SHUMA - ZERO
[details=Spoiler]
** Shuma Gorath (B tier on point, A tier assist):** Shuma has been a strange character. Seems to have a solid mix up game but has been touted to have some of the worst damage output for combos the game offers and really unnatural execution requirements for said combos. No real buffs to speak of that make a difference other than meter stealing command grab but…there’s so much scarier shit in this game who cares?
His mystic ray assist will still be one of the game’s best assists at least and supposedly he isn’t terrible in XF.
Spencer (A tier on point, A tier assist): One of the stranger characters of the game but always a constant threat due to his ability to convert into damage from near full screen with zip line plus assists. Has probably one of the most annoying level 1’s in the game in bionic arm that starts up at the same speed as most people’s normals with solid invincibility. He can really make you afraid to press buttons at any time. Don’t really think he needed much in buffs and he’ll still be great on point in Ultimate overall.
His zip line assist is apparently the only assist in the game that sets people in a standing position after it hits allowing for really nasty combos and mix ups. I see this having more use in Ultimate with a lot of characters.
Spider Man (B tier on point, C tier assists): Spider Man got some needed buffs but at the cost of things that probably made him more powerful than anything they gave him. Being able to OTG into super is nice now and more things to web zip off of is great but he’s still going to be generally very assist reliant and just generally not have the scary hit boxes of other higher tier characters. If he gets in he’ll still have really nasty shit but nothing that sounds super scary as of yet.
His assists will still be garbage and he’ll be a total point man.
Storm (A tier on point, B tier assists): Buffs to her point game including damage buff and fair/foul wind push pull should really help her overall gameplan. I hear they’re buffing her hit boxes on her normals too which will be great. Being able to mash hail storm for more damage and having a bigger hit box will make the kiddies rage.
Assists still solid.
Super Skrull (A tier on point, B tier assists): Going to be an even stronger point character and one of the characters that will take big advantage of air XF. Everything about him seems nothing but buffs so I really see him going up. Not quite sure about S tier for him but he’s going to be a force certainly.
Solid assists as before.
Taskmaster: (A tier on point, A tier assists): Still going to do boat loads of damage, just wont instantly kill you anymore on a hit. Still gonna have big chip on arrows and arrows super. Mostly going to be the same solid character he was before. Air XF should buff him a good bit also. No more DHC glitch and OP XF1 and this guy still has 1.1 million health? LOL.
Some of the game’s best assists as usual.
Thor (B tier on point, B tier assists): The buffs to his game overall should help his point game a bit. Still going to be pretty reliant on assists to get things done but he sounds like he’ll be more of the big tank Magneto they wanted him to be in Vanilla.
Solid assists as usual.
Trish (A tier on point, A tier assists): She will only get better in Ultimate now that she can combo off her own throws with super. Extremely annoying dive kick game that’s hard to XF guard cancel due to her ability to cancel it into 5 or 6 different aerial special moves. Faster recovery on hopscotch and peekaboo should help her lame game nicely as well.
Peekaboo will still be one of the better assists in the game and will now start up even faster for more annoyance and space control.
Tron Bonne (B tier on point, B tier assists): Her point game sounds like it will be buffed a bit but not enough to be like A or S tier good. Just better space control with servbots and faster recovery on drills. Her j.H being nerfed a bit will nerf her overall damage output after a air dash H but I guess Capcom must have thought her damage after landing a random j.H was too much.
I’ve heard people say that her drill assist will be a decent replacement assist but we’ll have to see.
Viewtiful Joe (B tier on point, B tier assists): He’s always been kind of a character that just didn’t seem to fit in Vanilla Marvel. Nearly as slow on movement as Arthur but a bit better of a rushdown game once he got in. Had solid lame game from a range but nothing like Dorm powered up with destruction or Mags spamming estaka. He was just another character that could do a little bit on both offense and defense but neither particularly scary. The dodge function will be a nice buff that ties in to how he played in the beat em up game and make him a tougher target to hit. Especially since he can’t really do a whole lot to stop random assist calls + command dashes and teleports it’ll be nice to have an extra function without Haggar to deal with such offenses.
