Should consult Chrisis on this, he’s done tons of testing on Jam Session + Viper unblockables on incoming characters
2015 UMVC3 SRK Tier/Theory Discussion. 7/10 First Page Tumblr: Power of snapback, Future power teams
Still have strider lol. Its not that bad. and besides a persons first instinct against viper isn’t to airdash on incoming so I’m sure people will still get caught by this initially. If not I’ll just dash back and recorner them…
Hulk, Haggar and Sentinel confirmed better than Zero, Vergil and Dante.
Hulk and Haggar have way more health than Zero and Vergil. Plus Zero has to do very heavy execution combos to do big damage while Hulk has easy combos you’ll never drop. Hulk with Haggar assist = no way for Zero to land a hit. H or lariat pick your death.
down in the south big bodies are stronger. always
I’m gonna get on my infiltration steez. what would be some integral things to have in your pocket at all times for a tourney player of mvc3
Reefer, vibranium shield, hat, colds from mallrats, drooooooooooooooooones, String, and a Smeargle.
viper plays like shit in this game compared to sf4.
They should’ve just kept Spiral the way she was, instead of giving her Hakumen’s sword.
What in the actual fuck.
Hmm?
inb4 NSR.
Spoiler
[media=youtube]m_mDTLphIVY[/media]
Sometimes I wish I knew what HyperShieldSlash was saying in his posts because maybe he has the secret to Marvel, but he hides it in cryptic messages.
I have him blocked so 
That’s like saying a baby knows who’s going to win Final Round with its baby babble.
No in tier ordering, overall team value is what matters. I decided to mostly group character’s into roles with a couple exceptions especially in lower tiers. I think Firebrand is definitely a better character than Hulk for example but I think they are both relatively poor choices for a strong team as the point and fill the same role. In the same manner, Raccoon seems like a better character than Ryu, but I think good point/bad point/good assist is better than good point/good point/ bad assist so I rate Ryu higher because I believe his teams can be better.
Pastebin version if you want to read it later or something: http://pastebin.com/dc15xTx0
S tier(pick these guys)- Zero, Dr. Doom, Vergil
S- tier(probably pick these guys) - Magneto, Morrigan
A tier(not as end all be all but good) - Strider, Dante, Spencer, Wolverine
A- tier(mostly inferior choices but still solid) - Nova, Wesker, Taskmaster, C. Viper, Dormammu, Phoenix
B tier(niche characters that fit on teams) - Haggar, Super Skrull, Frank West, Viewtiful Joe, Amaterasu
B- tier(have assist value somewhere that is unique, random enough to take rounds on point) - M.O.D.O.K., Doctor Strange, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Akuma, Sentinel
C tier(playable characters that I don’t think you should pick, generally low assist value and not top on point) - Captain America, Firebrand, Chris, Storm, X-23, Felicia, Spider-Man, Trish, Deadpool, Hulk, Ryu, Jill
C- tier(assist characters you probably shouldn’t be picking) - Rocket Raccoon, Arthur, Shuma Gorath
D tier(these characters are garbage) - Nemesis, Phoenix Wright, Ghost Rider, Tron Bonne, Chun Li, Thor, She Hulk, Iron Fist, Hsien-Ko
I think everyone C tier and below are real team limiters, it’s hard for me to say that a lot of them are unusable, though some are, but I think you are crippling yourself choosing the majority of those characters.
Reasonings: (Note when I say point I simply mean the playable character on the field and not the first character on the team)
S Tier: The top 5 for me is the least grouped and the most set in stone, these characters have proven time and time again to be dominant and offer a combined point assist value high enough to make them staples of team building.
Zero - Zero has shown the least results of these characters but is generally known to be a terror from countless exhibitions of his ability to run through a team. Many Zero losses in big matches come down to very obvious mistakes such as dropped lightning loops rather than incomplete play such as what people claim for Viper. It’s a different kind of “theory” to me. Zero is the single best character in the game in an overwhelming number of categories and has nothing that is generally considered a bad matchup. Zero’s damage, mobility, mixup both in neutral and on incoming, abare, and synergy with other strong characters makes him an easy and probably optimal character to base your team around.
