MvC3 Actual Balance/Potential Tiers Discussion

Classic Fighting Games Ultimate Marvel VS Capcom 3
261

They really shouldn’t have got banned or deleted in all honesty, imo. The whole point of day 1 tier lists is that they are day 1 tier lists- I don’t think anybody would be arrogant enough to say they are set in stone or won’t become horrifically outdated, it’s just a way of documenting how the game progresses and what’s currently effective. This matters to an awful lot of people, including top tournament players. Seriously, some of the best players I have ever known ask straight away when a game comes out what’s cheap and what’s winning, then take things from there- whether that’s exploiting it or trying to take it down.

It’s constructive to look at a thread as see “oh, right now Sentinal and Phoenix are rinsing” because then you can come up with anti-Phoenix strats, or if you like that kind of thing, take up Sentinal and Phoenix. Likewise if everyone thinks Thor sucks, there are those who will try and expose this guys strengths and ‘invent’ tournament Thor.

Long story short there is never ‘too early’ a time to do tier lists. They just need to be done by credible people. A list by someone with no history of competitive play based on what he’s seen on youtube and XBL on day 1 is useless, unless it prompts credible discussion.

It’s a shame that SRK started a few months after MVC2 came out (marvel came out mid march 2000 for DC and arcade in Japan, SRK was online by around June and the forums started to get busy around Autumn of that year) so looking through the archive won’t see any really early days tiering, which imo is a shame. I for one would love to see those old posts whining about Iceman/Cable/Guile being an unbeatable team and Anakaris coffins being broken.

262

My Shitty Tier List

[details=Spoiler]Top Tier:

Akuma
Dante
Dormammu
Magneto
Sentinel
Taskmaster
Tron
Wesker
X-23

High:

Amaterasu
Chun-Li
Doctor Doom
Phoenix
She Hulk
Storm
Spencer
Trish
Wolverine
Zero

Mid:

C. Viper
Deadpool
Felicia
Hulk
Iron Man
M.O.D.O.K.
Morrigan
Super-Skrull
Viewtiful Joe

Low:

Arthur
Captain America (PROTIP: Servbot had an infinite too, didn’t make him good)
Chris
Haggar
Hsien Ko
Ryu
Spider-Man
Thor[/details]

263

I fully agree with this. Any thread that prompts discussion on a forum is reasonable. If people don’t want to participate in said discussion that’s their prerogative, but I wouldn’t say it’s “too early” to make a tier list. It’s fun to see these things evolve over time. As for how to go about ranking characters. I’d say use some of the following criteria.

Flexibility: How are they in the 1,2,3 slot? Wesker is an example of a character that you can stick anywhere and be fine with him. Whereas someone like Haggar is kind of ass in the last slot because he dies to keep away. You’ve almost GOT to play him at 1 or 2.

Assist: How good is their assist.

Easily locked down/kept away: I wouldn’t say that Sent is “easily” locked down, but looking at how much of the cast has an instant overhead on him there’s no way I can see him being the best in the game. Wolverine and Taskmaster wreck his shit. Conversely some characters are easy to keep at bay. I think looking at this is the alternative to trying to do individual matchups. If you break the game into general playstyles and see how characters deal with it that’s sort of like matchup tiering. A character like Magneto does fine against, rushdown, keepaway, and runaway. While being able to do all of these things himself. Characters that can play and deal with multiple styles have to get a high ranking.

Once you’ve kinda got people sorted then you can start comparing tiers. Which is why at this point I’m inclined to say Renegade’s list looks pretty close to accurate at this point. If you look at who he has at the top they all do pretty good in all of the categories I made up, and as you go down the list those characters begin to have more and more issues.

264

I wish people would stop comparing Cap’s infinite to infinites in MVC2… Marvel 2 had a dizzy-out mechanism so no infinites would never kill a character outright from full health, meaning Marvel actually had NO true infinites IIRC. So a big damage combo was often better than an infinite. Kobun had shit damage so even with his infinite and a super tagged on he did less damage than a mid tier character getting a clean hit, plus his infinite wasn’t the most practical.

