The more I play Gief and read these forums, the more I come to believe that Gief’s problem is that he has moves and frame data that makes him play like a defensive character, with tacked on with offensives moves. Good normals that control space at max range, but don’t lead to anything. A v-skill that absorbs attacks, but doesn’t do damage to opponent, unless you extend it to flex(which is shoddy at best without v-trigger). You even get gray damage when hit, which prompts you to stay out of the fray for a while to recover. A V-trigger you can ONLY use most reliably by being hit. No real way to get people off use once the opponent gets in out of V-reversal. When I started to stop playing Zangief like the grapplers of past, and just started to turtle up with him, I noticed that I could more easily catch my opponent off guard when a do randomly dash spd. I think we as Giefs need to start adding more lame to our play if that makes any sense, and not be afraid to timer scam and neutral jump hadokens all day at the far end of the corner, and hold back and give up our space. Test the patience of out oppenent. At the very least if you want to try to play Zangief the old way, You should add some sort of lame to your play. Anyone agree, or is it the salt of me going down from super silver to bronze running out of my typing hahaha.
How can you say Snake didn’t play the mu right against Bonchan? Simply put, the character is completely outgunned in every way. Forget the two players for a sec. This version of Gief has to work 100 times harder to do anything and Ryu just is a way better, more solid character that has more options. It’s not really complicated.
From watching I have different interpretations of the match.
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The RBG was to see if Bonhan was awake, it’s a similar tactic some Birdie players use with the jumping throw (name escapes me atm.) to see if you will react to it. Seeing as he did and punished very well, made it rougher for Snake to use it as a way to catch him off guard.
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Eeh can’t say why, I’ve have had moments where the V-trigger will only do the sucking and not the rest from time to time so I’ll chalk it up to that.
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The round was more or less decided at that point that Bonchan wasn’t going to needlessly go for a fireball that would allow Snake to punish. As for the odd activation Snake has done this before and at times will only do the first part so as to try and open them up with c.jab so he can continue the combo. In this case again like I mentioned up top he received nothing out of it so he opted for the chip so as to not go to waste. In the end being just demolished so early in the round killed any of Snakes usual game plan that he had to wing it.
I will say that really fucking hurts in that last round that Snake correctly jumped over the fireball only to eat a EX DP despite being so close, why does he recover so fucking fast now that’s some bs. Also the lariat being stuffed with little effort mind you leading to all that damage was just depressing.
BTW sorry for the double post but I did chuckle at getting hit with the disagree button in the general thread just because I said Snake should drop grapplers altogether, then the guy who hit me with disagree asks what classifies a grappler…
I know what I said is blasphemous but I’m looking at it from the standpoint of Snake the sponsored player. Red Bull looks to have gone all in with Snake and anything less than qualifying to Capcom Cup is unacceptable and so far not one top 8 appearance and to make things worse he didn’t make top 8 in a tournament with just US players. So I say he should go Ryu or Chun and have Gief as secondary stay away from Alex.
To follow up on what Grimmjow said, he is correct. As a sponsored player, he needs to be able to win games. If Gief cannot do it now, he should look into having a different character to help him out. I love snake’s gief, it is just that in this game, gief just cannot do much against the better characters. Having to play at 110% every match is exhausting.
This is what combofiend wanted, no viable grapplers. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard him saying stuff like “he has grab, he doesn’t need anything else.” And that was in 4! Now grapplers quite literally don’t have anything else and the grab is slow and no version is invincible.
Capcom really is stupid for hiring biased players to balance their game.
Combofiend doesn’t have final say but I do agree that he’s totally anti-grappler and is clueless when it comes to them. He’s said so many dumb things in the past about Gief and grapplers in general it’s pretty ridiculous. It’s funny cause as soon as they hired him I had a feeling it would be all downhill for Gief especially and that’s exactly what’s happened. Coincidence? I don’t think so. Now we have a grappler that gets rushed down for free and has a slow ass command grab that can’t punish anything.
You seem to be focusing on battle lounge.