Dr. Doom - A top 3 assist for every character in the game, and normally the best. Strong auxiliary support options including TAC infinites from everywhere, decently damaging DHC’s, and raw tag combos. Has shown time and time again the ability to act as a strong character when he comes onto the field regardless of some of his limitations because of insanely high damage, abare, and “random factor”. I know you guys hate this character but there has to be a point when you realize that 2 characters plus Doom is almost always viable and often optimal for those 2 characters. Results aren’t everything, but the game has evolved to a point where this character is here to stay on the strongest of teams.
Vergil - Fuck Capcom. Very few people try to deny the strength of this character. At first glance he does extremely high damage, converts off everything automatically, has the best pokes in the game, and has a super that makes him practically invincible for the cost of a bar. When you dig deeper you see his chip setups, surprisingly strong assist value, and underused and completely broken mixup options. Vergil synergizes extremely well with every member of what I consider to be the holy trinity of assist characters(Doom, Dante, Strider) and is a top choice for every slot sadly including anchor. He’s too good.
S- Tier: These two stand out to me as being notably stronger than those below them while still not being as universally strong on a team as those above them, still they are staples on the teams winning and should certainly be looked at as “Top Tier”.
Magneto - Only weaker than a VERY small group of characters on point while still having very notable support value makes Magneto an obvious choice for top tier. The only thing holding him back in my mind is the lack of stupid escape options like Bionic Lancer, Lvl. 3 Buster and Spiral Swords, but it certainly doesn’t hold him back much. With few bad matchups on point, just about none of which that can’t be remedied with assists, TAC infinites, a great unique assist, and ridiculous synergy with top characters like Vergil and Doom he’s an easy character to put on a great team.
Morrigan - I spent a long time underrating Morrigan, and still believe Chris G’s skill as a player is the overwhelming factor for why he wins, but Morrigan has undoubtedly come out of the woodwork as a strong character. Another character that synergizes well with the holy trinity, once Morrigan gets started there probably isn’t a matchup she isn’t at the overwhelming advantage in. Alongside Zero, she is in the select group of characters that tends to always win after landing the first hit. Even her assist synergizes with herself! When a character only needs a meter to become overwhelmingly strong and we are playing a game where TAC infinites and meter positive TOD’s exist they are probably notable, Morrigan is no exception.
A tier: An interesting potpourri of two very strong assist characters, and two “weaker in theory” point characters. These guys round out what I consider the best of the best characters in the game right now.
Strider - Strider is a perplexing case for me. He is one of the strongest assists in the game and very possibly the best anchor, normally this would jump out to me as being top 5 or whatever because of the obvious anchor value but one thing stops him from reaching that level. His assist, while strong for many great characters, isn’t optimal for the best of the best point characters. By picking Strider you more than likely shoehorn yourself into a situation of picking SLIGHTLY weaker characters to round out your team. For example Vergil/Morrigan/Strider is very strong but Doom is probably the better choice and Viper/Vergil/Strider is probably the optimal Viper/Vergil team but I simply believe there are better characters than Viper. Regardless he’s a great choice and a tailor made anchor with stupid comeback potential and a nice mixup escape in his double jump.
Dante - Dante sucks on point, I truly believe this; his bad matchups at the top are numerous and by throwing assist characters behind him you aren’t giving yourself enough top point characters to have a top team in my opinion. With that out of the way Dante is probably the best assist in the game for Zero and Vergil, who happen to be two of the strongest point characters in the game. There’s a debate that this alone makes him in the top 5 but I think his suboptimal(but still good) anchor ability and lack of team building options put him in a slightly lower echelon than the best of the best.
Spencer - The amount of pain I feel listing Spencer this high is unprecedented. Spencer’s problems in theory are numerous and he forces you into picking less than stellar characters to support him weakening your team overall. He is perhaps the most assist reliant character in the game and countless things can quickly go wrong for him. He has bad matchups at the top and awkwardly in the middle. He also has a Bionic Arm. Spencer and the other guy rounding out this tier are the epitome of characters that “just work” and the terror of Spencer’s damage, mobility, and giant invincible full screen fucking arm make things happen even where they maybe shouldn’t. I know people will be quick to believe I just say this because it’s my team, but Iron Man as a partner makes him legitimately strong, and if you don’t believe it mash that THC and zip with unibeam a couple times. There might be a future where Spencer falls into the barely mid-tier and loses to… like he deserves to but it certainly hasn’t happened yet. PARTY TIME!
