which is a god damn shame, no mater what the game is.
It sucks, cuz I’m the kinda guy that goes for big, Heavy type bruisers, but unless their name is Zangief or Sentinel, you NEVER see many big/heavy characters in top level play. They’ve got a terrible rap in fighting games, and thats not helped by the unfortunate pattern of each game’s resident grappler being fairly low on the tier lists most of the time 
I feel like the main issue in MvC3, and just about every other game out there, is the way fighting game developers go about balancing characters.
They have Heavies and Grapplers deal great damage from single hits and command grabs and have equally good stamina, but they usually have fewer options for getting in and opening up the opponent (outside of said command grabs). Light characters do less damage per hit and less health, but that’s balanced by usually much better mobility and zoning.
so where does this logic fall apart? Why are the Yuns, chun li’s, Mags, Zeros, Arakune’s, and Metaknights of fighting games all on top so often, while the Zangiefs, Hakans, Birdies, Tagers, and Ganondorfs lie at the bottom? ironically, damage output. While a Heavy punch from a grappler will almost always hurt more than a punch from a faster character, when you look at the damage output from COMBOS, which is how most character’s really get their damage, you’ll see that often enough, the opposite is true. Nemesis Hulk and Sentinel do great damage, that goes without saying. But Wesker, Spencer and Dante can get the same damage, IF NOT MORE, with similar amounts of meter and with many, Many, MANY more opportunities to land said combos.
This is because of this weird unspoken rule that Heavy/ Grappler characters must have “simpler”, “shorter” combos. That means, that all the damage on those individual moves? meaningless if your opponent can land double the hits in one of their BnBs. If my Hard punch deals 100 damage and my opponent’s deals 80? that’s cool. But If I can only land that once in my BnB combo, and he/she can land that move 3 or 4 times in theirs? all the sudden that 20 point advantage doesn’t look so hot.
characters like Firebrand actually feel MUCH more balanced than all the other top tier IMO. is he a bajillion times more mobile than nemesis and the like? fuck yeah he is. do his combos have numerous relaunches and many, many hits? YEAH. does he deal similar damage as nemesis or Sentinel off of his BnBs FUCK NAW. He has the advantage with mobility already, he doesnt need godlike damage output when he’s far more likely to land a hit and get a combo than nemesis is. Firebrand appears to be one of the most well balanced pixies I’ve ever seen, and It’s a shame that the other rushdown/pixie characters dont have that same level of thought put into their damage output. I wish that design philosophy was followed more in UmvC2, and all other fighting games really. Mags, Dante, Virgil, Zero etc, etc. they dont NEED that damage. Hulk, nemesis, Sentinel, Tron, Haggar, THEY DO.
EDIT: jesus christ where did this essay come from!? sorry if this TLDR got a little off topic guys <: )
