I’m just starting out in trying to add Thor to my team and I’m finding I have no way to deal with rushdown characters. All of his moves seen slow as molasses. Clearly I’m missing something. He’s got to have a good reversal.
Blocking/pushblocking. Seriously. You don’t really have any moves to get people off you. It sorta sucks, but it also teaches you some good discipline for MvC3 in general. Some people are suggesting Hagger lariat assist, but I’m personally just trying to have a solid defense in general.
There is the command throw if you are feeling ballsy. Other than that, your best form of defense is attacking, or at least utilizing your ability to fly/airdash to keep and control space.
Holy Crap, that sucks. I’m getting hit out of my freakin super moves!
What Chef says is very true. People playing this game in general don’t really give enough thought to what “defense” means. They think “offense” is rushdown, and “defense” is keepaway, when really those are just two different ranges for offense. If you spend most of your time trying to attack back–at any range–you’re going to get hit unless you’re the faster or higher-priority attacker (which you cannot always be).
Thor actually has some good tools for defense, but they’re somewhat counter-intuitive to the typical playstyle. I’ll list a few that come to mind:
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His back-dash is really good. What’s even better is that it can be buffered into a bunch of stuff. You wouldn’t believe how many people you will catch by back-dashing out of range, then buffering in a forward-moving Mighty Strike/Smash/Spark. And since those moves cause so much hit-stun, they make it very easy to regain offense afterwards.
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The various timing of his attacks (chargeable Strike/Smash, M and H Spark, etc.) can totally throw people off. Delaying your attack is a great way to screw with people’s timing. For example, if you launch a volley of L Sparks such that your opponent feels inclined to super-jump over them, and then you use an H Spark, they’re very likely to run right into the “charge-ball” of lightning that forms in front of Thor, because the beam fires much later than they expect it to. And charging up Strike makes the thing damned-near invincible.
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Mighty Spark deserves its own entry. The thing has such high projectile priority, and it can be tiger-knee’d for jumpers, or even called as anti-air/anti-rush because of the hit-box on the charging animation. Don’t be afraid to learn to use it.
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Thor’s air mobility is actually pretty damned good. Don’t be afraid to try to out-maneuver your opponent in the air.
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H Mighty Hurricane has a 1-frame startup. While it’s risky to just toss it out there, calculated use of it on defense can really be devastating. Block a move with just a bit of ending lag, but buffer the grab command into the block stun, and you can grab a lot of folks out of stuff. Be warned, though, that you’re gonna get punished for it while you learn the timing/spacing.
Hope that helps a little. Try to get out of the box of thinking that “defense” either means “run away” or “find an invincible start-up move to knock people out of my face once they’re already there.” There’s more to it than that.
That’s because Thor’s hypers (and most hypers, really) aren’t meant to be tossed out randomly while hoping for a hit. The exception to that is Mighty Punish, but you’ve got to learn how to use that.
Total side note: I just did a test, and it looks like if Thor kills Phoenix with an air-to-ground Mighty Strike, any light attack, or any Mighty Hurricane (and probably anything that has quick recovery and keeps him close to her), he can block the Dark Phoenix transformation burst, XFC (any level), and 1-shot her with Mighty Punish. I don’t have any video equipment, but does anyone want to make a video for the anti-Dark Phoenix compilation that says “Thor CAN Control It”?
Everyone with XBL should add me as a friend. I really think a big part of Thor’s game will only come from Thor users playing against each other and helping each other learn certain tactics. He isn’t a character we are seeing at all in tournaments and shit right now so that option is out the window. It is our duty to help Thor get to a competitive level.
Man I tried, but a against someone making good use of assists I just couldn’t do anything. My Thor kept getting perfected. I was hoping to add him to my She-Hulk Ryu team, in place of Chun-li, in order to assist with keep away squads but ended up even weaker against rushdown than I was to begin with.
Thor can one shot phoenix going into Dark phoenix. Nice
I’ll make a video for it real quick.
My Current Team is She Hulk, Dormammu and Thor. Dormammu and She Hulk being my most effective characters I can usually take a team down with just Dormammu but I am Having serious Issues with Thor who is also my favorite character. Im Just figuring out that Mighty Strike can beat projectiles but its hard to rely on. And the range and start up on his command throw is absolute ass. Then to top it off he is the SLOWEST character in the game and has no Super or Hyper Armor to help him ward off rush characters. There has to be a bright spot in playing Thor but I just cant find it. My Thor is so free to rush the fuck down. Does he have ANYTHING with high priority or Super Armor?
Rethinking my Thor team, how does Thor/Chris/Tron or Thor/Doom/Tron sound?
Edit: Also, I’m at work right now and can’t test, but can Thor flight-cancel his normals? Like say cr. H into flight mode?
Anyone finding much use for his flight mode? I see he can cancel a lot of his moves into it at any point, including his air Heavy (the falling hammer move).
But it seems to have a really long recovery which keeps him from doing cool combos/etc with it. It’s also cancelled by using air Heavy or Special, which seems to limit it.
I notice he does get a few additional air dashes while in air flight mode though. You can jump up, dash, flight, dash dash dash and come in from some really weird angles.
What are you guys using it for?
About the only use I’ve found is what you said. You can mix up your advance/retreat patters, then cancel it at opportune moments with various normals or specials.