Wolverine - He’s the best he is at what he does, going fucking ham. While both in theory and reality he has a lot of time getting in on characters with strong keepaway he always gets to start close due to the mechanics of round start. This alone skyrockets his potential and is the reason he is a favorite of many top fundamental players who believe they can stay in after “FIGHHHHT!!” is called and run through the entire team. While synergy is awkward with Wolverine due to his almost nonexistant support value it doesn’t really matter, he does most of the work himself.
A- tier: For the most part this tier is the next echelon of point characters. These guys generally aren’t as strong as the absolute top, but differentiate themselves from those below them with a mixture of utility and strength on point. These characters are all very strong picks for a team, and some of which have potential far beyond what has been shown thus far.
Nova: Nova was initially targeted when the game came out as an easy character that would be figured out as time went on. Ideas such as “just block high” and “don’t challenge j.h” were thrown around but here we are a year later and Novas are still catching people with tridashes and dash grabs. His insane blockstun, crazy acceleration, and goofy fullscreen lows and highs all seem stoppable at a glance but when put together in a game this pace Nova has managed to stay not only relevant but strong. Also, High Speed Tackle is dumb. As a final note, and I know “difficulty doesn’t matter”, having nigh undroppable combos is a plus in vs. games, Storm’s weren’t missing launch magic series lightning attack super in Marvel 2.
Wesker: Once highly overrated and the target of many a complaint, ironically I believe Wesker is now underrated. The surge of strong zoning teams involving Zero, Morrigan, and Magneto have certainly weakened Wesker as a character, but his strong matchups elsewhere make him very strong as a counterpick or paired with someone who can cover zoning better. Wesker’s mixup is simple and extremely effective and his movement is arguably some of the strongest in the game with distance based teleports, a fast dash, and great normals to cover.
Taskmaster: In a game like Marvel, having a move as insane as shield skills is actually what makes you solid. Taskmaster is a jack of all trades and fits numerous roles on a team. His damage is good, he has high health, a good assist, and he manages to stay strong in the majority of matchups due to his profiency in both zoning and pressure. Unfortunately, he is rarely the strongest choice for any particular role, so you often sacrifice something picking him.
C. Viper: She’s probably better than this but it hasn’t been shown, and I’m not just talking about tournament results. There isn’t a match out there that Viper players will agree upon as showcasing her true ability, and as it stands she is a very strong character that isn’t quite at the top. Maybe if someone had Marlin’s pressure and setups and Gottnoskill or Chrisis’ seismo game she’d be the best, until that happens I don’t see it. I think people tend to overlook the fact that even if you have limitless options you can’t do them all at once. Still her zoning game, damage, and mixup are all insanely strong and her defensive options are admittedly second to none. I personally think her less safe movement and lack of a strong normal to cover herself hold her back from being the best but only time(and many a forum monster post) will tell.
Dormammu: Another early contender for a top spot Dormammu has steadily shown a decrease in use for a variety of reasons. While not a levelup character, Dormammu is one of the few characters in the game that is truly setup based. With a stalking flare out, hands charged, and meter to spare nobody beats Dormammu, but you have to get there first. His bad matchups when not setup combined with the fact that the payoff still isn’t necessarily the best make him jump out to me as being inferior to say Morrigan. Still, Dormmamu is very strong, a terror in many ways, and a great second character due to his snowball potential and strong DHC’s.
Phoenix: Not much to say about Jean, you’ll probably win if she comes out but more and more tech comes out every day to stop that. I’d have her much lower if it wasn’t for the fact that level 3 x factor regular phoenix is really fucking good. All the strategies in the world to stop her from going dark dont matter when you get tagged by a crazy tridash or teleport into death before that even happens. Overrated by scrubs and underrated by theory monsters Phoenix remains a strong choice and still sees a lot of success in high level play.
