Believe me, I understand that. What’s sad though is there’s really no way to play him “solid.” You used to be able to play solid footsies and punish unsafe things with spd. Now he’s straight up a guess character. Worse yet, he’s a guess character that can get jabbed out of his guess.
Can anyone guide what can we do against S.MK Dhalism spammer?
Dhalism S.MK seems can zoon out gief very well, even I find a two ways to fight against with but quite riskly:
Mid-range: Gief’s SHK can cc Dhalism’s S.MK if your S.HK is come out earlier than him
Far-range: Gief’s C.HK can cc Dhalism’s S.MK but the timing is too tough, seems can not rely on it too much.
Hope is there is any other solution can guide for us?
Last but not least, don’t forget the use your exRBG to grab those teleport spammer, who think it is free escape for them
If Snake Eyes can destroy everyone with his Geif then why would he need a buff? This game has barely been out guys lol.
Amen. Easily the worst right now. We have too many matches where we have to work our asses off for every little bit of damage. I did quite well with Gief back in the day, but I’m having the same issue as you…people I used to body, and that are WAY lower than me in ranked right now, are bodying me with stupid play (yes I realize this is also my fault). Snake Eyez kills it, but he’s on another level as pretty much anyone, and I agree that people are respecting him a little too much. Although maybe that’s the case. Maybe you do need to be Holy shit tier to use gief.
Right now I think Gief needs changes. Bad. He used to be terrifying for his damage output, but now that everyone can equal that, or exceed, his strengths don’t seem apparent. It’s sad, and disappointing, but again, maybe this is just the new reality for new gief.
Enough said.
Not to mention that he lost instantly against a random Birdie in FR19
I think we all agree that he’s not great but we should move on because it’s starting to sound like whining. Our Lord and Savior Snake Eyez even said on Tuesday:Stream 18:10, “thou does not play Zangief to have easy matches, we are in this for the hard road.” Either accept that and find ways around his limitations or play Cammy instead.
I’ve never expected to have easy match ups, but gief as he is in SFV is not satisfying, not fun, and not viable. He was low tier in ST and yet that’s still my favorite gief.
That being said, I am forever a gief player. I won’t sell out and use cammy, but I probably will just stop playing.
Not trying to whine (though I know I have), its just incredibly frustrating to love a series so much and to just genuinely hate the newest version so much.
In all seriousness thank you guys for letting me vent. It doesn’t change anything, but I somehow feel a little better in knowing I’m not alone in thinking this way. Its better than just being told to “adapt” by people who have never played gief.
I love this Zangief. He’s got a good toolbox, (s.HP, f.HP, f.MK, j.SPD, crazy damage.) he’s really honest and winning with him feels fantastic. He needs buffs to be sure, but I don’t want his design to be compromised. So far I think giving us a combo ender that hits crouching is fair, and we need something to help versus zoning.
However, I’m worried people here just wants him to be like he was in previous games which I think is a bad mentality.
Why is it bad to want him to be a threat up close? Gief had very different strengths between 2, a2, a3, and 4, but he was always terrifying up close… Not this character that gets jabbed out of everything. If I want to play a grappler who has slower normals than his opponents ill play Solomon Grundy. At least he can cancel his rbg and combo.
If dp was 5 frames with no invulnerability how do you think shoto players would respond? In theory it would still work as an anti air, you just wouldn’t be able to mash it and that’s good right? Same logic.
No, people just want a toolset that makes sense. Gief has the tools he needs to win but the higher the level of play, the more impractical they become.
I’m still optimistic about the character and I do think we need to keep playing him to flesh him out completely before there’s some kind of final judgement, but I cannot deny the accuracy of these statements.
nevermind
How isn’t he scary up close? Maybe not point blank but Zangief in this game wants to be just outside jab range, which I think is pretty close still. At that distance your opponents are threatened by, f.HP, one of the best heavies in the game, s.HP if they are careless with pokes, EX.SPD if they just stand there and if they happen to not be quite in range for that you can go in with f.MK which can be spaced really ambiguously for a mixup. And you still haven’t given a good reason as to why he needs to be good up close other than, “but he was always terrifying up close”.
Again, this is not an argument. This is a new Gief and his SPD happens to be slow now. Get over it and adapt.
You’re going to have to define “makes sense”.
