HULK STRONGEST THERE IS! - A guide on how to succeed with Hulk

Classic Fighting Games Ultimate Marvel VS Capcom 3
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Hey there everyone. There seems to be a lot of questions concerning Hulk. What teams should he be a part of? What moves should I be using? How do you stop the rushdown? How do you get in on zoners? Is he even viable in a tournament setting? Most importantly, **how do you succeed with Hulk? **This guide will answer these questions and more.

Topics to cover:
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[]Strengths and Weaknesses.
[]Team-building. Basically, which assists greatly help Hulk and how should the team be structured.
[]Moves. Not all moves will be listed, but the best moves you should be using (and why) will be explained here.
[]Combos. Hulk isn’t a combo machine like Dante or Magneto. Instead, he thrives on doing tons of corner damage with simple combos. Mid-screen and “carrying” combos will be included here too.
[]General Strategy and Mixup Game.
[]Dealing with the Toughest Matchups. Some of the hardest matchups, like Magneto and Taskmaster, will be eased by the information in this section.
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I don’t expect to put this together alone. I’ll be collaborating with a few of the other Hulk masterminds around here for their input on these sections.

Strengths and Weaknesses

In order to play a character effectively, you must first understand his/her weaknesses. Knowing the pros and cons of your character helps determine playstyle, matchup strategies, and which assists are needed. Here’s a quick rundown of Hulk’s strengths and weaknesses.

Strengths
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[]Very high damage output
[]1.2mil vitality, one of the highest in the game
[]Has command grabs
[]Has super armor in several attacks
[]Has one of the most damaging hyper combos - Gamma Crush
[]Great corner pressure
[]Dangerous frame traps
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Weaknesses
[LIST]
[]Very slow, punishable normals
[]Poor mobility; cannot wavedash
[]Fast, runaway characters are extremely hard to catch
[]Some zoners can keep him out
[]Makes for a terrible anchor
[]X-Factor gives no speed boost
[]Needs an otg assist for midscreen throws and combos
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Team-Building

Hulk is a character that deserves special attention when including him in a team. He’s not like Wolverine and Wesker who can just be thrown into any team and still be effective. For maximum potential, Hulk needs two types of assists: an otg and a lockdown/projectile assist. Without an otg, Hulk misses out on midscreen damage from command grabs, and without a lockdown/projectile assist, Hulk can’t get in and/or mix up his opponents effectively.

Don’t take this as a liability though. Hulk is a great team player and dishes out ridiculous amounts of damage. There’s no need for DHC glitches or resets with Hulk because with the right team, he can do more than 1,000,000 damage when starting a combo from midscreen (not including a DHC followup!).

Another important thing to remember is that Hulk is terrible as an anchor (last character). He gets no speed boost from XF, so it could be nearly impossible to catch characters like Magneto and X-23 without assists. Therefore, when including Hulk in your team, make sure he is the first or second character, never the third.

Lastly, don’t forget that Hulk has decent assists too. In fact, all three of them are acceptable depending on team structure. His Gamma Wave assist hits otg and stops projectiles. His vertical Gamma Charge is a super-armored dp that does decent damage. The forward-rushing Gamma Charge is fast and effective at creating space.

Example teams

Hulk (β)/Dorm(α)/Wesker(β)

This is my personal team at the moment, and I think it summarizes how a Hulk team should look. Each member compliments the others in some way, and the assists that Hulk needs are all there. Dormammu’s Dark Hole assist locks people in place for a mixup, while Wesker’s otg shot allows Hulk to easily extend midscreen and corner combos. Wesker’s assist also sets up unblockables for both Hulk and Dorm. If DHC’ed, Dorm can stop rushdown characters with Hulk’s vertical Gamma Charge assist. Dorm and Wesker make excellent anchors if one or the other is killed first.

A huge strength of this team is the synergy between Hulk and Dorm. They DHC flawlessly from midscreen or the corner. With a DHC, Hulk’s combos can deal about 1,200,000 damage, killing nearly every character instantly.

MORE COMING SOON!

