Zangief was considered one of the better characters in Season 2, in practical terms what exactly has changed about his game that’s made him viewed so poorly now? I know what the buffs / nerfs were I just want to know how those have played out in his moment-to-moment gameplay that’s made him so much worse?
Honestly? I don’t think so. Abi has parries and a lot of armored moves and Blanka balls aren’t armor breakers this time. His agility could be a problem for Abigail, but the latter needs one good chance to deliver big damage. Will be a fun mu to watch.
There were some nerfs that hit him harder than it looks.
St. lk has 3 extra frames of recovery. Not too bad since it was usually used in combos and not as a poke.
Cr. lk hit box feels smaller and you can’t cancel it into specials.
Cr. lp now only has 2 active frames, 2 more frames of recovery and the hit advantage was decreased to +3 from +4. This one is being quite hard to deal with. It was a great poke to keep people away and get pressure away from you.
Flying body press feels just as bad as it was if not worse after the changes to the hit and hurt boxes. I just can’t get a cross up to hit with it.
Double lariat has 36 frames of recovery instead of 31 now. If it misses, you are in for a world of hurt. This one also hit him hard as the lariat became far worse to evade fireballs now. The opponent has time to dash in and sweep you even if they are almost from half the screen away.
F. mk has 3 frames more of recovery. This one isn’t too bad and I think it was a fair and much needed nerf. F. mk was too good.
SPD has 8 more frames of recovery, on par with the nerf to all command grab recovery nerfs.
Overall, the cr. lp nerf and the double lariat taking forever and a half to recover made him drop from high mid tier from S2.5 to bottom mid tier imo.
The SPD recovery nerf is bad, but one shouldn’t be throwing SPDs without being sure it would hit anyway.
Judging by his base moveset, he may save you from Guile but IDK if Abigail cares about that stuff (sliding under his v-trigger punches might be a thing for Blanka too though).