I’m bragging to as many ppl as possible so here
Nice whiffed air spd to bait out and dodge the CA.
I’ll be adding that one to the memory bank. I’ve used it a bit to bait out random things but never thought to extend it to the CA’s that people use to catch jump ins. Could also work well against Balrog, Bison etc. I guess?
Nice! Grats on plat!
I’ currently playing a bit of Gief to rank him up and get Fight Money but I have to ask: how do you guys stay motivated? I feel like every matchup is an uphill battle and I’m not thinking 5.5-4.5 but more like 6/7-4/3. Balrog seemed manageable and Laura is fine as long as she doesn’t knock you down but that’s it. I’ve been playing him for two days now and I’m having the worst time of my life right now. Mad respect for everyone who’s maining him.
My motivation is the pure joy of finishing a round with a critical art, leaving the opponent sticking out of the ground. Makes me laugh like an evil dictator in a cheesy movie.
After reading that just forget it guys, gief will remain the same or get worse
Seriously, why the fuck did they hire Combofiend? The guy has no clue about the game I’m sorry. So he says that command grab characters are “really strong?” What game is this guy playing? I don’t even know what to say good god.
Like the “big damage” part quite the subjective line since the only way Gief is guaranteed big damage would be if you connect V-trigger and that takes damn near your whole life bar to obtain.
If gief had a reliable combo ender that he can confirm to. he would be ok… with that we can condition the oponent to stay on the ground…most of the time gief punisher is 1 or maybe 2 jabs…
GGs btw bro I was surprised I caught you with the super after the blocked knee.
well, in most of the cases, yes. But we can actually us cr.jab, st.lk xx lariat…
as long as we’re close enough and the opponent isnt crouching… 
Lariat hitting crouchers for the first few active frames (and maybe a little more horizontal range…?) would be a sweet buff without making him TOO strong.
Constant jabbing just isnt scary enough to get the opponent to stop pressing buttons/ jumping around (imo)
What about
Either give him a target combo that knocks down
Or sf4 vanilla lariat lol
I hate that even if i know what they are going to do… i cant do anything… no real way to put presure…
vanilla lariat? Zangief sudden toptier? 
I’d actually would be happy with some kind of knockdown TC, preferebly a close knockdown, like “headbutt vs airborne opponent”-close.
But what I would REALLY be happy about is Combofiend explaining to me why he considers zangief to be strong and “not yet at full potential utilized”
… what the heck are we missing?
He’s just a mouthpiece at this point, I mean if you look at everything so far in this game Mika has been the best performing grappler and all that because she has her version of a vortex.
I would honestly rank them like this
Mika
Birdie
Gief and Laura
“That’s the only thing I’m really seeing there, I don’t really think command grab characters are weak, if anything — they’re really strong, because they’re the only ones that can stop you from blocking. If you’re continuously blocking overheads, lows and highs, and somebody just grabs you, what can you do to stop that?”
You know, he’s got a point…except GIEF DOESN’T HAVE A FUCKING OVERHEAD COMBOFIEND and lows don’t lead to shit unless he’s standing right next to you with 3 bars, which rarely happens because the only real way to get that close is to land EX SPD or hope they jump at you and get AA’d. Oh, and what can you do to stop the grab?? Fuck, I dunno…maybe neutral jump and get 300+ damage and a setup that Gief can’t escape because he has NO INVINCIBLE MOVES!
Bu…but what about lows? You mean cr.LK, which only combos into itself and cr.LP, which pushes you too far to combo into lariat, which wouldn’t fucking work anyway if they were crouching? My bad, you must mean cr.MK which gasp combos into absolutely fucking nothing…well unless you wanna cancel it into lariat on a read, which gives you 150 damage, no setup and gets full combo punished if they block.
Jesus, WTF is wrong with this dude??
This from the same guy who said in SF4, “Gief is the master of the ground and T.Hawk is the master of the air.” I’ll never forget that idiotic comment as long as I live lol.
And people think I’m trolling when I say Gief can use an overhead especially in this game.
Maybe Combofiend doesn’t know how to neutral jump or back dash Zangief’s SPD? And keeps getting planted.
I’ve been thinking about why Gief struggles more than Mika, whilst arguably having better tools for a grappler, and I think I’ve stumbled across the answer.
(Inverted commas denote my own assessments)
'In terms of character design:
Both characters have no long range games and are meant to struggle to get in.
Gief is slow and can deal big damage when he gets in. Mika is fast and does small amounts of damage.’
Ok, so far, so true. Gief does more damage than Mika in terms of H.SPD and CC combos.
‘Because Gief is slow, every knock down leads to a mix up. Because Mika is fast, every knockdown puts her out of range for a mix up, unless she lands a heavy throw or CC sweep.’
Seems fair. Oh wait, hang on a second…
‘Because Mika is fast every knock down leads to a mix up. Because Zangief is slow, every knockdown puts him out of range for a mix up, unless he lands a heavy throw or CC sweep.’
I had the names the wrong way around, silly me.
Now whilst Mika does struggle against zoning and has stubby normals, her mobility allows her to get in easier than Gief, who even with his anti-zoning tools has to take more risks (white life, slower jump, slow recovery on lariat and slow start up of f.hp to negate fireballs). So, to balance things out, Gief should have a better knock down game than Mika, but he doesn’t. His jump is slower, making ambiguous cross ups easier to react to, his hurt box is larger, he can’t change his jump arc with splash, his pressure tools don’t lead into anything unless he’s in trigger.
For Gief to be balanced in terms of the cast, his knock downs should be rewarded more, and Mika’s rewarded less to compensate. That way grappler players have a choice: slow, difficult to get in, but scary knock down game, or fast, easier to get in, but more of a hit and run style.
These changes won’t be made of course, the characters will remain as they are, and Slayaman has come up with tech to show that Gief does have options, and it’s not completely hopeless. I just thought I’d attempt to articulate what I think Gief’s problem is, and see if people agree.
I think I finally figured out the best way to use the Boscht Dynamite (BD)
I’ll put forward the theory and explanation, and leave it up to you guys, namely @Slaynman to fine tune its usage.
You need to setup the BD when Zangief is +3 or +5 frame advantage. This is to cover your pre-jump take off frames when you commit to the forward jump.
If you are hit out of the air anytime after, you will be air reset for minimal damage, instead of eating a ground combo. Think of it like your being anti-aired.
For example, Crouch LP on block is +3, if they mash a 3 frame normal, you will be hit 6 frames later, in your first air-born frame, and will air reset.
You have to commit to the forward jump, but have time during your ascend to confirm their jump and execute the BD or try to savage the situation with an early Jumping MK* or LK*
*Possibly unsuccessful, but that’s the risk you take.
At point blank, you can land crouch LP x 2 before jumping into MP BD or crouch LP x 3 before jumping into EX BD.