Note: The first few posts will be reserved.

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General Strategy and Mixups

Once you’ve put Hulk on a fitting team, then you’ve got to learn how to actually use him. Remember, Hulk is slow, and he can’t mix up too well on his own. However, with assists backing him up, he’s a strong force.

The main goal with Hulk is to land that *one *hit that should hopefully lead to the corner and the opposing character’s death. Because of his massive damage output, I compare him to an x-factored Wolverine after you kill a character in the corner. If you mix up and hit an incoming character, they’re dead on arrival.

Beginning the Match

In pre-match movement, you should always jump or hold forward towards your opponent. Never start off by backing away, as this instantly puts you at a disadvantage. You can start a match in several ways…
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[]Mashing the :h: **button **- This is a strong opening move. If your opponent tries to jump and grab, your st.:h: will hit. If they choose to block, they get grabbed. If they’re spamming the grab button too, then you may go through a series of grab techs, but once your opponent gets their st.:h:, you will hit them with yours. Watch for your opponent’s assists, and use your own if they’re right for this situation. If your opponent jumps and blocks, cancel your move into dp Gamma Charge while calling an assist.
[]Mashing dp Gamma Charge + followup - I like this option too. It’s much faster than using :h:, and it safely covers most options. I don’t know if Hulk is considered airborne on the first frame of dp Gamma Charge, but if he is, then this is easily the best opening option. The opponent can’t ground grab you if you’re airborne. This option also beats out any low attacks, and with its super armor, it will beat out most normals. If the opponent simply blocks, you’re +5, so mix them up ASAP.
[]j.:h: - I do this occasionally to run away characters that are jumping in the pre-match movement, but you may get anti-aired, so it carries a risk. If you get an airthrow (which is what this option fishes for), you get a free combo leading to the corner. You might get lucky and hit them with the j.:h: while they’re grounded, but it hardly ever happens.
[]:h: **Command grab **- While risky, this option can be a great opener against teams with Tron or Haggar assist. Most people will jump and call one of those assists, but your command grab will actually grab them before the assist can punish you.
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Mid-Match Mixups

Landing that one hit is extremely crucial for Hulk due to his strength. The problem many players have though is relying on st.H too much, while not mixing the opponent up enough. Hopefully, this section will explain how to get that first hit.
[LIST]
[]j.:s: Crossups - This is possibly the simplest way to open up your opponent. It involves jumping over an opponent and activating j.:s: at a point where it is ambiguous on which way to block it. Since j.:s: hits somewhat behind Hulk’s heels, it can be deceptive on which way it will hit. This video demonstrates the use of this technique at 3:25 and 4:54. (Note, the video is several months old, so my Hulk is much better now :tup:).
[]Gamma Charge after a blocked st.:h:- This is known as a frame trap. Although Hulk is at a huge disadvantage after a blocked st.:h:, he can cancel his recovery into a special or super. Your opponent may try to punish, but they’ll be hit by your Gamma Charge instead. At 2:39 in this video, my opponent attempted to punish a blocked st.:h: with Wesker’s super, but since I cancelled it into Gamma Charged, it punished him instead.
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Reserved.

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Reserved.

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Last Reserve. Feel free to post now. :tup:

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Great Idea! I was hoping someone would start to make this. Will you be using some of the hulk mobility thread info in this guide?

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Yes, especially for which characters he can dash over (although, I think it’s in the guide too).

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Oh, good timing! This will saving me from having to make a thread tomorrow morning because I can just dump the results of my lab work here. I’ll definitely help with this thread, Astaroth. Tonight, I’m testing to see if specific moves avoid Hulk’s s.:m:. For instance, Wesker cannot crouch to avoid s.:m:, but I’m not so sure that his c.:m: can be hit by Hulk’s s.:m:. I’m going to test all low attacks of all characters that cannot usually be underneath Hulk’s s.:m: and then I’ll compile a list of all characters capable of ducking beneath s.:m:. This move is considerably better than s.:h: in most situations, so it’s worth learning what characters it works against.

