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Is this antiair lariat trading and then resetting the opponent instead of popping him into the air for a juggle? No one jumped at me when I used Gief, we all just assumed antiair lariat still had an awesome hitbox and resulted in a juggle, but… man, maybe not?
It’s been said that projectile characters in general have been nerfed. Given that historically they’re the ones that give Gief the most trouble, maybe they won’t be so bad now…even with this EX GH nerf. Oohh, and maybe they’ve even buffed normal Green Hand to be GOOD at putting out fireballs. That’d be very welcome.
I’m not the first to say this, but maybe Capcom feels that Gief doesn’t need EX GH knockdowns to compete with projectile characters any more. And when we fight melee characters we’re expected to use SPD in footsies, hence the increased range and damage. Also the improvements to Ultra 2 might be a sign that they expect us to use it more and rely on the SPD/Ultra 2 mixup. Not saying that it’ll actually pan out that way, but that may be Capcom’s reasoning.
Speaking of Ultra 2, has there been any word or footage of exactly how maneuverable it is in the air? Can it be aimed up/down or just left/right? Has the grab box itself been increased? Has anyone tried the Lariat->FADC->U2 that was said to be possible in the SSF4 loctests? Can it be activated while grounded and then guided up a little or do we still have to wait until Zangief passes his pre-jump frames and is airborne? Personally, I think the ability to activate while grounded would be a huge buff.
UltraDavid (or anyone really but I know UltraDavid has a lot of Hakan experience), With Zangief’s nerfs together with Hawk’s small buffs and Hakan’s bigger buffs, which of those three do you think will now be considered the best?
Edit:
That’s certainly what it looks like. Would that make trade Lariat into Ultra 2 possible? It looks like it may be possible, but the trade bounce both Gief and the opponent back quite a bit. Maybe it would work in the corner?
Looks like if it was a lariat it was done too late, but IDK
Anyway, I’m not a Zangief player, but EX GH does seemslike Ken’s EX tatsu, except worse. With Ken, you can count on always being right next the the oppoenent. Seems like that’s not too true with Zangief. Sometimes you’ll be too far to be threatening.
This doesn’t necessarily mean anything but there are two Zangief players in top 10 rankings in Japan already:
I’m not entirely sure. The dive kick could have the same properties as Ryu’s j. rh where it stuffs lariat when it hits above the arms.
But it was a trade. If they took away the trade lariat gief…that would seem pointless actually. Asides allowing you to get into the pocket it barely did damage since it only hit with the 50 damage on the 2nd hit of his EX-GH. Rather pointless nerf O_o.
If anyone finds anything let us know, I’m curious on this now.
It wasn’t about dealing a ton of extra damage, it was about getting a knockdown. Even lariat trade resulted in a knockdown. I mean maybe Joe accidentally pressed st fierce, st fierce startup sooooorta looks like lariat startup, but yeah, lariat seems more likely. And if even lariat doesn’t cause a knockdown out of the air, well, I’m not really sure when Gief is gonna get his knockdowns.
Last couple months I’ve just been maining the three grapplers, choosing among them based on their matchups (which are more varied than most people think). In Super I like Gief in some matches, Hawk in others, and Hakan in others, except I like Gief more often than Hawk or Hakan. Imo in AE I’ll probably like Hakan more than Gief or Hawk. Obviously we have to investigate things a lot more, but imo right now:
–Meaty mixups (although all have good mixups)
-----1. Gief
-----2. Hawk
-----3. Hakan
–Ability to get up close
-----1. Hakan
-----2. Hawk
-----3. Gief
–Ability to score knockdown
-----1. Hakan
-----2. Hawk
-----3. Gief
–Mid range footsie game (although all are good at this)
-----1. Hakan
-----2. Gief
-----3. Hawk
–Defensive options (all are good at this too, just in different ways)
-----1. Hawk
-----2. Hakan
-----3. Gief (assuming antiair lariat trade doesn’t result in knockdown)
Ok so can opponents still throw you after a blocked EXGH?
of course. Gief isn’t designed to throw out random, nonpunishable shit like Rufus or Cody
That wasn’t a lariat. It was a close MP, I believe (noogie punch).
I agree with this. It isn’t just Zangief. Vortex setups and pure mix-up centric gameplay have been nerfed in general AE…in favor of a more footsies-based, less dice-rollish, INTERACTIVE style.
And, I really can’t blame them for this approach. Makes the game less of an autopilot experience, and forces both players to THINK more (rather than GUESS).
Yeah, but wasn’t that more because the top-tier characters all happened to be bad match-ups for Zangief? That’s probably why Giefs weren’t running things. Not because he wasn’t really good against a lot of the cast (he was)…but because his concentration of bad matchups were also popular in the tourney scene.
Thought so, friend of mine keeps saying you can now.
Is this sure gief cant spd after Ex GH hit ? I thought i have seen this happen 2,3 times in AE vids? Maybe cause of an extented hitbox of the opponent pressing a button.
It’s only when he does EX Hand from certain distances, i.e. from a max range cr.LK/LP option select. If you do EX hand in a combo, it seems like you’ll always be close enough to do an SPD or a combo. But the range definitely sucks for footsies.
