Also, if they are super predictable with their jumps, you can jump and meet them in the air with your own J.Roundhouse.
If you want to get MAD advanced, they tend to Jump Kick kinda early in the air, to give you less chance to walk up closer. You CAN actually distance yourself just perfectly so that you stand RIGHT outside their Jump Roundhouse range and SPD them right when they land. That’s LOADS of fun, and I can only imagine their expressions whenever I grab them with that. 
Oh man that sounds awesome, I’m definitely going to want to try that. Unfortunately I’m still stuck on the damn 360 pad right now and can’t reliably pull off the SPD every single time I want to, although mostly I seem to struggle on the 2P side.
For some reason I can to ticks and stuff on the 1P a lot.
yeah the good old let em wiff there jumpin so i can spd them trick… loads of fun and been around since WW. was using it to own some fools who were a bit too aggro for there own good last night, haha. also another nonstandard 'olskool trick is if they like to jumpin with very early timings versus grounded normals, you can duck at the last moment making there attack wiff then spd them for free.
i find that punishing wiffed jumpins with spd is easiest against blanka and other characters that have jumps with little horizontal range as well as those that have jumpin attacks that dont extend out far (ie. blanka j.HK)
lol i love the (real) gief none of that BS sf4 cheese going on here pure skills is whats gonna get you the win.
-Dime
I was playing a Boxer and every time he threw a special I just did PPP lariat and it countered every time now did I just get lucky or is this known?
Also when I do a SPD’s he likes to jump a lot never had this problem in any SF so far but is it I’m doing it to fast in this game?I probably just suck.
Hey there.
After playing Street Fighter since the late 80’s, I have finally dug into Zangief. He is definitely a contender in this version of the game.
There are, of course, some bad match-ups, as we all know.
My biggest problem of late has been decent Dhalsims. Decent ones. Not great.
The thing is that they just stick their damn feet out into my face, yoga fire, repeat; if you’re in deep enough you can usually hit it with a lariat, but I have trouble getting close. When I get close, it’s usually game-over for Mr. McStretchyLimbs, but that’s the problem.
How do you get close to these guys?
Wasn’t there a trick with countering shoto jump-ins with crouching short/forward? I think it was to make your hit box appear smaller and set up an SPD.
So I’m running about 4-6 against good Guiles right now. That’s an improvement for me, but not as much of one as I’d hoped, and I think after everyone gets used to the new changes that it’ll probably fall back down a bit beyond that.
The main reason is roundhouse flash kick, which is really, really good. You can no longer try predictive lariats within a third of a screen of Guile, because roundhouse flash kick beats that (from farther out the flash kick will either whiff on your lariat or actually lose to it, but whatever, that’s never going to come up against a good Guile). You can no longer jump at a third of a screen unless it’s in reaction to a sonic boom or unless Guile is standing/jumping, because roundhouse flash kick beats that. You now have to be more wary of trying to counterpoke his normals at your regular counterpoke range, because roundhouse flash kick beats that too. If Guile is cornered and you safe jump in and he does roundhouse flash kick, well, you’re safe, but Guile is now out of the corner, and while you get to punish him, your punishment isn’t going to be as damaging as it was both position-wise and damage-wise as it would have been if he’d stayed cornered.
The other reason is the new toward+roundhouse overhead, it’s a source of a pretty significant percentage of the damage Guile can do to you now. Every time he walks up with a boom it’s now a straight-up 50/50. I’ve tried lariating to beat the overhead because I’d heard that he can’t do boom-overhead as an airtight string, but I haven’t gotten it once, and that makes me think it can be airtight. Every time he walks up to you with boom, it’s just a guess, and since neither overhead nor low attack leads to a more preferable outcome than the other, there aren’t any odds you can play other than 50/50 and what you think he’s gonna do. I think that if we were playing offline this might be different because I think I might be able to react to the overhead with a block, but whatever, we’re playing online where I can react sometimes but not usually.
Gief’s green hand has about the same usefulness here as it did in ST, which is to say not really all that much. If you guess he’s going sonic boom and do a green hand and you guessed right, hooray, but that’s not very common. Hop is good for a surprise if for some reason he’s not throwing booms, but if you’re at a range where hop won’t hit him, why is he not throwing booms? You can harass him with lariat and try to counterpoke him with your normals into holding down-back and then hop when he gets used to crouch blocking, but this kind of harassment has suddenly become a lot riskier than it was before considering the new roundhouse flash kick. And I think this is probably the same deal as the overhead thing; if we were playing offline, I think Guile would probably be able to react to the hop and flash kick me (or jump away, etc) the majority of the time.
Punch lariat doesn’t work well against crouching forward, I’ve only seen it beat crouching forward 5 times out of a week’s worth of play. Kick lariat is probably the most useful change because it’s good for lariating through booms and low forwards up into 360, but this is only useful when Guile has a boom out, because otherwise you’re asking for a flash kick.
Seriously, roundhouse flash kick takes a real big bite out of Gief’s gains.
^^^
I agree with all of that, especially with Banishing Fist still being almost as useless as it was in ST. Instead of making his Running Grab faster (it was already pretty damn fast in ST), I think Zangief needed the Fist to be faster and just as effective at killing projectiles as Honda’s Jab Torpedo. He also needs more frames of low invincibility in the Kick Lariat, not the ENTIRE Kick Lariat, but more than he has now (eg if he has 1/3 frame invincibility, make it 2/3 frame).
