If exploits didn’t exist in competitive games things as simple as crossup attacks would be gone.
People seem to have no idea how much tech comes from “exploits” these days.
I don’t get what people are thinking makes him TOO good.
Zangief seems good in this game, top half of characters…and that’s about it. At no point fighting him with multiple characters did I feel that it was some 3-7 fight that I had to try super extra hard to win.
He lost a lot of shit from SF4 but got some extremely good things in return. People don’t know what to make of him, and in the meantime his air grab’s hitbox seems to defy logic and his super is probably the best in the game.
I’m not one of those people that thinks he’s broken but I think he is better now than he was in SF4. The loss of green hand hurts but his new stuff is superior imo. He doesn’t have one particular thing that dominates though so unlike previous games where grapplers are strong and then go lower in the tiers, it may be the reverse here.
You can whiff punish into super with s.lk pretty easy and also do s.lk xx v trigger. If it hits you suck them in lol.
I think he just needs better walkspeed, either in general (better) or in VT (not as good, but would put more emphasis on using VS and still help in shitty matchups) or faster SPD (to punish things, since churning only works on good players for a few rounds at most) maybe 3F instead of 2F so it doesn’t just get everything since there are more negative moves than ever before, or a few faster normals so that he can fair better in the neutral and punish things a bit better. The problem with Gief, is that more things are negative in this game, but his slow walspeed/normals and nerfed SPD make it so that he can’t really reliably play the punish game that most of the other characters can. This is huge, because it essentially means he always has to be walking forward, but the absence on fast normals (aside from lights which do low damage) and his slow walkspeed make it so that a lot of characters can just press buttons and/or backdash to easily prevent him from getting close, IMO easier than any game other than ST (where SPD had ridiculous range and damage, and his stand jab and forward were godlike). Better walkspeed would be my first choice, since it hardly ever skews matchups to be so much better than they were before (unless it’s an insane increase), but at the same time it helps tremendously in a more abstract way in every matchup. Faster normals/SPD aould be harder to balance, but I would be just as happy with 3F SPD or slightly faster sweep and st.MK/cr.MP.
Either way, regardless of what y’all think, IMO he’s going to need something once people figure out how the game is played, he’s just too one dimensional without VT, and I don’t think VS is going to end up being used THAT much more than it is now, although I do think we will see an increase of its usage regardless.
Command grabs being 5f make a lot of sense considering what capcom wants to achieve with this game, it´s the same reason on why lariat it´s no longer as good as an AA. Right now when you play against Zangief in SF4 you can´t really pressure him because most blockstrings and specials can be spd’d, you can’t jump because of lariat and you are forced into one playstyle whatever you like or not: keep him away or die. For a lot of us watching a Zangief match can be a beatiful thing: spacing, footsies, anti airs, etc. But for most people that aren´t into fighting games it´s just boring watching someone using the same normals that work agasint gief over and over or fireball zoning for 80 secs.
You could argue other characters force you to play a certain way but in other scenarios you can probably still do combos, practice your mixups, frametraps, defensive game, OS, etc. You can´t really do that against gief for the most part so it can become boring and frustrating really fast, specially considering that you can die for 1 mistake. Some characters need to literally use 3 buttons or they will lose, that´s not a good design and this is coming from someone who has been playing him for 5 years.
I personally like that 2f spd are gone, they even made his super comboable so it´s not only “don´t come close to me or I mash super” but also an offensive tool that makes your opponent scared when you are close. His design in SFV overall it´s just better for the health of the game imo.
lol, I just mean that they removed all THEY KNOW, and they remove everything they find (or other people will find) same goes for OS and all the other “stupid” stuff.
ayyyy lmao, sure dude…sure, let the game decide for you (OS) or increase your range by abusing easy inputs (Don’t tell me you think that kara-throws need much “tech”/skill)
gid gud
why making the game honest? when our exploits presuppose “TECH” hahahahahaha
Yeah I preferred fighting against Gief in games like ST/A2/A3 and CVS2 or Hugo in 3S. They are definitely still grapplers, but they don’t minimize what you are allowed to do in the fight so much. 2 frame start up SPDs with SFIV’s low block stun makes it so there isn’t much you can do to him offensively without getting sucked up. Then set play starts because HKD. It makes all character fights vs him play samey with people just trying to stay at a certain range because that’s the only range where they won’t get in trouble. Then Gief has his pains because of the lack of things he can do at the range they are staying at. Just makes fights really dry.
Especially in the Alphas and CVS2’s he was pushed half way across the screen for even landing an SPD. It’s only with SFIV that he’s been back to being near the person after an SPD. Gief matches will definitely be a lot more active in SFV and closer to what they were back in the day. Still imposing with the right reads, but doesn’t bring every match to the lowest common denominator for options on both sides.
He wasn’t even close to people after landing an SPD in SF4, he had to GH and he still wasn’t right next to them, or if he was he was negative so the person could jut throw or jab and beat everything he could throw out.
