My thoughts on Gief SSF4

[xpulse]

This is THE thread for mentioning Gief’s goods/bads in SSF4, all the whining belongs in here

At any rate, the thing people had…umm…frank discussions about in SF4 were that OTHER characters were a bit OP and whatnot. No one was complaining about Gief’s lack of tools (there were plenty) in vanilla. Anyone who played Gief dealt with them then, and we’re still dealing with them now. However, this is pretty much the thread (and let’s keep it in here, shall we?) for people moving on from SF4 to Super with the Red Cyclone.

I know I’m about a step or two away from competition level, and I’ve had my share of taking on good/great players back in vanilla (like 50k+ Champ Mode players who you KNOW just f’ing deserve those points). I’m dealing with the nerfs, but I just wonder wtf the reason was for them. Gief had a hard enough time with even the better tools in vanilla. It was a needless nerf. Maybe the Ultra1 damage, sure, I can agree with that. But SPD nerf?! All the work to get in? With a 360 command grab? I should get 4 hadoken’s worth of damage out of that sucker!

[Final_Round666]

theres a time and place to rage about a character’s flaw/design but i mean there are too many threads like this and comments on how he ‘sucks’ now that its becoming a guile/vega board where instead of helpful tips and tricks to get over the hump, there are whining discussions about gief

i know what your saying. But that’s why this specific thread was created for people’s **personal **[COLOR=black]about zangief’s game play in ssf4, to be let out. I try to help out here as much as i can. People have the right to bitch, especially if it’s justified. I mean, we are providing great reasons and asking for answer’s to those questions and not whinning ( I’m not whinning personally ) and i play gief no matter what. I play gief with some of the best people on xbox and still stick with him no matter what. I 'm still trucking but sometimes you have to allow people to vent, especially in a thread dedicated to just that.
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[2ToN]

i get it but this is like the 3rd-4th thread talkin about how bad he is and the nerfs and whatnot…if this thread can be just the single thread to vent our frustrations thats fine

[System_1]

I think part of what happened is that since vanilla sf IV was kind of a reboot, Capcom really decided to make him a formidable character, and they for the most part succeeded. Despite his glaring weaknesses he was really powerful up close, as he should be. The thing is, people hated it. So I think Capcom nerfed gief more with the intention of shutting people up than balancing him properly. So not to sound too whiny, hell I’m still playing the guy, but I think that is sort of what happened. Shame though, you think they would treat the definitive grappler with a little more respect.

[PimpUigi]

Yeah, you know what, screw my measured response up there. This is ridiculous.

You have a character who never won anything significant even in a team tournament, who was not even represented in the Japanese national SF4 team tournament, who shows up twice in the top 50 bp in Japan (and not until #38!), who has only 2-3 regularly active high level tournament reps in the US, and you make him worse? You have a character who depends on dealing damage up close, and you make him less damaging up close? You have a character who already had a difficult time navigating many opponents’ traps, and not only do you not make it easier for him (which would have been reasonable given his damage nerfs), but you actually make it significantly harder by making his jump worse? You nerf his bad matchups, most of whom where tiered higher than him already, less than you nerf him? How you gonna give SAGAT extra cancelability on his normals, a slick powerup move, and a great new ultra, and yet make only Zangief worse? How you gonna leave Boxer almost entirely alone even though he was probably better than Gief in the first place?

Here were the complaints about Gief:

–I can’t attack him! Fine, I actually totally agree with this. But too bad, lariat is still just as good an antiair and its initial hitbox is just as good against the ground. BUT let’s make his lariat worse where it doesn’t need to be instead! All they had to do here was make lariat a worse antiair and make his antiair normals a tiny bit better, but nope.

–Matches last so long against him! Too bad, damage nerfs to most characters including Gief are gonna make those matches last at least as long still!

–I spend all this time keeping him out, and then he gets in once and all my work is gone! Dude, that’s his whole character design since forever. But alright, now he does less damage AND also has a tougher time getting in in the first place. Way to address the stupidest complaint about Zangief while not buffing him in other areas to make up for that, Capcom.

Imo Zangief no longer beats almost any of the characters he beat in 4. Of the returning characters, maybe he beats 5. That’s not necessarily bad; I’d rather all matchups be more or less even. Too bad Gief still loses to everyone he lost to in 4 while now also losing to others, like Guile and Chun and Honda and Dhalsim! Don’t put much stock in people saying he beats the new characters. At each stage of this game’s evolution, people have thought that the new characters mostly lost to Gief. In the end that just hasn’t panned out, especially when Gief is worse now.

In the end, Zangief is more frustrating to use and at the same time less effective. Capcom bowed to the ridiculous casual players whose problems with Zangief extended more from their lack of investigation into the game than anything real about Zangief, and for some reason they didn’t want to stop at just nerfing the lariat without even nerfing the part of the lariat that was worst for real game play.

This post should be stickied and have its own topic.
Zangief wasn’t a tournament viable character, and got nerfed to shit.

TBH, personally, I can deal with all of his damage nerfs…
It’s the jump nerf that makes absolutely no sense to me.
This has ruined any chance of using Zangief for High Tier play, much less Upper, or Top Tier play.**
Most ironic part of this is, Zangief is still the ultimate n00b killer (which is apparently what Capcom didn’t want)**

Zangief should have gotten a few buffs.

