Hello everyone,
I’ve heard a lot of talk about “how good” Geiger is, and a lot of that talk is centered around his anti-airs. His anti-airs don’t seem that powerful to me though as someone who primarily played Guile in Street Fighter. Flash gear is obviously a fantastic anti-air for when you have your charge, but there are plenty of situations that require you to walk forward, forcing you to lose your charge. You might, for instance, be following a delayed time spiral to apply some mix-up pressure. Alternatively, your opponent might move back a bit from 3/4 screen in order to safely jump forward over an active time spiral. The only way to keep your opponent from advancing to 1/2 screen in this situation is by moving forward to anti-air. Geiger’s step kick, however, is too slow and too cumbersome to be used to move forward in this instance.
My understanding is that without his charge, Geiger can either go air to air with his jumping A or backfist (forward A) if the opponent starts to counter jumping A by doing his jumping attacks early. The opponent of course can counter Geiger’s backfist by doing his jumping attack late. Geiger still has the advantage in this situation though because he doesn’t have to backfist unless he sees his opponent whiff their attack in the air. Still, this doesn’t seem like the shut-down defense I’ve come to expect from Guile or even other Fantasy Strike characters. In Street Fighter 2, Guile could use his standing strong punch as a guaranteed close up anti-air, similar to Grave’s knife hand (neutral A). From a distance, Guile could “trip” jumping opponents out of their landing frame with his crouching forward kick, similar to Grave’s sweep kick (back A).
I can understand forcing Geiger to rely on these weaker anti-airs when he’s trying to apply pressure by moving forward, but are these really my best options when my opponent jumps forward over a time spiral after moving himself just beyond 3/4 screen? Help with this matter would be greatly appreciated.