SSF4 AE Zangief Changes, Videos, Match-up Discussion

The japs say hes a beat, US-Players who has played him say’s he is a beast now. but people still believe that no-milk, is a nerf… It is a nerf on low-level, as the vortex is godlike low-level…

Actually I have yet to see a jap gief player say he’s good all those reports came from non-gief mainers so I could care less what they think since most of them main characters that are at a disadvantage against Gief to begin with.

edit: also aren’t his bad MU’s harder now like Sagat for example don’t forget Ken got buffs, Akuma stayed relatively the same, Seth is probably the only match up that became semi even.

I can’t imagine how bad the Sagat matchup is now for Zangief.

So, I didn´t play AE but it can be interesting to take a look on how matchups will change now with no KD:

THIS IS ALL THEORYFIGHTER, DON´T GET MAD

Abel: The kd was very important on this matchup imo, but abel got some nerfs too.

Adon: Ok.

Akuma: The matchup is still retarded, akuma got a better AA but lost his scape tatsu that he didn´t need in first place.

Balrog: Don´t know how to feel until I try this matchup

Blanka: This one should be more doable now

Cammy: I don´t think gief relied on kd on this matchup, still a 5-5

Chun: Better maybe? Now she wouldn´t have time to get charge for EX SBK when hit on footsies and u2 should beat all her options post ex gh. Still retarded matchup tho.

Cody: BIG change, this matchup was all about the kd and rape cody on his poor wakeup. This is going to be a 5-5 in AE at the very least.

C.Viper: Losing the kd is going to hurt here, viper is still the same. 5-5 on AE imo.

Dan: No experience against dan

Deejay: No experience against deejay

Dhalsim: start training your yun alt.

Dudley: Even in AE imo, I play dudley myself.

El fuerte: I don´t think it will change a lot.

E.Honda: Better? Honda got huge nerfs and no charge on footsies if he gets hit by a GH means he doesn´t have a ot of options to scape.

Fei: Worse, and im sure about this one.

Gen: No idea

Gouken: Don´t know how exactly gouken got buffed and if it will affect this MU but I feel this will still be on gief´s favor. You really didn´t get a lot on kd because of gouken counters he was one of the fews that got more options if u jumped that stayed grounded.

Guile: Better, guile got nerfed in damage and he still gets kd on sonic booms due to counter hit state.

Guy: No idea

Hakan: Worse, kd was very important against hakan and he got a few buffs.

Ibuki: No idea

Juri: Much worse, I think juri beats gief on AE.

Ken: I lack experience against good kens, most of them…well you know.

Makoto: Much worse, makoto beats gief in AE imo.

Dictator: Not a big change really imo.

Rose: No idea

Rufus: Worse, kd was important against rufus. Still favorable for gief I feel, but not as much as now.

Ryu: Same or better maybe? He lost scape tatsu and I think that´s game changing on this matchup.

Sagat: Good luck.

Sakura: I don´t recall what her buffs where, but she still gets kd on proyectiles if im not mistaken. Not saying if it got better or worse because I don´t know.

Seth: Better, he lost j.HP.

T hawk: Hawk beats gief imo.

Claw: No idea

What are your thoughts?

It’s bad, real bad. Expect counter picks.

Yeah basically. Sagat is a motherfucker again and Zangief lost his main source of knockdowns. Good luck Zangief mains.

I’m predicting a solid 7-3 to Sagat. Not 6.5-3.5, actually 7-3.

I always thought it was 7-3.

I have to do so many guesses this matchup.

They “nerfed” his fireball game but his AA’s and buffs to his rushdown make up for it.

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The only thing that droped gat from 7-3 to 6-4 in Super was that GDLK players stopped using him allowing vangief to pounce on some unsuspecting counter pickers.

