So...word on the street is that Zangief is beastly in HDR

Classic Fighting Games SSF2T: HD Remix
21

While it’s great that the Wolfe brothers placed in Semi Finals at one SBO, compare that to Japanese players’ performance at EVO:

-At least one Japanese player has placed in top 8 at every EVO since the competition started in 2002.

-EVO 2005 had 3 Japanese players taking the top 3 spots (Gian, Nuki and Tokido).

-Out of 7 EVOs (2002-2008), a Japanese player was the grand champion 4 times: EVO 2003 (Daigo), EVO 2004 (Daigo), EVO 2005 (Gian), EVO 2007 (Tokido).

Not to mention all the various other major tournies like last year’s Season’s Beatings that Japanese players have won. Meanwhile American players have placed Semi finals at SBO once, and have never won any major tourney in Japan. If American players could take the championship at least once at SBO or XMania or any other Japanese tourney, then I would say there is no gap.

But, without a doubt, there is a gap in skill IMO. But I agree with oldschool_BR, it has more to do with the ST scene being stronger in Japan than in North America. We could just as easily get to their level if we had the same arcade culture and player numbers that they have. If we had their resources, I think we could even surpass them, and get even better at ST than they are, I honestly believe that.

22

When top JP players have visited other countries to compete in tournies (UK, France, Australia, USA) they often comment that the players do not readily share enough information between each other. It’s as though the scene’s level was held back because we’re not as open as the arcade players in Japan. When Eita was asked at the recent SF4 tourney in France, “how can French players improve?”, he stated that players should discuss strategies and help each other more.

The Japanese have an established culture of helping your opponent improve by sharing advice, not only on technical stuff like frame data and execution, but highly detailed info on how to counter certain strategies and advanced setups etc. It’s a level of discourse that we rarely see among the PSN/Live scrubs that predominantly compose the US scene. Playing a lot on GGPO for example, and knowing a little Japanese myself, I see their players frequently give each other lengthy and detailed advice after a match – how to counter such and such, or how they did a certain option select and what escape options there are. I definitely feel there’s a cultural gap there.

Although in recent years, with the growth of SRK and other sites, we’ve seen a general improvement in the knowledge level of US players, I do think it’s still held back somewhat, for various cultural and geographic reasons.

23

Well, just to be fair, and for it to be known by everyone, we can not accuse the Wolfe brothers of that. For quite some time, they offered advice in the ST section and provided tips for whoever asked them. I was merely a lurker, and also long before that, they were helping people. Even if I didn’t play their main characters, I paid attention to it, and I believe many would do well to search the threads they posted and learn from it. Particularly, I remember them posting in the Boxer thread and Dictator thread. Professor Jones, another very good player, used to post too, and shared important ST Dictator stuff, much of it still works in HDR.

24

Lol, Zangief.

A year ago(before EVO) everyone thought Honda was too buffed.

25

Yeah, I have a difficult time too believing that Gief is that overpowered. And I think you already have the answers to your already self-answered questions. As far as the easier motion, not sure if “easier” translates to “faster” where it increases the speed of how fast he can successfully pull off the SPD versus doing it the 360 way. Is there really a big difference in timing? I’m asking in terms of HDR vs SF2 SPD motion?

I think it would be nice for someone to get Snake Eyes to come onto SRK (which he already has an account) to weigh in his thoughts on match ups from a HDR Gief perspective and maybe do his own personal tiering and people can ask him about the ease of motions to him if it played a part. I think that might shed some larger perspective hearing his thoughts. I think that would be better than trying to reverse engineer a semi-merited rant. And I say bring in Snake Eyes because it’s his Gief that won and plowed through the tough brackets.

@possum: If Honda was to ever win EVO, all hell will break loose!!! Honda will be banned from EVO and BTC will be a shoe-in to win the year after!!! lol

26

As dgv correctly put it no one other then him has taken the time to practice against all the things that make geif better in hdr.

27

I don’t think Snake Eyes sees the HDR 'gief as overpowered:
“I came here. I had no idea I was even going to make it this far. I came here with low expectations of myself, but I find myself at the top. With Zangief, like the worst character on the game, so … <chuckles>” – Snake Eyes
This is on the g4tv “EVO 2010: Capcom Tournament Results” video at about 2:10.

