The Gief thread

[Rickstah]

Just started to play Gief, so I wanted to see what strats people are using with him.

Any tips on how to get around shotos or Guile?

[Jorant]

Am I the only one that thinks O.Gief is better than N?

[jchensor]

I won't go into much detail here, but against Shotos, Lariat works wonders. Getting up to Shotos isn't a problem with Zangief, especially Shotos that throw lots of Fireballs.

Guile, however, is another problem. Guile can easily follow Sonic Booms to punish Lariats. Jumping over Sonic Booms usually gets you to eat a Standing Roundhouse or something instead. So what do you do?

It may not sound like a good advice, but the real answer is this: Block the Sonic Boom. Oftentimes, in my matches vs. Guile with Zangief, I will walk up and block 4 to 6 Sonic Booms in a row. And that's fine. Zangief can afford the block damage (one SPD will catch you up and more). What this does, in this match up, is trying to get Guile into a comfort zone. First of all, if you walk up and block a Sonic Boom, and Guile chases it to Sweep your Lariat, he just put himself into a much unfavorable sitaution. So once he learns not to chase the Sonic Boom because you are blocking, he'll stay still and pump our more Sonic Booms. This lets you Lariat through a Sonic Boom every so often.

But the main goal is this. Once you block 3 or 4 Sonic Booms, Guiles get into a comfort zone of trying to pump out Sonic Booms AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. Otherwise you do get closer in between every Sonic Boom. This does create a situation where Guile starts to throw the Sonic Booms more predictably. When this happens, you can usually jump over a Sonic Boom BEFORE he throws it, giving him no time to anti-air. He will still be able to Block, but you are in on him now, and the game begins from there.

The next level of this mind game is Guile knowing you will Jump in on him eventually. If Guiles start to fake Sonic Booms to make you Jump, you can just start to walk-in closer. Learn Guile's Low Forward distance. Since Guile has no freedom to walk around without losing his anti-air, he will stay in place most times. If he walks backwards, hat's good, you're getting him into the corner. If he stays in place, stand right outside his Crouch Forward range. From here, you have the best chance to walk up SPD (after whiffed Crouch Forwards) or walk-up and Sweep (to catch him trying to poke you) or get ready to jump over a Sonic Boom. This is the distance that Zangief best has a chance to fight Guile, and that's the distance you want to get to. Getting there is the hard part, but hopefully the strategy I wrote above will help.

Also, remember, this is how I personally fight Guile. And it's certainly not the only way. Other people probably have better advice than I, since I'm definitely not a Zangief expert. But I've had my share of success playing hte match that way.

- James
http://jchensor.blogspot.com

[margalis]

What is the difference between O. Gief and N. Gief really? N. Gief has a super and the green glove. The latter is nice to do after a tick to get back in quicker, and the former does great damage and can be ticked into fairly easily. I don't remember anything O. Gief has that is better than N. Gief.

On Zangief vs. Guile I also don't use lariats very often. If I do use them it is at midrange where Guile can't effectively follow up. My main strategy in this match is to use low roundhouse to trade or beat a Guile low forward. You can do this by doing a midrange kick lariat and hittin low roundhouse right afterwards, or just by getting close enough and blocking a boom or two.

Once you've knocked Guile over you've got him in a situation where you can walk up and 360, walk up and low roundhouse, etc. If you catch him with a second low roundhouse you should be close enough for a crossup or tick.

The important thing is to not get frustrated because though it can take a while to get in you aren't really taking much damage. Zangief's low roundhouse really dominates Guile's low forward, it will almost always either trade, stuff it or hit it on retraction.

Edit: For Shotos just lariat through fireballs. Remember that the last rotation of the lariat has a lot better range than it looks, so a lot of times you will lariat through fireballs and your last spinning fist will nail them just as they were about to recover. Really fireballs shouldn't be a problem. Don't bother with the green glove against fireballs, it's hard to time and there isn't really much point. Also jumping fierce has deceptively good range.

I don't know what you are having problems with but it shouldn't be fireballs.

[Eric H]

I have barely been getting the hang of using Zangief. Over the years I went from hating him to realizing that he is the best brawler in the game. As far as tips for when you face him, the key strategy is dont let him get close to you. His moves take up a lot of your energy bar and most of his moveset is done when he is close to you. As long as you keep him away from you, you increase your chances of winning.