B tier: Things really change around this point in the list. The characters in B tier and are not typically picks for the best teams in the game, and those exceptions come in rare and interesting cases. That said, there’s good to be found here and I believe some of these characters still have a place in the meta.
Haggar: Sadly he doesn’t quite break top 15 on my list. He doesn’t break top 30 on most. It’s really hard to understand this character if you haven’t played versus a good one. Haggar has an array of terrible matchups, but his support value with the only invulnerable assist in the game, terrifying round start, and one of the strongest abilities to run through a team leave him as an extremely strong and incredibly underrated character. With a lock down assist Haggar has a very terrifying mixup between more options than you can count including multiple throws, lows, and fuzzy guards that all come at different timings and with different setups. His incoming mixup is equally strong with the right assists to back it up, and to top it all off he kills off of everything. He also has the potential for like 3 consecutive seconds of invincibility and shuts out a couple top characters surprisingly well. I want to put him higher but hopefully some of the better Haggar players will show it for me in the future.
Super Skrull: Good for all the reasons you don’t realize. The two most successful Skrull players I can think of actually play this character on point and incredibly solidly. Skrull can mix you up from anywhere on the screen and in a bunch of different ways, his damage is good, and he is an incredible user of x factor. His support value is relatively low, so I really think throwing him on anchor and hoping for the best is suboptimal compared to what he is capable of.
Frank West: I hate Frank and I refuse to admit he is optimal for any team, but his success is noted and if leveled he certainly fulfills a pretty strong win condition vs. a lot of teams. Most notable about frank is that he is a good assist for many of his best leveling partners making him pretty easy to throw on a solid team. I’d like to put him lower but I have a tough time doing it, his most notable problem is that he still loses a couple matchups pretty blatantly even while leveled.
Viewtiful Joe: The most underrated character in the game; he isn’t Morrigan but he is pretty solid at fulfilling a similar role. Voomerangs fill the screen nicely and charged voomerangs make it completely impossible for certain characters to get in, he also has a ridiculously invincible super and special move to get him out of situations. He’s pretty good but has shitty assists and isn’t as good as Morrigan so he’s often overlooked.
Amaterasu: Unique assist that practically reinvents a lot of character’s pressure games, great DHC’s in, top thc partner, respectable anchor. She’s really strong and might be better than I think she is, but I really don’t like the Doom Ammy shell because I think it’s one time where her assist is surprisingly less useful and I don’t think she’s the best for the best characters.
B- Tier: Unique assists that are strong for good character’s, don’t really shine on their own but can be worth putting on certain teams. This is what I would call the end of smart viability in that characters below this may be viable per se but you aren’t smart if you pick them.
NSR Blocked me, for fear of a mixup. He knew a mixup was coming, so he pushblocked my crS, but I yomi’d it, and canceled into feral dash up forward droooooooooooooooooooooooooones.
M.O.D.O.K.: I kind of think he sucks but Rubeks has shown me that the right setups make bomb more than a gimmick, they make it a terrifying gimmick. Another pretty pure support character he has a few surprisingly strong matchups on point and very unique utility. Don’t pick him if you aren’t creative.
Doctor Strange: Really garbage on point, horrible movement some of the worst normals in the game and practically no way to set anything up. He has a good assist for Nova, Spencer, and a couple of other characters and can add damage to teams without risking TAC’s though so he’s not the worst. I think Strange teams aren’t the best but they can work.
Iron Man: Best beam assist for pure lockdown and confirmations and a very nice “sub zero” frame dhc/thc that lets you confirm if it has hit or not during the flash. Spencer’s strongest partner, great assist for mags and doom, and can offer some awkward utility on point against bad people who don’t know the matchup. He doesn’t beat MorriDoom and repulsar blast is a sub par assist please stop guys.
Hawkeye: Really not very good and his assist is pretty standard but it’s still strong and he’s a good anchor if you can force them to x factor before getting to him. I think he’s becoming pretty obsolete though so I question putting him this high. His point utility is severely limited by his horrid movement and damage.