28

I don’t think Zangief is overpowered. I think Snake Eyes’ Zangief is overpowered. It’s the player who makes a champion character. He the only dominating Gief player in the USA in HDR. You could have given any other player Zangief to play this year at Evo and SE is the only player who would have made it as far as he did with Gief.

EDIT Added: in HDR

29

I’ve been saying, since HDR came out…that Zangief is High tier.
That’s B tier for you letter lamers who were too lazy to remember the tier names.

I never thought he was bottom tier in ST, just low tier.
Now he’s high tier. Not upper tier though.

In the Snake Eyes thread, I saw someone post that’s Zangief is most likely top of the mid tier.
I don’t agree, Zangief is high tier.

I like the compressed tiers of HDR. The more balanced a game is, the more respected it should be, and the more people should enjoy it.
I don’t feel like there’s a bottom tier.
I still feel Cammy is the worst character in the game (so no change from ST)
She can’t win off looks alone, especially when they buffed Chun Li’s tits to compete with Cammy’s.

30

And that was Sirlin’s goal, wasn’t it? Make the game about the player that has more skill, not necessarily the character’s spot on the tier list. Let’s see what happens in tournaments to come. I’d love to see a Cammy or a Fei Long player take it next year.

BTW, just watched my recording of the G4 X-Play special on EVO 2010. That was some good stuff there. I’m sure it’ll be just the beginning for EVO. Big ups to s-kill and Ponder for having repped the fighting game scene since back in the day before I knew how to do combos on purpose. :slight_smile: And, of course, big ups to Snake Eyes. Keep on taking people for a ride on the Red Cyclone for Mother Russia, my brutha from anutha mutha! :slight_smile:

31

I too would love to see a Cammy player take it.

32

I just can’t get my head round the fact that people think Gief is overpowered. He still gets destroyed by Guile, Honda, Dhalsim, and Sagat and Chun are still difficult. The buffs he got were mainly to help with those, and I don’t feel that they affect the shoto matchup a great deal. Gunze/Aniken suggested that it was Zangief 6 - Ken 4 in ST and considering that Ken got buffed too, I think that’s probably still about right. Ken vs Zangief is certainly not as difficult as Zangief vs Honda, but that’s not grounds to call Honda too strong because he dominates a particular matchup.

Now if you were to tell me Balrog is too strong, I’d agree. Let’s not go throwing out claims of a character being too strong based on a few matches. We also have to consider the player’s skill.

I’m certainly not a Zangief expert, but here’s my matchup ratings. I avoided going for 0.5’s and keeping it to whole numbers.

vs. Ryu: 6-4
vs. Ken: 5-5
vs. Honda: 2-8
vs. Chun: 3-7
vs. Blanka: 3-7
vs. Guile: 2-8
vs. Dhalsim: 3-7
vs. Hawk: 5-5
vs. Fei: 4-6
vs. Dee Jay: 4-6
vs. Cammy: 3-7
vs. Boxer: 5-5
vs. Claw: 3-7
vs. Sagat: 3-7
vs. Dictator: 4-6

33

Here’s my updated matchups

vs. Ryu: 4.5-5.5
vs. Ken: 4.5-5.5
vs. Honda: 2-8
*vs. Chun: 2.5-7.5
vs. Blanka: 4-6
vs. Guile: 5-5
vs. Dhalsim: 4-6
vs. Hawk: 4.5-5.5
vs. Fei: 5-5
**vs. Dee Jay: 3-7
**vs. Cammy: 4-6
vs. Boxer: 5-5
vs. Claw: 3.5-6.5
vs. Sagat: 4.5-5.5
vs. Dictator: 4.5-5.5

  • I think once i learn this matchup, should be different…
    ** Still need to play higher quality players
34

I posted this in the Snake Eyes wins thread before I saw this thread, but to break it down in a more detailed manner, since it probably belongs here anyway…

Sirlin stated that Ryu was supposed to be the middle ground in which all other characters buffs/nerfs are based on to make the game more “balanced”. Problem is that isn’t how it turned out at all, as Gief’s new buffs, including easy motions (and YES, easy motions are a buff… you didn’t play Gief in ST and now you do, it’s because of those easy motions plain and simple!) absolutely make things an uphill battle for shoto, which goes completely against what Sirlin stated his original intentions were in making HDR.