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I think everything here can be summed up with a Familyman quote: “HULK IS THE STRONGEST!”.

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This is amazing, hopefully i can get some videos up and help contribute. I think i play a different type of hulk then every one =/

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You play the ugly blue-ish Hulk? :wink:

I finished my s.:m: testing last night and I’m writing up the document to post. There’s a lot of information, so it’ll probably be a few hours unless work is slow.

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lmao i actually do

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I decided there was way too much information to just dump my standing :m: research into this thread. I want people to be able to ask questions about the details, so I’ve created a thread specifically for when to use standing :m:. I made a quick reference of my recommendations of which characters to use it against, so if you want to use that in this thread, feel free to snag it later.

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Added strengths and weaknesses section. I think it accurately covers the main points to Hulk.

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I think that talking about how Hulk can potentially out zone some characters should be listed here. His Gamma wave eats up every projectile in the game. He can out zone a turtling Dormammu forcing him to come to you, same thing with a sentinel who thinks he can just spit at you or send drones. It might not win matches but I can frustrate opponents enought to make them come to you.

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I actually liked to see Hulk’s gamma charge have Akuma’s Tatsu properties, crushing through beams, gamma charge is also way more punishable then Tatsu

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I’ve been practicing way more than usual since a big tournament is coming up in Tennessee soon. As a result, I haven’t been able to add much to this guide recently. Expect more information to be added in the coming week.

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Some strengths and weaknesses you left out:
DHC Glitch Capable
You listed he can’t wave dash which is true but he can plink dash. (Wave Dash is dashing using the down in between as your cancel, plink is cancelling into moves)
His supers all do different things and two hit OTG so almost any team he’s on he’ll be able to DHC into (I love that I can fly to the top corner of the screen with someone using Superskrulls Torch Super and then DHC into Hulk while most characters wouldn’t be able to combo from that)

I disagree with Hulk needing an OTG assist. I think its helpful but not really a weakness at all. I’m running him without an OTG and doing just fine.

I’ll give you all my example team:

My Team: Spencer Slant Shot / Hulk Gammawave / Dormammu Dark Hole
Spencer in play: Hulk’s gammawave does an incredible job covering his aerial approaches. In the corner you can DHC Trick for an easy 800k from Spencer to Hulk and if you have the meter to do a super with Hulk you can get 1.2 million. I’ve landed this in matches very easily. Spencer also combos slow enough that Hulk’s gammawave will OTG just fine to allow Spencer to continue combos or super even from full screen. Dormammu I don’t use as much with Spencer but will mix up between the holes and waves when covering especially if Hulk gets tagged and could use some recovery time.

Hulk in play: Call Spencer while doing Gammawave makes it pretty unavoidable because if they jump the slant shot hits them and if they don’t the wave hits them. If the wave connects than the slant shot will pull them in a little allowing Hulk to combo from his gammawave, it doesn’t get better than that. If you’ve got Dorm behind you than of course all the Hulk / Dorm goodness we already love works and if Spencer is behind Hulk you can DHC into either of Spencer’s supers though outside the corner its very strict timing on getting his QCF+PP so I usually go Bionic Arm outside of the corner.

Dorm in play: Honestly I don’t let this happen all that often even if I DHC from Hulk into Dorm as soon as I finish supering I usually hard tag Hulk back in. If I do end up with Dorm and Hulk its very fun triangle dashing away while throwing Hulk’s wave assist and just waiting for it to connect for the free super.

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Video of DHC Glitch

Spoiler

[media=youtube]ppoh1MPDVGs[/media]

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I like the slant shot with Gamma Wave idea you use, but I still think Hulk needs to have an OTG assist to be viable. Experienced players that know the matchup aren’t going to give Hulk many opportunities to open them and an OTG assist gives Hulk the ability to kill every character with one combo, even outside of the corner.

I’m going to go try out that Spencer slant shot thing. Sounds pretty cool.

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Captain America assist allows you to get those same (similar) combos off his own otg. Be creative people! The shield hits the opponent back towards the hulk for the combo to continue