Because the only thing he really provides is his assist. Which he keeps while he is second. When he is on anchor you are just having a gamble where the only way that the odds will be in your favor is if you have all of these things.
The incoming mixup doesn’t kill you.
You have one meter.
You have XF3.
They have at the most 2 characters and one is damaged.
The opposing character doesn’t have the ability to stay at the top of the screen.
And even at the odds of this, you are only going to only guarantee killing one character. The worst thing is, Arthur in underpants can be killed by any character with a self otg iirc. Even if they don’t have self otg they can just mix you up on wakeup. Sure. He has his level 3. Then you just waste meter and then you have only 1 gold armor left. He is bottom 5 on anchor, low-mid on second, bottom 5 on point. Second keeps his Support value while not having the gimmick and gamble of anchor Arthur.
Anchor Arthur provides his assist to two characters instead of one.
i.e. the same as every other anchor in the game
something that is pretty well under your control
something that is entirely under your control (and if, for some reason, you decide to burn XF before anchor Arthur, then you simply tag Arthur in and you are no worse off)
XF3 Arthur can easily take out two full characters, so I don’t get your point here; in addition, anchor Arthur with 3+ meters completely suppresses assist calls, more so than nearly any other character
this weakness applies to Arthur in any position
Non-gold Arthur has weak health (silver or naked) and a solid hit is going to result in death regardless. That being said, the characters that can stop anchor Arthur from setting up an easy and safe armor break (e.g. fullscreen blocked daggers into bracelet) are almost always the characters that are going to completely walk over Arthur outside of XF anyway (usually: teleporters).
Your analysis is perplexing: teleport characters easily destroy non-XFed Arthur regardless of assists (yours or theirs) and fighting non-teleport characters in 1v1 is basically as good as it gets for him. Furthermore, in anchor position, he’s pretty good at discouraging assist spamming; Arthur is not particularly good at punishing assists outside of XF and he is very good at punishing them during XF (or with LV3->XFC).
The primary benefit you get from anchor Arthur is the ability to fight (read: rush) teleporters. Without XF, Arthur is so incredibly free to teleports that his team position is basically irrelevant.
But on the other side, Arthur gets assists, too. Hidden Missiles is good. Doom don’t need assists on anchor (yeah he does but he is tons better on anchor than arthur)
No. Other people have ways out of it. He has his slow ass double jump. That’s it. And how are you going to get out if they accidentally let you go? You can’t move.
But, the thing is, you will not always have meter/XF3 in your match. You might have to burn it to get out of a blockstring, and if you tag him in you lose a good anchor and now your point character is on anchor.
Not easily. It takes just the amount of time to kill two characters with the lance block finite with 1kk health in the amount of time XF3/Gold Armor lasts. Plus, who says that they are going to get hit by lances? People can just get out of the way. Crossbow has shit tracking, too. It completely surpresses assist calls, so what? You just lost 3 meters. And if you already spent your xfactor then it will only kill the assist unless the point character is under magneto’s health.
No, cause any team with arthur in it should have hidden missiles/ anti air assist. It’s the main reason you should have those assists.
Goddess bracelet requires meter. Meter he has to use for level 3 and gold armor. Goddess bracelet is the last thing you want to use with arthur, cause then odds are you probably are naked and have no meter left to go to silver.
Well, 10 characters in the game have teleports. I even counted meteor smash and Hsien Ko’s “dash”. Plus, most of the characters are usually played on point, and that means that he has a chance, at least.
I don’t want to sound like I’m just spouting stuff out here since I never really post here, but I have mix feeling about Arthur as an anchor.
On one hand he’s threatening, but on the other hand against someone who knows the match-up he’s not scary at all and more of a gimmick if anything. Then there’s Arthur on second where he loses that fear that he might give someone who has heard of “dark” arthur if you will. He just goes through the motions fine because you don’t have your xf3 and you think having him on second makes him any stronger than normal. And yes having him anchor can change someone’s way of playing as I’ve had people snap in arthur numerous times when he’s anchor.
Although Arthur gains an assist the assist doesn’t necessarily always help arthur as missles aren’t going to save arthur from Dorm/Missles, Vergil, etc. The bad match-ups are going to generally stay bad match-ups even with assists. Over time I’ve come to realize 2nd is still incredibly good for arthur and that anchor isn’t as good as I once thought it was.
