Do you guys think Firebrand/Dorm/Shuma or Firebrand/Shuma/Ammy is a stronger team?
The first one. AFAIK Shuma is bad at covering assists, and Ammy’s assist definitely shouldn’t be called without cover. Unless you have fast coverage/lockdown (ex: Disruptor, Jam Session), Shuma isn’t going to see as much benefit as other characters. You might as well just give him XF3 to remedy his problems if you’re not going to give him a “low maintenance” assist.
I’d be tempted to run FB/Ammy/Shuma ahead of your 2nd suggestion, because I can see Ammy getting more use from Mystic Ray than Shuma does from Cold Star (due to his aforementioned issue). FB/Ammy have better DHCs and THC as well. That team might be able to compete with FB/Dorm/Shuma, although I still like the Dorm build a little bit more.
You’re going to want Firebrand’s back as close to corner as possible (or him as far away as possible from the corner he’s facing) for the raw tag to work. Doing Bon Voyage from mid screen actually won’t work - he’d be too close to the corner he’s facing and Doom will just end up hitting the opponent on the way in, which is what you don’t want. So the ideal conditions you want are for both you and your opponent to be close to a corner, where the opponent is facing the corner and you away from it.
Now let’s say you’re both near a corner, but Firebrand is facing it and your opponent has his back to it. Easy fix. After Launch > H, Devil Claw, Hell Dive M, H (this can either whiff or hit, the point is for it to make you drop faster), Bon Voyage. By doing this, you switch sides and meet the conditions you want. I believe this works mid screen too. However, this won’t work if the opponent actually has his back pressed up against the wall. If that’s the case…
I don’t try this one a lot because I’m inconsistent with it. But if your opponent is pressed up against the wall, do: L, M, Slide, Bon Voyage. There’s a certain timing that goes with it, but if you do it right, Firebrand’s slide will cause him to switch sides and Bon Voyage will take them where you want to go.
So with all that said, Firebrand can start the raw tag combo from anywhere on the screen. I think… Someone correct me if I’m wrong.
Tips: Once Firebrand get’s the hit, try to Bon Voyage as quickly as you can into the combo. If you add a launcher with Firebrand into the combo, you’re only going to get two reps of Foot Dive loops. If there’s no launch, you’ll get three. Also, keep in mind the characters that can’t be picked up by Doom using cr.M > S (Frank West, Trish, C. Viper, Dr. Strange, Iron Fist, Iron Man, Spider-Man, lolPhoenix, and She-Hulk). You’ll have to use cr.M > Hard Kick for those characters.
Again, someone correct me if I’m wrong. I currently don’t have an Xbox to test out some of the stuff I mentioned to see if I’m right.
Thanks @Augustus. People seem to think that the hard tag is very important, but if you’re supposed to as little combo with firebrand before tagging, the reward doesn’t seem that high to me. Not to mention that if you have Doom on anchor, you tag him in and do a combo and then DHC to your second character, you’re team order is all jacked up and you can’t fix it before the next character comes in.
The main reason it’s considered such an important thing to learn is because it is a meterless way to improve Firebrand’s damage, which is a pretty big deal. You can just as easily use Dorm, Vergil, or Strange (along with others), but they all require extra resources to produce worthwhile results.
Well, I don’t DHC because I have Dorm second and have access to the ridiculous Doom/Dorm THC. ~500k for 2 meters? I’ll take it. Way better than finishing the combo with Doom’s Level 3. But anyway, yeah, there are some cases where it’s worth it.
I run Firebrand/Dormammu/Doom and I don’t think that having him anchor is that big a deal. Here is the way I look at it:
Scenario 1.
Firebrand hard tag to Doom, finish combo with OTG Photon Array into Chaotic Flame. Team order is now Dormammu/Doom/Firebrand. If Dormammu dies, this gives me another chance to get Firebrand back into the battle safely. And even if not, anchor Firebrand can hit a character, XF3, and unblockable the rest of a team.
Scenario 2.
Firebrand hard tag to Doom, TAC into Dormammu. Chaotic Flame into Sphere Flame. Team order is now Doom/Dormammu/Firebrand. Since Sphere Flame drags to the top of the screen, I can just hard tag back to Firebrand, or Dormammu if I want.
