hey all,
i really want to play firebrand (and ofcource phoenix), i’m semi-decent with both of them
but i lack second character
can anyone suggest me a good second character that can both assist firebrand and build meter on his own?
thx =]
I’d say Ammy. She can work well w/ Firebrand and set up unblockables and she assists phoenix really well helping her w/ her high/low and left/right game. Only problem w/ this team and its up to you whether it’s a problem or not is the overall low health of the team and overall potential max damage of the team. Other than that it’s a pretty solid one. Let me know if you have any other questions that i can try and help you with 
yes actually i have =]
ammy is the current character i run 2nd, lets say that i can control phoenix but cant control ammy =[
great assist, great potential, dissaster for my skills and gamestyle
so if not ammy, who will you recommend?
It’s hard to place a character there because all the usual suspects as partners for Firebrands tend to rely a fair bit on meter. Really Ammy stands out as the best choice, though even she could really use the luxury of meter.
Overall it looks like you are running the ultimate risk/reward team. If you want to continue that theme, you could always try skrull second, that way you get even better resets than with Ammy and if you are up for it, you could go for the snap loop and just end the game right there. Ammy assist is far better for neutral/general mixups though.
You could also try Akuma second I guess, but the lockdown isn’t as good and the team would still be ridiculously fragile.
It’s kind of a tough one with that team, honestly I would stay with Ammy and learn her neutral.
All of the usual suspects are going to work well with the team. Doom, Ammy, Akuma, Dante, etc. Any good/great assist helps Firebrand/Phoenix, especially a good lockdown. Morrigan if you want the meter build. Frank if you want some health with a good assist (but then you’d have another “level up” character). Hulk and Sentinel aren’t bad choices if you want characters that are easy to learn and build meter quickly. It really would come down to who you are comfortable with. The only two that REALLY come to mind with Firebrand and Phoenix though is Felicia and Ammy. How would Felicia fit into your playstyle? She has a low hitting assist or an OTG assist. She’s fast and can usually get the first hit. If you lose Phoenix before she turns Dark, for whatever reason, then you’d have Felicia left and she is great in XFC.
Felicia? GREAT IDEA!!
thx alot! gonna lab her asap!!
Be careful if you go down that path because Rolling Buckler is not super amazing in neutral. It’s decent, but mostly used for unblcokables, something which Firebrand can do himself; well when he has an assist to hold his opponents in place. Unblockables with low assists tend to be a fair bit more unstable because they are harder to set up and easier to avoid.
So while Felicia is a great character, you are basically running 2 characters with NO assist for the neutral. While Point/Point/Anchor is a good team, I don’t think Point/Point/Phoenix is a very stable team. Could be highly effective but will be extremely prone to being randomed out.
I see your point. It just seemed that Felicia would fit his playstyle from what I gathered. Firebrand isn’t really assist dependant (I don’t play him regularly, but that’s how I remember him) and Felicia turns one touch from anywhere on the screen to a full combo. Really just depends on how heavily you rely on assist in the game. Phoenix’s assist are really good, but you have to be really, REALLY careful with how you use them. Both of the two point characters are just good at resets and any-touch-combos so I think they would build meter fairly well for Phoenix. Are there better characters for assist purposes? Absolutely! But Felicia does bring a lot to the table.
Don’t forget to keep us updated on the characters you like or dislike and why. Maybe we can help narrow down your needs based off of that.
sure =]
i practice with felicia since the post, she is a really really good character and i’m going to put some effort in her
about the characters i like (except firebrand and phoenix)
Rocket racoon
Arthur
M.O.D.O.K
Joe
Strider
i know its not alot,
i just REALLY hate playing characters that i see too often (aka wesker, doom, magneto, hawkeye, etc.)
and also, i prefer to play with fast-fragile characters rather then “buga buga me strong buga buga” characters
although modok and arthur are not really fast - they are unique and i liked to play with them =]
Sounds like you’ve got a good idea of what you want. It wasn’t until the last run of Vanilla that I figured out my Phoenix team. All of those are good characters that bring something to the table. The only thing I will say is remember that a lot of people kill your point character (which is really one misstep from Firebrand=death pretty easily) and then snap your second out to kill Phoenix. Just be sure you are comfortable being left with whichever character is left for XFC. Ammy/Pool/Phoenix is great cause I like all three of them as anchors.
most of my effort when i decided to play phoenix, has been put on practice with firebrand and RR in XF3 and some DHC/THC combinations
i’m aware of that problem =
how’s pool as a meter builder?
Middle of the road really. He does relatively low damage without burning meter. But he’s fast, teleports, zones, nice overhead and provides OTG or really good low-hitting assist. XFC definitely fixes his damage issues and he’s almost too fast to control properly, but works great nonetheless. He does everything but has no real specialty (I do like versatility in a character), if that makes sense. His solo mixups are bland also. I need to learn more of his extended combos, but I play a lot online and lag makes it even harder to learn/practice the combos.
I think MODOK can work well with firebrand. You can get heaps off of a TAC to MODOK (since firebrand doesn’t do much damage, resets and TACs are pretty important), plus I’m sure they’ll be ways to set up unblockables with MODOKs shield or balloon bomb.
There is no way to set up off of modok’s shield or bomb, shield can be jumped over, and rolled through plus hypers demolish shield. Doesn’t cause untechable knockdown anymore, and the hitstun is extremely weakened… Doesn’t hold them in place, but if you don’t care about Unblockables, using a TAC into Modok nets huge damage plus, lvl 9 HPB is a great deterrent to a lot of teams.
I’ve been wanting to like MODOK since Vanilla, and I just can’t. I don’t see him as a good Phoenix team-up either. I still like Felicia and think Buckler assist could provide some interesting mixups with Firebrand. Also with Felicia, you can hang back and use her meter building move if they want to try and up back or spam. It’s a way to make them move from the corner and actually play once they see the meter rising for Phoenix.
well modok as a phoenix battery is great because his meterless damage is great. I use firebrand/ felicia on a different team, and they work pretty well together. IOH with firebrand with Felicia low assist is brutal, Cross up Demon Missile M with rolling assist is brutal. its just Firebrand doesn’t build enough meter without specific hit confirms and long finicky combos, and meter is extremely important to a phoenix team. Plus health does matter on a phoenix team, so Firebrand/ Felicia have below average health and phoenix has booty health, doesn’t make a good combo… Firebrand/frank would work better, giving you unblockable setups for an easy 2-3 meters and access to a TAC infinite to level frank up to 5 and gain 5 meters fast. But do what works for you.
I agree about the health issue. I have just never cared about the health enough not play weaker characters. Maybe I’m just a masochist with this game. Frank would be good for meter, but I loathe everything about him. I even hate his picture on the character select screen. I don’t know exactly why, but I HATE Frank Douche. But if you can stomach him then he is a good choice. But I absolutely see your point.