Marvel versus Capcom 2 - Ruby Heart: In depth

Classic Fighting Games Marvel VS Capcom 2
101

Ok to answer the question about the Tour de Magi, if you manage to hit (and that’s a big IF), you’ll notice that the opponent is in spiral when it finishes. If you don’t know about spiral, there’s a thread for that in the strat section, too.

Anyway, she taunts while they are in spiral so you have a little bit of time to get over to their position. I can test that tonight and see what I can do. I’ve done the super maybe 3 times in the three years it’s been out, and I can’t say I’ve actively wanted to use it again. Also, I will check the damage on my reset combo.

Results to be posted.

Rubes

102

Ok, here we go:

Version: Dreamcast
Settings: lv. 2 damage, 143 life points total, training mode
Characters tested: Akuma, Juggernaut (non-powered up), Cable (purpose is for differences in damage absorption)

Juggernaut - 24 hits, 66 points* (see note below on this)
Akuma - first combo: 7 hits, 43 points; after reset: 16 hits, 48 points*
Cable - first combo: 7 hits, 30 points; after reset: 18 hits, 70 points

Alright, having tested this on the three characters, I found that the damage doesn’t have to reset after the anchor.

I’ve always been doing it as a reset, whereas I found tonight that you can dash in and launch, etc. thus connecting all of the hits. That’s how on Akuma, I got 18 hits, 90 points and the 24 hits on Juggernaut. I’m throwing out the theory that because Juggs is a little bigger, I was able to get more hits in, but I could be wrong.

With the resets, I think I can get more damage off Akuma because he takes more damage than Cable.

More testing to come …

Rubes

103

Sup Rubes :wink: The best use of Tour de Magi I’ve seen was what Ten said, to DHC into it. when you DHC into it, the opponent goes into spiral and Ruby is free to move, and the DHC into TdM resets the damage on the combo you were doing so it’s major damage on the resulting combo! :cool:

104

Lightning Storm XX Tour De Magi is one of the the reasons I sometimes play Storm/Ruby Heart instead of Ruby Heart/Storm. I’ll usually I’ll have Tron- Gamma at anchor, and any character that doesn’t have Sentinel’s defense is pretty much going to die after the DHC from Lightning Storm to Tour de Magi. j.short plus Tron- Gamma, j.fierce is all you really need, although you can definitely put the finishing touch on someone by adding Hyper Schwarzaile afterward.

Side note 1: (if you have enough meters against Sentinel, you can take it further with a DHC to King Kobun XX Bonne Strike; that would undoubtedly drop even him. The reason that a team with Ruby Heart at two gets to run the full five meters if necessary is because Tour De Magi to non Hyper Combo subsequent followup (in this case, j.short, or c.fierce, or whatever) attack resets the DHC meter).

I’d rather go with her quick-lag Schwarzaile redirected down-forward in an attempt to get another Schwarzaile and chip the opposing point out of the match.

Side note 2: (In case your wondering what I’m talking about, the lag between the time that Schwarzaile ends and she can perform another action is dependent on how she makes contact with the ground during a redirect. Additionally, reorienting herself induces more recovery time than when her landing direction is the same as her initial direction.

Trying my best to explain this, to recap, Schwarzaile groups its hits in threes for the initial execution and each redirect; she’ll have the shortest lag when she redirects herself back toward the ground such that she touches the ground while the move is still active, if that makes sense; as an example, if she goes fierce Schwarzaile, redirect down, but cancels her first redirect early such that she can do another one before she touches the ground, then does redirect down, the lag she’ll encounter will be shorter than would be the case if she just went fierce Scwharzaile, redirect down. In the first scenario, if you were to treat the ground as if it were an opposing character, she makes contact on an active first or second hit, if you will. In the second scenario, she is making contact after the move has ended, so the move is inactive, she falls to ground, and when she touches the ground, it takes more time to recover.

In terms of how this is applied, any time she does a fierce Schwarzaile from the ground with the intent of doing one redirect, she has to the cancel from the initial direction early in order to preserve the quick recovery property; otherwise, she has to use a second redirect. Using Schwarzaile in the air with one redirect must be done from a height such that she can make it back to the ground while the move is still active, otherwise, she needs two.)