Akuma: I wish his assist still had soft knockdown which would make him a lot better. Pretty situational to put on a team but works nicely as a counterpick assist and has good damage for anchor potential.
Sentinel: You shouldn’t pick him over Doom but Drones are still respectable and he’s a better anchor than people give him credit for. If Sentinel wasn’t so easily sniped by good characters he’d be a lot better but alas he’s pretty much impossible to call against Vergil, Zero, or Morrigan making him a weaker choice than other good assists.
C tier: Point characters that aren’t as good as their top tier counterparts. Unlike the assist character’s above them they tend to not offer anything unique that is actually winning at a high level.
Captain America: Shield slash should go as far as it did in vanilla why the fuck did that get nerfed. Shield slash’s durability is way too low for him to work as a counter zoner as he seems to have been intended to and the best zoners are all air based making charging star a relatively low factor. Good normals and cool moves it’s just too bad he can’t actually hit people who fly around or mixup well enough when they land. Broken versus other bad characters.
Firebrand: Theoretically the best character in the game if you are clinically insane. To be fair he does actually have good movement, strong normals, and a cool mixup game but he simply doesn’t force himself way in, zone well, or do any damage. Good movement can only take you so far for starting an offense in a game with so much invulnerability and people flying around with massive damage projectiles at the top of the screen. Incoming unblockables are cool but less a factor than you would think. Too hard to put on a good team to be any higher than this.
Chris: Fire grenade is a cool move but he doesn’t have that much outside of that. Assists are lackluster and his point game is far too stationary and linear to actually hit good characters. Not bad once he get’s started but he probably won’t when playing against good players with good teams. With a good anti air or cable’s jump H he could have been really solid but right now he just gets overwhelmed.
Storm: So fast, so cool, so mediocre. No damage, no meter building, and like firebrand has a tough time covering the assists she needs to actually get in. Because she can’t build meter mashing moves like she did in MvC2 she has a tough time building enough meter to do anything useful on point and while Hail Storm is a fantastic super it’s not good enough to make her worth picking.
X-23: Forces you to build a bad team around her to be of any use. She has cool unblockable setups but the best characters incoming mixups are generally good enough to make something like that less of a factor. She offers nothing unique outside of that and loses to pretty much any character who can shoot something or has big normals/invuln. The only reason she’s this high is because dirt nap is legitimately easy and strong to set up. She’s what Frank would be if his assists sucked.
Felicia: Who cares about a fast command grab if you can’t ever successfully call an assist. Very terrible at covering assists because of her lack of any sort of ranged option or speed in the air and not good enough without them. She’s probably better as a random anchor than a point character but she’s pretty mediocre at both.
Spider-man: Very unfortunate. He does well vs. some good characters but get’s absolutely mauled by Morrigan, Zero, and Spencer because of the low durability on his ranged options making him really hard to pick at a high level. He’s fundamentally a good character in most matchups but he can not deal with zoning at all and unlike Doom or Spencer he doesn’t have anything crazy enough to turn the tides in his bad matchups. Peter you are late for class.
Trish: What a boring character. She does nothing unique and just as little particularly well. She has a lot of tools though so she’s not terrible, but seriously why would you pick her. Her projectiles are really slow to startup and her traps feel completely irrelevant against most good characters.
Deadpool: Good stand jab but no reason to make you jump at him, poking normals are terrible, projectiles are very lackluster and his best tool is a teleport that you can only use twice in a row. Why do Morrigans projectiles come out really fast have no recovery do a lot of damage and have massive durability while Deadpools are practically none of that? Because Deadpool is a shitty character.
Hulk: Armor is a pretty shitty mechanic in this game because it randomly loses to everything notable like multi-hit moves, snapbacks, hit grabs, and 1 frame throws(everyone has these). Gamma charge is a really good move but who cares because you can just jump over him because he has zero aerial presence and even less mixup. He’s probably bottom tier but he’s still scary because he does a lot of damage and forces mistakes so I’ll let him be this high.
Ryu: Why do the street fighter characters always look so small in versus games? Pretty much everything he does is a system mechanic that most other characters can do. A lot of his moves are useless in a VS. series atmosphere and his assists are outclassed. He doesn’t feel like he was made for the game at all and he does nothing special. The reason he is playable is that he still has a lot of general tools that the characters below him do not.