[Slacks]

I have barely been getting the hang of using Zangief. Over the years I went from hating him to realizing that he is the best brawler in the game. As far as tips for when you face him, the key strategy is dont let him get close to you. His moves take up a lot of your energy bar and most of his moveset is done when he is close to you. As long as you keep him away from you, you increase your chances of winning.

we have a genius here folks!:wink:

[Intercepter]

I have barely been getting the hang of using Zangief. Over the years I went from hating him to realizing that he is the best brawler in the game. As far as tips for when you face him, the key strategy is dont let him get close to you. His moves take up a lot of your energy bar and most of his moveset is done when he is close to you. As long as you keep him away from you, you increase your chances of winning.



Funny.....i do the exact opposite. :)

[Kyokuji]

'Gief's big problem is that he has a lot of really terrible match-ups:

Chun'
Honda
O. Sagat
Guile
Dhalsim

I find you have to be really good at scouting fireballs with his green hand for any of those match-ups (Honda aside, which is more lariat luck dependant) to be winnable.

Eric should join the Gamepro staff. He'd fit in nicely there.

[SNkNuT]

I just picked gief up and so far i'm having trouble doing the piledriver after a cr. short or toward tick. is there a specific timing to doing it?

[cam347]

AA standing jab is your friend

crouching jab so spammable and stops anything just about lol

[Kyokuji]

is there a specific timing to doing it
Remember, you're not trying to chain it. You're just waiting until the second the recovery is done.

[cam347]

Zangief in yellow = Banana Pants
Zangief in bright green (not CE) = Cucumber pants

ask your lady which one she prefers and the Gief will deliver

[jaminbenjamin]

If you get his whiff animation (super and ST versions) then you are doing the motion too soon (while the opponent is still in block stun). If you are getting a crouching/standing/jumping punch, then you are doing the motion too slowly or incorrectly.

I usually hit the opponent with a crouching short with my joystick in the down-back position, then go in a complete circle (doesn't matter which direction) and end up in down-back again, then hit punch. While this doesn't help much with walk-up 360s, it's probably the easiest way to do his SPD for someone just learning the motion.

[caliagent#3]

'Gief's big problem is that he has a lot of really terrible match-ups:

Chun'
Honda
O. Sagat
Guile
Dhalsim

I find you have to be really good at scouting fireballs with his green hand for any of those match-ups (Honda aside, which is more lariat luck dependant) to be winnable.

Eric should join the Gamepro staff. He'd fit in nicely there.

You forgot fei. Geif can't jump at all against him. He has to stick to trying to sweep for damage since it beat's fei's c.fierce, but fei can counter with c.strong or far overhead to counter hit geifs extended leg.

[Kyokuji]

Yeah, you're right.
Slipped my mind.

[thekingofallblacks]

Dhalsim is the worst match up for gief guile I don't think is that hard compared to Dhalsim. The only way to defeat Dhalsim is when he goes to hit you try to get in that hit right when he streches. I noticed if you pressure gulie he's not that bad of a match up.

[UltraDavid]

Something I've always wondered about is the lariat vs headbutt/Blanka roll/psycho crusher, cause sometimes the lariat wins, sometimes it loses. How does this work? Is it random? Does the lariat only win when Gief's hand is out against the opponent at the exact instant the opponent's attack hits? Is kick or punch lariat better, or do they work the same? And so forth.

[Professor Jones]

Gief's lariat will get countered by honda's headbutt if :
- it comes in contact with it when it's in an inactive frame (only a blue box is present)
- it comes in contact with it when the hitting arm is at the opposite side (only one arm hits, and since gief is spinning, the "active" arm can be on the left or on the right when the headbutt comes in contact with the lariat)

On the other hand, it will counter honda's headbutt if the hitting arm is present AND on the correct side (for example, if the headbutt comes from the right, gief's active arm must be on the right too in order for it to make contact).

If we look at the lariat's frames, we can see that it approximatively is inactive 50 % of the time of its duration. During that active time, the hitting arm is on the right side 50% of the time, and on the left side the other 50%. That leaves gief with 25% chances of countering honda's headbutt with a lariat.

As for wich lariat is more effective, I'd say that judging by the frame data the % of chances of successfully countering a headbutt is the same for the two versions.

[Goryus]

Gief. :lovin:

Lariat stuff...

Punch lariat beats Psycho Crusher 100% of the time.
Punch lariat beats fierce headbutt/ball roll ~50% of the time, but is much more reliable versus jab/strong ones. They're slower, so they have a harder time hitting him during the time in between his arm rotation. For the fierce ones, you can up your odds by moving away from them as he spins, but this gives up the initiative in the hope that they'll come sailing across the screen. Of course, punch lariat will always win if done with reversal timing.