Like it or not American infinite is mega easy to connect- you don’t even have to get a hit in, you can get it off an aerial tag from someone else- which makes a launch for ANY character a 100% meterless, x factor free combo as long as they dont air counter.

That might not make him top tier but I very much doubt he’s garbage, the reason being I think by the time the game develops fully most top teams will have 100% meter free combos, meaning that might not be a USP anymore, and he’s got fuck all else to offer.

265

Maybe, but I’m thinking you’d have to have a team built specifically for this, and his infinite is pretty temperamental considering you can’t be near a corner. Unless there’s a setup I don’t know about (and I’m not questioning that there isn’t) the only way you’d be able to initiate the infinite off of an air tag is pretty much with your back in one corner, and to have one of your assists be an OTG one to scoop them back up once Cap comes in because I don’t think (please correct me if I’m wrong) he can get it going at SJ height. If I’m right that’s a pretty specific setup.

266

People make way too much of infintes. A lot of the time they aren’t practical at all. Plus with scaling the get essentially pointless if you can’t follow up with something. Just because something is possible doesn’t mean it is practical by any means. Cap’s does seem useful though as setting it up isn’t insanely impossible.

267

You missed the point of that entirely. It doesn’t matter if the character has an infinite, they can still be garbage.

268

Hugo had an infinite in 2I. He was still ass.

269

another category to consider tiering is assist as counters with and without hyper cancel. for instance any of sentinels assist as a counter can hyper cancel into air hard drive before he hits the floor making it an invincible counter that can also set up for longer combos if it ends in the corner. another is hulks gamma charge assist into gamma crush for over 500,000 in damage. but without the hyper cancels they aren’t so great.

270

Anakaris infinite is a real infinite ( that he can land off a random cr.lk and he can guard break into a 300% combo… still disregarded for competitive play ) and several of the infinites were “close enough” to where dizzy out wouldn’t matter against a large chunk of the cast.

In a game without guard breaks, it’s just a 100% combo, which isn’t very impressive in marvel 3.

271

Personally, I don’t think making a matchup list would be all that difficult. Especially considering that you can categorize assists in a very basic manner.

“Direct,” “Projectile,” or “Misc”

It could take hours trying to sift out and sort which one does which, but most ideas are about the same, Ryu’s Shoryuken assist serves and can mimic the same effect as Hsien-Ko’s Senpu Bu, whereas her Henkyo Ki would me Misc because its a reflect gong.

Taking it a step further, you could look at a character like Arthur when he’s using a Direct assist. The direct assist compliments his weaknesses defensively and makes him a more well rounded character. But with a projectile assist, is makes his keepaway game even more obnoxious.

Evaluating the two, you could see why Arthur is a pretty good character, and when you weigh in the possibilities of a character like Magneto against Arthur (Only factoring one of their assist characters this time.)

You could come up with a number. Against Arthur in general and taking my general level of understanding of both characters, I’d say that Magneto would win this matchup for simply having better options up close, and that LP Disruptor stops arthur if used correctly before he can attack.

7.0 Mag - 3.0 Arthur (Flat.)
5.5 Mag - 4.5 Magneto (Direct.)
6.0 Mag - 4.0 Arthur (Projectile.)

LP Disruptor does better against keepaway assists because it can stop them before they even fire, but Magneto’s rushdown suffers from being easily punished, and an invincible direct assist like Trons is enough to give him trouble.

Alot of it could be at least thought up along these lines, keep in mind its still very rough around the edges but I do agree with the general sentiment of “The Electrifying One.”

We can be cavemen and point at eachother for knowing little to nothing about the game, but there is no such thing as foolhardy effort when it comes to comprising a tier list. Ultimately we can only combine and contest what it is that we know, so what better way to do it then to match preferences in strength and let the chips fall where they may when its all said and done.

I like the format, and I think its well thought up. I can shudder at the thought of the majority of the SRK populace taking the time to utilize it, but props on being creative enough to write it up.

272

I’ll join in, Spencer. on a scale of 5. 5 = max 1 = low

Building Meter: 4
Using Meter: 5
Supers: 5
Assists: 2
DHC into: from bionic arm. Hulk’s gamma crush, Sphere Flame, Stalking flame, Hail Storm, Shinku Hadoken up-wards, Angled proto-canon, Hyper Sentinel force, Legion arrow-upwards, Gamma quake, Fatal Claw, Tatsumaki Super. Probably alot more but can’t be assed to try out more.

Effectiveness alone: Spencer is very mobile with his zip, and has no real issues to get in to be honest so he is pretty strong alone, and has a good super to punish. so I’d go for a 4.

273

The problem with Anakaris was his infinite was one of the only true differences between DC and Arcade Marvel- it didn’t work on the console version IIRC. If it did he would have been a bigger deal than he was (he was already considered on the next tier down from the likes of Cyclops, Doom, Strider and Blackheart) considering DC became the standard, plus the fact that he was technically demanding compared to other characters with similiar results. He suffered from Dhalsim syndrome in that game- too difficult for his own good.

Time will tell if this really proves a killer tool for Cap America in actual play, but I think the comparisons to Hugo in 2I, Servebot etc are unfair and to say that the point is that you can have an infinite and suck is a strawman argument. The relevant issue is that he has an easy infinite that can be set up in practical ways from a huge number of situations, and with the aerial tag set up from a clean hit off another character- even off a counter. So you can get a 100% off a block, off a clean hit, off unblockables, off launchers… yeah people need to apply it but just in theory that’s top tier material- practical death combos off any hit without being meter specific or requiring special positioning.

When has there ever been a character to have these properties in any game and not been a decent character? The only exceptions are games where EVERYONE had practical infinites (like XSF). A meter free 100% IS a big deal in this game. Even when you watch the best of the best play at majors at this stage the only 100% combos you are seeing are with X factor and/or plenty of meter. So if anyone can take this shit and apply it they will definitely be rocking a very good team at this stage.

274

It seems to me that if I was a tourney player fighting against Cap I’d pull a page out of Muhammad Ali’s book; Rope-a-Dope. Cap can’t infinite you if you’re in the corner. Granted cornering one’s self is counter intuitive to general fighting game strategy, but if it stops him from being able to infinite you then it seems like a pretty good idea. Also I’m pretty sure cap has to be on point to initiate it. I don’t think he can areal exchange/DHC into a setup. So running to the corner against Cap seems like it’d really kick that strategy in the balls. I dunno.

275

I’m using both the Bradygames guide and character forums as sources, and am definitely open to input once I get all of the basic factual data recorded. Among other things, I don’t know of an X-Factor scaling table anywhere, aside from each character’s individual scaling being listed in his/her section of the guide.

Oh, there’s one I forgot. Thanks!

276

The corner problem for the shield slash infinite got fixed Shoryuken - American Infinite Setups by Gimpyfish

277

Cap isn’t opening anyone up without a assist and his mobility is trash.

The inf just makes him more tournament worthy

278

Here are a couple of my predictions/observations:

A) I think the best team order is going to be

  1. assist character
  2. good DHC character
  3. Best overall character or a character that’s good at come backs

When the #1 characters about to die, DHC into the second character. Don’t be afraid to let the second character die. Ultimately at the end of the match, you want to have the #1 assist character with the final #3 character for comebacks.

b) I think Phoenix is a tad over rated. 5 super meters for dark phoenix mode seems like the biggest rip off of all time!! IMO, Not using supers in combo’s or DHC’s and just doing sesame street combo’s (ABCD) all day isn’t going to be winning matches in the future. Phoenix seems like the ultimate red herring- a diversion intended to distract everybody’s attention from the main issue. I think the main thing people will complain about in the future is people spamming supers for chip damage.

279

Thing is people who’ve had Phoenix in their team Tourny wise. Weren’t doing ABCD ABCD. They were doing full damaging combos just without the super at the end.

280

Phoenix teams can afford to spend more meter than most people think they can and still have 5 bars when it counts.