I might just suck (new to SSF2T in general) but I have a lot of trouble countering Blanka as Zangief. I was unaware that his D+FP in mid air could stop the horizontal roll until my last match and the general way Blanka plays seems hard to approach. His normals seem to keep me away (again, maybe I suck or it’s psychological, I don’t know for a fact that he counters me).
c.FK seems to beat electricity at far range and U,D+FP seems to beat the roll, but it’s tricky to time and angle those just right in the middle of a fight. Any tips on what to look for and other suggestions for countering? I don’t care how hard the counter is, or even if a counter for a certain move has like a 3 frame window, knowing the options would help as lot… as impossible as some may be.
Like, what stops Blanka from just holding DB and waiting for you? If you jump he verticals, if you walk forward he horizontals and ricochets to safety and you take the block damage, and if you jump in he electrocutes? It feels like a pretty solid defense unless I’m missing a bigger picture.
Again, fairly new to this, I didn’t really play much except Alpha 3 and Third Strike, so forgive my ignorance on what may be a well known issue or non-existent one.
Also, I heard Vega is hell for Gief. I’ve yet to encounter a good Vega player and I can’t imagine why other than his normal moves and wall jump open arms attack (don’t know exact name). Is there more to it?
Nope, that’s it. If you’re playing offline, the claw player should be able to stop your jump-ins almost all the time. And he can poke you away or slide if you lariat. And he can beat just about all of your moves with wall dives if timed right (although most claw players are actually pretty bad at that). But of course, if he messes up (or you outguess him) and you close in, you should almost always take the round with tick spds. That should generally happen maybe twice every 6 rounds, which is why the odds aren’t in Zangief’s favor.
Tick SPDs? I’ve heard of ticks (and I may very well be accidently doing them cause I SPD at fortunate times against friends) but what is a “tick?”
Nevermind, I just googled it and I do that. Once I noticed I couldn’t “combo” into the SPD (kept whiffing) I slowed down a bit and I guess that’s a tick.
Also, get on GGPO and watch CigarBob. His gief is pretty solid and by watching a live match you can pick his brain after and possibly even get in some matches with him. You can also find me on GGPO if you like. My Gief is nowhere near as good as Bob’s for sure but I cant teach you the basics.
Get in and stay in, blanka wins this because he can keep you out with normals and randomly blanka ball fairly safely. Spamming c.jab is a good way to keep him from using the ball, also try not to be predictable with your jumpins/lariats. Once you are in tick throw as much as possible.
Get in and stay in? It seems like when I do that he either wakes up with electricity if I’m too close (if you even CAN wake up with it?) or does the horizontal ball to push me back away. Or can he not really wake up with those and if I just keep the pressure up with c.jab and tick throws then I can get him?
I watched the youtube video of Pony, I’ve seen that before. As far as I can tell I try to employ the same tactics but my tick SPDs are not as reliable and that makes a world of difference. After seeing that, if I can get tick SPDs down I’d feel pretty good about trying more ranked matches and getting my feet wet at tournys.
Oh, and my computers down (posting from Wii) but if you wanted to play Sakura my tag on live is Smurv. Just send me a message or request and lemme know who it is and I’ll be up for some games. I think Sirlin himself is on the leaderboards but I’ll probably never face him. I wanna say I’ve seen Cigar Bob on live before (name sounds familiar) but I’ve never had the chance to play him.
And Blanka is still my bane until I get some more matches on figuring him out. Honda’s hand slap and Chun Li’s lightning legs and jump kicks are causing me problems. Makes me feel like a scrub cause I’m usually pretty good at noticing counters but this stuff gives me problems.
What Id like to know is how to stop a Blanka how DOESN’T know the matchup, but still does enough good things to win the match. Like random Blanka jump-ins even though he doesn’t need to. How does Gief anti-air anything in this game especially Blanka?
Punch lariat from a ducking position is one of my favorites. Also, if he’s jumping in from close you can green fist under his jump if you are early enough.
If Blanka does his Jumping in Roundhouse up close, Zangief’s Jumping in Down+Fierce beats it cleanly everytime. Do it early though. However, if he does it from far, he will beat your Jumping in Down+Fierce. If it is far though, you could sweep him.
I don’t know if Jumping in Down+Fierce will beat Blanka’s Jumping in Fierce, but you can Lariat the Fierce. Jumping in Down+Fierce won’t beat Blanka’s Jumping in Forward. If he does that though, just block, and do a reversal SPD as he has to do it early, which gives you a frame advantage when he lands.