How is having an assist gonna let you escape the mix-up anyway? Once you eat the mix-up you’re already eating it 2nd or anchor. Even if you survive having an assist isn’t going to just save you regardless. Tons of chars don’t have options on incoming but they can still get by.
Anchor Strider needs meter/Xf3 to do anything significant otherwise he is essentially worthless as well do to his even lower damage and no real zoning or real safe rushdown. But that doesn’t stop the fact that he is still dangerous with those and has a great assist.
He doesn’t have to use lvl 3 to be scary. He just has to have the threat of it to keep control of the enemy from making any wrong moves. I’d honestly much rather prefer NOT using lvl 3 as I can keep zoning without it and using bracelet. If I do have to fight 3 people I almost never try to Armor until needed as I know what it means if I do. But that’s the problem with Arthur you have to take the risks for something that isn’t that scary.
I find it incredibly amazing that you can say that Arthur is a “terrible anchor” but somehow think Doom is better. Doom is Arthur with no assist punish, no block damage threat, and a MUCH worse mixup game.
Your entire line of argument leads me to believe that you are talking about anchor Arthur on a team that likes to burn XF1 and XF2. Let me make this perfectly clear: Arthur as an anchor without XF3 is useless and impotent. But then again, you could say the same thing for Strider, and he’s one of the best anchors in the game.
He has a double jump, which is a way out (that you can block during, unlike, say, airdashes). The fact remains: every anchor (except Phoenix, or maybe Sentinel) has to survive incoming mixup. This is not unique to Arthur.
Everything you just said applies equally well to Strider, so I don’t see your point.
I see now that you’re talking about day 1 Arthur, using tactics that don’t really even work anymore against anyone with a clue. (It bears mentioning that if you are fighting against people who don’t pushblock lance chip, Arthur is an incredibly dominating anchor that gets plentiful free kills, so your line of argument becomes even more confusing.)
When I speak of anchor Arthur, rest assured that I am NOT talking about chipping people to death with lances. I’m talking about XF3 jump S mixups and heavenly slash loops, with lances mixed in for assist suppression or to bait missed pushblock timing.
And just as a side note: anchor Arthur with meter gets a free LV3->XFC against almost every team in the game, which not only kills assists, but can happy birthday their primary too. The only two characters in the game that are not forced into (XFC+)block or die are Nova (DHC only) and Strange.
So basically, you are talking about one of four assists: Hidden Missiles, Jam Session, Purification, Mystic Ray. In order:
second Doom (with Arthur assist/anchor) is far superior to second Arthur (with Doom assist/anchor), in virtually any matchup
same goes for second Dante (and Dante is a horrible anchor)
outside of the sole purpose of hitting someone trying to run away at the top of the screen, Purification assist is useless (Dark Hole is useful in comparison)
Arthur anchor is incredibly superior to Shuma anchor in all sorts of uncomplicated ways
edit: you could also be talking about Vajra; I don’t deny that Strider is a better anchor than Arthur, as he’s one of the best in the game. So if you’re running Arthur+Strider, sure.
I’m talking about using bracelet to protect your armor break at the end of XF3+gold, at which point it’s practically impossible NOT to have plenty of meter.
Akuma, Dante, Strider, Vergil, Wesker, Dorm, Phoenix, Rocky, Strange, Skrull. 7 of those characters spend LOTS of time on anchor, and nearly all of them are extremely relevant to the current metagame. Arthur can’t really fight any of them at any position but anchor (Akuma and Wesker are the “best” of those matches, and they are pretty bad).
I would disagree. Anchor Doom is much less a gimmick as Dark Arthur because if the opponent is in corner/Doom kills a character he has great mixup which always leads into TOD, which leads into another incoming mixup into easy TOD, and by this point XF runs out but he has 3+ bars and can do another mixup which if hits kills the opponent.
However outside of the corner he really needs to land that first hit to do anything.