Quick-lag Schwarzaile buys her an opportunity to do another one because Tron- Gamma still has the assist in blockstun by the time she regains the abiity to do another action. Pull it off successfully, and add 14 points of chip damage to the total.

105

Not going to make a huge post about what to do against Cable, but I’ll throw some ideas out.

I’ll talk about his (s)j.fierce and other things first:

Long story short, her mission is to zone Cable into the corner.

His primary tactic against her to prevent this when playing with Dr. Doom- Beta or Sentinel- Gamma as a backing assist is to force blockstun against her while she is on the ground prior to his normal jump plus assist call; this allows him to establish both his position in the air as well as his assist’s position on the ground. A normal jump/superjump escape attempt by Ruby Heart is futile in this situation because his j.fierce has the horizontal plane parallel to him and directly above her head locked down; furthermore, the blockstun he induced against her puts her in a position where she cannot make contact with the projectile coming toward her and Cable using Sublimation simultaneously; she has to pick one or the other, which is one reason why Cable/Sentinel (Dr. Doom) is harder to approach than Cable/Captain Commando in my opinion.

Advancing forward on the ground is the best she can do here even considering that he’ll undoubtedly have an opportunity to attempt to drive her backward with jab Viper Beam plus his asisst. Pushblock to minimise her backward movement, and press onward; this is a bad scenario for her, so prevent it as best you can.

Furthermore, as far as advancing toward him on the ground goes, three additional things to consider: first, consider that advancing guard seems to only affect the character responsible for putting your point character into blockstun; that is, if the assist’s attack forces the blockstun, the pushblock drives the assist back. Second, consider that the only way that advancing guard serves its function is when your point character is at a distance less than full screen from the opposing character; if you want to drive a character backward toward the corner with advancing guard, you’re going to have to move yourself out of the corner of the playing field if he is already at the opposing corner of the playing field, otherwise, all you’re doing is making sure that he temporarily can’t advance toward you. Third, consider that as long as advancing guard is active, the point character loses no horizontal ground.

Edit: (Going to change some of this, because after some testing in Training Mode, found out that while I was right about the way j.fierce behaves, I underestimated the speed at which it travels, which makes some of the previous information incorrect.)

Cable’s j.fierce always takes a perfectly straight horizontal trajectory from the point it was fired, but it doesn’t do so instantaneously. The delay between the time it is fired and the time it reaches the other side of the screen is slight, yet the latency of its effectiveness is what cause people problems when jumping against Cable.

Two things to remember when in the air with him is that he can fire sj.fierce twice, and because of this, using directional influence against him is obviously a bad idea. Once the sj. is active, defend, and use advancing guard against anything that makes contact with her; your objective is to advance forward. Advancing guard eventually puts you on a higher vertical plane than him when he matches your superjump. This can produce an air to ground scenario, and usually with it an eagerness to force a air to ground melee attack. Some people facing Cable in this situation forget about his jab Psimitar, and some players playing as Cable forget that he has that available in that situation; it’s something to watch for.

He generally shouldn’t superjump against her while she is grounded, though, because he’s giving up position against her even if he calls an assist prior, and especially if he doesn’t induce the initial blockstun with the intent of having the projectile assist induce the blockstun. Ruby Heart can use Sublimation to clear out the ground threat, and then advance toward him with her dash even if Cable tries to do sj.fierce to drop down quick enough to use AHVB, and especially if he tries to do sj.fierce XX grenade. If he doesn’t use sj.fierce, she can use jab Schwarzaile plus counter projectile assist after Sublimation, or do Sublimation XX Fantome, then advance forward. Of the most common projectile assists used against her, Storm- Alpha is an exception, in which case she can use tk.Schwarzaile.

106

Some additional ideas about Ruby Heart vs Cable:

About Sublimation:

I often hear about how he can do AHVB against Sublimation on reaction, and some people are scared to use it against him because of this; not sure if I believe that or not; rather, there may be some case for it, but personally I think it’s more of a case of the Ruby Heart player being predictable.