Kick lariat loses to Psycho Crusher, but has similar performance to the punch lariat vs. blanka/honda. Oh, and it goes through both versions of Sagat's tiger shot (high and low), making it by far the best choice against him. Kick lariat through one tiger shot, and down roundhouse will take out the next one, even if you started from the other side of the screen.

Versus Guile, I find trading down roundhouse with a sonic boom to be the best way to get in. Stay just out of low forward range. If he throws a boom from the starting distance, short walk + down roundhouse will trade (even at the very beginning of the match). If he tries to poke you away with a forward, roundhouse will beat it. Next best is predicting a boom, and swatting it away with the green hand of death straight into pile driver. ...but, it's harder on guile than most other characters, because he recovers from his boom so fast.

Just be wary, because Guile can punish whiffed down roundhouses on reaction with cr. forward, so your spacing has to be really good.

[Len Momono]

I think that he's more a fighter of counter attacking,and dominate The SPD and you will be a great Zangief user.

[Kuprin]

Gief's lariats always have the same frame pattern though, right? In which case it is all a matter of timing, when exactly you do the lariat relative to the ball/headbut/psycho crusher. It's probably a pretty short window though.

[NKI]

Gief's lariats always have the same frame pattern though, right? In which case it is all a matter of timing, when exactly you do the lariat relative to the ball/headbut/psycho crusher. It's probably a pretty short window though.I could be wrong, but I don't think many people know this: the hit box for Zangief's punch lariat actually grows wider as Zangief spins. (He rotates 4 times, and each rotation has a slightly wider hit box.)

This is easily noticeable if you have the opponent stand still as you do a stationary punch lariat from max range. The first three rotations will whiff, and then the fourth one hits. If you take just a small step closer, the first two rotations will whiff, and the third one will hit. Take a small step closer and only the first rotation will whiff. Take a small step closer and it will hit right away.

[Tiger Knee]

The Banishing Flat (green hand thingy) is a great move IMO, because it gets you so far forwards. Using it to counter fireballs, you just have to anticipate, rather than hitting it on reaction like the Spinning Clothesline. It's good for getting you just within jab SPD range though, with or without a fireball. You can grab them into Zangief's super off it too, if you do the motion fast enough.

It also goes into combos well, like jumping Fierce Splash, crouching jab x2, Banishing Flat. Or cross-up Splash, cr jab x3, or even cross up splash cr jab x2, st jab x2 on big characters I think.

[UltraDavid]

Green hand is almost a good move, but not quite. Its startup means that you can't use it on reaction, or even when a fireball is anywhere near you. Its recovery means that you'd better actually hit a fireball with it because if you whiff, you can get hit by another fireball or swept or any number of other things, and if you hit the opponent non-meaty and he blocks, he gets frame advantage. It also kinda sucks in combos because it doesn't knock down. In general with Gief, when you do a combo and don't want to end it with a tick into command grab, you want it to knock the opponent down so that you can get better positioning. Ending a combo with green hand means that you're left at a distance with the opponent standing, aka you're back at square one. It's fine to put in a combo when it'll kill the opponent, but in general your combos should end with either crouching roundhouse or kick lariat (kick lariat because it hits lower and you recover faster so you have time to get into a better position).

You should use green hand immediately after every command grab you get in order to move you closer, but apart from that, it should be pretty rarely used. It beats things like Blanka balls from max distance on Blanka's wakeup and it's a good way to punish things like whiffed flash kicks, but as far as using it to get around fireballs, do it occasionally, just not very often.

[Tiger Knee]

Are you sure the recovery is such a problem, because I use it all the time like a tick? Maybe it's the range, because I always try to get just the edge of the hand to make the opponent block, but still be in range of a jab SPD to grab a punch or kick as it starts to extend. The SPD timed to come out at the end of the animation seems to suck any normal moves in before they start hitting, and even go through fireballs? What I see stopping it is reversals and counter throws.

[UltraDavid]

Yep, it can be used as a tick from max distance. When I said, "If you hit the opponent non-meaty and he blocks, he gets frame advantage," I should have said, "If you the hit the opponent non-meaty and from closer than max-range, he gets frame advantage." This is useful super-rarely, like if you use the green hand as a max-range meaty to tick into spd against Blanka or to stuff a fireball such that your hand actually touches the opponent's hands. If you can help it, though, you don't want green hand to touch the opponent when you stuff a fireball because that means that you're giving him a chance to escape. If your green hand stuffs the fireball and you just miss hitting him, that's perfect because you get a free command grab that can't be escaped; if the green hand hits the opponent, it will be a tick, and any tick can be escaped from with a reversal-timed throw-invincible move.

