I’m no expert with Dhalsim, but I think I fare pretty well against Zangiefs (but maybe I’m just lucky).
Also, be wary of those empty jumps/ short jumps. I remember seeing a video of Zangief being able to do a slightly shorter jump (glitch?) that completely f*s up the timing of Sim’s b.HK. If I see an empty jump coming, I either teleport or try to use s.MK as an anti-air instead of b.HK since it has slightly more range.
…wait until the next round for retaliation haha jk. If the Zangief crosses up with body splash->c.LK->lariat, can you duck for the last part of the combo and HK slide?
Also, for 1), what I like to do is shoot yoga fires until the Zangief (at full screen) does lariat repeatedly to avoid it. After he’s “conditioned” to do that I start moving a little closer and timing my s.FP to hit at the end of the lariat. Usually that baits him to start attacking.
Is it just me or does fighting Zangief sometimes resemble fighting Bowser from the original SMB? He does the same move in one place (lariat) and after a while he’ll start to jump towards you haha.
What do you do against an opponent that is in the corner just blocking. Can’t seem to damage. And if you get to close, well, you get counter attacked. To add to this, what do you do when the opponent wants you to come to them?
if they just sit in the corner throw fireballs at them. either they’ll take chip damage or they’re forced to react by absorbing/jumping which you can punish. if they still don’t do anything and chip isn’t enough mix up with j.hp as an instant overhead.
if my opponent wants me to come to him I don’t do shit unless I’m at a health disadvantage. if the need to aproach arises it’s very hard for dhalsim, especially against characters with ultras that stops you from fireballing. you can “rush” with the help of fireballs since they force reactions and you can get IAT setups but if the matchup forbids you of fireballing, it’s basicly about never being at health disadvantage.
Turtling anything is a pain for me when I play Dhalsim. I just don’t have the patience to sit there and fireball chip for a minute, and I always end up making stupid mistakes as a result. It’s especially annoying with some Chuns and Guiles, who can cancel your fireballs with their own but have little enough recovery that you can’t really do anything about it. I do much better when people are trying to take the fight to me - when they don’t, I get really confused and stupid.
yeah…I agree now that I think about it. Turtling anyone is hard to deal with.
In those cases, I usually stop trynig to save meter for super and just let off ex fireballs, following closely behind. I try to get close enough to where I can do a back j.hp to smack em while they are crouching.
Other things I will try are jumping into them, but then back teleporting trying to bait some kind of move like a flashkick from guile.
On characters who can’t punish jump back instant fierce overhead, a good way to break a turtle is to slide up behind a yoga fire (ex fire if you have to) to the range where jump back fierce and crouching strong both hit. Voila, they have to guess whether you’re gonna go overhead, low, or wait for them to do something dumb!
It also might not keep you far enough behind your fire for you to be safe, not to mention it might not get you to the precise maximum distance where crouching strong and jump back fierce both work. Imo short slides are generally better for quick movement on the ground, both because they go pretty fast and because they individually go a short enough range so that you have lots of good spots to stop at along the way.
I am aware. Most of the details are covered in the thread I linked. Short slides are obviously better in a general sense, I’m just saying a single FWD dash from fullscreen is an option.
What it boils down to is this:
2x shortslide travels roughly the same distance as 1 FWD dash.
2xshortslide takes an extra 14 frames then what FWD dash does.
I didn’t test for cr strong ranges, but I could go back and do that at some point.
I wonder how well MK slide-LK slide works (ill go test it later), it should from a fullscreen away, take you roughly 1 and 1/4ths the distance towards the opponent as a FWD dash, although it would take a helluva lot longer to get there (51 iinstead of 32 frames), but the positioning might be superior.
3 LK slides will take 69 frames, and travel roughly the distance of 1 and 1/2 the distance of a FWD dash.
Zangief Short Jump is the worst way to eat an ultra and lose the match… when he has ultra maybe s.MK is good, but you’ll probably trade… need to find any other strategy
the problem is: is Gief gonna to to that 3-hit-combo or directly a grab (SPD or ultra!). Or he can just splash and SPD. However is bad situation because you’ve to guess, and If you wrong you lost at least 1/4 of your energy…
probably my time is wrong…when I try to punish KKK lariat with s.HP I always miss or get hit by a second lariat… may I help by Gief scream when do lariat? :lol:
In training mode I’ve discover that you can beat LARIAT using j.b+HP. It seems to works great because it works also in close distance (instead of b+HK) The timing is weird: you’ve to perform that just after your jump height is at maximum. If Gief is spinning lariat you’ll win cause your headbutt hits his head.
After that, you can easily combo b+lk and cancel into teleport to be safe at 100%.
It’s only 120 damage but the fact that you can jump in a gief matchup is priceless.
Otherwise you can try BnB combo, but you need the right time we do b+mk. If you fail, you’ll be probably spd-ed.
Another application, if you’ve ex meter full is do b+HP in the air and super. I suggest to use piano method to be sure to perform this 6 hit combo (420 damage).
Limitation:
of course, startup lariat will beat you, but a lot of Gief do PPP lariat too soon to be sure to hit you.
if you crossup Gief you will hit
use it carefully… better in the end of match when your ex meter is full.
After headbutt + super you can ultra. When he stands up, jump…if he do lariat, punish with headbutt and he will eat your ultra.
I’m curious to try this in a Gief match now…just to confirm or now if it’s really useful.
EDIT: now I’ve tried against ultrahard CPU. It seems interesting only with the up jump. The problem is when he do banish or dash while you’re in air… he passes to the other side and punish with lariat… the only escape is to see his banish and instantly do lk drill…
seriously, even if you can beat lariat everytime by jumping at him with a b.hp I would fucking never jump towards gief. neutral jumping is so slow that gief gets to control the spacing of it too, so trying to use that to attack seems horrible too.
I didn’t say to be aggressive… of course Sim is a defensive char, especially against Gief.
I just find a tip can be useful because a lot of gief probably think they just do lariat to beat you, especially in close distance. So j.b+HP and super does good damage and It’s a counter move.
How many time do you waste your super and ultra against Gief?
A lot of time I don’t have time to perform those because of Gief pressure.
Just sweep/HK Slide/Far st.HP the lariats. Try to avoid doing anything against the KKK Lariat unless you know you have the right timing. You can tell from the PPP and KKK by listening to his yells, the PPP is longer. UltraDavid explained it somewhere as well, I think in the Video Thread and this one? I dont want to risk jumping against a Lariat. Even if b.HP works, theres still a chance he can hit you. With sweep, unless he does a crouch Lariat and you dont block, youre fine. Once you sweep you can Ultra and wait for his reaction. If he Lariats, do a cr.LP or something to hit him into it, or a LK slide xx Super. If he blocks, IAT his ass. Super I only really use if I know will hit, such as in the Ultra situation. Otherwise I probably wont use it and just mix up my Fire’s while teleporting backwards. Also, some players (everyone, not just Gief) can time their Focus so when you IAT behind them, the Focus is facing you so they’ll absorb and punish. Found that out the hard way.
you seemed to imply that it was a move that should be used now and then. the only use I find is if you actually happen to be right over gief like scampjohnson said but it’s a situation to avoid anyway.
I often get to use super and ultra as AA against gief.
What’s Dhalsim’s best reversal/poke? I usually main Zangief but I’m looking to maybe pick up sim if i get a bit more better with him. I get pretty confused when an opponent gets on the inside and I’m wondering what his fastest move is to beat out footsie wars. Zangief’s awesome normals kind of spoiled me. I know b.strong has something to do with it… Also what about block strings? Is a simple s.strong/c.fierce enough?