He can surely trade with Sublimation on reaction (although he definitely doesn’t want to, considering that it does more damage to him than does AHVB to her, and it costs him a meter to use AHVB, while it costs her nothing), I’ll buy that; to me, though, him cleanly beating her to the punch (that is, activating AHVB before the water spout appears on the screen) with it when she isn’t giving him a telltale scenario or he isn’t forcing her into a telltale scenario is a matter of luck.

The telltale scenarios should be familiar: grounded or normal jump plus projectile assist call by Cable, Cable using advancing guard against one of her normal attacks, specifically c.roundhouse, and whiffed c.roundhouse are the most common scenarios for players to use it.

In my opinion, part of the reason that the fight swings to her favor in the corner is because she can put him into a position where she doesn’t have to be true with her Sublimation aim to use it against him, because this happens automatically, as he cannot easily avoid it laterally while cornered; furthermore, his counterassist option is diminished, because Sublimation can be used out of the counterattack range of just about every single anti-air assist in the game save Blackheart. Counterprojectile assists called during Sublimation aren’t as effective against her when Cable is cornered because she can make a move to avoid them prior to being hit by them all while Cable is still in a nonattacking state due to either blockstun or advancing guard. This gives her an opportunity to maintain her position against him or to engage him at melee range, where she should be more effective against him.

107

More ideas about Ruby Heart vs Cable:

As far as melee attacks go, there’s going to be two main scenarios that play out in this fight: he’s in the air while she’s on the ground, or he’s in the air while she’s in the air with him. The main thing to keep in mind is what works for her as opposed to what doesn’t. Ground to air, her c.fierce outprioritises his s.roundhouse, just watch be careful to avoid getting hit via extension should she accidentally whiff. Air to air, her j.jab is superior to his j.roundhouse, partly because it has more priority, and partly because it has a high hit range, allowing her to flank him from underneath without worrying about getting around the hit range of his move. Also, consider that her j.jab trades hits with his j.jab.

Ground to ground, while c.roundhouse as a lead attack does have impressive range, it is as much a liability as it is a legtitimate tactic against him. First of all, any time he has an active counterassist that can take advantage of her extension forward after Cable defends the attack, it’s asking for trouble. c.roundhouse against Cable when he can counterassist with Dr. Doom - Beta is one of the most common examples I can think of; it’s just not a good idea.

Second, a lead c.roundhouse can be countered with normal jump XX AHVB, since it’s almost guaranteed that the typical Ruby Heart player is going to try to cover up the mistake with Sublimation to try to facilitate blockstun against him. Long story short: this does not work.

Third, a Ruby Heart player that has Cable close to the corner basically gives up the position she has earned against him by the simple fact that he can use safe fall to get behind her, and she has to start her fight for position all over again. As a corollary, however, when Ruby Heart’s back is closer to the corner than is Cable’s, she can earn better position against him by forcing him to choose between the position he loses by using safe fall or the consequences of her OTG attacks. This scenario would be the only time I’d consider using it against him.

If he can counterassist, fierce/roundhouse lead attacks are reserved for her normal jumps, as she doesn’t have to deal with the recovery associated with the ground version of these particular attacks. Best lead ground normal would probably be c.short.

When he is in a position where he cannot counterassist, to me, a stronger lead attack for her is s.fierce. Comparable horizontal range, better priority and vertical range, better recovery and the ability to directly link to s.roundhouse/c.roundhouse makes this the better option, as far as her ground attacks go.

When Cable uses advancing guard against her lead normal attacks, Sublimation can be countered by AHVB if Sublimation misses its mark, so break the habit of automatically cancelling to it on every instance of induced blockstun against him.

My opinion, Ruby Heart against the top four characters in the game, easiest to hardest:

Magneto
Storm
Cable
Sentinel

108

odd, I have trouble against magneto, and do better against sentinel (provided I can get a good start and put him in the corner). Reason being lk tri jumps have so much priority.