I play point arthur(and 2nd and 3rd slot arthur too). I’ve entered my point arthur in tournaments, even a major once. I’ve played against good players using a variety of characters with him and can safely say that anchor is clearly his best position, and point is his worst(despite how fun it can be). He cannot keep a lot of the top tiers out regardless of what assists he has, not to mention he is most dangerous when he has 3 bars stocked and has the threat of his amazing level 3 on deck. There’s more to his anchor game than armor up and chip gimmicks.
I don’t see why people always say Anchor Arthur is just a gimmick…
He HAS a gimmick, with people that don’t know about lance spam and will sit down, block and die.
against people who know about this and will pushblock / keep away / burn xfactor, Arthur will have to play and get inside.
From there, he has plenty of projectiles that help him to get in…
super jump Axes stay in screen for a LOOONG time and prevents that "I’ll just stay at the top of the screen"
TK Arrows move you forward quite fast while protecting you and preventing them to escape
Bottle keeps them pinned and blocking so you can mixup with j.S and c.L for one of the fastest high low mixups in this game.
Today, my main nightmare with Arthur is jump back grabs… and still I just have to grab them first or anticipate it with a Heavenly Slash… lol.
I’ve been maining Arthur since vanilla, and most people in my area are pretty familiar with his style and all gimmicks…
and still, they get bodied oftentimes by my Arthur…
once the lance spam stops being your main weapon, Anchor Arthur starts being less and less gimmicky.
And then they push block everything you throw at them and you’re completely away from them and Magneto starts flying away as you try to hit him with an arrow. Or Wesker Jumps up and teleports away. Or Vergil just hits you with a sword as soon as you approach not caring about your projectiles.
I’m not really saying it’s a gimmick because lance toss but more because of the armor popping. I’m well aware of the use of his other projectiles to fill the gap when lances can’t and his awesome incoming game, but that armor popping still makes him much less of a threat.
However I still like anchor Arthur (even non-XF) mostly because he ends up getting a lot of meter that way and that’s when he’s dangerous. Every little projectile hit becomes a good chunk of damage which I can combo with more supers.
Again, why does the armor pop even matter? Gold armor and XF3 have the same duration, so even if gold armor didn’t pop at all, your XF3 running out is basically GG. Specifically, any character that you can’t set up a safe armor pop against is going to steamroll you after the armor break anyway.
If you can comeback as Arthur without XF, then the threat of an armor break should be of little consequence to you. In fact, if you can comeback without XF, then you probably don’t even need gold armor at all! Just pop XF and stay silver. Problem solved.
Armor isn’t always used to gain the advantage sometimes it’s used defensively. Do something unsafe? Armor. See a move you can punish with the use of inv? Armor. There have been many times where I’ll use armor and find myself not able to get an incoming mix-up. I’m still left at a disadvantage just because I can’t at least renew my armor.
To be honest, if I ever played your team and you had Arthur in the back, XF or not, Gold Armor or not, you would never make a comeback on me. There is a sure-fire way to counter XF Gold Armor Arthur, and as long as I keep XF and hold upback, Arthur’s comeback potential is just not there. He can’t comeback on 2 full health characters solely through chip with proper pushblocking, and upback prevents all his mixups from working, since j.S is best approach/mixup. He really doesn’t have a high low game, since j.S can be pushblocked, and once Gold Armor pops, its game over. At least with regular armor, you give yourself a fighting chance. Dark Arthur should really only make comebacks if your opponent pops XF early; if your opponent doesn’t know how to counter Dark Arthur; or if you’re facing one of his better matchups like sentinel or nemesis. But other than that, please tell me how you are gonna land a hit on me, Gold Armor or not, if I run away and hold upback, wait out your XF and [S]time bomb[/S] Gold Armor, and only focus on teching throws, since you can’t confirm j.S into a combo if it hits in the air.
First off, if you still have your XF, why are you worried about pushblocking? You don’t take block damage.
Second, if this is your response, you must be simply amazing against nearly every anchor, as Arthur has a faster high-low than almost anyone else in the game. XF3 removes Arthur’s primary offensive weakness (inability to convert airthrow) and I find it rather interesting that you seem to think that u/b means you are invulnerable to lows (you are obviously completely unconcerned with airthrow). Tell me, how well does u/b work against air scythe when you are cornered?
Really? Please explain how silver Arthur is not LITERALLY the-same-but-worse in XF3. Here’s a good place to start: what does silver Arthur have as a replacement for an invincible attack that converts into death loop anywhere on the screen?
