I don’t know what to tell you, bro. It’s going to be a grind! You should see me play Rashid O–half the time, when I win, it’s by timeout. The only characters that I beat via timeout are Gief and Honda. What do they have in common? Hmmm. Haha!
Strategy:
I use the MK CW sparingly (and even that’s not safe all the time but it’s less suicidal than the HK variety). I use footwork and pokes, st. HP, HK, LK, st. MP, cr. MP, max range LK Flame kicks (while praying to God that it makes contact and doesn’t whiff for an easy knockdown for Gief), and MK Flame Kicks at closer range (even if blocked, it’ll often push you out of his sweep range). Fei’s sweep can be fine if you predict/see a hard lariat and j. HK from time to time can pay off IF you can time it so that it connects after Gief’s invincible lariat startup. I only use LP Rekkas to build meter and perhaps follow up if there’s an opening. HP Rekkas are useless save for punishing missed sweeps but you have to act fast.
Alternate Strategy:
Use Sagat.
The match isn’t really a fun one for me because he can screw up and carelessly do specials (lariat spam anyone?) with little to worry about but if Fei misses a Flame Kick, it’s the most mindless knockdown ever. I guess the designers wanted to make Fei pay for beating Gief so easily in ST and decided to swing the pendulum in the other direction. Ha!
Its alot harder since fei cant link anything after cw. So its alot more risky to throw out cw cause that recovery is enough for gief start reversing spd and start going all out. CW is good for reversal to escape cross ups on wake up and anti air(more risky). Unless it used at max range(all versions) where he land at a safer distance.( max range where he gets the 2 hits not 1hit) its risky also but good for his rushdown game.
I watched vids of aquasnake vs snakeeyes and jigglynorris vs TARA (don’t remember the whole name but it’s a jap gief I’ve also played before) and I don’t really think you need to turtle the whole match. Jigglynorris rushes down and aquasnake seems to 100% zone/turtle. Personally, I think both styles can work. TBH, you don’t even need to CW vs gief. I also find it funny that the tip rice got from aquasnake was to CW, because me and Kao have different opinions on how good CW is lol. We both hate CW, but he hates using it and I hate dealing with it.
Whenever I play Fei vs Zangief (as Fei), I just spam normals. Not as fun as spamming Lariat though :). It feels like Fei can just spam his superior pokes recklessly and end up doing fine, but that’s just me. I’m sure a lot of Fei’s hate Lariat like I hate Fei’s normals lol.
I cannot turtle as Fei Long. Not even against Honda. It just isn’t my style.
That being said, turtling against Gief will draw out the fight, but I don’t believe your odds are any better than rushing Gief down. One blocked or missed Flame Kick and you’re in trouble. It doesn’t help that the Lariat beats the Flame Kick clean either.
If you’re havin trouble against gief I would advise steppin up your footsies game. Try baiting gief into jumping at you, green hand or the hop and punish on reaction with deep flame kicks. J.jab then mixup. Cr.fierce ftw too. IMO this matchup is even or 5.5-4.5 in Feis favor. I’m almost positive I only lost more to Snake Eyes gief while using Fei Long.
I don’t know if it’s just online, but when I running a footsies game with a decent gief, cr.hp, cr.mk and cr.hk all whiff a kick lariat. If they gief is good, he’ll just keep going forward then spd. Kick lariat always beat my cr.mp too.