You should stare fiercely at him.
You mean I should just attack as if he’s not Zangief? SFIV taught me to play a defensive game against him and here, whatever I do seems to be punishable by a reversal SPD. I fear for my life that a reversal SPD will come out of nowhere in between my blockstrings and as you all know, a Bison without blockstrings is like a bird without wings.
Nono don’t push ha ha. You can MAYBE do EX DR because Giefs will try to AA with Lariat, so you can bait that out. But that’s a bit of a waste of meter. Psycho Axe is a big no, because if Gief is hanging back, he is waiting to absorb your axe with v-skill. Scissors and regular DR are useless. Blast isn’t too bad but he can Lariat through it or even v-skill absorb and punish with SPD. Dash is out of the question as well as you’re going to get jabbed into a mixup. Max range crMK into LP Inferno is punishable with SPD.
The best thing you can do is annoy him with a few sHP pokes. He will at some point try to jump over it or use his own sHP to armor through and counter poke. Be ready for that and get a knock down. Then you’re in.
Oh and maybe try EX Blast from mid screen. A lot of Giefs expect you to dash after the EX Blast and they will Lariat through the fireball and hit you. If you can bait that out you can punish with slide. Once again, that’s a waste of meter if he just blocks but it’s worth checking him with that once.
And to be honest I struggle in this matchup but LES told me to check out his CFN replays against Brutus to get some sense of how to play the matchup. Maybe look into that. I think his CFN is OCV_LES.
Am I supposed to press HP as soon as I see Gief’s wiffed HP? Which frames have armor? Also, should my pressure after getting a knockdown be any different considering it’s Zangief I’m fighting?
Yeah you can whiff punish his sHP with sHP xx HP Inferno. That’s the best option. If you have trouble with that, try Shadow Axe, it’s a bit faster and pretty easy to do. His sHP has armor from frame 3. If Gief knows you want to sHP, he can absorb it with his armor and punish you by releasing the sHP immediately so be mindful of that, especially when he’s got v-trigger cuz sHP into v-trigger is death. A good way to keep him in check is to poke with sMK and crMP as well, so if he armor through it you have time to block.
For pressure, just do a tight string, a throw or a tick throw. You can do the Bison shimmy with crLP then walk back but not too often as if he reads it he can SPD you. Don’t go for really large frame traps, it’s not worth it. Just do the tightest and longest string you can to build gray life. That plus the gray life he gets from using v-skill will make your pokes more dangerous. Being greedy will get you killed. Let Gief give you an opportunity for a punish instead of fishing for it.
LES mentionned crMK to deal with sHP because his armor is upper body only. I’d suggest using that on reaction only as doing crMK pre-emptively to keep Gief away is not that great, he can hop through it with f+sMK.
Excellect advice! Thanks again fellow Bison player.