Ever since I saw Timothy’s Haggar, I am thoroughly convinced that Haggar should either be your first or second character. Actually generally speaking he should be your first character.
Everyone knows Haggar is complete ass without assists. His hyper combos suck, and he can’t approach without assists generally speaking. So don’t play him that way. Get him in there ASAP when the time is right and play smart and protect him with assists.
While he’s not necessarily the greatest point character, he does have undeniable advantages that can’t be ignored. He builds meter pretty damn fast due to his huge damage. Even if your opponent blocks well against him, his high damage output means you’ll be building meter at a respectable rate by throwing out heavy moves backed by assists. Also because Haggar has 1.2 mil life, he’s guaranteed to give you over a meter before he dies. You don’t need to use hyper combos with Haggar to do high damage, so when you land hits, you generally should be getting lots of meter from him.
Another reason why it’s helpful for him to come before your other characters is because it’s usually hard to DHC into Haggar. However DHCing into him with a team that gets good synergy with him is much easier. His Body Press sets up nicely into other Hyper combos when you DHC.
Haggar Fits best at #2 in my opinion
placing him at point is a waste
you should let your point man tear into them and than tag haggar in to bring the beatdown
i am running haggar point, storm second, dorm third and i love this team. first of all haggar covered by these two assists can close on most anyone, but my favorite thing is once i get three bars the other player cannot call assists. if anyone calls one, RFF with haggar and then instantly cancel into hailstorm. It hits instantly and chaotic flame finishes off all assists. I have even had a magneto RB almost hit me in the face and then the hailstorm cancels out the rapid fire fist and does major damage. plus if you are almost dead with haggar this lets you safely dhc out and use him as an assist the rest of the game. haggar is slow but he is so versatile.
i also love the fact at the start of a match i can do 850+ damage off of a single hit at the start of the match(BNB with haggar into Body Press into Hailstorm as his BNB builds a full bar)
Relying on TACs is a bad idea, this coming from a guy who uses them. TACs should be a mixup, a secondary option for you since you should have at least a basic bread and butter down for all three of your characters.
People seem to think putting Haggar on anchor will allow him to be used more as an assist with lariat and are banking on an early take down and are, in my opinion, letting their opponent know for free that they intend to use Haggar’s lariat quite often.
as mentioned previously, Haggar will likely want to use a ground bounce during his air combos to add more damage. that means opponents will know this ahead of time and not mash Down + S.
Personally I have started to garner a liking for Pipe Assist. Which solidifies him at the 2 spot. on the two spot with Pipe he can still freely be used as an assist ( proper pushblock + pipe is nice and can allow your point man to set up traps if he/she has them). You also have Haggar available for TACs immediately.