109

Hey Ten, did you take your name from the girl in my avatar ?

Anyways one new ruby question, is anyone going to represent her at any major tourney ? Or at least give me vids of them using/raping others with ruby heart…

110

Magnetic Hail:

I don’t know who the girl in your avatar is, so no.

Anyway:

In training mode, I found a more potent variation of her semi-infinite, potent enough perhaps to be considered for practical use. One of the major shortcomings of some of the other characters with semi-infinite attacks is that it A) requires an elaborate (or at the very least, specific) setup or B) the combo itself does marginal additional damage for extra iterations of the combo sequence, usually at the cost of meter.

This variation of her semi-infinite solves one and a half of these two problems. Anyone that plays as her knows that she really doesn’t need a setup to land Hyper Schwarzaile against her opponents; anytime she touches her opponent, the semi-infinite is an option to consider. The old method did 19 additional points of damage per iteration:

s.jab, c.fierce, sj.short, sj.forward XX Hyper Schwarzaile, redirect up after 3 hits, redirect d.forward after 6 hits, redirect u.backward after 9 hits, redirect d.forward after 12 hits.

The stronger variation goes like this:

s.jab, s.strong XX fierce Schwarzaile, redirect u.forward after 3 hits, redirect up after 6 hits XX Hyper Schwarzaile, redirect backward after 3 hits, redirect forward after 6 hits, redirect u.backward after 9 hits, redirect d.forward after 12 hits.

This is good for 26 points of damage per iteration. Using simple math, this increase in power means that she could theoretically kill any full life character in the game when provided with enough meter.

This is not to say that the older variation to the semi-infinite is obselete, as it does regenerate more meter. One thing to note is that she can land c.strong after s.jab, and still have both c.fierce and fierce Schwarzaile available to her. This interchangeability is of great benefit to her, specifically when she is in position to generate an additional meter that would not be able to otherwise.

Another thing to consider is that the older method of the semi-infinite puts her into position where she has more attack options available to her after the decision has been made that you’re no longer going to continue with the semi-infinite. One she lands c.fierce, she can pursue the airthrow, or go with sj.jab and the options that come with that, or can play off of Schwarzaile if the meter isn’t there to do something significant with a followup. That said, with the stronger variation, because she executes Schwarzaile from the ground, she has a couple of reset options available if she breaks off of the combo during her redirect and goes in a different direction with it.

In terms of the characters that use semi-infinite attacks in matches:

She ranks just behind Cable and perhaps ahead of Sentinel in terms of ease of setup. She obviously doesn’t do as much damage as Cable, but starts to favor comparably with Sentinel in terms of damage per iteration as damage scaling begins to take effect at the advanced stages of the combo. One area of concern for her is ease of execution; it is obviously harder to keep her semi-infinite going against someone than it is to execute tk.AHVB.

111

I have never been able to get the semi-infinite off. I can, of course, do the combo and get the redirects off, but I always redirect up for the last hits. She and the other character go off the screen, with the other character hitting the ground first.

When you do the redirect for the semi-infinite, I’m assuming that she has to bring them down toward the ground and they do some sort of bounce?? Ten, if you could give me a description of this, that would be great.:slight_smile:

Other stuff:

I was playing a few different people in November, and I noticed that my Ruby/Doom team was doing quite well against other characters like Tron, B.B. Hood, etc. I was pulling off the c.jab, c.short, c.fierce, sublimination, etc. combo and getting in some good hits while waiting for Doom to be available again.

What I love about my team (Team Mercenary: Ruby/Doom/Cable) is that they’re able to build good meter. What I don’t love is trying to get Cable in without getting him shot up. I can safely get Ruby out with Doom coming in next, but getting Cable in last with meter is a problem about 70% of the time, which I would like to eliminate or at least lessen. Does anyone have any suggestions?

By the way, Ten, good strategies for Ruby vs. Cable.:slight_smile:

Rubes

112

Just counter in and eat a little hailstorm, HSF or whatever (not too much…). This is the best all-around answer if your character doesn’t have a good DHC in. It’s a bar well spent.

