I come from a background of Street Fighter, Last Blade and Samurai Showdown. I have NO CLUE how to properly use assists, and I spend half the time throwing HK Hornet from fullscreen.
I mainly play Filia on point with Double or Parasoul on assist, but I’ve been thinking about making use of Painwheel for cr.MP (I think?) or qcf.LP for the stun.
Basically, my question is how do I go about setting up mixups with assists? Left/right mixups don’t seem to do anything in this game (as the opponent always has to block the direction of your character, not the direction they’re being hit from.
Filia/Painwheel/Invincible Assist is a solid setup IMO. I personally like 3 character teams the best because if you lose your point character you don’t flat out lose your assist and go down to one character right off the bat. They have to spend meter to snap in your point character and then pick on them a few times to even get close.
Just think of assists as extra footsies/projectiles you can use anywhere on the screen. You’ll get the feel for it the more you use it and see other people use it.
That’s how they work in Marvel 3 also and people get hit all the time. Basic call assist, air dash behind them before it hits shit blows people up in this game too.
Left right mixups are still decent. Try jumping over the opponent while calling assist, then airdashing backward over them timed in a way that its hard to tell if the assist will hit before you cross over.
This is exactly what I’ve been doing, it just doesn’t seem to work too well. I mean, it works, but it doesn’t seem to be as useful as it is in MvC3 (I’m not an MvC3 player, just assuming from what I’ve seen of tourney footage)
Most of the time I don’t really use assists to ‘set the mixup’ up, I use them to cover up a failed attempt and try for a different one (I play Filia/Para/Double). If I use assists on approach, they usually get punished unless I can very quickly dash over the opponent so that my assist is behind them (which is hard against well timed pushblock)
If you’re getting a lot of blocks, you should probably try to throw more often. They seem to be REALLY good in this game since you can’t crouch-tech, and a lot of characters can really capitalize off of it. If your left/rights aren’t working and your opponent is upbacking all day, go for throws.
Use a lockdown assist like Filia c.MK or Double Hornet Bomber to train them to either block or upback, then throw them while they wait for the high/low or left/right mixup. If they start tech-throwing, start going for far-reaching lows since they have to stand to throw/throw-tech.
one of my masterpieces so far:end a wallcarry/loop in the corner with para as blahblah into medium napalm shot plink to command grab assist, jump forward airthrow.
Your opponent stands there, grabbed. Jump back, must tech. Press a button get combo broken by the napalm.