Here’s how good your logic is. In Guilty Gear XX AC, Eddie was/is the best character. Despite this, only one Eddie really makes any sort of top 3 appearance. In Street Fighter IV Balrog has never done anything massively impressive within a major tournament. Tournament placings do a great job at judging the strength and consistency of the individual player, but don’t do a ton for judging a character, otherwise Q wouldn’t occasionally ear his head in the top list of Third STrike and Sagat would have been much more frequently ontop of SSFIV. There are many, MANY more examples of things that should NOT be happening in reality, but are a part of frequent tournament results, things like nonviable characters like Tager in Blazblue popping up in the top list of major tournaments.
The only thing holding back Geif in these tiers are his horrible matchups against several characters. In the most recent Eventhubs tierlist he has two 3-7 matchups listed and only one 7-3 matchup. Until you reach the level of T-Hawk in this list, you don’t see any characters with 3-7 matchups and only four characters above Geif have any 3-7 matchups, each having only one. The polarizing nature of grapplers holds them back in traditional matchup based tierlist because of the polarizing nature of their design.
Neither tournament results nor matchup charts can be used as sole determiners to conclusively describe how strong a character is. History AND present day both show that this is quite simply not the case. Zangeif has shown in recent days to be a viable opponent despite being nerfed from the last game because of how the environment has changed. A character is only strong as their tools are strong in the enviroment they exist in. In an environment with no Akumachopter, one less anti-air from Chun, no jumping back fierce for Seth, and a mirrid of other runaway tactics being nerfed, Geif left unchanged would have probably been too strong left unchanged. You musn’t compare Zangeif to former Zangeif, but how this Geif stacks up in the new game in relation to what the old Geif had to deal with. Even if his individual tools have been nerfed, the environment currently appears to have shifted in his favor if current feedback holds true about runaway tactics and projectile characters being much weaker.
Ah, i see, interesting.
Maybe im overlooking something, but isnt it really badass IF you are in range to follow up EX GH into spd ? I havent heard anything that you are in a frame disadvantage, so basically what does beat a 2 frame start up spd? Jump has 6 prejump frames, and even fast dp’s have 3 frame start up, so wouldnt you need a move with 2,3 frame start up invincibility to escape this situation?
Funny that in trying to make the game more footsie based they ended up nerfing his best reward for having good footsies. They should have made EX GH travel further so he would be guaranteed to be in their face even if done as an option select from max lp/lk range.
Edit:
Pre-jump frames are unthrowable from the very first frame. So are lots of reversal moves that one would do in that situation.
In the end Gief just didn’t have the great matchups people originally thought. He was never a bad character by any stretch, but he also hasn’t really soundly beaten many characters. He was just a regular character with 5-5s, 4-6s, and 6-4s, except he also had a couple 3-7s. This was true even in arcade vanilla SF4. Each time a new version of the game has come out, people have talked up Zangief and whined about how badly Gief beats a bunch of characters, and each time toward the end of that version, Gief has ended up not being a serious problem. He is kind of a weird character in that lots of his matchups are played very differently by high level players than by lower or mid level players, which I think is why he always gets hyped up.
But for real, it should tell you something that only one person in the 2 year history of SF4 has gotten top 3 at a major tournament with Zangief: Gief isn’t that great, and Vangief is awesome. Rog has definitely had top 3 finishes and has won major tournaments; Justin even used him in Evo 2009 grand finals. And Gief’s problems aren’t really a lack of players, like Eddie sorta has. In vanilla SF4 there was definitely a Zangief army for quite a while, but over time people realized that he’s just not a good choice for tournaments. And for me, all I care about is tournaments. Like, it’s 98% irrelevant how well Gief does against SSF4 Gen (how well does he even do? I bet no one on the entire planet really knows) because Gen is extremely unlikely to come up in a tournament. This is a competitive tournament game to me, I’m totally uninterested in how it’s played in casuals. To me, tournament results and matchups entirely describe how good a character is or is not.
Anyway. Gief is still not a bad character, he can still compete, he’s just gonna be harder to win with than he is now.
This is valid point when talking about his current bad matchups (outside of Guile and Sagat which to me in this very environment got worse). But also consider the evens that got notably better while he got worse. Giefs only saving grace would be that people may still shy away from them in the tourney scene. (Gouken, Adon, DJ are 3 prime examples.)
Deja vu, this was said at the start of super.
**wonders if vangief will become vabel or vonda???
No it shouldn’t. That is only a reflection on the players and not the charecter. There is simply no reason for Eddie to not be winning every single tournament in Guilty Gear XX AC, but it just simply isn’t happening. Despite this, no one doubts that Eddie is the best character within Guilty Gear. It is not because of technical difficulty necessarily either, as in the Japan scene this isn’t much of an issue, and basically no one on Guilty Gear is easy to play as. Only one Honda has placed significantly in SFIV as well, however this is not to doubt that Honda is a strong character in SSFIV at all. The character being weak is not the only possible reason for low tournament showings.
It won’t be if half the population plays Yun and Yang.