Jill: No super jump options at all, theoretically good at mixing up landing characters but most of them just shoot something at her or block somersault and then out prioritize her. Not very good at calling assists.
C- tier: Assist characters that don’t function as an optimal partner for good characters. You can pick these guys but you are really grasping by doing so because you could offer your team better utility with a better assist. They also all suck on point.
Rocket Raccoon: I realize he is small but why are his moves so small? If he had like spitfirex20 and a Chris sized boulder he might be better but right now he’s just too stubby and weak to get anything done on point. He can’t kill people in the air and his mixup is reliant on unblockable setups that make you play bad teams. Log trap and spitfire are pretty good assists but out classed in most ways.
Arthur: Worst mobility in the game, zoning gets beat badly because of bad startup, durability, and lack of invuln. Gold armor is a pure liability and his assists are alright but why does he jump so far forward when you call him? This flaw makes his assist very hard to call and worse than it could be. He’s not good at all but he can kill you if you don’t save x factor for him on anchor.
Shuma Gorath: You can throw him out of mystic smash. Mystic Ray is kind of cool but also doesn’t really do anything, I can’t think of a specific situation where calling mystic ray is better than another assist and it’s not particularly strong in general either. He does a lot of damage but he should never land a hit because of his poor “priority” as a character. He who sleeps but shouldn’t have cost me 5 dollars.
D tier: D stands for Don’t pick these characters because they are trash
Nemesis: A generally mediocre character that is made even worse because he is such a big character. He’s really slow and doesn’t get great hitboxes, invuln, or damage to make up for it. His supers both do no damage for some reason so he does really bad damage which is surprising for such a big guy. Nemesis really scared me in RE3 but now I think it’s cute when someone picks him.
Phoenix Wright: No normals, bad assists, very hard level up condition to fulfill. Turnabout Wright is pretty good, and back when he had invuln on assist I would have actually called him mid tier for the win condition but now that you can just wait him out he’s really bad.
Ghost Rider: Chain is a surprisingly good assist actually, but it’s not enough to make him worth ever choosing. He’s like Axl except that Axl sucked even while having much better startup on normals and chains that covered more directions.
Tron Bonne: No ground normals, kind of cool air normals except that she’s so big that you just kill her before she does them. She doesn’t actually have any good moves or assists so she’s really useless. I have a hard time writing about these characters because they are essentially just punching bags.
Chun Li: All of her character specific tools are terrible and her movement is fast but extremely linear. Why the fuck is Kikouken even in the game? Probably one of the first characters made and they just didn’t edit her any further.
Thor: I feel like I’m being trolled but I know you guys are actually just misguided enough to think this character is actually good. Invuln frames on mighty strike are cool except that he has to charge up to do it. Charging up means you can’t cover your assist and leave yourself open. Tridash is shit and having a command grab when you can’t make someone block doesn’t mean anything. I think Thor is my favorite character to fight because I know I will win due to the fact that the guy picked Thor and no matter what his other two characters were he still had poor enough decision making rationale to pick Thor.
She-Hulk: The biggest tragedy of all. She was good in Vanilla without being great and they nerfed the shit out of her because Capcom is racist. Literally the worst block strings in the game, no air options, and bad support value.
Iron Fist: Has zero options to hit anyone out of the air, can’t even always combo off air throws reliably, terrible mixup when they land due to slow lows and overheads. I’m not really sure what this character was supposed to do because the only thing he excels in is being terrible at everything.
Hsien-Ko: Can’t do anything, Gold armor makes her easier to kill vs well designed teams, not harder. All the Darkstalkers stand out to me as being really ignored and tossed together, Morrigan just got lucky with what sense that came in. Notably shares a name with Hsien Chang, the people’s champ.
The end.
Shuma-Gorath: He who sleeps but shouldn’t have cost me 5 dollars.
Yeah i feel the same, everytime i fight a Thor its mad free. I have an urge to **** ur marvel plan/tactics with my Thor teams right now, just for teaching you how to proper respect the f****** god of thunder.