Dante is arguably easier to get into and play than Viper also. That guy that won that first official MVC3 tournament back before the game came out was just doing day one CES Dante shit and swinging swords around like he just didn’t care. Dante is complicated in the sense that if you wanna kill people in one combo or if you wanna do anything but get blocked all day by a good player you’ll need some real techniques that the common man can’t just do in 30 minutes practice. His basics are about as herp derp as it gets and when he is applied by more technical players he’ll just have the best of everything. The technicality of Viper and the hurr durr swing shit get profit of Wolvie and Wesker.
i’m not denying her potential either. i do feel she’s within the top 12 range. but my dude crisis ( sorry if mispelled ) be day dreaming with her a lot. i mean top 2? i just can’t really agree with that. but i’ll gladly eat my words down the road if viper does tear it up later on. but personally, i think that’s going to be dante along with the usual suspects ( i.e: wesker, mags ).
@D_Dollars:
Did you miss the post on the front page of the Viper Trish IM unblockable set up from Japanese players? Anyways I don’t think one should default to the Japanese unless MvC2 Dhalsim is god tier in practice, instead of only in theory where he is. Did you miss the part where the majority of the best players from NY played on the break and still didn’t place as well as Marlin? Just since something’s semi-local doesn’t mean it’s bad, just check the names of people attending for a more accurate read.
EDIT: No offense taken. I understand that evryone who hasn’t thoroughly examined Viper can be turned off by certain aspects of her such as normals, time will show how stupid and busted she is. As for Dante I put him in the same boat as Viper for a lot of reasons. He’s much easier on a basic level, and somewhat easier on an advanced level, but he’s by far top 3 in the game, IMO only surpassed by Phoenix and Viper. I feel after those 3 there’s a significant gap then the still godlike but nowhere near top 3 Mags/Wesker/Ammy/etc
@Nini Heart:
Post it to the Dante forums, the only thing that seems to get there is the Isedacidbruyen combos, I’m sure people will be happy to get the higher damage, all the good Dante player I watch/play with end up resetting or DHC glitch against the over Wesker health crowd.
As for hidden potential, it’s slowly moving forward, the fact that maybe 4 people who play in tournaments in the states use her makes it a little hard, but that’s okay. As stated she’s been doing decent in tournaments that have solid people playing there getting past a lot of the best Marvel players.
What you said is absolutely true with the combo, as stated before it’s the easier version that does less damage and builds less gauge, it can place in the BKFs etc.
As for Combo Movies I’d prefer to just get my actual combos down as movie stuff with her is just ridiculous. I would love to make them, but that requires a camera (Which I lack), a console (Which I lack), a television (Which I lack), and a stick (Which I have 
) If anyone cares to donate any of the things I lack I would be most grateful and make Viper videos for you <3.
On the Viper forums I already posted the data for a bunch of combos extracted from playing while other people pass out at long Marvel sessions, but she has so much to optimize, and should kill everything she hits once without the need to DHC.
I’ll post more things when the ability to collect the data becomes available.
IMO Dante has a good bit more potential for top 2 because usually top tiers consist of characters that aren’t just technical…but have basic dumb shit that’s stupid also. Like how Yun in 3S you pretty much had to be pretty technical with him to even beat an average Ken player with him but once you got everything down he still had basic stupid shit like dive kicks that are safe on parry, hit overhead and can easily cross up during wake up situations, a 5 frame command grab, the fact that you can just whiff normals and get a full meter to do 50 to 70 percent damage combos, safe on block L lunge punch that instantly gets you in etc.
Viper getting into the top 5 pretty much will have to take into account if her shit is as cheap and retarded as Dante, Mag, Wesker, Ammy, etc. I wont count Phoenix because she’s designed to be retarded.
I agree 100%. Felicia has the potential to be an effective character. She kind has a “Strider-esque” hyper combo with the Kitty Helper and she is fast and a good grappler. That assist is also godlike for unblockables as you mentioned. She just doesn’t break the “good damage” barrier but she is also a DHC Glitch candidate.
I think Deadpool is WAY WAY over represented online but WAY WAY under represented in tournaments. He has a lot of potential as a run and gun character and as long as the DHC Glitch stays in game he has that going for him too.
Wait wat? You don’t have a console and a TV? How do you even practice then?
