Apologies for double-posting, but I wanted to respond to this separately:
This is almost EXACTLY what I’ve been working on. Ever since we found out just how high the damage setting was in this game, I’ve been trying to develop what I call a “boiling frog” strategy. I think most people are familiar with the term, but for those who aren’t: if you place a frog (or other cold-blooded animals who tolerate water) into a pot of boiling water, the frog will panic and jump out immediately. But if you place the frog in a pot of luke-warm water and slowly raise the temperature, the frog’s body temperature will rise right along with it, and it’ll never notice that it’s slowly being boiled alive. I think a similar mentality can be applied to this game.
Whereas in most fighters the damage you go for should be as big as possible as quickly as possible because opportunities to regen health are limited or non-existent, and in MvC2 health bars were so big that it wasn’t much of an issue, in MvC3 switching out for health regen is an important strategy. So if the first combo you land is something you carry all the way to the maximum end point (usually a hyper), you might do 60-70% damage on your opponent and pat yourself on the back. But the truth is that now they’re just looking to switch out, and punishing the switch only leaves you about where you started, and probably having burned one or more meters that didn’t help you that much.
On the other hand, if you get to know your character’s damage potential very well, you can sort of manipulate the opponent’s psychology. For example, if I’m using Thor, I know that I can pretty reliably break 600k damage before I have to DHC or look for a reset (that my opponent can potentially escape). So if I’m fighting an average-health character (let’s say Wolverine, since he’s so bloody common), I know that he has 950k health, so I need him down to about 60% health before I can probably kill him in a way he can’t escape and that doesn’t require me to go to extreme measures (like a triple DHC which may or may not be available to my team).
Now at 60% health, most people aren’t going to be looking to switch out, because they’re not in the “danger zone” yet–or they don’t think they are. So if I know I can do maybe 300-500k damage with a basic, meterless combo, I may elect to use THAT combo on my first opening, and simply try to end it in a way that leaves my opponent in a vulnerable (but not panicked) position for a follow-up. I might even try to let it look like I accidentally dropped my combo, so that he feels confident in trying to get “revenge.” Only NOW, if I play my cards right, I know I can kill off the character in a single combo, but my opponent is actually trying to bring that character TO ME. And if it works, I don’t have to worry about any red-life regen at all, and I’ve conserved my meter for later use.
Anyway, the “Boiling Frog” gambit obviously works for any character, but I think it’s especially useful for bigger-damage characters who can surprise people with sudden bursts of ridiculous damage. Feel free to play with it as you like, but try not to spread around the philosophy too much. We’d hate for the scrubs to get wind of it. 
Mighty Strike, :h: xx