I think Doom/Dante in a vacuum provides the best support by a bit of a margin. Two of the best assist bearing characters in the game. One of which has TAC infinities. Granted Strange/Dante can provide the same sort of support as the Doctor can solve the damage problem of some characters with FoF loops and a different set of capable assists. (Side note: Do you have any FoF tech for a DHC from million dollars using seven rings? >_> You can abuse the spin state to link Impact Palm…ANYWAY)
Doom/Vergil seems to be the popular “Tournament Shell” that is doing work these days, but as has been discussed before it’s just kinda slapped together. So much to the Marvel scientist’s chagrin we may be seeing more of it as it is the derpiest thing next to Doom/Ammy THC’s which seems like a thinking mans shell in comparison.
Morri/Doom as a shell really only serves to make the rich richer. Top tiers already have the tools so with Dark Harmonizer and presumably Missiles they get to do whatever they want. Someone like Captain America as a point to that team isn’t really going to get any matchup problems fixed.
Morri/Doom and any Dante/X shelI I like a lot though since those are the makeups for strong point versions of said support shells anyway.
I feel that Dooooooooooooooooooom becomes more and more of a necessity to team composition as the game progresses, meaning that he is undoubtedly the most important character in the game. We’re not far off from X/X/Dooooooooooooooooooom being THE team. He may not be “da bess”, but he is often the most important character on the team. Snap in Dooooooooooooooooooom, and now Morrigan becomes manageable. Tag him hard enough as an assist? Now that point has to think. He even makes Zero good. Not that this information is new, but it must be known.
I like Doom/Ammy the best for sure as far as the shell that works the strongest both ways. Mainly because having Ammy THC helps deal with Doom’s shitty matchups without having to switch characters. Doom/Dante or Magneto/Dante being close seconds. Marlin Pie being a tournament theorist basically was able to get that all working for us and then the rest was optimizing what he already did.
A lot of other hyped shells are only strong one way. If your second character falls in it’s nicer to have a shell that’s strong both ways so it’s not just the second character flailing around until they can DHC into the anchor or the anchor falls to the ground.
What do you guys think of Hawkeye/Strider as a support shell? Why isn’t hawkeye in any support shells anyway? He has pretty good assists, that cause interesting properties… And he can basically be stuck on any team at any position…
That’s where things get a bit dicey. I could see arguments for Zero being there, but I can also see arguments for Taskmaster, Nova, and Skrull.
[LIST]
[]Zero: Bullshit damage, normals and priority on his attacks; loses to strong zoners like Morrigan, Dorm, and even Viper without a huge lead in his favor
[]Task: Solid damage, can zone as well as rush fairly effectively, has tools for nearly any situation; Lack of true mix-ups, doesn’t dominate many match-ups as hard as Magneto or Vergil
[]Nova: Solid damage, really good TAC set-ups, diverse enough to work in most roles on a team; A bit slow, and doesn’t have quite the mix-up ability of characters like Magneto and Viper
[]Skrull: Insane normals, command grab set-ups out the ass, hard to zone out; A bit slow, does not understand the idea of run-away
[/LIST]
This is a bit of an overview rather than a detailed analysis. Personally, I put Task there. No one else on the roster makes me think “This guy doesn’t border on top tier, he IS the border of top tier!”
There’s no way to create huge damage which is important for most hyped shells. Usually either the first or second character in the shell has some way to unlock big damage via straight combo from the first. The other way is the second providing a DHC, THC, TAC or raw tag into huge damage. There’s strong support in the shell but because of the lack of damage it’s more so a second/3rd spot shell where hopefully the point character is somebody who does big damage without a lot of resources.
what you guys think of morrigan/doom/ammy?
This would actually give her some access to incoming mixups as well with a lockdown assist like cold star and would significantly make her offense stronger along with a great duo and a strong anchor. It would also let her do that oki setup stuff that chris g is doing with rapid slash.
Pretty much. Storm/Sent was the best in MvC2, but Storm couldn’t ToD on her own-- the damage to finish off opponents came from Sent DHC into HSF, Spit xx Rocket Punch xx HSF. That’s why I think Vergil, Strange, and Doom (via TACs) will become the best characters to place in the 2nd spot on the reasons of damage alone. Of course, Morrigan in 2nd with meter stocked is incredibly scary as well, but she won’t provide the ToDs most average/low-damage point characters require.
Yeah I already mentioned that team in my blog. I think both Morrigan/Doom/Ammy or Dante and Storm/Morrigan/Doom or Dante are both pretty slept on teams for controlling the neutral and being possible blow ups for Morri/Doom in the neutral themselves. Like with Morri/Doom/Ammy you can switch up the order as Doom/Ammy/Morri against Morri/Doom teams. That way as long as you find a way to move away at the round start you can play lame and build up 2 meters with Morri assist very quickly and now they can’t call Doom anymore without Doom taking significant damage and you possibly getting a chance for a mix up. If you’re using Morri/Doom/Dante you can switch up the order as Dante/Doom/Morri. That way Dante can run around with infinite meter for DT and have plasma beam or missiles as an assist to help him further lockdown or clear up Morri/Doom.
You can also just play Wolverine and press good normals while running really fast with an assist.
Doom/ammy/morrigan
That’s a pretty smart way to look at it. I’ve been playing with doom/ammy(bloom)/sentinel for similar reasons. I get a meter building assist for thcs, and I have a very strong neutral assist in the form of drones+ammy is very good with drones assist. I’ll have to try that idea as well.
because his best horizontal assist can be replaced by several characters with super easy TAC infinites, and his best vertical assist and OTG assist can be replaced by far better options also attached to solid characters. And when Hawkeye is on point you have to actually play the game and pay attention, instead of derping around.
Hawkeye is very good, but his best position is second or point. He’s only good as an anchor if you are fighting people who push buttons and aren’t Vergil. Hawkeye is very strong when theres a team behind him, but his assist/dhcs aren’t good enough to justify third.
what arent ppl seeing that does warrant zero being top 3 easy? meter positive tods, confirms from anywhere, incoming mixups in and out the corner, mobility, hardly detered by xf guard cancel, good buttons all around and good dhcs in and out.
any non result monsters (characters dont play themselves right?) still dont believe in zero? i think he might top vergil (on point and only with jam) since his incomings are so strong and he consumes such little resources.
fanatiq agrees that vergil will eventually fall off too, so if im retarded at least i got entertaining company
i was sleeping on dark vergil tho… tho i still think hes free to snap ~_~
Vergil will only fall off in the anchor spot. He’s always going to be the truth in the 1st or second spots. The anchor spot for him like Dark Wesker, was a bit overrated due to people not optimizing their anti anchor tools (break down the team off kills with incoming mix ups or just snap and kill). He falls like a brick and can only mash on things that will kill him if the opponent mashes first. SCR was a pretty good indication that people need to either be as good with their point as PR Rog or anchor Vergil won’t keep them getting far in brackets in the long run.
I think it’ll come down to being good with your 1st + 2nd with an assist character in the back, even if he’s not that good with XF3. Kind of like MvC2 but with more emphasis on ToDs and whatnot, and most teams have the benefit of having strong synergy in any position, not just 2 point characters and an assist.
Dark anchors will probably fall off, but there’s just so much oppressive stuff that you can do with a well-constructed team that is arguably better than the terror of a dark anchor looming in the back. In the case of Vergil, you need only to snap him in and kill him off the mixup. Pop X-Factor if you have to. Problem solved. Team synergy and control of neutral will still be the most important things in this game.