113

Redirecting up for the last hit generally isn’t a good idea.

Anyway, you’re right, she does let an opponent fall back toward the ground, and she’s going to juggle her opponent twice: once when she redirects herself back toward the ground; bouncing her opponent upward, and then again as the opponent begins to descend from the upward bounce. As far as the semi-infinite goes, it’s like this:

She can use just about any redirect sequence she wants so long as she can get it all to juggle, but in order to get all of the hits from Hyper Schwarzaile, the two redirects she absolutely must include are the last two, the u.backward, and the the d.forward.

About u.backward:

She redirects u.backward to set up an opportunity to continue the combo with the final d.forward redirect. It’s the only redirect she has that I know of that sets her opponent up for the final redirect regardless of her or her opponent’s position.

About d.forward:

After the u.backward, she delays the final d.forward redirect such that as the opponent falls back toward the ground, all three hits connect, bouncing him/her upward in such a way that she lands first, and thus has an opportunity to juggle again with s.jab. The combo is made or broken with this redirect, and generally speaking, against a good opponent, anything less than all three hits will terminate the combo. If she hits the opponent once, for example, she’ll have an opportunity to land an OTG s.short, but the opponent can use safe fall against it, obviously. If two hits connect, she won’t even be in position to land the OTG, let alone the s.jab juggle.

About s.jab:

Something else I’ve finally been able to figure out is how her initial redirect with Hyper Schwarzaile affects her landing position with respect to her opponent. Basically, when she activates Hyper Schwarzaile, her horizontal position at the point of her first redirect determines which side of her opponent she’ll land on when going for the s.jab juggle; that is, if she is in front of him, she’ll land in front of him, and if she is behind him, she’ll land behind him. This is important because she’ll need to know which way she is oriented when she goes for fierce Schwarzaile; I usually let the stick go to neutral when doing the jab, short sequence so that I don’t mess that part of the combo up.

About the timing for her semi-infinite sequences:

Her ground sequence that she uses for the semi-infinite (up, d.forward, u.backward, d.forward) has pretty lenient timing requirements. For the first three parts (up, d.forward, u.backward), she redirects just slightly after the third hit for each one has ended. The last redirect is a bit different, as the delay is longer. You have to be able to match the her downward trajectory to that of your opponent, and each character has a different rate of speed at which they fall (e.g., Cable vs. Sentinel). It’s hard to describe, and is really something you get a feel for in practice mode, but you usually want to make the final redirect just slightly after the opponent has started his descent toward the ground.

The air sequence (backward, forward, u.backward, d.forward) is more demanding from a timing standpoint. Whether you’ll even have an opportunity to complete it is going to be determined by her position that she has when she first activates Hyper Schwarzaile; she has to make sure that the initial three hits connnect. She delays her redirect backward such that the opponent is in descent before she executes it, and does the same thing when she redirects forward again. These are extended delays, because the opponent bounces upward from the hits from the previous redirect, and she is using the same horizontal plane to attack. The u.backward redirect is done in standard fashion, just slightly after the previous three hits connect. Once again, the combo is made or broken with the final d.forward redirect; she needs all three hits for the combo to continue. For the air aequence, she has to take into account that her opponent will descend at a faster rate than was the case for the ground sequence, and thus must make her redirect slightly sooner by comparison.

Hope that helps a bit.

114

Other things:

Ruby Heart- Alpha can be used to force an incoming opposing character into a guard break into throw setup, which is beneficial to any character that has strong comboability after a corner throw.

For an example, I’ll use one of my main teams, Ruby Heart/Sentinel/Tron Bonne.