OK, but why would they nerf SPD by 3F AND make Lariat ass? If you can’t churn butter, why should they be able to jump in as well? You can’t use the examples you used, and then go ahead and say how BOTH of them have been nerfed, as nerfing one would’ve been sufficient in achieving the goal, would it not? I guess the games just not for me then, it’s pretty much official at this point even though it’s “alright” in a sense. Every argument I have with people, seems to be rebutted with the “it’s a design decision” statement, and I think all of those decisions are pretty much ass, so it’s useless to continue if that’s the way every discussion is going to end up. I just don’t understand how everything being a commitment is fun I guess, supposedly canceling a CC sweep into VT no longer even gives you the hard knockdown lol, you can’t even reap the rewards of something if you want to make it safe by blowing all of your meter anymore, like WTF is that shit?
Also, your example of the way his super functions differently doesn’t make any sense; not only would I wager that a majority of his super/ultras in past game were landed offensively, your statement “…but also an offensive tool that makes your opponent scared when you are close” is saying that it didn’t function the exact same way (which it did in an instilling fear and forcing mistakes sense) in older games as well. It being comboable is a good buff for sure, but it doesn’t make the opponent any more scared to be near him than his better SPD’s or previous supers did either.
I say wait for some top players to run Gief before you make a final decision on anything. There’s always stuff that people are missing early on with all of these characters. You’ll probably see someone else unlock some of these things at spaces that you’re having trouble with and then find Gief more playable.
Plus I think you should stick around for at least a year since every fighting game tends to change the most during that first year or so. SFIV was pretty basic during its early months also and expanded a lot later on.
I liked your post, because even though your extreme optimism is sometimes wrong imo or a little annoying (I’m sure my pessimism is as well lmao), I respect the fact that you took the time to reply not only respectfully, but you also tried to convince me to stay and play the game even though it doesn’t directly benefit you. If I do decide to get the game around launch (will probably wait till my bay which is only a few weeks after it comes out) we def gotta play some Karin mirrors and the Gief vs Chun match. This will realistically be the last chance I get to become good at a SF game, so I gotta get all the practice I can if I end up buying it and intend to enter tourneys and shit.
Anyway, I still think Gief needs a few buffs and is generally overrated, as most grapplers are. Like I said, I don’t think his tools are bad in a vacuum, they are actually really good, but the lack of some crucial options make it so that he’s right near being a legit good character imo. The good thing about having good tools in a vacuum, is that like you said, there is potential for the character to get a little better over time solely based on the stuff people figure out and learn how to apply better in real scenarios. I still don’t think he will ever be as good as people say he is if he stays the same. Hoping for some buffs for release (plz no nerfs just cus people don’t know how to deal with his gimmicks currently), but if I can’t end up making him work, I’ll just use him as my 3rd or 4th char that I only practice like a day a week or something, and replace him with Alex or Juri or Urien depending on how they end up playing (Barlog too as long as he’s like ST crazy.)
No problem. I was always the “nice guy” during the Dark Ages of SRK and was used to people just basically saying “fuck you” or “wtf saying some crazy shit again” when they disagreed. I always look for people who are more pessimistic as it gives me something to check my balances with and its more fun than to just argue with someone who’s just always on a slightly different level or take on optimism. Don’t really get too many people anymore who just get super Mike Watson grumpy about shit anymore, so it’s all rather tolerable.
Pessimism isn’t a bad thing to have in the realm of fighting games as long as you use it to your advantage and pick the good shit. If you’re just pessimistic just for the sake of it then you’ll just beat yourself up with using the same unoptimal shit. Just like how an optimist will need to pick and dig out every little scrap they can out of their character that is just barely viable or has theoretical bad matchups against characters strong in the meta.
The problem with Gief in general is that he’s just a character of polarization. You’re going to have characters you do well against and those not so well against. He just historically hasn’t been and will probably never a be a character you can solely main in tournaments. Maybe SFV will be his first chance to nearly get to that point, but it’s telling when Snake Eyez still has to switch to E.Ryu sometimes with a version of Gief that isn’t gdlk, but actually doesn’t do too bad vs characters that are strong in the meta.
Like I feel that even if Capcom or other top players fix or get around the issues you have, there’s just another set of issues that will come up for up for you. That’s why I’m surprised you’re not just settling on more balanced characters like Chun or Karin that can just walk around and do something resembling Dark Age whiff punishment/AA play.
You have to play him old school, none of that sf4 stuff. He plays more like a classic gief, so it’s a different mind set. You don’t get light to combos from people being scared, you go for more single hit punishes. The good thing is the cc system let’s you get more damage than normal from this type of playstyle.
Crush counter system is one of zangiefs biggest incidental buffs, and even better, it’s a system mechanic
Yes indeed, i agree. This last beta i played a lot with Gief, starting losing and then i began to play him like i do (or try to do) in ST, catch a few tricks with his vskill and vtrigger and i jumped to 3300+ LP with him.
In my opinion, he have GREAT normals, i used almost all of his normals on every match and all of them have a purpose, specially his fierce and roundhouse buttons (CC is fantastic). I also love his air SPD, is so fun how many people get caught by it.
I started feeling him so simple, but after a couple of hours i got so much fun playing with him. On a side note, the hardest matchups for me, where Nash, Chunli and Vega (in that order), probably i’m just a rookie with Gief but those matchups were hard, well almost every matchup below the 1k rank were hard and intense.
What are the odds that Zangief having the ability to get big damage off his v-reversal will be fixed by launch? It seemed like something in the game by mistake but I could be wrong…
“Geeezus!” -Alex