The praise is appreciated, thank you. I think a lot of it comes down to having a solid understanding of what a character is/isn’t and knowing how to put them in a team that lets them do that. I almost feel bad having Raccoon in the back because I watch what Keits does with Raccoon with corner setups and feel like I’m missing out. Some characters are flat out universally good; some are flat out universally bad (or at least a lot worse than others). But I like/agree with what you said about “strong mid tier” and I think there’s others besides Frank you could put into that category that if you can put them with the right people, they can be strong. Strong enough to win. Just might take longer/a more specific team/having to play matchups better. I’m okay with that.
That was the big thing about Apology Man too. It wasn’t that he was successful/won; it was the first time i saw a Frank on stream at a tournament and thought “look, somebody’s playing Frank correctly.” A few adjustments here and there and he could be even dirtier too, especially with how good his blocking was.
Ammy has great normals for her size. That alone is just such a huge benefit. If she had better damage or more reliable corner carry, she would be ridiculously good on point. She’s still very solid on point with drones or jam session or missiles. Very few are able to play her as an actual character because she is just hard. It doesn’t help that her hit confirms actually require knowing what you are doing unlike most characters where you can just string a bunch of m’s and h’s until they are close to the ground. With ammy, you want to optimize your hit confirms which requires very smart usage of HSD depending on the situation because she doesn’t exactly have very lenient combo ability.
Yeah if he ran drones/projectile, used Skrull’s flame kick and didn’t joke against Chris, he would of taken the tourney. Also don’t be afraid to go a little nutty with Skrull.
I’m kind of late to the discussion, but jam session is not doom’s best assist. It’s good though. It depends really how you want to look at it. Ammy is his best assist PARTNER because of the countless forms of synergy and the THC, but overall I would say that dooms best assist is drones. I don’t even think it’s a contest. Drones is just on another level for doom overall. It gives his the momentum he needs to control the match and allows him to put people in the blockstun he needs for mixups as well, which is a big problem for unassisted doom. The slow speed of drones is something neither jam session/vajra/or coldstar can do and actually gives him an assist than he can keep up with using his subpar mobility. The inherent flaw with doom/sentinel though is the fact that their assists almost always overlap in usage, so x/doom/sentinel is usually much weaker than x/doom/ammy.
i really dislike that people don’t appreciate what apologyman was doing in his matches; his matches with fchamp were just a great showcase of a good player exploiting matchup knowledge vs a great player.
I still think Drones is the optimal assist for most of the tridash-centric flight mode characters (Magneto, Doom, Storm, Iron Man, maybe Thor but I don’t know much about him)
Yeah you’re right I may have been exaggerating a bit. What I really meant was that its my favorite to use for some reason. I dunno I have fun with it. But yeah Drones is probably his best assist, I’ll concede that.
Problem with drones is that it’s hard to get going against morri/doom. I can imagine Doom getting mileage out of jam session with fly plink dashes + call assist (theory fighter), but sent is so big, it’s hard to get him out against fist-fist (not theory).
Yeah drones is losing place in the meta with all of these projectile heavy teams/shells. Viper + bolts = good luck getting drones out without running forward and somehow getting past everything. Especially since Sentinel’s huge body getting touched by anything deactivates the assists active frames. The assist is pretty cheap vs more melee centric teams…but now that missiles is the big time neutral coverage assist that doesn’t deactivate on hit its not as powerful overall.
Rayray can easily dash behind the opponent and call drones from the other side of the screen against regular teams. Skrull can do that with meteor smash also and make it so the opponent can no longer fire at the assist. On the other hand…when he’s fighting the flood the assist doesn’t get much done without a shit ton of working around it.
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Eat mixup =/= guaranteed doom. Good incoming mixups are bloody hard to get out of but it doesn’t mean you can’t get out of them. And people will always drop combos so the idea that first hit will doom every “end game” team is ridiculous.
The difference between lvl 1 Frank and other commonly used 2nd characters like Doom, Dorm, Spencer etc is that for lvl 1 Frank even if you survive the incoming mixup chances are you are still toast as lvl 1 Frank is ass. And people can snap him out on hit to take care of the Vergil/Wesker you could have on your back. While other characters can regain momentum and fight back.
I think you are insane. Dark hole is a good combo extender and a great assist for incoming, therefore worthy to be called a solid assist.
He is a secondary plan… when the point character dies. Like I said, Dormammu can run it back with one assist. Whether it be missiles or a beam. Dormammu is a threat, period. He has ways out of incoming mixups and has one of the most dangerous incomings in the game.
Frank is THE team. If you lose Frank, or if Frank isn’t leveled up, you lose the core of your team. Frank teams are a liability just as much as Phoenix teams. You can’t even save your point character with Frank. SMH.
Dormammu offers waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more to a team than Frank. No doubt.
Everybody knows that when you level up Frank, he gets godlike. Nobody is arguing that, or at least not suppose to. Im arguing the fact that Frank is a liability just as much as Phoenix can be. Him being in that second/third slot really makes the team alot more dangerous to play. If I kill the point, Imma hit frank, snap in the anchor, kill the anchor as quick as possible, and now you playing with Frank Whack solo, with xf3 possibly. What you gonna do? Its a terrible situation to be in. I have been in it plenty of times. Shit is ass.
The too much thought comment came because there is alot of thought to play a Frank team. You gotta think of the composition of the team, who benefits from what, and if one of your characters die, how can you level Frank up to the highest level. That alone makes him a LIABILITY, like Phoenix. With Phoenix teams, you gotta think about what combos get you the most meter and the most possible damage. Also gotta think, if the point character dies, is my 2nd character good enough to build meter for Phoenix, and if Phoenix dies, you gotta think, “Can my team run it back?” Same thing with Frank teams.
Him and Phoenix are liabilities, the only difference is that Phoenix is still a good character when she isn’t DP and godlike in DP, while Frank is bad, then finally turns good when he gets to lvl 4-5.
what is this bullshit, Frank teams are as much of a liability as Phoenix teams? You can’t save your point character with one of the best assists in the game? You can spend meter freely and Frank has his best synergy with top tier or A tier characters… and it’s not like we haven’t seen Bee make a ton of unleveled Frank comebacks in his long sets
This is some hella selective bullshit right here. Somehow they are going to kill both of your characters before you can get the ONE hit you need to level Frank? You are saying you are going to get three hits on Frank’s team before he can get one on yours. You’ll hit the point, kill them, hit Frank, snap him,hit the anchor, kill them. And that is somehow so much more likely than a really good point character backed up by two good assists getting the one hit they need? LOLWUT
lmao at this argument… too much thought is a downside…?
too much thought is not a problem when it gives you chemistry that goes as deep as a Frank team’s does. Phoenix does not have that with anybody. Nova/Frank/Dante, Vergil/Dante/Frank, Spencer/Frank/Dante, Skrull/Frank/Doom… those are all teams that are stacked three characters deep. Actually the weakest of them is Skull/Frank/Doom because unlike Frank/Dante, Frank is not that great for Doom
Really this whole looking at individual characters in a vacuum thing is getting so stupid. this is a game of TEAMS
Dormammu is better than Frank only on teams built with his chemistry in mind. And even then he’s still only better than a Frank on a team that isn’t built with Frank in mind. Otherwise I think they shake out more or less the same.