fine as it is. his only problem is anti-jump (which is still fine as long as you connect with a close attack).
if anything i would make his mid range game more interesting as a buff, maybe get a super fast, low attack so he has a reliable way to whiff punish sagat HK without burning ex (or take a huge risk if he ends up doing fake kick), or 100% flawless spacing for one…
i totally vote for an air throw man. I mean hes supposed to be the one with the most throws and ends up with what . . . two normals and a couple of special slams??? Weak.
At this point, all I want are some normals akin to his ST s.MK and c.HK (The latter would be the closest thing to what you described). Given that it’s easier for him to get in, I wouldn’t care at all if he didn’t get back any links to c.HK, as long as it becomes a decent poke again.
I hope they change the command for the Lariat. I found it particularly annoying when I wanted to do a EX Green Hand and kept doing a Lariat because the game didn’t recognise my inputs correctly.
Where you there this year?Long hair darker skin, played at Shibuya sportsland? Either way i agree with the analysis on the Sagat and blanka matches. I think if s.fk was nerfed a little and they put an actual hit box on his fist when he tiger shots it might make it a little easier Seems like every time I kara EX hand through a Tiger shit i either get 1 hit(which sucks cause they get a free combo) or it whiffs.
Making him have startup full body invincibility just like Mak. Then make his shit do way more damage, but he can’t block. Make it last I dunno 10 seconds or so.
as long as i can switch between high and low with kick and punch lariet im fine with a normal lariet nerf…i use lariet for anti air anyways and combo enders.
Jab/shorts buffer ex hand give him some of the most dangerous footsies in the game. I like Gief having good footsies, I think that’s really important for his character type, but I think I’d probably make them a little less damage by lowering the damage on ex hand a bit. I’d compensate for that by making his neutral throw and spds do a little more damage, that is, by making him a little better up close, and by buffing his far st mk and sweeps. Far st mk should have a little faster recovery, cause there’s no reason to have it stay out so long that good players can dragon punch/flash kick it on hit. I’d also like to see both sweeps have Gief’s hittable hitbox lowered so that he can go under stuff better and also be safe on block at least from max range.
I really don’t think Gief needs an air throw or an air super or whatever. Again, I don’t want to see Zangief get better on defense, I want to see him get a little worse.
I want to make the lariat a little more susceptible to crossups and some regular jump-in angles, because while I like the fact that playing against Gief is very different from playing against other characters, I don’t like the fact that the lariat so blatantly forces that kind of play on the opponent. I want him to have to play my game partly because I’m Gief but also partly because I use him well, not because he has no chance of mounting his own air-based offense due to my sick no-motion almost-instant antiair that deals with the vast majority of air attacks from the vast majority of ranges, and especially not because he also has to deal with my air grab or anti-air grab.
Remember, Gief’s close jab, crouching strong, far roundhouse, far strong, and far jab already deal with lots of antiairs really well. I think it would be great to make Gief’s antiair game more like Sim’s, very situation- and character-dependent. Lariat would still beat some things, cr. mp others, close jab others, etc, and some you’d just have to block.
I’d keep punch lariat the same on the ground, though. Many characters can duck it and everyone can deal with it in some way; only against some characters in some situations and if I use excellent spacing can it be safe.
For kick lariat, on the other hand, I would keep the low invincibility, but make it not hit as low to the ground while giving it faster horizontal movement. I definitely think it’s odd that kick lariat hits so well on the ground while also being invincible there.
Essentially I’d give Gief slightly better but less damaging footsies and make him a little better up close, but I’d balance that by making him less of a defensive wall.
Keep close 360k suplex but get rid of far 360k running bear grab entirely, imo. In a game where backdashing and back jumping are effective counters to command grabs, a single command input that results in one thing up close range and another from just outside of close range is a liability because the different moves can be triggered accidentally by the opponent’s backdash or back jump. Plus, the only ways I can imagine making rbg, especially ex, effective is to make it too good. After all, since good opponents can react to whiff green hand with a punishment or an escape, the only way to make rbg usable is to make it even faster than green hand, but… that would be retarded.
Running bear grab has always been a crappy move in every game it’s ever been in, but it’s like Capcom considers it part of the Gief canon and has to leave it in. The only time it hasn’t sucked is in HD Remix, but it’s not even that great there, and the only reason he got a better rbg is because for whatever reason Sirlin wanted to address Gief’s problems in an almost-purely special-move-centric, shenanigan-based way. I really hope SSF4 Gief doesn’t turn out like that.
Seems like every time I kara EX hand through a Tiger shit i either get 1 hit(which sucks cause they get a free combo) or it whiffs.