I don’t necessarily agree with Amir here, but I also don’t agree with your premise. In these kinds of discussions you have to go with what the developers are more than likely going to do. We KNOW they aren’t going to really buff any assists that are already around in any reasonable manner, first because that would mean making the assist specials do things that there regular point versions don’t do hand in an extreme manner), second because we already know that they don’t really want the game to be highly assist based. The reason for the big cooldown is because there is no pushblock, so blockstrings can literally last forever ESPECIALLY when you get characters like Nappa with saibamen blockstrings… that shit literally lasts over 40 seconds and allows your assists to CD in almost permanent blockstun. The only way assists are going to get buffed is via some of the DLC having very strong assists. And as good as vegeta assist is, and it’s great, it’s not THAT great at neutral it can be made to wiff easily and if you do wiff it then you have forever cooldown to think about what you did wrong. The game doesn’t really have a neutral assist worth its salt and I doubt it’s going to ever really get one (you know, like something that is high priority and beats out other shit) the closest overall is beams but once again, way to easy to just jump over. Almost all assists are best used in blockstrings or something of that nature… ie combos.
I’m wondering when the meta is going to become calling both assists at the same or near the same time to cover multiple options… like calling 18 assist then immediately afterward calling vegeta assist. You get the counter and the lockdown. With someone that has good natural lockdown like Nappa or A gohan or even gotenks this might not be terrible. Etc
To me it’s just about adjusting the assist from the point version. Like in Marvel 3 hidden missiles is a “nerfed” version of point missiles. Point hidden missiles allows you to shoot like 20 missiles and if you could use that as an assist it would likely be the only real assist in the game like Vegeta basically is now. They have room to pick certain strengths of moves to add to the assist meta, but if having weak assists that have trouble challenging Vegeta assist is the meta they want then I guess that’s what we’ll get.
Which even in the realms of overly long block strings with better assists, I mean the block strings in this game already last forever with or without the assists so I dunno what the big deal is at that point. If anything you would get faster opportunities to mash level 3 super/DP/reflect/vanish out while calling your own assist. If the cooldowns are already long that shouldn’t impede with making them stronger. I would say the real whole point of the cooldowns is to make the game a bit more of a familiar 1v1 anime for people. Which is fine as casuals easily get overwhelmed by vs neutral, but that shouldn’t stop assists being stronger when the cooldown is already a fix to keep things from getting out of hand.
Double assist calling may not be bad for certain combinations. Especially since its rather rare to see happy bdays in this game for whatever reason. One of the issues with double assist calling is that you could run the risk of getting Merry Xmas’d if you do it at a bad time or with assists that aren’t strong enough. Plus I think the actual stronger assist meta is based around calling Vegeta or beam, then slightly later on calling another lockdown assist like Kid Buu so you get more room to passively build back Vegeta or beam. Blowing both assists at the same time means you’re basically without any secondary assist call to cool down your primary neutral/lockdown assist for a long time.
Vegeta assist in a combo/blockstring/setup is whatever, but the way you can just throw it out in neutral (with little regard for spacing or timing anything) and start your offense for free is really stupid. Maybe in a game like marvel that’s ok, but not really here when there’s no pushblock, assists are basically risk free (aside from the ‘risk’ of wasting the cooldown itself), and this assist in particular is extremely difficult to tag.
It also ends up having a dumb effect on neutral from the other side, because the counterplay is to jump around backwards to try to avoid vegeta assist until he’s on cooldown.
Honestly, unless there are some major system changes coming down the pipeline, I think the game would be better off without that assist, let alone adding more like it.
Once people get better at reflecting, simply throwing Vegeta out in neutral will phase out a bit more IMO. It’s already starting to happen but ain’t there yet.
That’s what made Morrigan and Vergil interesting as they were both characters that could easily cover that weakness if they had meter or had you locked down. Vegeta is already “nerfed” from what he was in beta so double dipping into nerfs for him is just a bad omen for any other assist that ends up being good. Don’t be a good assist or you’ll be a bad one later on shit. The game has homing point stuff that’s really dumb like super dash and vanish so anything that forces respect to be put into those homing 2 button moves is good IMO.
That helps a bit, but reflect only works on the ground and the ground in this game just like every vs game is lava. Really a lot of the time that you’re on the ground in this game it’s because you or your opponent is in a block string. They have to be doing some obvious ass Vegeta calls if you can safely be in the lava and reflect. Good movement without hitting a lot of buttons I still feel is best overall option vs Vegeta since the tail end of the hit box only touches the ground (kinda like Cell).
