what are some ways to keep chris’s block strings safe. What i’ve been doing is just putting a land mine down to make it safe
Keeping Chris safe can be a challenge. The short answer is learn to confirm after a standing H. It’s safe (you don’t get advantage, but you’re far enough away to not get thrown) and it’s really not as hard as it sounds.
The longer answer is he has a couple things, but none of them are particularly great. The absolute best option is an assist. Something beam-like that you can confirm should it hit. Bonus points if it doesn’t take the opponent off their feet. As far as grenades go, none of them are amazing options. Landmine is absolutely not safe and if they’re not push blocking, you’ll get punished. A counter-hit setup with the other two thrown grenades can work but it’s incredibly risky. Using the medium grenade the corner can be a promising situation though, it is actually fast enough that if you time it just right, it can be perfectly safe to anything but grabs and invincible moves. Light boulder punch is technically safe, but you are very susceptible to grabs. His low gunshot is the only move on the ground that gives him frame advantage (outside of grenades after you’ve recovered, but you know what I mean), but you can’t really use it in block strings and it’s very difficult to confirm. Something I’ve been doing lately is using snapback. It has the same (dis)advantage as s.H so it’s safe. Obviously since it costs a bar you’re not gonna want to throw it out all the time, but I like to use it after blown ground throw attempts (or against armored moves, but that’s a whole different story).
All of that said, you shouldn’t really being going out without cover of assist or a grenade anyway. Try to avoid relying on just going in and hoping for a safe blockstring. I mean, it’s a absolutely a tool in his arsenal, but you’re not terribly likely to get a hit with just a raw normal in the neutral game.
Alas, one of Chris’ greatest flaws is brought up. Great stuff Nefarious, you nailed it on the head. You ever notice when Ray Ray calls Disruptor assist and does an Air Tatsu, he does a dash up st.m no matter what happens? If it hits, he gets the confirm into combo and if it doesn’t, he gets more pressure. Well, although I’ve never mentioned this before, I think Chris will someday have to play this way. Right now character inexperience is on our side, but people are going to soon figure out that Chris has no safe strings. Even confirming off of st.h has holes because if the cr.m is push blocked, you’re a sitting duck. Grenades after a push block will all be beat by characters with long range attacks like Vergil, or teleports, like Vergil. Even without long range normals, push block into super is free damage for a lot of the cast. I was working on a Ray Ray like combo with Dante’s Jam Session the other day, and although it worked out, the damage gets hurt pretty bad, which is the really only good thing Chris has going for him. Also, Chris’ kill combos and overall all high damage combos almost always involve both assists, so using one right off the bat also hurts the damage and probably more importantly, the meter gain. This is why I always tell people the only reasonable buff I would give to Chris (as in something they could add into the game rather quickly) is canceling whiffed normals into Prone. Going Prone and getting up at the fastest time possible is safe from st.h and f.h, which is awesome, but you can’t react to it when you get push blocked because it can’t be canceled out of whiffed normals.
To be honest, I think confirming off of cr.m is gonna be the way to go at some point or another. Simply put, Chris can’t apply pressure like Ryu can with Air Tatsu or other characters who confirm off of assists, so there are gonna be times when you’re gonna have to take cr.m’s range and try to land a poke or counter poke, but if it doesn’t work, canceling into another normal could end up killing Chris. Another thing is assists that Chris can confirm off of may not necessarily be the assists that help him chip, zone, or control space in general, so there’s a grey area there as well.
I’m glad this was brought up. I wanted to say something about it but didn’t want to be so negative about the character. It’s definitely one of Chris’ greatest issues though and will probably hold him back from reaching a higher level of play competitively.
Right now it’s just an issue I keep in the back of my mind because I just don’t have an answer for it.
Isn’t combination Punch L safe on block? Can even set-up a gimmicky tick throw with it perhaps looool
It is, but if they’re mashing throw, you’re fucked.
What I like doing is whenever they block a cr.M from a good distance - say about the range where only the top half or third of the knife hits, when you go into s.H,(sometimes f.H), Land Mine, Chris pushes himself far enough away so that when he puts the Land Mine down, it doesn’t come in contact with the opponent, meaning they can’t punish without an invincible move or super, if they pushblock, you get a free Land Mine. And since you just put a Land Mine down, it gives you free space to set up something like an Incendiary or just back off and get space.