Any other jump ins besides the Fierce and Roundhouse you can counter SPD or throw.
Even though you win out in damage whenever you do guess right, the fact the you still have to guess his jump-in seems to be something that favors blanka especially because he has the advantage on the ground. Basically Blanka doesn’t have to do much to win the match but randomly jumping in is a nice random backdoor strat to throw at the gief once in a while since he has to try and select which air normal to beat, at least that’s how I understand what you just explained…that’s gay.
The first thing you have to do as Zangief against Blanka is nullify his Horizontal Roll by spamming cr.jab. You can also mix that up with Lariat which does more damage against the Roll but is slower to startup. Once Blanka can’t roll forward, he can only play footsies (sweep, sliding cr.fierce, cr.fierce, ect) which gives Zangief the opportunity to jump in, again j.d+fierce is excellent for beating Blanka’s footsies, or f+fierce which is excellent for hopping over footsies and getting in range for a SPD or sweep. Which then leaves Blanka with the only viable option of jumping in and ticking or hop shenanigans. No matter what though, Zangief players have to get good at countering Blanka’s jump ins.
Learn reversal SPD and Super. Learn standing Running Grab. The first is crucial because it murders attempted meaty electricity. I have killed a good number of Blanka’s who have tried to tick the last of my life with an Electricity by waking up into a Final Atomic Buster reversal.
Running Grab beats Blanka’s Super clean once he starts moving forward, and if your timing is superb so do all of his special grabs. This is mainly useful against more scrubby oponents, but you will see more scrubs than real skilled opponents anyways.
As a blanka player, my advice is to just be patient, and be damn sure when you jump in you’re either too close for st.strong or st.fierce to start SPD games. You can’t lariat whenever because you’ll eat pokes/slides. This is a rough rough match for gief. Honestly it’s pretty much all mindgames. Try not to let the blanka player set the pace. Smart blankas will turtle this matchup.
I actually like to bait grab whiffs by hopping out and fierceballing while gief is in recovery.
This matchup sucks for Gief.
Yeah, this is all true. Blanka can turtle this matchup though, which means he can stand there and counter gief’s attempts to get inside with st.short, st.strong. st. fierce. So many of that beats gief’s attacks. st.short beats the green hand, and gief can almost never jump in on blanka.
I was disappointed to discover that Blanka’s crouching fierce slide usually lasts longer than Gief’s kick lariat low invincibility, and I don’t think hop does much to even this matchup out, so unfortunately I guess Blanka still kills Zangief.
I haven’t tried this out, but I’m pretty sure all the knock-down slides (eg Dhalsim, Claw) last longer than Zangief’s invincibility. With the exception maybe of Dhalsim’s Forward slide. I gotta try this.
Unless you’re a top gief player or have a lot of patience. This is going to be a tough match to win.
There is so much to this match. You’ll pick up pieces here and there from the better players. I play blanka, so I know what it is like from the other end.
Send me a FR if you’re on XBL, I’ll help you out.
Here is two tips I can offer:
1- Learn to control the direction of your spinner. [media=youtube]VQvBuOdNF2Y[/media]
2- (For the F’ing love of God) Don’t back yourself into the corner. Most Geif players land up doing this by the end of theround. This makes my life very easy. I’ll have a high % chance to now win. I can apply traps and zones with less fear. If you do manage to knock me down or close the distance, I have the WHOLE screen to run away (with back hops & jumps) and reestablish myself.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying throw yourself at blanka (don’t jump in). Try to hold your ground. Take small steps and try to slowly push Blanka to the corner (i.e. Crouching jabs > quater/ half step farward > repeat). Once I am there, I’ll have no where to run.
Take the whole match if you have to. Once you get in, you’ll kill me really quickly with the combination of controlled spinners, super, and kick combos (st.lk > cr.rh).
I had kinda figured there was a trick to where the SPD landed, but I wasn’t reliably landing it where I wanted it everytime. And in that video is he using jab SPDs? I guess Gief doesn’t bounce as far with the little one so it’s easier to be RIGHT THERE and the damage difference isn’t huge I don’t think.
And since you were addressing the Blanka issue Fatboy, I’m assuming you were telling me about the XBL thing. I appreciate the offer, and I’ll definitely hit you up this week to try that out if you’re up for whooping on a guy who’s eager to try to take his Gief to tourny level. My tag is Smurv, but I’ll still let you know in the voice message it’s me in case you don’t see this message.
Well, come to think of it, if you don’t see this message there’s no need to tell you IN the message about what I’ll do if you don’t see this, is there?
