Just started to play Gief, so I wanted to see what strats people are using with him.
Any tips on how to get around shotos or Guile?
Am I the only one that thinks O.Gief is better than N?
I won’t go into much detail here, but against Shotos, Lariat works wonders. Getting up to Shotos isn’t a problem with Zangief, especially Shotos that throw lots of Fireballs.
Guile, however, is another problem. Guile can easily follow Sonic Booms to punish Lariats. Jumping over Sonic Booms usually gets you to eat a Standing Roundhouse or something instead. So what do you do?
It may not sound like a good advice, but the real answer is this: Block the Sonic Boom. Oftentimes, in my matches vs. Guile with Zangief, I will walk up and block 4 to 6 Sonic Booms in a row. And that’s fine. Zangief can afford the block damage (one SPD will catch you up and more). What this does, in this match up, is trying to get Guile into a comfort zone. First of all, if you walk up and block a Sonic Boom, and Guile chases it to Sweep your Lariat, he just put himself into a much unfavorable sitaution. So once he learns not to chase the Sonic Boom because you are blocking, he’ll stay still and pump our more Sonic Booms. This lets you Lariat through a Sonic Boom every so often.
But the main goal is this. Once you block 3 or 4 Sonic Booms, Guiles get into a comfort zone of trying to pump out Sonic Booms AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. Otherwise you do get closer in between every Sonic Boom. This does create a situation where Guile starts to throw the Sonic Booms more predictably. When this happens, you can usually jump over a Sonic Boom BEFORE he throws it, giving him no time to anti-air. He will still be able to Block, but you are in on him now, and the game begins from there.
The next level of this mind game is Guile knowing you will Jump in on him eventually. If Guiles start to fake Sonic Booms to make you Jump, you can just start to walk-in closer. Learn Guile’s Low Forward distance. Since Guile has no freedom to walk around without losing his anti-air, he will stay in place most times. If he walks backwards, hat’s good, you’re getting him into the corner. If he stays in place, stand right outside his Crouch Forward range. From here, you have the best chance to walk up SPD (after whiffed Crouch Forwards) or walk-up and Sweep (to catch him trying to poke you) or get ready to jump over a Sonic Boom. This is the distance that Zangief best has a chance to fight Guile, and that’s the distance you want to get to. Getting there is the hard part, but hopefully the strategy I wrote above will help.
Also, remember, this is how I personally fight Guile. And it’s certainly not the only way. Other people probably have better advice than I, since I’m definitely not a Zangief expert. But I’ve had my share of success playing hte match that way.
What is the difference between O. Gief and N. Gief really? N. Gief has a super and the green glove. The latter is nice to do after a tick to get back in quicker, and the former does great damage and can be ticked into fairly easily. I don’t remember anything O. Gief has that is better than N. Gief.
On Zangief vs. Guile I also don’t use lariats very often. If I do use them it is at midrange where Guile can’t effectively follow up. My main strategy in this match is to use low roundhouse to trade or beat a Guile low forward. You can do this by doing a midrange kick lariat and hittin low roundhouse right afterwards, or just by getting close enough and blocking a boom or two.
Once you’ve knocked Guile over you’ve got him in a situation where you can walk up and 360, walk up and low roundhouse, etc. If you catch him with a second low roundhouse you should be close enough for a crossup or tick.
The important thing is to not get frustrated because though it can take a while to get in you aren’t really taking much damage. Zangief’s low roundhouse really dominates Guile’s low forward, it will almost always either trade, stuff it or hit it on retraction.
Edit: For Shotos just lariat through fireballs. Remember that the last rotation of the lariat has a lot better range than it looks, so a lot of times you will lariat through fireballs and your last spinning fist will nail them just as they were about to recover. Really fireballs shouldn’t be a problem. Don’t bother with the green glove against fireballs, it’s hard to time and there isn’t really much point. Also jumping fierce has deceptively good range.
I don’t know what you are having problems with but it shouldn’t be fireballs.
I have barely been getting the hang of using Zangief. Over the years I went from hating him to realizing that he is the best brawler in the game. As far as tips for when you face him, the key strategy is dont let him get close to you. His moves take up a lot of your energy bar and most of his moveset is done when he is close to you. As long as you keep him away from you, you increase your chances of winning.
we have a genius here folks!
Intercepter (aka gief Killer)
Funny…i do the exact opposite. 