After connecting Hyper Sentinel Force, I have the option to hot tag Tron Bonne into the match since her tag in successfully combos at the end. This makes the active team order Tron Bonne/Sentinel/Ruby Heart. Let’s say for sake of argument that Tron Bonne successfully takes her opposing point out of the match…

With Tron Bonne on point, I might do something like this:

Call Ruby Heart, (opponent hits ground) throw, s.short XX Lunch Rush XX Hyper Sentinel Force, s.roundhouse, sj.jab, sj.short, sj.forward XX flight, throw, fl.short, fl.forward, dp.jab Rocket Punch

Against characters with a strong corner game, the option really isn’t there to take the incoming hit against Ruby Heart- Alpha assist, because as an attack that puts characters at normal jump height, it still gives an opportunity to combo regardless. Staying with Tron Bonne on point for a second, you wouldn’t take the hit on the way in, because she can obviously still throw from the normal jump, and there isn’t an escape available short of a preemptive tech throw.

Most opposing point will choose to defend the attack on the way down, meaning that another assist can be called over the course of the combo. With Ruby Heart- Alpha assist still unused, it gives Sentinel an opportunity to utilise his corner throw combos against characters they normally don’t work against, like an opposing Sentinel.

For example, after the DHC to Hyper Sentinel Force, all Sentinel would have to do would be to preemptively call Ruby Heart- Alpha just after activating flght, such that he throws into her assist, allowing him to continue the combo against his opponent.

115

Quick notes:

There is another difference between a grounded jab and fierce Schwarzaile besides just the direction; the fierce version is horizontally faster than the jab version (at least at initial startup) despite the fact that it goes upward at a forty-five degree angle. Does this render the jab version of Schwarzaile useless? Absolutely not; the flip side is that while an opponent has slimmer window of opportunity to put a counterassist into play when she uses the fierce version over the jab version, Ruby Heart herself consequently has less time to make a reactionary move in response to her opponent’s action.

As an example, over the course of the match, an opponent may try to take advantage of her inability to block while executing Schwarzaile by trying to counterassist on reaction. If Ruby Heart executes the jab version of Schwarzaile, a she can preemptively double back with a backward redirect to draw out a counterasisst- let’s say that its Captain Commando- Beta for this example- and then redirect forward again with the option of canceling to Hyper Schwarzaile, depending on who she has behind her.

Fierce Schwarzaile commits her to forward movement against Captain Commando- Beta, because she has advanced so far forward that she could not backdash quickly enough to prevent his assist from connecting (of course, if she kept advancing forward without redirecting, his assist would probably miss her anyway, but that’s beside the point). Redirects freeze her in place for a split second, which is something else that should be taken into consideration.

116

RubyHeart4ever:

With your current team order, I agree that the best way of getting Cable into the match is with a variable counter. Something you might want to consider is a slight change to the team order to better accomodate Cable…Ruby Heart/Cable/Dr. Doom, for example.

You can also get Cable into the match by exposing him a relatively harmless hit on the tag in, although the risk with this is trying to determine which hits are harmless and which hits lead to followup attacks.

Things to consider:

Regardless of team order, with Ruby Heart on point, you do have the option to hot tag with an active Fantome and get him into the match that way, but it would be something you would have to practice as far as the necessary positioning. Basically, when you do it, you want to time the tag such that A) the opposing point is put into blockstun (or hit), and B) the Fantome gets between you and the opposing point in such a way that it takes away his ability to both ground dash toward you, and attack with a normal after recovering from blockstun.

If you did switch Cable to two instead of anchor, your setup to DHC him into the match would be Dr. Doom - Beta assist plus Mille Fantome XX Timeflip. He’s obviously covered by the ghosts from the front after they are out on the screen; by going with Timeflip over Hyper Viper Beam, he’s in a position where he has recovered should someone tried to go over the top of him with an attack.

I’m assuming that Dr. Doom is your primary assist with Ruby Heart on point, and letting Dr. Doom play anchor would help eliminate instances where she is stranded out on point due to him having taken a lot of damage. From a damage standpoint, you would gain some more versatile DHC options when you’re ready to bring Ruby Heart back into the match, also. With Ruby Heart playing behind Dr. Doom, you could go with (Air) Photon Array XX Hyper Schwarzaile/Partnaire/Tour De Magi as the situation dictates, whereas Cable/Ruby Heart is pretty much relegated to (Air) Hyper Viper Beam/Tour De Magi, with Hyper Schwarzaile sometimes being an option if distance permits.