Ok I played Thor ALL DANG DAY today and it resulted in a less than spectacular win/loss ratio but I noticed a lot of things. First Thors Mighty Strike Priority is Godlike (no pun intended) It beats out everything that I ran across today including Mike Haggars annoying ass lariat. I find a lot of people walk into it if I go straight up with it H > then immediately follow it with the M version which sends him down at an angle. Ive even managed to land a couple of Mighty Hurricanes when I land just out of range. I do have a serious question though Does the command grab have an invincible startup or any good frame priority seems the range and priority both are complete ass. Its so hard to land as compared to other command grab characters. I play a pretty nasty Gief and as hard as it is to believe they made Thor Slower than him. To the point where I never walk with him Im usually using mighty strike or smash to close distance. I really think if he had multiple hit armored normals and Launchers like the hulk and sent it would really help his HORRIBLE speed.
Any tips on landing mighty hurricane during a match would be greatly appreciated. Seems the only way I can reliably land it atm is if I empty jump or Tri Dash in which leaves me wide open. Lastly does anyone know if Capcom plans on patching this like they did SF4? If so hopefully Thor will get some Love.
While it sucks that you didn’t do so well using Thor, he’s definitely not a character that you can pick up and expect to dominate right away. However, it sounds like you’re doing a lot of things right so far. Yes, Mighty Strike is GDLK and should be the core of any Thor’s gameplay. He also should never be walking anywhere, just Mighty Striking, Smashing, air-dashing, and sliding.
As for ways to use Mighty Hurricane: learn the kara cancels inside and out. Learn the triangle-jump-slide discussed a few posts back. Pick a couple of good assists and learn when their guard stun ends after your opponent blocks them. That will be a big ticket to nailing a grab. Other than that, learn his resets (corner and mid-screen), so that you can have a good chance to land a grab off of the end of a regular combo.
Cool Ogrim thanks for the help. Quick question though. Will his command Grab beat out regular moves and specials like gief with the 360 or is the priority not as good having a hard time eyeballing it. and I must be missing something How the heck does thor slide? >.> Let me read this entire thread lol see if i can find what you mean.
Edited to add.
Heck the slide is at the top of this page… Doh… whats the input when I do the air dash I just land, no sliding what am I doing wrong?
I’ve been playing with Tiger Kneeing the 4217:m: as a quick overhead. It hits from really far away and is pretty fast.
You can even combo easily off it with a :h: -> 623:m: into a regular launch combo for huge damage from anywhere.
I like it because it’s another option in addition to triangle jump dash downward tricks.
Few things,
The slide only happens if you air dash down forward and whiff or hit a normal it can work but it’s pretty hard because people will mash as soon as they see they aren’t blocking stuff. If you can place something in their way or make them afraid of getting hit by an assist you will have better luck. Mighty tornado should be there for utility and some mixup. How and when to incorporate will take some time to learn.
Three random notes
In the corner weskerB + Thor addf+l makes a really nice hard to blockable that you can loop with some practice. It’s really good on incoming characters.
Killing a character backing off a bit and summoning dormmamuA the addf whiff hard into command grab is another good setup on incoming characters
Finally this may be known but people who press buttons on the way in lose throw invulnerability haven’t found a way to really take advantage but it’s good to know.
Might Strike is not THAT godly. I find it trades with alot of shitI (I’ve seen deadpool’s j.H stop Thor’s M mighty strike, for example.)…but if it’s charged, that’s a whole new story. In fact, anything charged from Thor feels invincible to me (someone be nice enough to get framed data on his charged supers, please.) Like most people are saying, most opponents will either turtle and projectle at Thor or they’ll rush him down…not allowing Thor any real charge times. I’m finding you gotta find a “sweetspot” to keep your space with Thor(non assist too, so you don’t get too assist crazy).
And for the record, today was my first day going online! (one whole week of since owning this game) and yeah, online is crap. And I’ve been very optimistic about his normals, but…god there horrible in an actual match. I feel like there more for baiting into some of his links (st.L > L mighty spark works wonders for example.) or just though out a normal, and surprise the opponent with his supers. Idk, work in progress on that.
As for assist, I love Spencers grapple assist. The range and priority of his stuff always reels an opponent in. Dormammu purification AA helps as a good “get off me” for rushers. His black holes do much better though, since your opponent gets hangs in there in the black hole, allowing Thor to do an easy mighty strike, smash, spark combo. I prefer his AA since is stops opponents and there assist from crossover attacks though.
A couple of things:
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It can sometimes be surprising what you can grab people out of. If you’re blocking a string of some kind, remember that you can actually let go of holding the stick back and you’ll keep blocking till that string ends. Once you get a feel for this (not THAT hard to feel what’s a poke and what’s a standard BnB attempt), you can buffer a Hurricane command into the end and you’ll frequently grab someone right out of their recovery frames. It’s not GDLK, because it’s taking a risk, but it can really turn things around or at least scare people into backing off if you get good at it.
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I’m really liking Dormammu’s Dark Hole assist with Thor for defensive purposes. Against a rusher, you can push-block their attacks and mash out Dorm’s assist, and the distance of the push is such that they wind up right in the middle of the Dark Hole. Blocked or hit, you get a breather. And against a zoner, you can do a triangle jump or triangle jump-slide and call Dorm right in the middle on your way in (since you’re not using any super-jumps or specials) and he’ll actually be at the right distance to catch them.