People compare a lot of one off things here to how they were in ST, and make statements like “well people could do that in ST too”… Sure, any ONE of those things in and of itself aren’t exactly a big deal, but when you add EVERYTHING up, it’s a huge difference. Wanna play a footsie game with Geif while you’re playing shoto? Nope, sorry, can’t do it… New lariat completely prevents that since it either hits you on start, or its invincible up until almost the end of the move, so you get SPD’d (with it’s new easy motion buff) before your move animation even ends? Use a quicker poke? Nope, sorry, short doesn’t hit from that distance, you’ll just eat lariat. Let’s not even get into trying to figure out which lariat the player is actually using, since they look exactly the same, which makes it impossible to figure out which are punishable and which aren’t. And don’t give me the “it sounds different” argument… find me a tournament where you can here anything going on. Wanna bait green hand then punish? Nope, sorry, don’t ever block that green hand or you’ll eat SPD since the recovery time on green hand is so short now. Wanna punish run in grab? Nope, sorry, your poke doesn’t come out fast enough to punish it unless Geif is running from over 1/2 way across the screen. But why should Geif even run in anyway? He can just hop over any of your pokes and instantly SPD you since the recovery time on the new hop is nearly non existant. There’s no reason for Gief to ever jump at this point, since your footsie game is already non existent anymore, so you really pose absolutely no threat at all to any Gief player when you’re playing shoto. Can someone who never ever played Gief before do all this stuff instantly? No, probably not… but give them a couple hours and they’ll be pretty damn competent.

In Sirlin’s Evo 2010 blog, he states something to the effect of “I didn’t know what went wrong when playing Snake Eyes”, and then goes on to say that there were “too many things to think about avoiding at any one time”. Well hey, no crap, when you buff every single move a character has to the point that they became over compensated for, of course you’ll never be able to figure it out since there’s way too many things to even attempt to take into consideration.

Anyway, my 2 cents. I see I’m in the minority in this thread, as I didn’t see a single person state they think Gief’s buffs were anything other than reasonable, but the initial poster asked what people thought made Gief too buff in HDR, so there you go.

35

EVO 2010.

The stage was VERY loud and pools weren’t too bad either even with all the people there, and it doesn’t get any bigger than EVO.

I fought a Gief player (Evoanon) Semi finals in the pool area and could hear the lariat sounds just fine.

Hell, I recorded pool matches and my little digital camera could still pick up the Audio.

Out of curiosity, who do you main?

36

Well, I do not have access to competitive HDR, so I can only base my opinions on ST. But I don’t see how it can be dealt with in the game. DGV was fortunate that SE didn st.rh his jump ins, which Gief can do, then it forces Ryu to stay on the ground. There, fake hadouken is pretty much a standing strong that does not beat standing forward. Gief won’t jump, he will at best hit a lariat. As soon as he is closer, Ryu gotta use a red hadouken, or his footsies, which are known to be inferior to Zangief’s. In ST I could react to RBG with SRKs, which would often beat them (sometimes Ryu gets grabbed outta it), close kick lariats could be swept or walked up cr.fw xx hadouken (anticipated). Gief has 2 things that put shotos on a catch 22: st.fw and kick lariat. The first one beats anything that’s not a SRK, and the second one beats hadouken (a viable counter to st.fw stalking). But now lariat also makes cr.rh and fw whiff. There is not much they can do before Gief gets a super, then suddenly becomes able to take more than half Ryu’s life away. I’d sum it up like that:[LIST]
[]it’s harder to prevent Gief from spamming lariats for super or baiting attacks now;
[]many more counters to crouching kicks have been introduced;
[]Ryu is more compelled to use crouching kicks and close hadoukens;
[]challenging Gief’s wake up is more dangerous due to the new lariats;
[*]Ryu now needs more reflexes.
[/LIST]
I am not a Sirlin hater, but in this matchup there was a conceptual mistake: Sirlin did not agree that Ryu had a somewhat hard time (in fact pretty even with a minor disadvantage) in the original game in the first place. Ryu (and Ken) was put together with Guile and Dee Jay. I don’t recall where he had written or said it, and who am I to question top players? Still, I do not think it would be harder than O.Sagat, Dhalsim and Vega in VST: Ryu loses for basic reasons: his basic game does not work on those characters.

