I think Vangief’s performance only proved that Gief now has to work a very hard for his wins. That guy was really playing his heart out. He really has to sweat it on a lot of matchups.
Because we have a game where DPs and the like can be mashed out instantly as a panic button.
Because we have a game where running is easily done: mashed out teleporting, air tatsu’ing, or just jumping all over the place. Can’t grapple what you can’t catch. Like trying to catch the greased up deaf guy from Family Guy.
Because we have a game where turtling up in the corner, spamming fireballs and throwing out an AA(DP or otherwise) makes it insanely difficult for a grappler to get in and do their thing: grappling.
Overcoming all of that makes a grappler’s life in SSF4 far, far harder than anyone else’s.
I have the tier list right in front of me, dawg.
S Tier:
Bang
Litchi
A Tier:
Ragna
B Tier:
Hakumen
Carl
Taokaka
Lambda
Hazama
C Tier:
Arakune
Tsubaki
Jin
Noel
D Tier:
Tager
Rachel Tier:
Rachel
Nice break down
And you think being able to combo into a command throw would help out with these tactics? You think it would be an improvement if you could combo low short into SPD for 1/3 of the damage you would have gotten if you’d had just baited the panic DP and did SPD afterward? If you can’t catch opponents with a command grab how would you catch them with a normal into a command grab? If you can get close enough for a command grab combo then you can close enough for a command grab. I won’t deny that getting in is hell for grapplers, but comboable command grabs would auctually hurt grapplers more than help because they wouldn’t be getting their full damage off them when they do get in.
Agree with everything M.D. says.
Honestly people. Learn to use grapplers properly and you won’t run into these problems. Every grappler except Hakkan has good enough tools for dealing with jumpers. I can admit they have bad matchups but that is something you have to accept when you main a grappler. If you are playing like a dolt then you will be chasing your opponent around while he is jumping and die because of it. When you play the grapple properly, there might be rounds where you counter so much running that you wouldn’t even need to land any command grabs to win.
Pure grapples are good because people fear being in grab range if you die trying to rush down someone who is running away, mabey you need to change your game plan. Bait the mistake and punish…this is the way. If you know, they will run so punish them for doing so. Learn some techniques.
Funny, because every single tier list I’ve seen puts him ahead of Nu, Noel, Tsubaki and Rachel which puts him at mid tier (although it is kind of early for tier lists they ALL seem to agree on this).
Zangief is still high mid tier in SSF4, and can compete extremely well. 1 frame links take practice, they aren’t impossible. Abel is a top tier character who has a 1 frame link as well, and requires IMO far more work than Gief does to be good at, don’t see anyone complaining about him.
Gief is the one grappler who doesn’t need any fixing (unless Capcom incorporated the combo into grab system I want :().
I agreed with most of your post other than that. Both of them are actually terrible currently for various reasons, although like you said a few tweaks would make them great. Hakan has overlapping inputs and literally zero ways to escape pressure currently, not to mention the oil mechanic needs to be changed or removed. T.Hawk really only has his zipping around the level and throws, he needs better normals and a few combos, because you can’t only depend on throws to win.
They always complain about Abel…they say his U2 is broken 
Im wondering if bringing back his ability to CD while jumping backwards would change anything for him.
you must be looking at loketest tiers. please visit dustloop and catch up. but it’s basically outside the scope of this conversation anyway.
this is also false. condor dive is his worst move. stop spamming it people. His normals are amazing, btw, so stop spamming specials all day. and you continue to disregard me everytime i tell you t.hawk has way more than one combo. please see the thread.
^Don’t take it too hard. We’ve already been over all the reasons why comboable command grabs (outside of focus attack) would be pointless, yet he still wants them in his Street Fighter game.
if you nerf his jump, his damage, and make his BNB a 1 framer…then I’ll have to disagree and say he does need some buffs. Just give me some better normals to stalk my opponent on the ground. Sheesh. Giefs normals outside s.MP are borderline crap. Yeah Yeah Yeah, he can O-S EXGH, but it doesn’t mean he has great normals
Very misleading. Adding up match up points made him this high. He just utterly dominated half the cast. Kinda like why Honda is number 2 now, lol. If you watch some of the higher level matches, against the strongest characters it was always an uphill battle. Winnable, but always uphill. Worse in Super.
If his normals were great, he wouldn’t be low tier, as his grabs are fantastic.
He just has a string of bad matchups (The 360/720 grapplers plight). His normals are amazing. The problem is just like komrade said, is people abuse his aerial specials. I guess bc they can. I works against players like me who dont know how to react… But he can totally play footsies with most of the cast and SPD when your not looking.
The thing I don’t understand is why people are mixing Hakan in this group of “grapplers” to begin with. It’s a close association but Hakan is not a grappler (at least, not enough to be considered among the ranks of Hawk and Gief).
I guess cause he is introduced as a Oil Wrestler, and wrestling often includes some form of grappling. That doesn’t necessary mean he is a grappler though, true.
I personally think he is in the grappler category
I don’t think it’s purely a l2p issue, seems like the main complaint is that the grapplers in SSF4 aren’t as grappling centric as some people would like.
Well want more do people want from a SSF4 grappler? I mean, if they(grapplers) could get around stuff with ease then they would take a dump on the entire roster, to the point where all you would see are grapplers in high level play.
Grapplers are about evaluating your opponent’s offensive balloon, finding a weak spot, poking a hole in it, and letting all the air out. If it were easier, everybody would do it. Personally, I’ve never been happier with SSF4 grapplers, more specifically, the 360/720 grapplers. In the previous SF games, it was harder to take advantage of small openings merely cause I couldn’t do a 360 throw consistently. I would botch it and jump or get a normal for a bit of damage. Very frustating. Now the only hard part is finding an opening against a good player, but when I do, I never fail to take the opportunity to lunge my opponent into the air and slam his head into the pavement.
The title of this thread should be ‘The State of Zangief’ because the other grapplers don’t exist outside of online play. Lariat is the most powerful anti-air reversal in the game because it covers both sides with a single press. Just the threat of it keeps your opponent exactly where a grappler wants them: on the ground. It’s also an excellent anti-fireball tool. You can use it to ‘thread the needle’ surprisingly close to your opponent because it recovers so quickly. Weaving it into combos for the knockdown is icing on the cake.
I’d consider him a grappler, mainly because he has more than one command throw and his ultra 1 is a 720.
Granted Honda has a command throw and a 720 ultra but isn’t a grappler.
Oh well, for the sake of easiness, I’d place Hakan with Gief and Hawk as the only three “true” grapplers.