If I feel I’m too close I’ll just end it at s.H. When I’m trying to feel people out though, I’ll take a risk and do Shotgun or Machine Gun to see if they try to interrupt it. If not, I’ll keep trying to go for it, if so, I like to throw out a regular grenade. This is a good way to keep people in check when you get a block string too, to make them scared to try and punish you.
Light Combination Punch is -2 on block and throw punishing is a fairly easy concept so I stay away from it, and people usually push block by then anyway.
Moves like Dante’s Stinger, Vergil’s st.H, S, or Stinger, Spencer’s Horizontal Shot, and quick beams like Disruptor and Unibeam are the issue with canceling into grenades after push block, or just letting the st.h go if the cr.m was push blocked. I’ve run into Vergil players online who just mash f.h in block stun after a push block, and I got blown up by it repeatedly without realizing the issue. My brother plays Spencer and just push blocks and uses Horizontal Shot and that’s free damage if I cancel into anything as well. Getting hit with a beam just takes away your momentum in general. Teleports characters can just teleport as well and even if they can’t punish, they’re free from anything Chris can cancel to.
Canceling into guns is free to dash up cr.l from characters like Wesker and Vergil. Got hit with that a lot when the game was relatively new. I also used to throw medium or incendiary grenades but dash up throw and command throw erase that quickly.
It just seems like getting someone to block a normal with Chris is a straight up bad thing at those point…
Yeah, that’s why I said I take the risk when I try and do it. It really is a big shame Chris has pretty much zero safe options. It’s like they don’t want us to be offensive with Chris at all without, as you said earlier, using an assist to be safe and sacrifice a good amount of damage with you get a confirm using the assist.
Something else I’ve noticed recently regarding teleports, is if Wesker does his L Teleport to go from in front of you to behind you when you have a Land Mine down and you’re behind or on top of it, the Land Mine blows up and it doesn’t affect him at all. It’s pretty damn annoying.
Yeah, I’ve noticed that too. I understand beams going over it setting it off, but teleporting makes no sense. I guess maybe Wesker technically travels from Point A to Point B in the code or something, setting off the mine. Two mechanics bumping heads right there.
I feel the same way about the offensive thing as well. Confirming off of assists looks to be the best option unfortunately. The issue I have with that is not being able to one-touch kill. Hitting someone once with Chris is hard enough, but once I get that hit, they’re dead. Confirming off assists means landing two hits, which just seems crazy against Spencer or other powerful characters with moderate health.
how safe is f.H on block? if chris’ normals were special cancellable on block/whiff, then f.H would be so gdlk i think
-6 on block. It can be special canceled on whiff, but can’t canceled into Prone.
To give you a general idea of how unsafe Chris is, none of his normals besides cr.h and Flamethrower are safe on hit…
damn…what the fuck capcom?
Someone in gamefaqs posted this:
Apparently this is +4 on block.
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/637240-ultimate-marvel-vs-capcom-3/64862457
Yeah, I mentioned this earlier in the thread, great stuff on the frames. The only issue is unless the f.h is done raw, you usually won’t make contact with it due to push block. Also, st.h is safe with a prone cancel. Just a tip for anyone new to prone canceling; if you aren’t canceling from anything, you can press up immediately after you input prone (basically one input) but if you cancel from a normal, you have to press up slightly later. The good thing about this is that even if the normal you cancel out of is push blocked, you’re still safe from any attack your opponent does after. It’s just really difficult to replicate practically in a match.
Oh, also, remember to input prone with down, and then down + H, instead of down, down, H. Makes for much more efficient evasions. Basically Chris will go prone in one fluid motion instead of stuttering with the latter input.
I’ve actually been trying to work Prone cancelling in to my game by delaying my cr.M, s.H, f.H string so I can react to me getting a hit or not and being able to go prone, but it seems if you take your time with a blockstring, everyone pushblocks it so it’s a tad annoying.
Yeah, this is why I’m working on just confirming by the s.H. Chris is very easy to push block.
Gonna have to get on those Third Strike-like hit confirms… I’ve been considering omitting the f.h when I cancel into Combination Punch because it’s much faster, giving you a lot more time to confirm off of st.H.