If you account for Marvel 3, Marvel 3 assists negated pushblock so they already work like the assists do in this game. You would be correct in that there’s more ways to pushblock the point character in Marvel 3, but the assists stopped pushblock so once you got touched on block by an assist you got DBFZ’d by it basically other than blocking right XFCing/mashing invincible super.
To me just removing the game of all assists would similarly accomplish what you’re asking for and that’s not really what I would call interesting. If the assists aren’t on the level of Vegetas then you might as well just have KOF 11 with DBZ characters.
Eh, Doom Missiles was nerfed inbetween version too, so it fits.
The lava comparison is interesting since this game is much more limited when it comes to the air. You can’t super jump as high, you rarely get an advantageous attack angle from it, no 8 way air dashes, and everyone has 2H. It’s only ‘floor is lava’ in that you got assists to contend with, everything else is encouraging ground play over air movement.
If vegeta assist existed in marvel, you could pushblock out of the blockstring as soon as the assist stops, which is only going to be a couple hits if you used it to get in from neutral. That’s not the same as this game at all.
And let’s be serious, assists like beams, trunks, 16, kid buu, etc. are quite powerful, they just aren’t nearly as brain dead or all encompassing as vegeta.
It was but not to the degree of Vegeta beta vs Vegeta launch. It was like 2 missiles loss.
Floor is definitely still lava in this game. If you watch the newest FT10 vs GO1 and Sonicfox anytime they stayed on the ground longer than 3 seconds they were getting block stringed into a combo, taking a dragon rush or taking a command grab. It’s still fire down there. Ground game in is using air dashes to get in range for ground buttons without steeping in the lava for too long. You gotta be in the air (even though you can’t do that much in the air or go that high up) as the ground for more than a few seconds will have you in a combo at top level.
Beams are decent (the full screen ones) as they’re the bare minimum for what is required to win a tournament and cover real assist neutral. Powerful I wouldn’t call them. Trunks not as good as beam so barely decent. 16 assist is powerful if you get it to land but there’s no way you can use that as your solo neutral assist so decent at best. Kid Buu assist is pretty much a lockdown only assist and not something you can use to protect you in neutral so scratch that from the powerful list.
Vegeta is literally the only assist I can say is legit powerful within the game. Dime also thinks the beams are strong, but that’s like about it.
Yeah I originally called the Gohan assists being possibly good before the game came out, but once the game came out it’s obvious that they just dont provide the hit boxes necessary to really control neutral. They don’t really have any real block stun to lock down with like an old Marvel 2 AA or Jam Session. Plus for a game that doesn’t take place very high in the air, they still dont move up very high in the air to catch a lot of things. That making them easily a step under beams at this point (but def not as bad as the worst).
I think dialupsucky brought up that they aren’t even frame 1 invincible which doesn’t help their cause for using as a solo neutral assist. Which makes sense since I believe they are the LP version of their DPs and IIRC only the MP DPs are frame 1 invince. Which the MP DPs for Gohan and Vegeta on point are the only ones you see GO1 use to escape pressure in most scenarios.
When need 17 in the game with those 3 heat seeking missiles as his assist lol.
I’m actually just waiting for an assist that covers the normal jump height part of the screen. I like that they are already getting a little bit more creative with Bardock having fast start up and broly having an assist that works differently at different ranges.
Agreed with this. The ground is lava for a few reasons:
1.it is the space that most assists occupy
2.Grounded moves tend to advance forward more (slides/long range specials etc)
3. A grounded opponent is easier to pinpoint (if the opponent is in the air then you still have to assess what level they are such as superjump height or double jump height or iad height etc)
4. Grounded opponents get jailed into blockstrings more easily and therefor mixed up.
The aerial movement in general is more pr a defensive play. Its a way to both defend and attack in a safer manner with regards to not giving your opponent easy momentum.
That depends on what you mean by strong, I guess. Most of the moves that are intended as AAs offer large conversions for low or no resource cost when you do land them.
This might be my biggest issue with the game. Super Dash and Vanish focused neutral. Not that I think they invalidate zoning completely, but just the way they are implemented is lazy… Like when you see SD hit you out of your air button that you timed and intended to stop SD. Vanish being heavy + frames is just a wtf altogether.