Character's Ease of Use

Classic Fighting Games Ultimate Marvel VS Capcom 3
1

So who are the easiest characters to pick up and use and who are the most challenging?

Capcom

**Easy: **Akuma, Nemesis, Ryu, Wesker

**Medium: **Arthur, Chris Redfield, Frank West, Haggar, Hsien-Ko, Phoenix Wright, Spencer, Trish, Tron, Vergil, Zero

**Hard: **Amaterasu, Dante, Felicia, Firebrand, Morrigan, Strider, Viewtiful Joe

**Very Hard: C. Viper, Chun-Li, **Jill

Marvel

**Easy: **Captain America,Ghost Rider, Wolverine

**Medium: Deadpool, Doctor Strange, Dormammu, Hawkeye, Hulk, Iron Fist, Phoenix, Sentinel, She-Hulk, Super Skrull, Taskmaster, **X-23

**Hard: **Dr. Doom, Magneto, M.O.D.O.K., Nova, Shuma-Gorath, Storm, Thor

Very Hard: Iron Man, Rocket Raccoon, Spider-Man

2

Hmm. Online and offline shouldn’t matter, you would make a separate list for each one.

I think the main criteria for character difficulty, imo, are movement and safety of approaches, which are things you have to vary match to match depending on the opposing team. Execution shouldn’t be, because that’s a measure of how long a player has to spare in the training room; that doesn’t make them difficult, unless they have an extremely tight execution window for most of their combos which adds some difficulty to them.

As an example, I would not put Zero in the very hard bracket, I think he should be in the medium bracket as he has some very safe stuff and moves well relatively easily. MODOK remains justified as hard because unlike Zero he isn’t as safe on approaches, so you have to be more careful with him and learning how to move correctly with him is more difficult.

3

Swap Iron Man and Magneto on the Marvel side.
Move MODOK, Dr Strange and Shuma Gorath to Very Hard.
Nova on Medium.
Ghost Rider and Hulk on Easy.
X-23 and Phoenix on Hard.

Zero should be on Medium.
I think Frank West and Haggar should be on Easy. Ryu and Akuma too most probably.
Strider moved up to Hard.
Rocket Raccoon is a Marvel character and should be Very Hard on Marvel’s side.
Nemesis is a Capcom character and should be Easy on Capcom side.

My list would look like this:

Capcom

**Easy: **Wesker, Nemesis, Frank, Akuma, Ryu, Haggar

**Medium: **Arthur, Chris Redfield, Phoenix Wright, Spencer, Tron, Vergil, Zero

**Hard: **Amaterasu, Dante, Felicia, Morrigan, Viewtiful Joe, Strider, Trish, Firebrand, Hsien Ko

**Very Hard: C. Viper, Chun-Li, **Jill,

Marvel

**Easy: **Captain America, Wolverine, Hulk, Ghost Rider

**Medium: **Deadpool, Dormammu, Hawkeye, Nova, Sentinel, She-Hulk, Super Skrull, Taskmaster, Doom

**Hard: **Magneto, Storm, Thor, X-23, Phoenix, Iron Fist

Very Hard: Iron Man, MODOK, Shuma Gorath, Spider-Man, Dr Strange, Rocket Raccoon

4

Vergil belongs to the easy list, he’s one of the most scrub friendly characters, with a ton of brain dead tactics and he can break 600k off easy b&bs.

5

Vergil has a lot of unsafe moves that makes it so that it is very easy to spot and kill a scrub Vergil. Unlike the other characters I listed who have a ton of safe normals to abuse and put out. You actually have to learn to hit confirm and use safe block strings with Vergil which is something you don’t need to do with someone easy mode like Wesker. 600K easy combo pretty much any character can do, even Firebrand’s combo does that much damage and it’s also easy.

6

I like the idea of adding a movement criterion. A character’s mobility is certainly important and is something that you want to have good control over. However, I think execution plays a role in the learning curve. Consider Wesker and Doom. Wesker’s BnB takes considerably less time to learn than Dooms and overall people perform it much more consistently.

7

You should also note that all of Vergil’s “braindead” tactics aren’t nearly as effective against good players. Well except for assist + teleport but literally every other teleport character can do the same thing. Aside from that I would move Doom and Magneto to medium on the Marvel side and Strider to medium on the capcom side.

8

Hey thanks for helping out on the list. What criteria do you use to judge a character’s learning curve?

Also, a lot of better Hulk players use his move that requires a charge command in their BnBs. I think people generally find charge commands difficult to get consistently. Do you think this makes him harder to use?

9

The criteria that I used was basically how difficult it is to apply a character’s tools in the neutral or in hit confirms/combos. Most characters have easy combos but those who have legit hard combos and hard hit confirms are automatically put in Hard/V Hard. Characters that require tons of situational awareness, tons of inputs to execute an approach/option or base level mastery of some of their more advance tactics are characters that I would put in as Hard/V.Hard.

I have characters like Haggar, Wesker, Ryu, Wolverine listed as Easy because their tools are easy to understand and apply with not much of a risk in messing them up. It also helps that most of their normals are + or safe on block. Compare it to Viper who has difficult to execute tools with a high risk of messing them up (and thus putting yourself in an unfavorable situation). Another example would be Iron Man. He has difficult to master movement options because you really have to be aware which dash to use when and then also you have to worry about which normal to use at what situation (he has 3 forms of j.Hs). Add to the fact that he REQUIRES that you know a fly/unfly as his basic hit confirm/BnB pushes him higher than most characters in difficulty along with the fact that his SJ hit confirms/combos are also quite difficult for the average person. Strange is pretty much the same, he requires that you know your hit confirms and you really need awareness in spaces/situation where you can set up your offense because unlike a lot of characters Strange requires set ups to perform well. His combos are also not easy and neither are his aerial confirms.

