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Zangief frame data:
http://wiki.shoryuken.com/Street_Fighter_V/Zangief
Credits Frame Trapped
How do I get out of his knee “frame trap”?
Also, anything recommended against him combo wise? cuz it seems like if u don’t knock him down he’ll grab u
He can make the knee +3 but only on meaty hit. Usually is -2(?). You get 2 frames to guess if he will grab you on the ground/in the air. Not sure you can back dash, doubt it.
As far as combos you wanna leave yourself plus. Lp elbow and mp chop are best Enders. Leaving you +3 and putting him into your mp/powerbomb mixup. If he has CA then jump. Rather take the air spd then death.
I’ll try it. Guess it’s gonna be like learning SFIV gief all over again…
Two kinds of Giefs, the “i use st.hp and red armor move for everything” and the “footsies” gief.
Both are scary in their own way, but you can deal with them. This is another matchup where your best button (cr.mp) isn’t that great, it’ll get out-jabbed, and I’m pretty sure he can just kick you to death with CC st.hk. Fortunately, you have alternative pokes in your st.mk/cr.mk, use them at max range to keep him out. The range on his lp spd is a real threat, and he can grab your extended hitbox in pokes, so once you show you can stuff any jump in w/ st.lp, it’s a big footsie war.
If you’re gonna go in on Gief, go in hard, 5f spd is horrible for defense. If you’re gonna poke, stay at max range. Armor - LP SPD/ST.hk can and will destroy you.
He’s free on wakeup, but note that you’re a grappler with a great oki game, he’ll try to wakeup parry but you can just condition him w/ powerbomb/st.mp/cr.lk meaty stuff. Make liberal use of sweep at max range too (I believe it’ll still hit red armor).
How the fuck do I stop Geif from just pressing buttons and mashing jab? I’m always afraid I’m just going to eat a lariat if I try and trying on awake up
the post right above u addresses your question 
some more stuff I noticed: st.mp w/ flash chops here and there can actually win the ground war when he’s st.hpin poking or st.hkin everywhere. I’ve seen st.mp straight up counterpoke st.hp multiple times, so there you go
when you’re fighting a red armor gief, remember that you can buffer headbutt off your bigger normals, this is the key to fighting gief.
st.hp has good range, and when you get VTC, you can actually safely use st.hk because it won’t screw you over on hit/block vs red armor. because gief’s a big body I’ve also noticed that he’s susceptible to more stuff in the air, F+HP tags him jumping much more easily than other characters also because he has a floaty jump.
don’t jump in on him, he deals more damage than you. his ex spd is throw invinc and also 5f, when you’re in on him I’d rely on st.lp/cr.lk chops/ticks rather than the usual st.mp/spd 50/50
This is good to know. Far less committal than some of the bigger buttons. Against Gie’s stHP, I like to whiff punish with stHP>mkElbow to create recover some ground space.
Couple things I found in the lab yesterday…
- Double crouching jab trap
When gief gets you in the crouching jab blockstring into lp.spd/s.hk mixup, the safest option is to back jump after the crouching jabs. You jump out if he does spd and eat the s.hk if he chooses that. When you land, you can safely backdash to avoid any follow up (assuming you aren’t cornered), including another s.hk.
I find that the alternatives can all go south quickly if you guess wrong, so eating one kick and getting back to neutral is the best option. If you neutral jump and get kicked, you land right back in front of him into another mixup. If you backdash, the s.hk cc’s you and he can combo into a 2nd s.hk + gains v-meter.
If you have a life lead or need a big comeback and want to gamble though, you can hard read spd with neutral jump for full punish. Also you can hard read s.hk by staying crouched and it will whiff, allowing you to punish. Note he may also headbutt, which is 1 frame slower than s.hk but will hit and leave him + frames.
- S.HP
If he ever charges a s.hp in neutral that is going to whiff, you can pretty much punish him with a s.hk from anywhere. Press the button right after the punch releases, don’t do it too early or you get cc’d. You can VTC into another s.hk>combo, or if you keep vskill stocked, you get a cc punish combo.
- Offensive mixups
May be common knowledge by now, but his ex spd is throw invincible, so power bomb mixups (even in + frames) are risky. His CA is also 1 frame, so any frame trap or power bomb mixup is really risky when gief has full bar. The safest approach is to only go for mixups when he has no meter at all.
The timing is kinda strict but you can cr. HP him out of his ex-RBG. Easy set up if you have meter for knee press.
So uh, now that gief’s have caught on to elbow being the only way to get on after a lot of knock downs, what do we do exactly? I feel like I only ever win this MU bc of playing like a gimmicky piece of shit, and once more people get alex match up experience, gimmicks won’t work.
Forget all of your specials exist and just poke/whiff punish anything Gief does. Save bar for EX Knee or super. Everything is unsafe and gets punished by SPD, all you can do comfortably is tick-throw command grab but why would you want to be that close to Zangief.
Lately I’ve been having a bunch of success in this match up by doing 2 things
1- going for normal throws/p.bombs in response to Gief’s v-skill can make Gief kinda scared to throw it out which helps me take more risks without getting “parried” and SPD’d. which allows me to frame trap him more, just don’t get predictable with it.
2- catching Gief trying to jump really early in his jump arc with fwd+HP lariat, it keeps Gief kinda far away and you can just kinda throw it out from outside of Gief’s st.hp range and it’ll catch him if he tries to jump at you and if he doesn’t jump it’s difficult for him to whiff punish it from that range.
Alright, someone help me out. I have no clue what to do in this match since season 2 dropped.
Nothing has changed, you press cr.mp and that is literally it. I’m not trying to be funny, you just cannot do anything else against Zangief, it puts you in a free mix-up.
Walk him down, occasional cr.mk to catch his feet and lots of cr.mp. This MU is boring, makes you want to slit wrists and takes forever. Oh and if you aren’t on point with AA’s for the length of the match chances are you’ll get thrown in the blender.
I dunno, I think it got worse, with c.mp being slower and more punishable, and lk. elbow getting neutered. Like I’m terrified to get anywhere near gief now. Although, the gray life nerf helps us in the MU (well, it helps in pretty much every MU…). We still have no way to deal with ex spd.
Shouldn’t really use elbows unless it’s for punish or fishing for CA on his armor.
Against a lariat-happy Gief, I find Head Crush often stuffs it out completely. I have no idea why or how this works.