I’ve been using gief for a loooooooongg time, however, since i am poor/lazy/no good arcades around me, and I have no DC I usually play on PS2. On PS2 you can do the lariat into FAB pretty usually, it almost always hits but they can hit gief and avoid it some of the time.
On DC (and, I assume, in arcade) This is not the case, I find that my opponents can often hit Gief after he cancels into FAB. If you hit it correctly its not a problem, but i’m just looking for the best time to do FAB so that it is inescapeable. Usually, I can rely on the third hit, however… if for some reason they avoided your lariat the first few rotations and then you hit what happens? Anyone who is goldy with Zangief know the ins-and-outs of this?
Thanks, I’ll try to use this in the future. One of the best times, though, to hit lariat is when an opponent tries to divebomb into you and you use it as an anti-air, this can result in various juggles, but is there any one where FAB will hit more usually?
Hey! Just started using Zangief again (probably one of few people who use him) and am experimenting with Gief/Sent/Tron team. Seems pretty potent so far, but I’ve yet to test this against my friend. ppxxfab seems to work pretty well, but fab is hard enough to execute, oh well…
How do you advance safely with Gief like that? I’ll use Sent/Cable/Gief-A myself, since you get to turtle like a bitch and take out their AA, and by the time Gief ever gets in (unless via snapback) they shouldn’t be able to just projectile + AA you to distance/death.
I respect anyone that can play Gief well on point - he’s probably one of the hardest to work with there, to me, since Gief is pretty much the biggest character who doesn’t have any particular strong/safe ways to advance.
Just letting everyone know the priority of the SPD. If Gief is up against a character with long limbs (ie Sent, Sim, anak), you can grab their limbs from far away and SPD them.
For example, if you time the SPD right you can grab sentinal out of a rocket punch from all the way on the other side of the screen. This priority only works when Gief is in the air, but an airial SPD doesn’t do as much damage.
ppxxfab works better against people who don’t play against gief, often they will just be holding back when you cancel into the fab which leads to gief doing it, however more experienced players will mash, when they do this they can escape fab much of the time, unfortunately.
As for Gief on point, you are really at a loss if they are at the other end of the screen. Usually I try to use sent drones assist to cover my advancing, usually in super jump. If they are blocking the sent drones you can attempt to dive in with down+short (easier to hit, use than down+fierce IMO) and then turn that into an air combo ending in SPD for big damage. However, if they block the jshort you can cancel into the powerbomb move (hcf+rh) for pretty big damage, if you get sents drones at the right time to assist it will chane with the throw as well, doing even more damage. Keepign a constant pressure of this will destroy many people, but if they have a great lift or anti-air assist that stops drones (such as commando) its more difficult.
With some AAA assists (and i’m sure, others) you can fool opponents into getting powerbombed with hcf+rh. just throw someone like Cyke or Guile out there with their assists, and then when you see that they are going to block, toss them around with gief. This is risky though, because it leaves not only gief open, but the assistor, you should be very confident that this will hit if you are using it. This works best in the corner.
Some other things I’ve discovered with Sent/Gief is that you can do Sents qcf+PP and if they block, DHC into FAB.
The best time to do this is if they are air blocking sent’s hyper and to DHC when the block pushes them towards sent, they will fly directly into FAB. This can be prevented in some cases by mashing and also by pushing against sents hyper.
with most beam style hypers, and if you time it right, HSF, can be easily comboed with Gief’s throw assist. For instance, in my team of Cyke/Sent/Gief I’ll be using Cyke to battery, however if I hit a throw assist I can do an optic blast hyper for ~half a life bar to most opponents, this will tear a rush down apart if they aren’t careful. This combo with cyke has so much leeway that you will almost always get it, however HSF or AHVB have to be timed more exactly. When I’m playing with gief as assist I am always looking for opportune times to throw him out, because if he catches, they will eat hyper combo no matter what. A good way to do this is to rain down hits on them and assist in hopes that they will be cought blocking. Some people will start trying to hit Gief when he comes in for his assist, in this case just use a hyper combo on them while they hit gief, and they won’t try that again.
SPD = Spining Pile Driver
FAB = Final Atomic Buster (with full circle & pp, NEVER use the one with kk, rarely hits and costs 3 bars!)
Speaking of SPDs, I have the hardest time connecting one off an air combo. It always seems to come out too late (I guess using a Dreamcast controller doesn’t help much).
Speaking of advancing with gief, mabye call in laggy assist like drones or typhoons then f,d, df+hk (or lk depending on distance) then f+hp (while still in air). That f+hp seems to reach pretty far…
As for the SPD’s in the air combo, yea I have tons of trouble with it too. First try to use the combo just doing the forward+HP throw instead of SPD, then do it with SPD. I can hit it about 50% of the time, but i’m not sure how to get it more exactly, any advice on it would help me too.
As for the air-throw advance, I find it works well against many people however if they are used to people using Gief, they will chew you up while using this.
Gief is a very good character if you really know how to use him. but the bad thing is that is hard to get to your opponents, specially if they are good. I use sometime Gief only for fun but I use him more as a helper…people usually dont get to him. because i always have MAG/SENT/GIEF when i play with Gief. :lol:
best chance to land a clean fab is normally jumping or sjing hp xx fab…but this is like hoping to land a j.u+hk with ironman…
instead get them juggled with an assist, do the HP spinning lariat to keep the juggle going… then xx fab… if timed right they fall right in and have no time to jump out…
you an also try doing it after a blocked f,d,f+p (the stinkfist)… which works ok sometimes…
IMO the only time you should be doing FAB’s is in a DHC-- or as a means to DHC out. There’s so many better options for no meter and Gief really should be used as a battery bc you WILL need the meter to make up for what he can’t do on his own.
For example, you can mech-up versus a rush team and look for an easy (nigh-invincible) double-snap.
Most of my gief teams use him mostly as battery and ground assist…
I also use the ole thanos soul xDHCx fab… recover… launch…
but fab can be ok to use… mostly in the juggle with lariat XX scenario… if you can start the juggle off an AAA, ground ppp lariat xx FAB i think it’s inescapable.
fab ain’t easy to land but it does setup some stuff to well if you dhc last hit… unmashable gamma crushes for one…
that double snap sounds like it would be pretty good… how would you recommend doing the assist juggle after?
Not sure if this has been covered before, but I?ve found that you can get a clean FAB on some beam type characters if/when you block their ultra. This is what I mean; Say you are against Iron Man, and roughly mid screen away. He whips out the Proton Cannon, you block, and the instant he is done, do the banishing fist, and cancel to FAB. You want to be far enough away from them so that the green fist will not hit at all, and cancel into the FAB. It?s sort of like a warp because when you cancel the back hand, you?ve moved about 2 steps or so closer to your opponent, the animation for FAB takes you the rest of the way. If I understand the mechanics of the game correctly, they can?t get out of it. They will be too busy recovering from their ultra, and can?t swap out, call assist, or jump.
If the fist hits them, they are knocked out of the recover frames, and are free to punish you in any way they see fit. The ideal position is for the green back hand to stop just short of your opponent. If you?re really good at spacing, and quick, you can get the level 3 FAB off on them.
You could do it against pretty much anybody I suppose since most people have never seen it, but I’m sure I’m not the only one to ever figure this out.
Just my 2 cents?