Ohhh, right, faster bear grab, forgot to mention that. Yeah, I’ve found that to be pretty useful actually, definitely more useful than it was in ST. Counterpoke, counterpoke, (Guile sits), bear grab! This is another thing I’m not sure would work so well offline, but online it’s a pretty solid tactic.
I’ve had success SPD’ing Guile’s overhead RH but admittedly, these were done against lesser players. The better Guile players will do this from max range but if you do notice the Guile player attempting this in SPD range, you can often grab him. You’re right, it’s just a 50/50 guess but I think as we become more adjusted to the RH being an overhead, it will help the reaction time to block it.
Guile is the one character I struggle against constantly with Zangief. I think this is arguably one of his worst match ups. I have less trouble with Blankas and Hondas.
I’m loving the bear grab.
I definitely wouldn’t knowingly pick Gief against Guile.
Just dropping in to say how much I respect talented Zangief players. I’ve always felt that he was the hardest character to play so I’m instantly impressed when I see a good Zangief in action.
This brings me to my question: Do you, as a Zangief player, feel that you put more effort into the game than other people? Is this part of the appeal? Even though I’m terrible with him, I can imagine how satisfying it must be to play him at a certain level. I’m in the process of learning him because I don’t like the feeling that my character won the match for me.
Anyway, great info in this thread. I’ll try to put it to use.
Hey Runyun don’t know if I should say thanks because I’m not sure how “talented” I am, but thanks heh.
Anyways, I guess I would say that I’m not sure I say that I put more effort into the game as other people. That is if you mean just learning the games, tricks, combos, pokes, counters etc. I think it takes time and practice for anyone to learn the game.
I will say that, in terms of certain matchups I definitely think a Zangief player has to put in a little more effort to win. When I see a high level Blanka, Akuma, Honda and Guile I find my mind having to think 10 times harder about how to win this match.
I noticed this especially when I was going for the "Masters of all things " achievement and had a relatively easy time winning with other characters without thinking as much.
For me, part of Zangief’s appeal is defintely the challenege that comes with using him and that not everyone can play it. I wouldn’t even call myself a super high level player but I can hold my own.
But I’ve always been the type of person who doesn’t always choose the mainstream characters.
I like gief because it’s satisfying when it all comes together.
I come here tonight frustrated with lightning legs and hundred hand slap.
I can’t anti-air chun at all well it seems, and if they spam lightning legs on landing then I eat it, eat chip and they just hop back and repeat.
Hundred hands is the biggest pile of wank on the planet though. I can’t see any way through it from the ground, which means I eat chip repeatedly or I try a jump in, which means I’m open for instant sumo torpedo. I know honda is a bad match for gief but is there anything I can do about hands?
Chun is a pain because I can’t seem to deal with her J.forward. I’m going to sound like the stupidest person on the planet, but when chun spams J.foward/RH in the corner there never seems to be any way to get in. Lariat is pointless. I try to walk-in and sweep and eat fireball, sweep or legs when she lands, and no point trying to beat her aerials.
just a bit frustrated tonight. I don’t think I’ve ever played worse against these stupid tactics. I know they’re being used, but I can’t seem to figure out ways round them.
any tips or advice?
Gief specialist here too… my worst matchups are Guile, Blanka, Honda, Dhalsim.
The appeal of playing Zangief as my main is simply that he’s one of the harder characters to play well. At the arcades I used to get reactions like “Wow, you use Zangief?!?!”
f.RH with Guile is slower than it was in ST despite being an overhead, so I agree with however said tht blocking it on reaction might be something some players are going to start learning how to do. If someone has the frame data, it would actually be useful to know how much start up f.RH has as It would be possible to measure it against other overheads that people tend to block on reaction in other games, and see wether or not it’s likely people will be able to eventually deal with it by blocking it high on reaction.
Startup info for Guile’s overhead is in Sirlin’s changelog.
If you are talking about when Chun starts jumping back while she is in the corner and hiting Forward while you end up right outside her leg’s reach then you have 4 options
#1 is to jump straight up in synch with her and Fierce chop that stupid mindless shit. Beats it clean
#2 is to keep doing punch lariats while slightly moving back and forth with your goal being to punch her ankle. If you keep doing lariat you will eventualy hit her but you also leave yourself open for a low attack. If you get the lariat to conect it will also beat it clean
#3 is to green hand in while she is on the way up really early. I’m talking like right when she lands start your green hand. This gets you diectly beneath her but you still have the problem of the attack that is coming. From here you can decide wether you want to trade with lariat for a knockdown that opens an opportunity for a late jumping knee that will stuff a reversal upkick attempt ( not sure about her new toys now though ) or, try for the standing jab
#4 is to jump up twoards her with an immediate jumping strong chop . Like in the previouse mentioned option you want to do it super early
But try these things out and see for yourself if they work cause maybe I’m just full of shit lol
I just started getting into Big Z recently because I broke my thumb and can’t use the d-pad! I had to resort to getting a stick (a Hori, but not the one with the Sanwa parts).
After not playing with a stick since playing in the arcades many years ago, my shoryuken timing left something to be desired. So, that left me with a couple choices: use the “easy-mode” charge-move type players or try out the “big throw damage” players.
I had always avoided Z because he just seemed so slow and bulky. This new iteration is amazingly fun to play with.
To answer your initial question, yes, I think it takes a lot of effort (physical and mental) to win, but it’s more rewarding. Who wants to hold down-back all day?
Remember that you can use the same motion ofr the SPD on both the 1p and 2p sides. I use the same motion myself and it’s much easier than trying to use two different motions for each side.