Street Fighter 6’s Zangief, and most versions of the character, generally gets most of his damage off of big command throws when the opponent makes a mistake. Though he definitely can perform some combos himself, the long, swaggy combo stuff usually isn’t his thing.
This week, a handful of lab monsters have decided to try and shatter that perception of the large grappler, and somehow the Gief army has come together at the same time and uploaded several new discoveries with the fighter that have opened the doors for some absolutely wild combos.
Following this stuff closely myself, things began when FGC lab monster Javits shared a clip on Twitter with a new combo route for Zangief that does great damage. FGC lore keeper HiFight also shared a clip of top Zangief player Snake Eyez using a very similar combo route, and these two clips went up completely unaware of each other.
The clip with Snake Eyez shows him on stream landing the new Zangief combo. After a punish counter leg drop, Zangief is able to hit his down-forward medium punch and cancel into level 2 super, and because of the height at which it hits, the new sequence allows Gief to follow up with an extended Drive Rush combo for very good damage.
Javits’ combo took it a step further and used a low-to-the-ground fully charged drop kick to bounce the opponent off the wall, then hit an air headbutt before firing into the new down-forward medium punch tech. When all is said and done, this combo dishes out 6,225 damage, which is a new record for Zangief’s damage output in Street Fighter 6.
THAT COMBO pic.twitter.com/xU0YC538tS
— HiFight(ハイファイト) (@HiFightTH) January 18, 2024
Zangief’s most damaging combo in SF6 (so far)!
6225 damage#SF6_Zangief pic.twitter.com/ipzFlJKL5V
— Javits Arias (@jav1ts) January 19, 2024
The combo Javits shared was the record at the time, but Twitter user gokubutohadoken came forward and shared a crazy set up that allows Zangief to stack up even more damage. In the corner, Zangief can create a situation (with the proper circumstances) where he can reset the opponent, then hit them with a meaty fully charged drop kick that, if it hits as a counter hit and is done properly, will splat them against the wall and allow him to hit them with a Drive Impact.
As shown in the clip, if the opponent is burnt out, this means they’re getting stunned in this situation. With proper spacing and timing, gokubutohadoken is able to hit a jump in at the tail end of the stun, then fire into an extended Drive Rush combo that ends up netting 6,845 damage.
Gokubutohadoken also put together another combo that can be done against a whiffed OD Flash Kick from Guile, and utilizes some of the same concepts to score 6,267.
ドロップキックバグ デカキャラ限定 コンボ 6845 ダメージ Dゲージ2.8本から Dropkick glitch#SF6 #SF6_Zangief combo pic.twitter.com/D8sQa9VcWA
— 極太波動拳 (@gokubutohadoken) January 9, 2024
6267 Glitchless combo#SF6 #SF6_Zangief pic.twitter.com/Mjp2NhaLHX
— 極太波動拳 (@gokubutohadoken) January 19, 2024
Players continue to explore what all Street Fighter 6 has to offer, and so far, it seems like there’s always something new to stumble onto.