I would add Sentinel.
Sentinel as an anchor character on his own is pretty lackluster, but by having him in back your whole team gets access to his amazing assist and DHC’s, and that’s nothing to scoff at.
Their chances of getting that damage are harder than the other great anchors though.
Hawkeye isn’t a good anchor. He loses pretty bad to teleporters, and in an 1 vs 3 scenario, he’s going to eventually get caught. Haweye just doesn’t have the poking game to clutch it out. I agree his xfactor chip damage is stupid, but if you are going to xfactor at all with Hawkeye, it’s best to use him as level 2. Still does good chip, but he’s backed by assist to stop those pesky random teleporters.
With that said, a good Xfactor character is a character that allows you to turn off your brain. Wesker, and Akuma wins that hands down. They literally immobilize you, and all you can do is sit there and hope to block correctly. It’s insanely hard to lame out both of their Xfactors.
Dorm is a good anchor, and I’ve brought back many of games with cheap chip kills. But if your opponent activates X Factor, there isn’t a lot he can do. At one time in vanilla, he could chip you before you hit the ground preventing anyone from activating. But since you can do air Xfactors now, he kind of sucks. But if someone burns their Xfactor (not sure why they would against a Dorm anchor), it’s pretty much a free dead character. If you can get 2 or 3 stalking flares on screen and charge up some spells, he’s nearly impossible to deal with. I’m in love with Xfactor lvl 3 Dorm, especially the chip. Makes me feel like I’m playing mvc2 again.
Phoenix Wright in turnabout mode with 5 bars is a nightmare to deal with. You literally can’t press 1 button while he’s like that . If it comes down to a one on one situation, he pretty much wins unless you’re willing to stare at him for 20 seconds. And even that, he can come and get you with his chip damage and his zoning. So you have to do something. His lvl 3 instant kills the entire cast/
I’m curious: how would you get that person to burn his XF?
Yeah I don’t really place anchors where most of their strength is based on chip that high. The best of the characters that can blow you up based on chip is Arthur or Dorm and Dorm is just a better anchor than Arthur period.
**My top 5 anchors if I had to choose 5 would be Dorm, Felicia, Akuma, Strider and Vergil. **Come with the best set of assists and are the most difficult to hit and have the most ways to kill you off any throw. Plus all have strong options (especially Felicia) for completely ignoring advance guards. If you have one of those 5 as anchor the chances of the opponent losing their team and generally not being able to call assists very often is very high. All 5 of them except maybe Akuma are practically untouchable once they pop the X and have meters. With the exception of invincible moves or really long reaching sword moves and even then you’re just guessing.
When those characters are anchor the other team almost has to pray to land clean hits on any of them and hope they somehow burn out their XF and or their meter first.
Felicia especially is still a menace even with the XF runs out (though much easier to lame out and chip down).
Strider for now kinda requires that you have already killed off one of their characters when he comes in but I think once people learn better XF TOD combos with him that will change.
Wesker, Magneto and Super Skrull would be like right under them and it’s just a mix of solid anchors and shitty anchors after that.
DJ I was gonna question you not having a certain master of magnetism on your list. Then I saw your edit. All is forgiven LOL.
How do you feel about Dog anchor?
Yeah honestly Dark Magneto should be tearing up tourneys more than he already is really. I think once people get more used to him he’ll be tearing it up too. He generally is ultimately scarier with an assist than without but he’s like Wesker where even though he’s scarier with an assist he can definitely still mess up your team without an assist if you don’t respect his options.
Similar to Wesker where he mainly thrives off of having really dumb welcome mix ups that lead to quick TOD’s. All of the vanilla stuff people used to fear about him like OS throw into TOD comes back too.
Except his level 3 gets rid of turnabout mode and most of his X-factor. Then he becomes the most useless anchor in the game.
Character with
Decent Health - Anyone not named Akuma, Strider, Rocket Raccoon, Amaterasu, etc… basically 900k+
OR
Good Mobility - Strider is a perfect example of what I mean here
Self-mixups- Actual mixups. Not just teleporting and fishing for hits ala Wesker. Think about how Dormammu can throw a projectile, teleport, and then attack. That’s what I’m referring to. Someone who can cancel their movements in such a way that makes them ambiguous would also qualify here (think Spencer, Ammy).
OR
Superior space control (Morrigan… -.-)
Self-OTG
OR
Strong juggling - Should be obvious
Decent assist - (Obvious)
There’s your best anchor. Wesker doesn’t qualify in my book from a pure standpoint. Because of how X-factor works, it masks alot of would-be issues with multiple characters, including Wesker.
