Zangief General Thread: Our Russian Skies Are Protected

After Crouching HP, if they land close enough to you there’s a few things you can do.

-SPD or Super: Usually use this if your opponent hasn’t seen this set up before or you’ve already mixed up other options previously and they don’t expect this option.
-Block: If you’re expecting them to reversal or as they’re landing whiff a quick button to make em think you mistimed a combo then choose whether to block or throw.
-Headbutt or St. HK: possible get a combo off of headbutt if they’re on the ground and are hit, if they block you can do crouching jab into tick throw or if they’re in the air of course headbutt will knock them to the ground. With St.HK if the opponent crouches it will whiff but if they don’t react you can go into a poke or SPD.
-Cr.MK xxx Lariat: basically a low into a knockdown
-Cr.LK, Cr. LP, St.LK tick into LP SPD or EX SPD: combo from his fastest low into a tick throw if you think they might jump away you can use headbutt, St.HK, or maybe air SPD. You can also use variations of this combo and tick throwing like doing just Cr.LK, Cr.LP tick MP SPD or EX SPD etc.
-Cr.LP combo into Super or tick into SPD

Too keep it short it’s basically either
throw
anti-air
low into combo, tick throw, or into anti-air
normals into combos, tick throws, or anti-airs
do nothing/block/back dash

During V-Skill, Zangief needs to absorb reduced damage. So that we have less cool down after making a good read.

Example: V-Body Ryu’s HK Tatsu for 120 + 120 + 120 = 360 white damage, then you punish with Stand HP xx VT. EX BD.

After the EX BD, you still have 135 white damage or 9 seconds of cool down. If you go in after the EX BD, you risk 135 damage to yourself when you shouldn’t.

I see it all the time in Snake Eyez matches, he’s carrying too much white life, and he’s going in. The risk becomes greater.

Because of the risk and cool down, I feel, you need a very very good reason to V-Body or V-Flex, you want to damage them immediately. You need to make a read for V-Body into LP SPD or Combo, or V-Flex into hit or VT. Absorbing more than one fireball, is not a good idea.

Uh, considering the fact it’s -3 on block, I have no idea. They should totally be susceptible if they’re still on the ground. And not punching you in the face.

Still not easy. Because you build VT the most when you take damage. Using the V-Skill alone doesn’t do much.

I think it would be fair for Zangief, if the startup of VT was reduced by 4 frames, so we can cancel from ALL MEDIUM ATTACKS. Instead of what we have right now, which is COUNTER HIT medium attack into VT, and the confirm is insanely difficult - need super human reflexes!

It’s not overpowered because we don’t have many if any ways to link into medium attacks, AND we would require VT to do it, AND we need to work into that position (the setup)

But with this, we could fish for the COUNTER HIT from a light attack, link into a medium attack and cancel into VT. An easy counter hit confirm in two steps, instead of the GODLY counter hit confirm we have now! :s

if med poke can cancel into vtrigger mean we guarantee a 400 damage combo in any game. that will never happen to our russian love.

I don’t have godlike reflexes and I can confirm it all the time. It is not that hard you have more time than you think.
Unless you are talking about st mp punch? I do it off of cr mp punch it is +7 frames on counter hit plenty of time.

You can? That’s AMAZING.

You can score damage that many other Zangief’s can’t.

Counter Hit Stand MK xx VT and Counter Hit Crouch MK xx VT - are two of Zangief’s most dangerous combos

You think smk is a useful footsies or not?

Thanks man. It really doesn’t seem hard to me. What’s funny is I had the hardest time in Street fighter four doing the better Gief combos. Most people said they were easy but I could never really get them down Consistently. I guess it’s just different skill sets, I’ve got really good reactions but really poor timing when it comes to linking combos. Go figure

i’ve been using a charged s.HP on jump ins, often. probably too often.
people aren’t used to the armor and are very excited to run their combo, the punch lands, sometimes generates a cruch counter, then after i spin for the combo’d SPD.
i’ve wanted to post up a video to try to find the best/ worst use of this because i haven’t seen it used by many others.

I dont think shp as anti air works
If they cross up you, you are done

Been getting way too many ragequits in both ranked and casual. How about y’all?

Been happening to me since day 1. It’s really been bad and Capcom seems to not give a damn so it’s just gonna continue.

i actually got a Zangief that ragequit on me…I say about every 20 matches i get 1 rage quit, so it isn’t too bad…I did run into a lot of laggy matches tonight though…I wish there was an option of stopping the match, it really sucks losing 100+points against teleporting opponents.

Faced a very good Nash by the name of Autumn. Very solid for a guy that doesn’t do any ranked. I honestly have fun facing hard matchups. But facing so many Nash’s gets tiring.

This is why I avoid ranked. I’m perfectly fine sitting at Super Bronze until Capcom fixes things.

That’s why you need to be mindful of your spacing. If you’re too close you’ll get crossed up obviously but if you’re a little slow on your AA then ch.HP is very effective.

Can they block shp after they land?

Don’t bother blocking st.hp, apparently you can just jump away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujTShp8s-iw

Also, how miserable lariat is. We already know most jumping attacks stuff it, but at :05 seconds the animation is clearly hitting Bison’s arm/face.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwmJHDeDvf0

It has been a very rough two days with Gief. People are starting to catch on to V-reversal and blocking it. That really doesn’t leave us with any get off me reversal options. Playing this character is strange. He needs to be on offense, but have excellent defense at the same time because one slip up and it could be over with no way of getting an opponent off of you.

looks like you let go for st.hp too early, and it went through them while still falling from the Knee.