KD was very important. One of the few matches I feel Gief on a high level really could shine with GH KD. But now I’m going to make my flame worthy comments. I’ve been saying this forever. But now dabbling with Abel, studying his options, vids, etc, I am convinced this was 5.5-4.5 Gief in Super and WILL in Abel’s favor in AE. This isn’t about his u2. There has always been this idea that Abel is free but 2 things happened. Lariat hitbox nerf and new Abel “technology”. In case any of you forgot, go load up a sf4 match between the 2 and you’ll see how lariat owned Abel for free. Second, you may notice early Abel’s tried to zone Gief out. NO , NO , NO. Rico said fuck that and starting rushing that shit down. When you realize you can make Gief guess just like every other cast member the tide started to shift.

Feels the same to me the few solid rogs I played. Still the same annoying turtle festival.

^^^^ This

^^^^ This

Cant see why this would be different since Gief can answer Dan’s pressure game with no sweat.

Guile like sonic booms now… Still think its close to even, just will be more annoying. KD was never a factor here.

If you thought the Rog match was a turtle festival… HA! Plus Fei just walks and throws out Rekkas willy fucking nilly now. Get caught you are now in the corner. Have fun. Best I can see here is to try to bait them out with neutral jumps, but they are so quick, sometimes he’ll catch your pre jump frames. And i want to say the loss of OS KD will be missed here since its so critical in footsies battles with him, but people just tech stand jump back fierce before any vortex can be run. Maybe U2 will be godly here. Good thing is every third player I play on AE is using Fei, so MU familiarity wont be an issue in the slightest.

Less meter helps. No random FADC flash kick to get him out of trouble spots as much.

This ALLLLLLLLWAYS sucks for Gief. I have no idea who some cats are playing, but solid Juri’s rape Gief… I’m sorry. Just that not many of them out there. Go check out infiltrations Juri against some far east Giefs. FUGLY!

Ken is better but if your footsies are top and your U2 “Yomi” is on point, same as before. Ryu got back his herp derp jab dp > u1, so we need to stay ground and take less risks than in super. Coward copter nerf is mos def helping us in this MU tho.

I’d say better without herp derp u2.

I’ve only started play SSFIV recently and I already find it hard enough to deal with all the fireballs and evasion.
If Zangief gets even worse, as many think in this thread, I might just have to give up. :wasted:

do the right thing like spike lee and play a top tier character… like yun, yang, akuma, balrog, feilong, guile, bison, cammy, i mean this forum is already dead watch when ae comes out… there’s going to be like a post twice a month lol

:shake:
It’s not that I want a broken character or one that’s easy. Zangief’s just my favourite and I want him to be viable. Otherwise I might just not play SF at all.

My “advice” (Hahaha) to whomever is pick a sub. Lol. Gief is a good character and can be very rewarding just that he doesn’t destroy low tiers like SF4 days and struggles vs some key higher tier characters on the roster. He can always make noise at a tourney, but is bound to hit a brick wall. To win in those he needs to take huge risks which can payoff, but characters with “safe” options dominate this game.

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Rog, Cammy, Bison, & esp Guile don’t belong on that list. But if I was still taking this game seriously, I agree, I’d absolutely pick Yun, Yang, or Fei. They’re literally designed to be he best, no sense fighting it imo.

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Well I’m sticking with him even my subs aren’t top (juri, Dan) fuck those twins and Fei

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I main Zangief and I’ve been playing my man day in and day out (online since I’m not in a position to go to arcades but now I’m playing more skilled players). There were days when I had to run it back to back with the likes of Chun-Li/Sagat/Seth…lol. I’m also learning Dhalsim, to counter-pick Ryu. :wink:

Anyway, I’ve been enjoying my main. You shouldn’t pick Zangief because you think it’ll be easy, pick him because he’s tough. To the guy above: Maining Zangief means frustration and it means never giving up your spirit, mother Russia certainly thinks so! You must be patient and explore his options. He’s not brain dead like Ryu or Sagat. Learn your normals and to set-up command throws and options selects. I hope you don’t get discouraged, but playing Gief does mean hours of being miserable if you can endure it. You’ll fight tons of Ryus and get DP’d dozens of times, it’s part of the game, lol.