Other characters I rate as difficult due to being unorthodox or difficult to control. MODOK would be an example of this, he has a steep learning curve if you really want to make the most out of his toolset. RR is also both unorthodox and has difficult aerial hit confirms as well as difficult advance combos. Most of the characters that have an 8 way air dash I have listed in Hard because you have to spend a great deal of time learning how to control them which you don’t have to do with other characters who lack these mobility options. Plus since you can’t block in air dash, you get punished hard for incorrect use of your mobility option. The exceptions being Dorm and Nova because they have the hit box to protect all around them as they move forward making them hard to hit out of their mobility option (plus Dorm has a teleport and easier combos than the rest).

Also having Gamma Wave as a charge move doesn’t make it that hard because in most situations that you use it, it’s not that difficult to execute. On the other hand, a charge move for Chun Li and Shuma ends up being more execution heavy as charge is usually required mid combo. With Hulk you basically charge at the end of a combo and during the neutral it isn’t hard to charge it at all because it’s not even that long of a charge.

10

Vergil is about as easy as it fucking gets.
Spam Helm breaker + assist + teleport, place top 8 at east coast majors

11

Finally someone with a brain. Character takes nothing to succeed with. Put Zero on that easy list too.

Vergil easiest in the game. Zero 2nd easiest in the game.

12

I’d default Hsien-Ko, PWright and Tron to Hard because of how difficult it is to be effective with them. Their movement is also relatively limited, especially with Hsien-Ko and PWright. Hsien-Ko and Tron combos tend to be on the complicated side from what I’ve seen.

I’d call Sentinel easy IMO. Getting used to his flight mode and combos don’t take too much time. It’s only complicated when you play against certain matchups.

13

I disagree with above. While sentinels BnB’s are fairly straight forward and his normals are on the stronger side of the cast, his sheer size opens him up for mad mixups. You need to have spot on blocking skills if you even want to consider playing him. Any tridash character f.e. rapes a Sentinel who doesnt unfly quick enough, or throws out a c.M in the wrong moment.

14

People really shouldn’t confuse basic and has easy combos with easy to use.

Sentinel is hella basic and straight forward, but he’s fucking hard to use properly if you actually wanna win. You actually need footsies and shit while the guy you’re playing against can just derp it out with invincible swords and shit

15

If the argument is being made that who is easy to win a major tournament with then you might as well just shift the discussion to tier discussion thread. The question that was asked is “who is easiest to pick up”.

By that logic Ghost Rider is INSANELY difficult to play with because he is difficult to win a tournament with. But who the hell has difficulty picking up and playing that character to decent efficacy?

Sentinel is Medium difficulty while he has easy combos/confirms you have to space out normals properly and use fly/unfly judiciously. No matter how well you play with him he is going to have difficult match ups.

16

No one said anything about winning tournaments, the issue here is that ease of use is not just combos. Sentinel is easier to pick up but harder to use than characters like Vergil or Zero who can just derp it out.

No offense, but how is Sentinel at medium difficulty and doom is at Hard?

17

I maintain that execution shouldn’t be a criterion; it’s nothing more than a test of the time you have to spend in the training room, and does not depend on matchup, whereas movement and safety are different in every game.

For example, BnB combos and all combos for that matter are a case of learning it, then repeating it; once you hit confirm, it’s a test of being able to press buttons in the right order. Movement and safety on the other hand are different in every matchup - it is different vs all point characters, and differs further depending on assists / whether the enemy has meter / other considerations for an absolutely massive set of possible situations. Therefore, they are much harder to do correctly under all situations and cannot be learned in training mode against a stationary character.

This is part of why execution should not count here. Anyone can do Dante’s advanced combos, or even indeed MODOK’s advanced combos, given enough time. What you can’t learn grinding for ages in training mode is how to get yourself into a position to actually do those combos, the ease of which depends on the character’s movement / normals safety / mixup options.

Conversely, Wesker and Sentinel combos are relatively straightforward, but the exact same point applies. Not knowing exactly how to move around effectively, or not knowing what is safe and what isn’t under what circumstances, is what determines how difficult they are to use. That’s why Wesker gets into an easier bracket than Sentinel, imo.

18

But your first statement in the thread talked about how you could get top 8 in tournaments by doing Helm Breaker into assist + teleport. I assumed that’s what you were talking about here.

And I agree with that although hit confirms and combos do factor into ease of play especially when one is starting out with a character and getting to grips with the combos/hit confirms. The fact that Sentinel can get a full combo from just doing j.S in the air at any height is a considerable point where as someone like Iron Man has to do at bare minimum a couple of dash cancels, character positioning with j.H’s (down or up) and fly/unfly to do a combo at SJ height.

Doom should be at Medium too. I looked over that for some reason. Also Hsien Ko should be at Hard too, I really shouldn’t have copy/pasted the OP list and just made some adjustments.

List is fixed up a bit more. I am unsure on Phoenix Wright’s difficulty as well as Tron’s.

19

For me ease of use mean you can use a character without knowing him deep and perform well versus someone like you or even take a good player off guard. With this definition all the cast is easy and very hard to use in the same time.

Instead of talking about the ease of use we should talk about the miss-knowledge of the opponent who face a character.

What is the matchup that we know the best, what is the matchup that we still don’t have a clue about it ?

When someone will do a video like Dante/Vergil/Zero/Wesker must die and put it on srk and eventhubs, we could start talking. Until :confused:

20

MODOK, Shuma Gorath and Dr Strange should be in Very Hard without a doubt.
Spiderman should move down to Hard.
Super Skrull should be in Hard as well.
Hulk should move down to Easy.

Viper should move down to Hard.
Morrigan should go up to Very Hard.
Hsien Ko, Phoenix Wright and Firebrand are all hard to use.