117

Ten, i’d like to see a video of you playing ruby heart, seeing as how knowledgable you are.

What would you think would be a better team, Ruby/Guile/Doom or Ruby/Psylocke/Doom? You can sometimes combo off of Psylocke, but Guile is better to get people off my ass and restart chipping/lockdown. Also, do you over use sublimation for air manuverability, like… insetad of sjing? I dont know if that makes any sense, but I figure its a valid question.

Also, I usually try to chip by using sublimation, doom and fantome, with an occaisional fp anchor or fp sublimation redirect back down in there. However, what order should I be doing it? I usually do doom, fantome, sublimation, but I was told theres some holes in that. Would doom, sublimation fantome be better? And is it better to just continually throw sublimations until doom or fantome run out, or something else?

118

Admiral Akbar, To answer your questions:

The only way Id be able to get a video of myself playing in a match at the moment is via digital cameraI suppose it would work, but I don’t know if the video quality would make it worth it.

I think Ruby Heart/Guile/Dr. Doom is the better team overall. Ruby Heart/Dr. Doom/Psylocke was one of the first teams I played, and if you’ll look toward the beginning of the thread, you’ll see that at one time, I thought that she was Ruby Heart’s best offensive assist, but that was 15 months ago, when I was first learning how to play as her.

Superjumping is an important part of her game, but so is Schwarzaile, in my opinion. I can understand why people shy away from it, as it is her hardest move to learn how to use effectively, but shes a completely different character with it, and would be much weaker overall without it.

With Dr. Doom- Beta assist plus Fantome, Sublimation, you’re putting a lot of faith in his ability to both initiate and sustain blockstun as the situation dictates. What I mean by that is that if Ruby Heart calls Fantome at the same time that she calls her assist, she’s counting on him getting blockstun or a successful hit to protect both of them. By doing so, if she gets attacked before the blockstun kicks in, both she and Dr. Doom get hung out to dry. If she activates Fantome slightly after his assist engages blockstun with the intent of executing Sublimation immediately afterward, she’s counting on him sustaining blockstun long enough to cover the execution time of Fantome plus the startup of Sublimation on his own. Neither of the moves have extended time commitments attached to them, but when combined, the amount of blockstun time needed to pull that off is not something he can guarantee.

You have to consider that the only time that Dr. Doom- Beta can generate that amount of continuous blockstun is when he has the opposing point backed against a corner. Out in the open field, he will be able to initiate blockstun for the anti-air aspect of his assist, then initiate it again for the projectile part, and leave an opportunity for the point to make an evasive maneuver/come over the top with an attack/call a counterassist in the process.

A key point here is that if Ruby Heart gets hit before she establishes Fantome, (that is, the treasure chest disappears), Fantome goes away as is, making it a wasted effort; I think that this is at least part of what whomever you talked to meant when they said that there were holes in that approach.

Now, a lot of it depends on which counterassist you’re going to go up against, because against many of the assists in the game, Dr. Doom - Beta can run straight through them without a hitch, but against an assist that can contest him, like Cyclops- Beta, having Ruby Heart in a position where her only line of defense is to activate a super (especially for that extended period of time) is asking for trouble. While a counter Hyper Schwarzaile on reaction can be a successful counter for someone going over the top of her with an attack, it doesn’t take care of everything.

Long story short, for Fantome to be part of the pressure game, she would ideally like to call it after Dr. Doom- Beta assist gets blockstun, then take some measure of her own to establish Fantome on the screen without exposing her to counterattack- she does this either with movement, or some sort of transition attack. Often, in the process of doing so, youll get the opportunity to do Sublimation again. A commonly used transition move to accomplish this is c.roundhouse, although I dont like that move much when used in this fashion.

The alternative you mentioned, Sublimation XX Fantome, on the other hand, is pretty much self-contained. Rather than her using Dr. Doom to set up Fantome, she is using Fantome to set up an opportunity to use a lead normal to get Dr. Doom in the match. Obviously, shes going to be relying on her mobility moreso with this approach. When she leads with Sublimation in an attempt to get a Fantome on the screen, her concern here is putting distance between herself and the potential counterassist in case the opposing point activated the counterassist just before blockstun.