Ok but not great assists.
Wesker (A tier on point, A tier assist): With the nerf to his health and no more anti air gun teleport combos I see him being less of the auto pilot threat he used to be in Vanilla and overall a more calculated, but still rather strong character. Still has 3 different 1 frame command grabs when he gets in and will still have some of the game’s best normals that don’t involve swords. His gun game will be less of an issue for some of the lame out characters but teleport + assist is still going to be really dangerous with Wesker. Dark Wesker is toned but will still surely be one of the scariest XF3 characters. He’s not going to be running through whole teams anymore so definitely that plus nerfs to health and gun keep him to more of a very solid character than the dominant force he used to be. No more just plinko dropping him on the back of the team and spam shit with no assists to reverse OCV a team.
OTG assist still among best in game.
Wolverine (B tier on point, C tier assists): Wolverine is looking pretty average now. He’s still going to be one of the game’s biggest threats once he gets in but without invincible berserker slash he really has no supers that blow him through zone or any movement techniques to get in that are as strong as X-23’s, Wesker’s or other rushdown type characters. With all of the lame out type characters in this game Akuma is REALLY going to be his butt buddy now to keep B Slash safe and get in. Shorter hit box on dive kick, less annoying c.L and weaker XF should keep him as a much more honest character. It seems like he’ll be heavily reliant on the speed/frame buff on berserker charge now. Before he almost never needed berserker charge but now he’s going to be running it just to stay in the game. He made the game look way too easy to play so I’m all for this.
Assists are Spider Man bad.
X-23 (A tier on point, B tier assists): A REALLY slept on character in Vanilla. People didn’t really see much in her at first because without assists Wolverine was up and down better for like every way possible. When people learned that she was a character that forced you to learn the assist system she started to shine a lot more. I probably learned more about the game playing X-23 than any other character and she’s a character of great offense and overall strength without being completely braindead like Vanilla Wolvie. When you combine her special moves with strong assist they gain much stronger attributes including left/right mix ups that are faster than Wolverines that she can do from both the ground and air, a safe command grab that covers half the screen and a a safe special move that basically turns her into a projectile that causes a spinning flyback state on air hit or crumple on ground hit. These moves with assists allow her to get across the screen much faster and she also has the game’s best wall jump which allows her to run away for a bit and then suddenly jump forward and close the gap while still being able to block and call assists.
She has one of the scariest level 3’s in the game with certain assists that will pretty much shut down the next character coming in after killing one. The nerf to XF will make it so she will be forced to run resets more before getting the meter necessary to dirt nap characters down but that’ll be worth it considering the strength and unique ability of the level 3. On top of all of that she has a Makoto/C.Viper style feint cancelling technique that allows her to be the only character in the game that can rapid fire normals other than her L’s (both the M’s and the H’s) so she can get plus 6 and 12 on block normals that allow her to stick to the opponent like glue. Very little to no pushback at all unless the opponent advance guards. Which if they advance guard an MFC’d s.H she can dash through the advance guard and hit them with another s.H before they can attack again. Allowing you to stay in without an assist and press heavy frame advantage even without an assist. Also gives her a much stronger anti air game and generally one of the scariest pokes in the game when MFC’d.
Her assists will still be solid. Ankle slice hits low and buff to crescent scythe means she’ll be able to use it as a safe, invincible crossover counter.
Zero (S tier on point, B tier assists): This guy is going to be a monster again for slightly different reasons than Vanilla. In vanilla it was more so his ability to plant you on the floor from half way across the screen and being able to build 2 meters per combo with just one assist. That’s all gone now but he’s still a walking spaceship of shit that you can barely poke at and will still be able to force near invincible mix ups on people once he gets in. His command dash has been slowed a bit but now that he can cancel all his specials into charged buster people will pretty much have to let him get in or risk getting smacked by it and possibly getting comboed or at least letting Zero get in for free. Still going to just be the man of invincible normals and great mix of offense and defense. Let’s see who’s better between him and Strider.
Still solid assists but nothing to totally go crazy about. Much better point character overall. [/details]
Added in thoughts on V.Joe. Added extra notes on Wesker.
Less swag.