Let’s be real here Necalli can use all the help he can get. It’s not like he has a 3f normal, dp, brain dead jab aa, command grab, infinite v-trigger, overhead, or a divekick right? I think he should get more to be honest. Stop bitching and get good Chief!
Bu-but they’re making Necalli’s command grab more punishable!!
Oh, just like Gief’s…
On top of that he has good normals, mobility, and the second most damaging CA after Gief. As far as I know he doesn’t have a single weakness. Does he even have a bad matchup?
I think when looking at Gief’s tools it’s easy to overestimate him. I think most people see him as high mid-tier, but I struggle to think of a matchup that he wins. I thought he beats Dictator, but then some random player bodies both Stupendous and DannyPham on WNF. Alex? Not according to Snake Eyez. Mika? Itazan always loses to Fuudo, but I can’t find any other high-level matches between these two characters. I think he beats Boxer, but I can’t think of any other match in his favor.
Characters worse than him.
Chun
Ryu
Juri
Alex
Nash(maybe better season 3)
Fang(again jury is out since he is buffed in 3)
Zeku
not saying that gief is great, but those characters i listed in season 2 just have very shitty matchups, even though a few beat geif their overall matchup chart looks worse than his.
Gief in my opinion goes even with most of the cast but loses horribly to two characters (Guile and Sim) in 7-3 matchups (Sim could be argued as 8-2.) I think he beats Zeku, and Alex. Barely beat Boxer(this will be his best matchup with the nerf to TAP) and beats bison well(this match up will probably be in bisons favor now with Vtrigger 2 for bison)
no other character can be counterpicked like he does where against a good sim even the best players have no chance. A good geif can outplay a guile and win sometimes but a sim player has to do something stupid to lose.
Now that season 2 is comming to a close i would put gief at bottom mid, still playable but its an uphill battle with a ton of 6-4s(i count 7, Chun, Nash, Birdie, Necalli, Vega, Urien, Abigail.)
With season 3 if the anti air jabs are truly nerfed he could move up in the rankings but i dont have a lot of hope as they said they were going to fix that in season 2.
Right now if you are playing against Necalli with his short range normals even if you read him doing a mid range poke and jump he can still do a standing jab to anti air. If that goes away the Necalli, Karen, ED, guile, and other matches become easier as he can now close. But my fear is unless the hurtboxes are much better on his Jumping attacks people will start doing cr jab to anti air and then we are back to square one.
i am not very hopeful right now as several characters i listed are getting buffed and he is getting nerfed. Time will tell but on paper i would say he looks like he is destined for the bottom 4 and could be the worst(although who gives a shit if it is the worst as the bottom 4 are so bad they wont win shit.)
Season 2 was all about burst damage and his was pretty good. If the meta changes from burst damage to options in the neutral game he is dead in the water.
Juri is not worse than Gief. She even won a premier, which is pretty telling for a character that no one plays. According to Gentleman Thief she’s low-mid at worst. I don’t know about Nash and Chun. It’s way too early to say where Zeku will end up on the tier list.
Gief is bottom one for sure imo.
Ok this confuses me.
Infiltration(one of the best players ever) wins a premier and Juri is a good character, Snake Eyes wins and he played out of his mind and Zangief sucks. Gentleman Thief says she is low mid and you take it as gospel, Itazan says Zangief is top 10 and you say he is wrong. Just trying to figure out where you are coming from in your argument?
You forgot the awful match up against Menat, @filldoh, but other than that you are quite spot on.
Overall, I think he will be middle to low middle tier on S3, but we have to wait and see how the hit and hurt boxes changes will play.
i havent played enough good ones to say on Menat but i could totally see this matchup sucking against a top tier player.
You are confused indeed. It’s not clear what Itazan said about where Gief stands. In typical Japanese fashion, he gave an answer that can be interpreted in many ways. Gentleman Thief said, and I quote: “I don’t believe Juri is bottom tier. Low-Mid tier at the worst.” No room for ambiguity there. You misquoted me; I never said Juri is good, I said she is not worse than Gief.
Oh come on man there was no interpreting what he said…he said it in english! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmqO3P2e1oQ right at the 5 minute mark.
True i’ll give you that.
I’m intrigued though if not Gief, who’s your pick for the scum at the bottom of the SFV barrel?? I’m not even playing favorites here,he has been my main for years,quickly followed by my second in command Blanka but i think he’s absolute trash in this game.
Nerf his Primary Damage dealer again… :o
He said: “I wish, top ten. It’s enough.” He might’ve meant where he would like to see Gief. “I wish” does leave a lot of room for interpretation, as his English isn’t exactly great. He might’ve misunderstood the question.
He said he wishes he was top 10, he would be satisfied with that. I’m Asian guys so it’s clear as day to me what he was intending to say. Basically he thought Gief was trash lol.
Never change, Gief forums. Gief Bottom 1?! Fuck outta here, wow lol. Filidoh made a great point about the hypocrisy around here. Super facts.
I wouldn’t worry about it too much @filldoh haters will always be hating. That’s the only reason this underclass subset of Zangitans exist. 
They survive and thrive off their self loathing of the Rad Russian. And they won’t stop lobbying Capcom, until choosing Zangief at the select screen is an automatic win.
Unlike you and I, these lariatettes (miniture lariats) don’t appreciate the red struggle. They’re not true followers of the way of Z. They are probably and most likely sleeper Abigails, dressed up in Russian Confederate clothing, that, or agents of SMERSH or SHIELD.
Don’t let these wannabe comrades fool you @filldoh They don’t have Mother Russia in their hearts like us. I say fuck em, or in the words of Master Zangief, Atomic Buster them! They won’t be flying the Sibberian Skies for much longer.
Unless of course that plane is broken to the point of overpowered, with winrates in the high 90s.
This place is mainly for whining and loathing over gief. It’s a lot easier to get better discussions somewhere else.
Moving on. Aside from Birdie, every bad matchup for zangief barely changed at all. With the nerfs added on to gief himself he will definitely be worse overall. I’m optimistic for VT2 being good but I highly doubt he will be top 10 material in season 3. He’s in that mid, maaaybe lower mid area at first glance.
He will be slight worse in S3 from the looks of it indeed, but it is not the end of the world.
I still think he will be sitting there in mid tier. VT2 might be be a match turner as one landed SPD will be 30% to 35% of the opponents health from the looks of it.
I really don’t know why come here, just when someone is so wrong and won’t admit it I get ridiculously annoyed. You think after 20 years on the Internet that shit wouldn’t bug me as much. Problem is I took a job in media sales for the last 15 years and I love to argue. I am an internet trolls wet dream.
I think the bigger problem is that most people on here have never truly played a low tier character. The balance in streetfighter five is actually really good. Four different periods of time I have mained some seriously shitty charters. Q in sf3, birdie in sfa2, bass in doa4, gief in mvc2, maxi in sc4. these characters had almost no chance from the start of the match. If you would’ve played those characters, you would know what it’s like to have no options at all zangief is not like that in 5. He is actually pretty good.
I am very interested in the changes with having VT2 but I wonder which match ups I would use it in that would be beneficial enough for me to give up vt1.