I saw a match against Ken (iori Jr.). You need to work on your anti airs. Try st.lp. It resets the opponent in the air so you can go for a meaty. Also, vreversal in the corner into CA is very specific and most of the times not worth it. And also, if the opponent is not moving and near jab SPD range just go for it.
You have a good Zangief, man.
You got the point. After a few matches, I take a break. With Gief, you can’t relax even with low level opponents.
How do we change their minds that a portion of the player base is being neglected?
Whilst the whole persona seems down right shitty to me, as I fell in love with a Gief that would vortex for days. ROFLMAO at opponent’s wakeup with cross up/empty jump/Suplex/EXGH combo mixups. But you got to play the hand you’ve been dealt. No point pretending to be something your not. If Big Z was made to be a defensive Tank Tower, then that’s a fact of life.
You do raise a point that defence is key for Zangief, the evidence does points to it. It’s best for all Zangief’s to at least await cooldowns - like the penalty box, sin bin in ice hockey. But you give up momentum? Which is definitely contrary to an offensive design.
It is very painful to play Gief now. I’ve had him as my main since Alpha2. Yea, it hasn’t been easy but now its horrible. Even in SF4 a random match vs Sim, it would suck but I could poke limbs and get something going.
Now I just stand there and try to get a jab to come out.
I thought Alex, but then see the trend that grapplers aren’t working.
I was thinking to try Karin or Necalli, but after seeing Necalli fest in Texas, I’ll pass.
Plus all these years of giefing have made me slow and sloppy with chain combos and QCF supers.
Iori Jr is actually too heavy for me to fight (I am bronze and he is platinum)
He is extremely aggressive ken and very hard for me to defense for.
He often jump over my head but I still has no reaction to anti air, my anti-air is really terrible
I gotta pay extra effort on my anti-air reaction
On the other side, Vreversal into CA is a GUARANTEED combo in one situation.
When you are cornered, you Vreversal opponent’s jumping attack in closest range, your CA will never whiff
This is a guaranteed damage and actually pretty dirty tools which is not known by much people B)
Have you guys tried headbutt’s in block strings? I feel like this is an underused option that I personally only really started to think about yesterday.
Headbutting after meaty headbutt will catch jumps/backdashes
Headbutting immediately after a blocked jab or two will catch the same options.
I’m finding this to be an extremely good option because it fills up the anti-jump/evasion aspect of our pressure which will convince opponents to stay put for a grab. Because getting slammed back down to the ground and receiving 200 stun and more damage than what they’d get from eating mps and jab checks is hella scary.
What I like about this over st.hk in situations where I can interchange the two is that headbutt won’t whiff on crouchers and get you punished/turn the momentum in the opponents favor frame adv-wise, instead, you’ll still be plus and be able to press on.
This is obviously beaten by jabs/dps, but jabs can easily be eaten up by spd( and lights don’t lead to much damage at all in this game some I’m perfectly fine wagering my potential big damage plus knockdown to their minute damage)
And dps…I WISH they would 
In my mind, this is basically a Gief shimmy.
Headbutt in blockstrings can definitely work sometimes, but a good player will start jabbing or throwing you out of it. When that happens you gotta change your frametrap to standing mp or standing mk seems to work.
A2 and A3 Zangief were beast mode. CvS2 K/A-Gief was strong as well. Hyper Fighting Gief was crazy.
I can’t tell you how much I miss hyper fighting.
Apparently, Beta Zangief was much better with confirms into EX SPD and some other goodies. Was player feedback really enough to neuter him to this state? And were the other grapplers modified in similar ways?
Actually when I have full CA bar now
I love to bait opponent by cornering myself from backdashing/walking backward
Opponent often being baited and starting to pressure me so hard as I am being cornered.
Once they jump attack me, almost they have to eat a 420 dmg guaranteed Vrevseral>CA combo
I think they really not know WTF happening for why they still being grabbed even they try to jump out after my Vreversal 
It’s a beautiful thing gemini