I don’t believe the nerf to KD is good at all. It’s manageable in Chun-Li MU because U2 counters SBK, but it still puts Chun-Li in a good position since her back dash is the best in the game.

As for Sagat and Akuma…sigh. One day for kicks I just picked Sagat against some Gief and gave the guy hell, it’s a retarded match-up for sure. But at a high level, it IS important too. Vortex is not just godly at low level, that’s silly. It’s vital against projectile characters with solid reversals. Now Gief can get reversal’d all day long and EX Hand is just less safe of an option to deploy. Knocking your opponent down means numerous options and as Gief’s mobility isn’t good as other characters, it counts for a lot. Especially if you struggle to get in. I like that the range on SPD is more dangerous, it makes Gief much more feared than more damage. But what good is a command throw if Gief can’t put the fear in you in the first place (this fear is referring to KD, not getting grabbed)?

yeah, finally… i mean, aquasilk is doing really good and vangief also is amazing players, but with the skill they put into zangief they make him better then what he actually is. I mean, even when zangief was at his best( vanilla) no zangiefs dominated anything because he was always beat up by the top 3 or 4 characters, sagat,akuma, blanka but now in ae where he is better then he is in super but worst in a sense, your not going to see that many gief players anymore, because rather some people like to admit it or not… THE WORK YOU PUT INTO GIEF VS THE WORK SOME OTHER GUYS PUT IN TO BEAT GIEF IS NOT WORTH IT…

To all those saying, " oh i’m not going to use the twins or top tier character", i commend you in your efforts to stay true to zangief, but the truth is … ZANGIEF SUCKS… it took me a while to realize it, but for all the work you do to knock someone down, vs the damage you do to them is not worth the headaches. Zangief is fun at a low-level to mid-level but once you get to high level fights, even his 5-5 matches are tough as shit…ie balrog, ryu, ken, fei and some match ups that’s in his favor are still tough, vega, gouken, abel, viper, guy, makoto, cody… i mean, the list goes on and on and on. look at the recent match [media=youtube]W2iM5z0QuJk[/media]

[media=youtube]usWinl5yCpA[/media]

[media=youtube]uirwnmO4v0Y[/media]

[media=youtube]mWUlA6jDS7w[/media]

i totally love zangief as a character but fuck that shit. you have to work waaaaaaay to hard to even keep up with people. i mean, come on now… all these match ups are 5-5 but they look like 6-4 in the other persons favor or worst … THIS IS WHY YOU PICK ANOTHER CHARACTER BUT HAVE ZANGIEF FOR CASUALS LOL

I AGREE WITH HIM… IF YOU WANT TO BE MISERABLE PICK UP ZANGIEF for hours. once you start to learn his combos… crlk are 1 frame links without perfect plinking and with perfect its 2frames. I’m telling i play zangief and i love him but i refuse to deal with what i dealt with for 2 years, 1 year more… i have some matches so, you can see im no scrub . [media=youtube]0dGb2QfqO8s[/media]

[media=youtube]lu1SkvKKDFQ[/media].

most of the zangief on here aren’t good at all, tell them to post up some matches and you will see… listen to ultradavid, renegade,aquasilk, mariodood, sswyu, and it’s like 2 more but i can’t remember everyone is is ehhhhh ok. good luck to the guy who wants to pick up gief.

No I think that is bad for gief. Too many unfavorable matchups and as final said above, even his even matchups are tough with anti-grappler technology. Considering certain characters are even with most of the cast even if they are not top tier, makes gief maining a salty affair.

Can’t really beef tho. A truly balanced game would be a bore.

Shout outs to Aqua for always proving me wrong. His yomi game is so on point. I see no gief jump in as much as him an make it work.

And good luck to vance who doesn’t seem like he’s been playing AE being a pad player and all.

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