Scenario 3
Same as scenario 1, but DHCing into Dark Fire too. Order is now Firebrand/Doom/Dormammu. This is a good order because your DHCs are still fine between Firebrand and Doom. I get Doom TACs, which are better than Dormammu’s. Dormammu gets a second chance at coming out safely because Doom is second. And anchor Dormammu isn’t bad.
I don’t like any of those! I guess I’m just picky about retaining my team order. maybe ill mess with the THC.
Thanks -AEON-. My next question is, since Shuma and Firebrand obviously have great hard tag synergy, what can I do to raw tag but still preserve the awesome Dormammu incoming set ups for Firebrand? For example, if I raw tag in Shuma and dhc to Dorm for Stalking Flare, how do I get Firebrand back in quickly enough to take advantage of it without screwing up the team order? That seems like one of Firebrand/Dormammu’s strongest strengths, so I would like to preserve it as much as possible.
I don’t know if you’re aware - you probably are - but you can skip Dorm and TAC straight to Doom while he’s on anchor (provided that you’re using Dark Hole assist), so that’s not really a plus. But then again, doing that would also screw up the team order, lol.
You don’t preserve the team order when in that situation. If you want that Stalking Flare unblockable, you’re going to have to deal with keeping it screwed up. There’s just not enough time for you to both fix up the team order and charge up the unlockable. If you try, Stalking Flare will be gone by the time you tag Firebrand back in.
Ok cool, thanks! If only there was a way to get both the Dorm stuff as well as the raw tag…
Sorry for the double post, but does the Shuma raw tag work on all character sizes? I am curious if I am bad (which is highly likely) or if it flat out doesn’t work on small characters.
It works on small characters with some adjustments, you have a list of characters it works on in the description of this video (I added in the comments how to do it on a few more characters) :
Thank you very much! This will help me out a lot.
Been working with Firebrand/Doom/Amaterasu as a counterpick to problematic characters against Dormammu and holy shit is this team good.
With my Firebrand/Dormammu/Doom team, I feel like I have to put in so much effort and be so wary of my meter build and damage, and how my team is ordered. FB/Doom/Ammy, you get one touch and then the enemy spends the game in the corner. You build so much excess meter because his reset game is so powerful with Cold Star. I’m getting to do things like spend meter on Luminous Body and always having meter to kill.
Even if you don’t have meter, you just TAC to Doom. TACs and hard tags to Doom keep the order right and the DHCs work out amazingly. The THC allows you to get another Dark Fire or Photon Array after Okami Shuffle.
Plasma Beam+Cold Star is all that Firebrand needs. Trust me, if anyone is thinking of switching to this team, do it. IMO it’s the only Firebrand team in the game where you don’t need ToD because your resets/unblockables will just be ridiculous.
Now if only my Amaterasu wasn’t butt tier.
This is pretty much why I’ve held off learning her for now. Just running Firebrand/Doom/Sent for the time being until my Ammy stops being ass.
I want to learn Ammy. I don’t want to learn Doom.
#FirebrandProblems
Doom’s easier. Just do it. There are worse characters in the game to play. I just dont’ see the point in limiting yourself when Doom is obviously his best partner.
I’ll get good at Amaterasu. That is, if people can start getting past Firebrand on this team.
Not posted on SRK in ages, went through a long period of time trying not to think about new tech and just working on my movement and fundamentals. Decided to post my thoughts on my current team in the tier thread so I’ve copied it in here to see if anyone has any comments or suggestions on how to make this team play more efficiently, or any glaring weaknesses it may have that I’ve not come across yet. I know some other people have tried playing this team already so input would be awesome:
Does anyone actually use TK Hell Dive M into j.L that much? I’m trying to incorporate it into my game to make my overhead game scarier (I’m kind of known in my area for always doing the empty jump Hell Dive L into cr.L) but the timing on it seems tight, if you do the tightest TK motion possible you won’t get the j.L out in time so you have to do a kind of lazy one to get it.
Also, I know this is for a different thread but is there a list of optimised x factor 1 combos for Firebrand from a variety of hit confirms? I get the feeling I’m not getting as much damage as I could off say a bon voyage confirm. And can Firebrand do anything beyond a basic magic series combo off a happy birthday?
Firebrand is pretty bad with happy birthdays. To my knowledge he can’t get anything more than L, M, H, S, air H, QCB+M, air H, land, H, S, air M, M, H, S, Dark Fire. Your best option is to try and find a good DHC or THC to end with to get more damage.