I very rarely see anyone use pandora and Ive only seen 1 person win a round with it in an actual fight(with the time extend gem). The whole storyline of the game is based on it, youd figure itd be a more useful tool… Have people just not cracked it open yet, or is it simply a tool for people willing to pay extra to make it viable? Id love to see a vid of someone using it well with different members of the cast. Thoughts?
It’s only good in some situations, but mostly it’s a useless mechanic. Maybe if it lasted let’s say as long as X-Factor in Marvel it would be move viable, but right now it’s not a good comeback mechanic which is good. Not every game needs one.
I agree not every game needs one but I will say that one guy i saw who used it with the time increase gem really gave me an X factor vibe. Maybe he had timer extend as well as the power and speed lvl 3 while in pandora gems equipped as well… It lasted a very long time and did significant damage. When people activate pandora the best anti tech at the moment seems to be hold up/back, and let it run out but there was really no getting away in this particular situation. If people start using that dlc gem theres going to be some very scary, oh shit moments and comebacks ahead. People may never embrace it tho as it is a pay to win situation but it kinda is pay for X factor so who knows how it will turn out?
They should just make Pandora last as long as it does with the extend gem for normal so it still requires a bit of thought to work it in but you still have a slight chance to use it if you screw up. Need to be careful so it doesn’t become X-Factor…no one should be chasing people in Pandora, it should be more set-up/trap oriented for it to be successful.
My friend uses it with his Lei/Kuma team pretty well, tries to setup people on whiffs or in corners so they’re screwed once he activates right in their face. He’ll fire it off with Lei when an opponent jumps in, go for command grab immediately with Kuma and see how they react. If they jump back it’s frolicking bear into Fart Special…
I tried it with my really crappy Julia and if you’re sitting on meter(for the Pandora charge up when activated) you can build up to a super instantly for big damage.
Pandora Extend was a free gem, anyway.
Actually I made a thread showcasing some decent uses of Pandora: Pandora Tech w/Gems
Pandora’s one of those things in a fighter where it’s not like this one size fits all method of use but instead requires you to think of how to implement it yourself within the game’s system. It’s like how recently technology has been discovered for the crossover counters in UMVC3. Trust me, Pandora’s very conditional but if you make it your purpose to use it when you know you’ve for the proper situation it’s another equally useful method of turning things around =]
The thing with Pandora is that any combo that does 500 or 600 damage for 3 bars is worthless since a lot of teams can already do that and much more with less meter. So the only Pandora combos that are worth it are 700-900 dmg combos. But to get that kind of damage you need to commit with the special pandora/super power/extend gems. You need to sacrifice all your available slots for a couple of setups that will rarely be applicable (most of the time when you’ll have the health requirement, you won’t have enough meter, and when you’ll have enough meter you won’t have the 25% health requirement with the right character, and when you’ll have health+meter requirements you won’t have the required spacing, screen positioning, time on the clock or let alone the opportunity/opening to land it). It’s very situational and there’s just too much variables and requirements to think about. So much so, that the idea of even activating Pandora when I’m low on life rarely crosses my mind.
Recently I’ve been in the lab a lot and I really tried to find useful ways to incorporate Pandora into my game. And I think I’m slowly getting there. I found a lot of setups with my main team and the best thing about them is that they have a high chance of actually happening in a match. I have a couple of 1000 damage resets for example. Like a simple 300 damage combo that leads into a 700 dmg pandora combo if I make the right read.
But again, I can only get 700-745 damage with the Pandora/Super power gems. Without them, the damage is underwhelming and not worth the meter/risk most of the time.
Very well put! Would love to hear more about your pandora set ups btw!
From what I’ve seen, syouganai is the only one willing to commit to that pandora setup. Yoshimitsu is actually one of the best characters for pandora use in my opinion, especially with EX windmill because of how much damage it can shave off in one go.
Y’know it’s funny you were saying all this yet you haven’t checked out my post yet 
It is indeed still situational and the thought of using Pandora seems incredibly stupid even when purposeful. However I urge you to check out my post and my videos cause they’ll seriously help you out in figuring out what you can do with Pandora in more legit situations. And if SimSimIV reads this there’s some good set ups in my videos, give them a look trust me.
I guess I’ll post them in this thread when I’m finished with the videos.
I already saw your vids a long time ago and didn’t see anything new or interesting. No offense lol. Could help newbies maybe, but for me it’s pretty much day 1 pandora tech.
o_o Well damn, alright then. haha. And you’re sure you’ve seen all of them? Well if so then nevermind.
I have seen some nasty christie combos that end in pandora. Pretty much any combo that ends in her wall bounce (the one in the chain combo, i don’t play her so i don’t know its name) gives you plenty of time to activate pandora and then hit with a super afterwards. If your partner is one of the harder hitting supers (my poor juri just lost hers) throw on the pandora and super activation boosts for 50% additional damage you get easy 75% damage combos. Against any 900 health character its pretty much a death sentence, against the 1000+ using some kind of damage reduction/absorption gem you will have to make sure it will kill otherwise they just switch out and you won’t ever get that kill.
But then im sure there are characters that don’t have to go straight into the super off the wall bounce. Perhaps someone like bryan can do one of his leaps to close the gap into his OTG into super. Buff the damage up to 800 or so. I know my old nina/juri combo allowed close to 800 damage but required 3 meters. That is the nice thing about christie, her OTW doesn’t require meter.
You’re exactly right, wall bounce is one of the best ways to go and a wall bounce that doesn’t require super like Christie and Lei’s would be perfect. Also if you check the last video on the link to my thread I made above I show a way to combo that doesn’t require supering right after the wall bounce. Feel free to check out any of the other videos as well, hopefully you’ll find them more informative than some, haha.
The problem with Pandora is not the time limit so much. The main problems are the recoverable health that cancels the ability to activate pandora, the seven seconds of the timer counting down while activating it, and the fact that you move back when activating it making it very difficult to use in combos. The first two are by far the most important at the moment.