37

Zangief doesn’t rape shotos. Kick lariat does not make it impossible to play footsies with Zangief. More often than not you have frame advantage even if you whiff sweeps (and you always have enough frame advantage to sweep/whatever if you whiff cr. forward). The hop does not go over every poke. Also any punch, roundhouse, or sweep on reaction beats hop. Green hand does not recover too quickly to punish. How many times did we see DGV roundhouse the green hand on reaction? As much as I love the new RBG, it is still a gimmick in most MU’s (including vs. shotos). If you can hear hadoukens and such, you can differentiate between punch and kick lariats. If not, you need to complain about how everything that makes a distinct noise is harder to react to. Being able to know when Zangief kick lariats means you can time meaty hadokens or supers for free when he does them at a distance (something not possible in ST). Shotos also got buffs than make the MU harder for Zangief (fake fireball, reversal super fix, fierce dp arc, etc.).

Edit: Zangief’s new lariats don’t make it harder to challenge his wakeups. Punch lariat still loses to any meaty, and kick lariat won’t beat anything it didn’t already beat that Ryu would do on wakeup. If meaty sweep whiffs, you just do another one. The only new counter he got vs. crouching kicks is the hop. The hop doesn’t really counter low forwards though. Kick lariat doesn’t really counter sweeps and still loses to low forwards. The only time I remember seeing Snake Eyes doing a super vs DGV (at EVO) was once after a dizzy, so getting meter more easily doesn’t really change anything.

38

close kick lariats still can be swept, and punished with cr. foward + hadouken. You just have to wait a couple frames after startup to hit the vulnerable frames. Once you adapt to it, its not that bad.

I think RBG is too good, cause one can do it on reaction to a whiffed poke, due to the new speed AND the new motion. Unlike a sweep, RBG can’t be blocked if its done too late and that’s why I dont like it being so good in footsies.

39

The only sensible way to challenge Gief’s wake up is with a jumping punch. But Gief can counter by not doing a reversal. If he delays it, Ryu is on top of him but has more problems than before. That is already some sort of shenanigan, trying meaty grounded pokes is just playing with luck. As for RBG, it is a much different situation to react and punish a whiffed one and a relatively close one: the faster movement makes a lot of difference.

As for lariats and poking, Ryu gotta risk getting swept or kicked in the face to do it. VST and HDR. If Gief spins but Ryu is pinned down, there is not much he can do, already. If he walks, in addition to the old risk of getting grabbed by forward or something else, if he whiffs due to a kick lariat it is hard not to get hit, due to the late hadouken cancel he has to try, that ends in towards position. Even if one does not get hit, it would be a damage + knockdown + stun while now it is Gief is still close. Also, it is not like Giefs will lariat and advance blindly: they keep threatening around the cr.rounhouse range. Ryu will occasionally walk a bit to try the crouching kick, but it is not like he till get point blank so that a forward will whiff but he can just try it again and hit.

Super simply changes the winner of the round. If that does not configure something, then I don’t know what does. A Landing attacks on DGV at a particular match is not really a good measure of how useful something is, you see. Watson would pretty much never get hit by overheads, that does not make Ryu’s swing and Ken’s hold crazy kick useless. A throw that has the same range as the oicho and does 60% damage is a good enough throw in my book.

40

Zangief’s super has the same reach as shoto throws (nowhere near oicho range) and you are always in reach to counter throw as a shoto anytime he would try to do a super. Since the MU ratios are determined by the highest level of play, I think it is fair to point out how Zangief’s super is almost a non-factor in that MU using Snake Eyes vs. DGV as an example. Whiffing a cr. forward leaves you with enough time to sweep or whatever and if he backs away then the situation is just reset. It isn’t exactly what I’d call a catch 22. If trying a late hadouken cancel does get you punished somehow (idk if it does but I guess I could see it happen), I’d just stop trying them or practice hit confirming until it is no longer an issue. Whiffing cr. forward on kick lariats is 100% safe and a puts you in a good position to punish them.

I disagree that you can RBG on reaction to whiffed sweeps and grab them before they can shoryuken. It is too slow for that even with good reaction times and execution. When done at around the same time it does get them before they can do anything, but that means they whiffed after you started the RBG.