'Gief’s big problem is that he has a lot of really terrible match-ups:
Chun’
Honda
O. Sagat
Guile
Dhalsim
I find you have to be really good at scouting fireballs with his green hand for any of those match-ups (Honda aside, which is more lariat luck dependant) to be winnable.
Eric should join the Gamepro staff. He’d fit in nicely there.
I just picked gief up and so far i’m having trouble doing the piledriver after a cr. short or toward tick. is there a specific timing to doing it?
AA standing jab is your friend
crouching jab so spammable and stops anything just about lol
Remember, you’re not trying to chain it. You’re just waiting until the second the recovery is done.
Zangief in yellow = Banana Pants
Zangief in bright green (not CE) = Cucumber pants
ask your lady which one she prefers and the Gief will deliver
If you get his whiff animation (super and ST versions) then you are doing the motion too soon (while the opponent is still in block stun). If you are getting a crouching/standing/jumping punch, then you are doing the motion too slowly or incorrectly.
I usually hit the opponent with a crouching short with my joystick in the down-back position, then go in a complete circle (doesn’t matter which direction) and end up in down-back again, then hit punch. While this doesn’t help much with walk-up 360s, it’s probably the easiest way to do his SPD for someone just learning the motion.
You forgot fei. Geif can’t jump at all against him. He has to stick to trying to sweep for damage since it beat’s fei’s c.fierce, but fei can counter with c.strong or far overhead to counter hit geifs extended leg.
Yeah, you’re right.
Slipped my mind.
Dhalsim is the worst match up for gief guile I don’t think is that hard compared to Dhalsim. The only way to defeat Dhalsim is when he goes to hit you try to get in that hit right when he streches. I noticed if you pressure gulie he’s not that bad of a match up.
Something I’ve always wondered about is the lariat vs headbutt/Blanka roll/psycho crusher, cause sometimes the lariat wins, sometimes it loses. How does this work? Is it random? Does the lariat only win when Gief’s hand is out against the opponent at the exact instant the opponent’s attack hits? Is kick or punch lariat better, or do they work the same? And so forth.
Gief’s lariat will get countered by honda’s headbutt if :
- it comes in contact with it when it’s in an inactive frame (only a blue box is present)
- it comes in contact with it when the hitting arm is at the opposite side (only one arm hits, and since gief is spinning, the “active” arm can be on the left or on the right when the headbutt comes in contact with the lariat)
On the other hand, it will counter honda’s headbutt if the hitting arm is present AND on the correct side (for example, if the headbutt comes from the right, gief’s active arm must be on the right too in order for it to make contact).
If we look at the lariat’s frames, we can see that it approximatively is inactive 50 % of the time of its duration. During that active time, the hitting arm is on the right side 50% of the time, and on the left side the other 50%. That leaves gief with 25% chances of countering honda’s headbutt with a lariat.
As for wich lariat is more effective, I’d say that judging by the frame data the % of chances of successfully countering a headbutt is the same for the two versions.
Gief. :lovin:
Lariat stuff…
Punch lariat beats Psycho Crusher 100% of the time.
Punch lariat beats fierce headbutt/ball roll ~50% of the time, but is much more reliable versus jab/strong ones. They’re slower, so they have a harder time hitting him during the time in between his arm rotation. For the fierce ones, you can up your odds by moving away from them as he spins, but this gives up the initiative in the hope that they’ll come sailing across the screen. Of course, punch lariat will always win if done with reversal timing.
Kick lariat loses to Psycho Crusher, but has similar performance to the punch lariat vs. blanka/honda. Oh, and it goes through both versions of Sagat’s tiger shot (high and low), making it by far the best choice against him. Kick lariat through one tiger shot, and down roundhouse will take out the next one, even if you started from the other side of the screen.
Versus Guile, I find trading down roundhouse with a sonic boom to be the best way to get in. Stay just out of low forward range. If he throws a boom from the starting distance, short walk + down roundhouse will trade (even at the very beginning of the match). If he tries to poke you away with a forward, roundhouse will beat it. Next best is predicting a boom, and swatting it away with the green hand of death straight into pile driver. …but, it’s harder on guile than most other characters, because he recovers from his boom so fast.
Just be wary, because Guile can punish whiffed down roundhouses on reaction with cr. forward, so your spacing has to be really good.
I think that he’s more a fighter of counter attacking,and dominate The SPD and you will be a great Zangief user.