If you think it’s reasonable and practical to perfectly pushblock chip damage and tech all throws, I’d like you to explain how Arthur can win any match at all. You seem to believe that you’re making an argument against gold, but all you’re doing is making an argument against anchor. And as has already been noted, any flaws that Arthur has as an anchor are magnified GREATLY when he’s not an anchor.
P.S. I also find it interesting that after all your talk about the ineptitude of XF3 Gold Arthur, the one video of yourself that you specifically chose to highlight has 95% of your anchor Arthur comeback coming from 1) XF3 Gold Arthur and 2) raw LV3 super.
TBH that is what makes Arthur bad. You CAN perfectly pushblock chip damage if you know what you’re doing. I don’t know how many times I’ve had to just stop and go in from full screen and hope I could catch up with someone much faster than me. He doesn’t move fast enough either to be able to make a throw not look obvious.
You’re not going to be able to tech every throw, but the fact that you can see it coming from a mile away makes it even harder for Arthur. I honestly like Silver a bit more when approaching because SJ Arrows cover a certain defined space where as gold arrows move too much to cover the space I like.
You pushblock any projectile Arthur shoots at you to not only prevent chip, but to push him back so he can’t get in on you …
Arthur’s high-low is completely negated on the fact that he has no reliable way of approaching me other than jumping in the air and j.S, seeing as how he has no ground movement at all (As opposed to every other character). In other words, he is only going to j.S or shoot arrows to approach me, and upback+pushblocking prevents all that.
Oh and how does air scythe work when I’m cornered? Hmm, this is a really hard one. Maybe if I just treat it as a regular projectile, then maybe I can pushblock it and negate chip! Oh wait, it hits multiple times, even better, so now I can push Arthur fullscreen so that he can start from where he began.
Please tell me how a dragonpunch that hits neither high nor low is ever going to hit me if I am not even approaching you and I am just holding upback waiting for your Gold Armor to run out so I can get a free combo into death? With me waiting out your XF, your death loop is irrelevant.
Not quite. Not only does Arthur on point have access to assists, but the game begins on an even playing field. I can’t just hold upback in the start of the match, because I do not have the life lead; I am playing to his favor, since I want to save my XF for better purposes, and I am allowing him to chip me out and possibly lock me down with hidden missiles. And if he uses Gold armor, assists can protect him much better than him throwing out only his own projectiles.
And as for teching throws, lets see what else I have to worry about or focus on when I’m in the air:
j.S hitting and crossing up? Nope, he can’t convert it into a combo if he does.
Arrows? Nope, I’m already blocking and thus pushing you back.
j.S hitting as an overhead when I do land? Nope, since I’m holding upback, I am already blocking high.
cr.L? I’ll take the 1% risk of me not reacting to a blocked j.S and pushblocking it, and the .5% risk that his j.S lands right next me and his stubby left leg comes out at the same exact time that I land AND will reach far enough to connect.
That is a perfect example of someone who does not know how to counter Dark Arthur. In the beginning, you could see how my j.S and projectiles were doing nothing when his spencer was holding upback with XF. Had he continued to do that, the match would have been lost. Instead, he did the wrong thing to do, and tried to attack Dark Arthur while I still had XF, which gave me opportunities to land a few hits on him.
If holding u/b works like you say, and it’s easy to simply pushblock everything (but not everything, because a missed pushblock could mean death), you’re basically saying that Dark Phoenix is easy to beat, right? Corner yourself, hold u/b, pushblock everything and tech all throws. Done deal.
…except for, you know, the part where he lost 50% health on Spencer while desperately trying to run away and pushblock everything.
That’s a strange interpretation, given that he was doing nothing but losing life when trying to u/b and pushblock, yet landed a potentially match-ending combo as soon as he decided to rush instead of run.
But let’s address the elephant in the room, here: you appear to play anchor Arthur, so in your own words, exactly what is it that YOU expect anchor Arthur to do? After casually dismissing every option anchor Arthur has, I am greatly interested in hearing your explanation of why you play Arthur in that spot at all.
Once more: every single fault you find with gold Arthur is magnified in silver. So please do explain.