If it ever comes down to an “honest match” though, you’d better have all of these in check imo.
On that note, Dormammu is one of the few who qualifies in all areas here. I’d have to go with Dormammu, Skrull, Strider for my top 3. I’d like to put Vergil here, problem is nothing he does is ever safe unless you burn meter. Phoenix certainly qualifies IF she gets 5 meters in the right situation (meaning, someone without potential insta-kill tech)
If you include X-factor into “best anchor” calculations, I’m just gonna go ahead and say half the cast is the best anchor -.-
I use Hawkeye and Sentinel Drones. A lot of people, normally out of pure frustration will burn their X factor early against that team. I play a really lame, keep away hawkeye. My team does a lot of chip. So unless you’re in my face you’re going to get hit by something. If my strategy works well, a person will get impatient, and either burn meter to Xfactor to kill Haweye or Sentinel. Then Xfactor lvl3 Dorm comes and cleans up everyone, pretty easy with Xfactor gone. Drones usually blows up random teleports. This team generally forces people to burn a lot of meter trying to keep up with the zoning. At least that’s my desired goal with my team
I really like spencer as an anchor
Spencer is strong, can zip and has easy combos.
Random ARRRRRRRRRRRM is there.
But I feel later in the game’s life he won’t be as effective.
I wanna know why several have mentioned Skrull. He’s real unsafe.
Sentinel with Hard Drive and the X at least means he can ignore an incoming mixup. That’s huge.
I think Dante will likely end up overall being the best anchor at the end of the day.
Mostly because of Meteor Smash mayhem. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell which way to block because it can randomly cross-up. You have only a split-second to react.
HD is awesome. So is HSF. Can’t ignore the fact that he has two invincible Lv1 hypers along with that great assist.
After seeing that video of him building 3 levels in one combo, I don’t know what to think of Dante anymore.
Skrull is only unsafe if all you do is special moves all day. Sitting on XF + meters = everything you do is safe which allows you to bully people with other safe shit like cross up dive kicks (that are immune to XF guard cancels) until you hit them and then kill them off. He has really underrated normals and command normals and does strong damage even by himself without the XF. If you’re out of meter you’re going to have trouble but pretty much once XF3 Super Skrull comes out the opponent can’t call assists anymore and that’s a big advantage and with XF stocked you get at least one chance at a free safe long ranged hurp durp move that if it hits them will kill them surely.
He’s overall best in the second spot with an assist but his ability to pretty much disrespect your entire team and just put you in dumb shenanigans that kill you fast make him powerful if he’s the only guy left with XF.
His air grab into damage game is also stupid.
the game shouldn’t allow you to select Strange when picking a third character.
What? lol I don’t think Dante’s that good of an anchor. He’s godlike with assists.
I thought Wesker and Phoenix were the best anchors.
It’s Strider. The little man is a monster anchor.
[LIST]
[]Great assist value.
[]One of the best comeback characters in the game.
[]Solid tools on his own leading to few unfavorable match-ups.
[]Great tools on point for staying alive/avoiding someone if he gets snapped in.
[/LIST]
The things he lacks are DHC synergy and a good crossover counter. That’s about it, though.
you cant ignore his versatility, sword normals and Devil Trigger. without X factor he still has phenominal ability.
Dormammu is a better point or second slot character IMO. Yeah he gets retarded in the anchor position when you’re sitting on XF and meter but he doesn’t have all the tools he needs to be better than Doom for example. His lack of a really solid assist makes it necessary to run him with at least 1, if not 2 assists. Yeah the stalking flares are scary but air XFC’ing thwarts that. Especially when people see Dorm in your 3rd spot and you haven’t popped XF. An observant player will either try to knockout Dormammu or save their XF to stifle his attacks. He has decent movement and pretty awesome normals, great zoning tools, health, and he’s pretty easy to combo with. Dormammu is a solid character no matter what position you put him in but you should take into account that he only becomes more threatening with assists. I personally use him in the 2nd position with Doom’s beam so when he comes out, he usually has at least three bars of meter although playing him point is good too.I believe Doom is one of the best anchors because of his movement and projectile garbage all over the screen. He can turn pretty much any stray hit into a combo, he can lay out assist-like projectiles like missles and travel under their cover, plus he gets so mean during XF level 3 most people just try to run it out anyway. Dorm is good, but he turns into the biggest pain in the ass with two solid assists. Doom can be a serious threat regardless.
P.S. Air S with XF’ed Doom. Dead character, promise. Need I say more?