1. LP Green Hand should start faster, end faster, and be safe on hit and fireball deflect.
2. D. HK footsies need to start and end faster. Right now, if they block my far sweep, I get swept in return.** Why does Zangief suck at footsie wars?!**
3. His Ultra 2 should have been his Alpha anti air ultra, with invincible frames and a huge hit box…but no, we got a trash ultra 2.

Only his Lariat hitting crouching opponents should have been nerfed, none of his damages, and possibly not his health either.
Then perhaps, he’d actually be a tournament winning character.

[MikeTyson]

Am I the only one who have noticed that the active frames on j.mk have been decrease? So now it cant be used as a dive kick like before
just a minor nerf, still it was very unnecessarily

[PimpUigi]

Am I the only one who looked at the SSF4 frame data in the wiki and found all the frames for all Zangief’s moves to be the exact same as before?

[crapface]

They are not the same, cr.lk is 1 frame slower on start up. Everything else is the same I think.

j.mk is the same. It’s the jump that’s different.

[MikeTyson]

Yo UltraDavid your posts are a nice read. We need capcom to read them so they can understand what the fuck they have done to him.

Today I played vanilia SF4 and only used Zangief, I refuse to use him in SSF4

[Clutch_Hugs]

The one thing I can say about the new Gief is that I have become a better player by playing him.

I hope they do release a balancing patch, and if they do…

add 10 damage to st MP
add 10 damage to all SPDs
add 50 to Gief’s stamina

Those changes will help make up for the new crappy jump and Gief will have damage/health nerfs that are more justifiable instead of over the top.

[Rhastago]

the one thing i can say about the new gief is that i have become a better player by playing him.

I hope they do release a balancing patch, and if they do…

Add 10 damage to st mp
add 10 damage to all spds
add 50 to gief’s stamina

those changes will help make up for the new crappy jump and gief will have damage/health nerfs that are more justifiable instead of over the top.

qft.

[PimpUigi]

Don’t quote that for truth.
Zangief will still ultra suck after those fake buffs
(the stamina buff isn’t fake though, that’s probably a needed buff)

He needs his old jump, his old cr. LK frames, buffs to both of his cr. HK sweeps so he can play footsie games safely, faster startup on his HK would be nice, and some real buffs to his LP green hand so he can move across the screen safely.

Yea, it’d be nice if his SPD’s were still doing their original damage, but whatever.

[ScorpioMagnum]

Give Gief his HFSFII KKK lariat and better SPD damage in return for these nerfs.

[System_1]

Give gief an attack where he shoots a bear out of a cannon.

[Rhastago]

I’m just asking for something simple.

EX LARIAT!

with lasers + armor + throw invincibility.

also, pressing up while EX LARIAT is on - makes you fly.

[UltraDavid]

What Capcom really nerfed was their Zangief fanbase, which was already small enough to begin with. I think nerfing Gief was their way of saying, “Hey, Zangief is pretty cool, but here, come check out the other grapplers you can play with now.”

Here’s the thing though, I definitely think Gief is better than T Hawk, and Hakan is just too complicated to have many players. I don’t really think Abel and Honda are full grapplers per se, but they’re probably the best grappler-y-ish characters now (although I leave open the possibility that Hakan gets up there too).

[PimpUigi]

C.LK xx EX.GH should be your primary approach for the knockdown.

I’m sorry, since when did this become hit confirmable? Not to mention his c.lk has almost no range.

He needs his sweeps to be good like in the other SF games where he sucks anyway.
Basically, his sweep needs to be like it was in HD Remix.

[Dullyanna]

You don’t hitconfirm it. You stick it a bit outside of the range where it’d normally connect and buffer EX GH. s.LK has enough priority that it can stuff certain normals with ease (Biggest example is shoto c.MK).

[crapface]

cr.lk has no range?! hahaha It has awesome range. His only other good poke that has farther range is s.lk. And that is only slightly further. Learn how to use cr.lk, then you’ll realize how much shittier gief is in Super than regular SF4.

[Unreallystic]

As I mentioned in the other thread, they took away without giving to compensate for character design.

Nerf my jumping…give me a legitamate air throw…

Nerf the damage of up close options…give me more of them…

Thats all there really is to it. SF4 was way more balan ced than people still give it credit for. Taking that into account, if they felt Gief didn’t play the way he should, take the ‘previoiusly’ balanced version, take away those items which made him play differently, and add items to make him play the way you want. He should be THE throw king…there shouldn’t be anyone better than him with regards to grappling options. He should have the most command throws, he should have the most setups, etc of the grapplers, and he pays for it by havinng a hard time getting in, comapred to say Hakan who can oil s.rh his way in, or even coungter attack long range moves on reaction with a slide (thin kof how much work Gief has against a Blanka ball verse Hakan. The way things are now, if I put more time into Hakan, I’d prolly have to main him if I want to stay competitive…evne thhough I feel Gief can be a superior player between the two, Hakan’s options just seem so much better with regards to getting in (anti air with Hakan seems a bit stiff though…and ultras are NOT anti air…you only get like one or two a match).

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