In general, as far as getting Dr. Doom into the match goes, Sublimation is her setup move, and the great thing about it is that once she forces blockstun with it, it gives her the ability to play read and react against her opponent without really committing her to anything; almost all of her options are open. With distance between her and the counterassist, she can react to both him and the opposing point on the fly as necessary.

To a large extent, both how she advances toward her opponent and what she does when she approaches him is going to be dictated by whether the opposing point used advancing guard against her. Again, something to take into consideration is that advancing guard only seems to work on the character that was responsible for blockstun at the time of activation, and with Dr. Dooms assist, that can present a problem for someone that doesnt understand that. Anyway, she can advance with her wavedash and engage with c.short or s.fierce as the situation dictates; the lead normal depends on how close she can get to her opponent without breaking blockstun. If she is farther away, shell want to take advantage of her extended range that comes with lead s.fierce plus Dr. Doom- Beta, c.roundhouse, and in a safety mode scenario, react to advancing guard before she decides to commit to anything further. The s.fierce, c.roundhouse sequence is stronger than just s.fierce and especially just c.roundhouse on its own, because it reestablishes the necessary distance she needs to be able to outrange her opponents counterassist. Also, it largely depends on who the opposing character is, but when the opponent tries to distance himself from her by using advancing guard against her normals, canceling to Fantome or even fierce Schwarzaile would sometimes be a better idea than going with another Sublimation, especially against Cable. Theres going to be many characters that shes not overly concerned with, but against anyone that can capitalise when she potentially whiffs Sublimation due to advancing guard, shell want to be more cautious.

Against most characters that use advancing guard on her during her normals, jab Sublimation is a strong enough safeguard, but Cable presents a worst-case scenario. Speaking of which, against Cable, ideally, she wants to get to the air, and isolate herself from her assist; she can thus try to force the opposing Cable to burn two meters to protect himself when she counterattacks an AHVB from over the top with Hyper Schwarzaile. Against no advancing guard, she can use Sublimation, and move forward.

Another thing about blockstun after a lead Sublimation- its largely dependent on distance, but when she is close enough, she can call Dr. Dooms assist at the first available opportunity, activate jab/fierce Schwarzaile as needed (jab against crouching opponent, fierce against standing opponent), initiate blockstun before the opponent has the opportunity to recover, and fully use the extended blockstun that she has with the move, knowing that by the time the opposing point is able to shake her with advancing guard, hell eventually have to worry about Dr. Dooms assist starting blockstun all over again. As she gets close to the corner, Dr. Doom will be in the position he wants to be in, where he can get continuous blockstun against the point when his assist makes the transition from anti-air to projectile; this will effectively reduce the amount of work she has to do to maintain her desired position.

As for myself, I play Ruby Heart/Dr. Doom differently than described above, mostly because the way I play Ruby Heart/Sentinel (my primary point/assist duo) has had a strong influence on the way I play Ruby Heart/Dr. Doom.

119

Hello I’m also use Rubyheart on occasion. My team is Ruby (trap assist)/IM/Sent, which basically revovles around frame killing.

For instance: with Rubes C.LK, C.MK, S.HP, QCB KK DHC immediately into PC, (ghosts are hitting) DHC into HSF (if in corner) call Ruby trap assist J.LP, J.MP, RP assist hits J.FK,SJ J.LP, J.MP, FP RP, J.FP, J.FK rejump J.LK, J.FP.

That basically equals death even to Sentinel. I use the trap assist in conjunction with IM’s AC to combo into the infinite, also godd with and against flying Sent. Random Hyper Scharwzalles into PC are useful too. BTW Ten, have you seen the Meikyoususi vol.7 vid. That semi inf is awesome!!!:eek: :smiley:

120

I am a scrub to Ruby. And I also hate Cable.

Is there one combo that uses fantoms and get rid of Cable super meter?