It’s been defined already many times in this thread. Also, lol at:
I’m really hating how some are using the word honest to try in a way to justify Gief or some other things in this game. Trust me some characters are from honest and use quite a bit of BS and sure enough most players have flocked over to them.
“Doesn’t make sense” are just buzzwords. Does that mean that he’s a bad character? That he’s poorly designed? That his tools don’t fit his gameplan? I really don’t know what it means.
I should have clarified; I meant good up close like he was in previous games. It should be obvious from my post that I think he already is good up close in this game, just not point blank.
Gief’s clp is god tier 
Kanalgravare, I agree that at about st hp range gief is good in SFV. My issue is that inside that range he is not. He actually gets bullied by better and faster normals within that range. Due to lacking invulnerability or a 3 frame attack he actually for the first time ever needs to actually try to back up to fight effectively.
In past games, the closer gief got, the better his positioning was. Now he obviously still cannot fight from far away, so you have to work your way in. Your opponent will zone until you get close, but if they can’t back up, their best option is to get closer and bully you. As gief, you should NOT be at a disadvantage at point blank range. Because of this you need to back up…in other words, you actually need to once again give up screen control and give your opponent space. Positioning with gief is so messed up in this game its beyond words. I’m guessing you haven’t been bullied much yet, don’t worry, as people get comfortable with not fearing gief, you will.
As far as damage goes, he may do more per individual hit, but many characters with combos technically outdamage him.
Also, all of his big damage comes from pure guessing in situations that can’t even be called 50/50s. If I attempt a spd, you can still jump and backdash (depending on your position) you can mash out a quick reversal like a dp, but now for the first time ever you can just jab!
Bottom line: Hes slow, useless at full screen and weak at point blank, and he has no guaranteed hit confirmable damage. He loses half his life trying to get in and the other half once they place them self right next to you. You’re almost never in a position to truly bully your opponent. This gief IS NOT gief.
Is that a clear enough description of my issues with him?
I think I’ve reached my limit with this character now. Played a set with a Cammy player and almost every round was the same. I whittle him down with cr.jabs and outfootsie him. I’m clearly the better player by far. Then he lands one normal confirm into gigantic damage and I’m dead. Must be nice using a character that completely braindead while we have to play damn near perfect. It’s just so mentally defeating every time. Btw, is there anything we can do after blocked canon strikes or do we just have to hold that?
Alright. I can definitely see how being bad both at fullscreen and point blank seems like a schizophrenic design choice, but doesn’t Zangief also have the tools to do some zoning himself and keep them just at the distance he wants? c.LP is in my opinion one of the best buttons in this game for controlling the horizontal space. And between c.HP, s.LP and j.SPD you’ve got the air covered better than most. Once you get them in the corner I feel like you can control your opponent’s movement VERY well.
I have huge problems versus people up close but it’s almost always my own fault that they end up there, due to missing my anti air or getting greedy instead of calmly just zoning them. My worst match-up, excepting the two obvious ones, is Cammy, since she gets in for free on me with ex Cannon strike. (Haven’t checked the hitboxes yet to see if it’s even worth to anti air, but even then it’s hard to react to.) The rest of the cast I get to bully once I have them where I want.
This is what I’m worried about if you make him good point blank again; You lose that sweet-spot he has now which his entire gameplan is about, a gameplan that makes Zangief a very interesting character. I’d rather see them buff him in other ways to make that gameplan easier to execute. Like I said before, he definitely needs to get some better stuff but we need to be careful lest we ruin what, In my humble opinion, is a great character design.
I Hate to harp on about this, but this is a meaningless assertion based on the previous games. Zangief isn’t supposed to be anything other than what the designers intended him to be in THIS game. You’re projecting your expectations of Gief instead of seeing what Capcom tried to do here.
Kanalgravare, we talked about this earlier. If gief is supposed to be what his designers wanted him to be then they did a good job. Combofiend has stated multiple times prior to being hired by capcom how much he hates zangief and that’s exactly who was in charge of “balancing” him.
If you enjoy the character, by all means, keep playing. Have fun simultaneously losing to zoning and rushdown.
Oh and to answer your question about cammy the only way to punish her is with correctly timed v skill into spd. Its imperitive that you don’t flex after or you’ll only get 50 damage instead of an spd attempt. Just don’t use it too much or you’ll build up enough white health to die when you do get hit once! So much for having an “iron” body.