[Tiger Knee]

Oh OK, thankyou, that's very well explained.

[BKB]

You should use green hand immediately after every command grab you get in order to move you closer,

..and after every far sweep. :wgrin:

Is meaty green hand safe? I use it as a tick sometimes with decent results.. whiff green hand after SPD to get close, then meaty green hand tick into SPD is a ghetto trick i use sometimes.

..and like you said, after blocked flash kicks/DPs/etc for knockdown. Good after Guile super too. Also buff way to score a knockdown if someone does jump-back attack against your wake-up SPD. Not guaranteed or anything, but real sweet when it works.

Random stuff that i don't think has been mentioned yet.. someone correct me if I'm wrong.

The SPD will naturally drift to the left. If you finish with :uf: :r: or :df: you can make it drift to the right instead. Real useful if they're cornered.

MP throw sets up a sweet crossup that people have a hard time blocking (for me anyhow).

Crossup, d.mk, lariat is good dizzy combo.. Goddard special?

MK poke is good move. Snuff FBs and stuff.

Safe jump knees and splash are your friends. Best friends.

Any crouching punch will hit hurricane kicks for free.

Hitting a dhalsim limb with psychic up+hp stomach crunch for the dizzy is fucking hilarious. :lol:

[Mixup]

How do you counter an opponents normal attacks with spd? I try to grab the extended hitbox of the normal before it fully animates. I'm in the dark when it comes to active hitboxes/vulnerable hitbox. anyone feel like schooling an og scrub?

[jchensor]

No matter what, you can't grab limbs in the game. You still need to grab them. So you have two choices: either grab them before their move comes out (which happens a lot on tick attempts), or let the normal move whiff and follow it in and SPD before they recover. But you'll never be able to actually grab a limb. They don't really ever "extend" their range to be grabbed.

- James
http://jchensor.blogspot.com

[Mixup]

thanks:china:

[Mixup]

Dhalsim is the worst match up for gief guile I don't think is that hard compared to Dhalsim. The only way to defeat Dhalsim is when he goes to hit you try to get in that hit right when he streches. I noticed if you pressure gulie he's not that bad of a match up.


I'm getting beasted easily in this matchup.

My friend doesn't even really play sim and it's pretty easy to see this fight sucks.

The only attack that i've hit sim with is s.forward in the situation that you're describing. I wonder what else i can counter hit him with:xeye:

After that beatdown i looked up gian dhalsim vs gunze 'Gief

Gunze basically went crazy with jump in trade fk. Every hit traded in giefs favor but i have to question if thats a consistent trade.

Anyone have exp in this matchup?

[jchensor]

This fight is not pretty.

But mostly, from a screen away, you have to begin your slow advance. Get lucky with hitting punches with Crouch Roundhouse (sometimes trading, but you gain a tiny bit of gorund on that trade) and hitting standing kicks with Low Fierce.

The key here is finding a chance to get close enough to jump and start getting Dhalsim to panic. Jump with an attack and immdiately landing with 360 + Kick, for example (if Dhalsim takes the hit you grab him, if he blocks, you land with the running grab and may catch him off guard). The problem is that good Dhalsims know every anti-air needed for every distance that makes Zangeif almost helpless (see Gian).

Zangief CAN beat good Dhalsim players, no question. Anyone who has seen the great Gief players in Japan have seen some miraculous wins (like Pony and Gunze) against Dhalsims. But if you pit the best Dhalsim vs. the best Zangief, I don't think Zangief has much of a chance at all.

- James
http://jchensor.blogspot.com

[UltraDavid]

It's a pretty bad matchup, definitely.

You have to know which moves beat or trade with Dhalsim's moves. Crouching roundhouse, crouching strong, crouching jab, standing jab, standing strong, standing forward, standing roundhouse, jumping roundhouse, jumping down+forward,jumping forward, and lariat are all important and all beat different things. Use those moves to convince Dhalsim to stop poking you out and make him let you bulldog your way in.

Running bear grab is definitely useful here. There's a range where it's hard for the Dhalsim player to know whether to use his regular or back+x normals, and you can make that quite annoying for him.

Make sure when you're ticking into spd that you tick yourself out of Dhalsim's normal throw range, which is longer than most.

[Mixup]

very useful posts. I'm picking gief just to do what he does best and work for the win. the more i know always the better. much appreciated.:pleased: