I've covered wars y'know - Frank West thread

You are correct.

Okay. That was my guess, I wanted to make sure.

I suddenly want to be able to switch around sound files. I want him to say “Fantastic!” when he gets hit.

If I could switch sound files I’d replace all of his SFX with BOOYAH.

I would take out the “dead meat” at the end of his weapons hyper. It just sounds rather redundant. He already says “goodbye”.

Apparently, it’s only QCF + M. QCF + L is multiple jabs/chainsaw, and + H is the axe with multiple ground bounces.

i’ll just post the write-up here for convenience. i’ll update if any thing else comes in.

[details=Spoiler]
** Health**
Frank West 1050
Frank West
Overall impression: he will have a lot of problems getting to the higher levels, which is when he becomes a better character. He is mostly bad up until reaching lvl3. His mobility is also awful until he has the lvl3 roll. Damage isn’t really good even when leveled up, which makes me think we missed “something” when playing him. He felt really low tier when we played but I’m sure we missed something.

  • Level system: Getting to lvl3 is possible in one extended combo but to get to lvl4 and then 5 takes incredibly longer. He will definately need to drink before combos or start a combo with a character with better hit count and then TAC to West to end the combo with photo. We are not exactly sure but the “experience” gained with the camera seems to be directly related to the combo hit count. Getting to lvl5 took ridiculously long. We were about to give up when it happened. Damage is the same in lvl5, range is extended, all normals seem better in range and priority but the damage didn’t really change. We didn’t explore lvl5 due to time constraints, but even in the command list, we couldn’t find any additional moves or hypers exclusive to lvl5. He didn’t seem so recover health either in lvl5. Basically we didn’t really find anything awesome with his lvl5 which I’m sure exists and will make us look stupid when it is revealed

the input for taking a photo is qcf + S

  • Drinking is tricky. You drink (with down down S I think) and he gets a boost to his camera which gives him around 3 times more exp in each shot. The problem is that drinking causes you to vomit, and from all the tests we did, vomiting always happens after a set period of time. Around 10 real seconds we guess. You can’t drink multiple times, and when the fixed period of times passes, West just throws up. We tried doing nothing or doing combos and nothing seemed to change the vomit process. It can’t be canceled to anything, not even xfactor. It takes really long for him to vomit so you can’t really protect him before-hand with assists. Our guess right now is that if you vomit, you will most definately eat a combo. Forget about reaching lvl4 and 5 without drinking so we will have to figure out an answer to this vomiting problem. After vomiting you can drink again which repeats the whole process.
  • Damage output seems to be on the low side, and we didn’t notice any difference on higher levels. He doesn’t really has anything to open people up until lvl3 when he gets the CvS2 roll which is very good when used with assists. His overhead is slow and to get to the higher levels you will have to open people up which will be hard. He can somewhat control the screen with zombies and projectiles (towards+H, changes with lvls but even at higher lvls didn’t seem very effective) but fast characters
    will get in on him easily and he can’t really get people off him when he needs to.
  • Servbot hyper works a lot like She-hulk’s tornado, didn’t really test invincibility. Did not test follow-ups either but we didn’t really notice it was possible. The multi-weapon hyper has a lot of invincibility and changes according to lvl when used.
  • Assists: Drinking, gives 30% meter, his lvl when this is used does not change the amount of meter gained (did not test invincibility). shopping cart assist does not otg, but hits multiple times and carries across the screen, good to get space with keepaway characters. the melee assist (think golf club multi-hit attack seen in videos) pulls the opponent closer. The weapon used in this assist and the pull-in are increased with his lvl.
  • weapons specials are qcf+attack. L version is the broom multi-poke, M is the baseball bat (wall bounce), and H is a slow axe overhead. L and M versions of this special change with his lvl. The H version stayed the same throughout.
  • has a roundhouse special at higher levels, don’t remember the input. L is a fake kick, M is a forward hit, and H is an otg that we couldn’t follow with anything except hypers. The knee drop is down+H but we couldn’t find any follow-ups to it.
  • charge back + towards and attack is the walking zombie that locks them in place. The swinging zombie throw seemed good but wasn’t really tested. We can’t remember the input for this but if I had to guess I’d say it’s qcb+attack. zombies don’t seem to change with levels.
  • Color 6 is the Chris Redfield zebra outfit.
    Confirmed typo on my part.
    West’s roll becomes available at lvl2.[/details]

thats all very welcomed info. frank seems like a very involved character with a lot of in game modifications you have to work in to make him effective. really wasn’t expecting him to have that much health, but that seems in tune with his overall playstyle. VERY interesting. i’ll definitely have to sit down with him myself to see everything he’s got.

Yeah, please edit the OP.

This is kinda unrelated to everything and I’m sorry but… I made some recolors showing what I wish Frank’s recolors look like. He will most likely only get stupid random shit (it seriously looks and sounds like that so far) but I wish he has any of these: http://twitpic.com/7b8h56/full

I really hope he has a white one.

Yes, I was sad that we didn’t get more time to test things out with him. He must have some more crazy stuff that we didn’t find out, and just the changes he has on his moves when levelling up will make him a complex and interesting character. He seems fun to play too and he has several useful tools.
When he finally turned lvl5 we were all stunned and looking at the the TV with the biggest wtf look on our faces. That was a really fun moment lol
Man, I miss finding things out by myself, nowadays everything is just thrown at us…

Were there any differences between versions of the zombies? Do they just have different startup/recovery or is there one version that is a hit and another that is a grab etc.?

I think when I first hit it down with UMVC3, imma check if clinging zombie move is doable against air borne opponents. I can already forsee good stuff for this, even if the clinging is shorter due to hitstun decay. It seems fast enough to catch ground comboed opponent, wouldnt hurt if it does with air borne ones.

I guess any multi hitting assist would do wonders for Frank, simple lauch combo, air series, SMILE + assist, launch again and SMILE. BOYAH, instant lvl 3 and a whole new character for the opponent to fear. But my general concern (and it seems this thread as well) is how he can manage the first hit.

At this time I wish his Camera would be an assist, even if it does not OTG, add noticable damage or even if it has 0 hitstun. But then again simple braindead mode Frank is not FANTASTIC enough :D.

With the limited time you had, and with a character as complex as Frank, I don’t blame you for missing some stuff.

At the very least Max will have stuff for us on Wednesday, as overemphasized on the positives as he may be.

So, from my understanding I should start my team with someone like Dante since the hit count is what determines the level. I hope we can find some quick Lvl4-5 combos early on.

Eh, dunno, I’m not a fan of the TAC idea. I’m thinking about getting a nice multi-hitting to pick up the opponent after an OTG camera to set up a second shot (and possibly a third) and a relaunch.

On it.

didnt someone say that he can avoid vomiting by tagging him out?

Supposedly he can, but I haven’t seen it.

Oh my god SRK editing makes this hard. 'Tis what I get for trying to make things fancy.

Yell at me if I’m missing anything! Still editing as we speak.

It’s in a video. Frank stays out for a while after he drank, then gets tagged in later and never vomits. I’ll link if I remember which it is.