Yeah Deadpool I think is the only of the lame gun types that will actually hold up in tournaments and be a legit threat. The way he can angle his guns and keep people out is literally strong enough to keep some characters for getting in for more than a dozen seconds at a time. Anytime I’ve seen a Doom player try to get in on Deadpool firing guns the Doom player pretty much never found a way in. Doom players still have to work on his movement options in general but that gunfire is something that even Magneto has to do a good bit of planning to get around. Not to mention he actually has a real mix up and pressure game when he gets in.
oh no, i wasn’t trying to say locally is bad. allow me to rephrase, i’m saying at a major theres a lot more comp seeing as a majority of good players from one side of the coast usually attend. now out of all those players, how many of them do you think will run viper as opposed to dante? who is decently challenging to get good with. so i’m trying to understand why people always saying viper is hard when dante is almost as hard as her? the point i’m trying to make is that most people don’t see vipers potential stacking up to people such as dante in the long run. sorry for my last post being horribly worded.
but as i said, i’m willing to eat my words once her potential is reached, if ever. and the japanese thing was simply because japan usually have a eye on broke ass characters. you see dante tech constantly but we rarely recveive any viper stuff.
@Devil Jin 01:
Seismic hammer alone is more retarded than the entirety of Wesker, and Wesker has a 1 frame command grab that with the right assists and DHCs leads into a dead character. Viper’s advanced things are incredibly stupid just nobody can do them at all yet, I talked to MarlinPie in some streams and he hasn’t even tried some of the broken things she can do. Note that with proper execution Viper can force a player to get 6 varried in time first frame advancing guards or lose on block from any point where they’re in normal jump height or lower. She’s broken but people are either incapable of hitting some of it, or not capable of hitting it yet.
@Nini Heart:
Aye, no console nor TV. 
I practice by playing at events like Starbase and Freedemonia, in both the tournament and casual sessions. Alternatively when friends can have me over. Being broke sucks. As I said, and Dacid will agree with me, training mode would do me wonders. XD
@D_Dollars:
As I said, Dante’s one of the few characters on a similar plane to Viper I think those 2 are both significantly better than the majority of the cast, and happen to also work really well together.
Fighting Game theory is fun but it’s also sad because some of the things discussed will never come to fruition due to human execution and preferences.
What interest me most right now is counter picking. I think it’s a strategy more in depth in this game than in MvC2.
I really hope Viper’s block strings are never optimized by a human, the game will cease to be fun to play.
I think match ups of decent characters are pretty extreme in this game. Having a team which can deal with hard counters for each of the characters is a solid part of building it in the first place.
fair enough chrisis. i’ll definitely be on the look out for viper users on any stream ^_^.
A character that I think is somewhat overrated is Zero. He is still great and like a lot of characters with the proper assist his mixups are pretty nuts. Honestly though, I don’t know what it is that makes me feel this way. It just seems Zero doesn’t dominate on streams/tournaments I have been too compared to the top dawgs that he is compared with in the top 7 range. Except of course when Marn is ballin out with him of course. He is another execution heavier character so maybe it is just because not enough Zero players are using him to his potential yet.
Then again I never know with this game. My opinions are constantly changing (which is cool). I though 2 days ago Wesker is overrated and not quite top 5, then I watch Guard Crush and WNF and notice how 80% of the games end with Wesker choking the camera man and 99% of matches have at least 1 Wesker, most of the time 2 though. So that opinion I had quickly changed lol.
Maybe I will wake up tomorrow and think Zero should be in the convo with the top dawgs… lol who knows.
The thing about Zero that’s not being used enough yet is Buster shot, people are taking unnecessary risks with him when his ranged game especially from the air is amazing and more importantly he can follow it into his close game on hit.
Yes, Wesker is scary, properly executed command grab mix ups will connect and he’s very scary because of it.
Thing about Zero is his better combos aren’t herp derp and he has low life and he suffers without assists.
Someone who can’t herp derp and easy XF comebacks = not too popular.
Yea Zero is definately execution heavy… he is like Dante. His basic BnB’s are cake and effective, but if you really want to use him to the point where people are currently tiering him you are gonna have to get into dat training room and practice. Sadly, people want results right meow. So Capcom put Wolvie and Wesker in this game.
I have to say the funnest character in this game for me is Chris. He is another execution heavy character. Sure his combos are not complicated at all… but his overall gameplan execution is pretty tough. He has a lot of good unique moves that are all situational and the knowledge required for certain situations is significant. Especially when you are trying to bang with the big boys.
I remember the sickest ending I ever saw in a match (so far) was LLND was down to only chris and was going up against a Sentinel on point pretty close to death and a Magneto with like 30% left or so… LLND SJed and shot the magnum and the other guy had called out the magneto assist… he ended up killing both Sentinel and Magneto with that one shot and the slo mo right during the KO animation was badass.
Anyone else notice the lack of Ammy lately? There’s not as many as there once was or am I just traumatized and ignoring her presence.
She was really popular in the beginning, and everyone just kind of switched her out.
I dunno, I think Ammy still has a presence. It’s just that everyone is riding the Wolverine/Wesker/Akuma train right now (probably the most played team at the moment, most braindead team in the game IMO). Those three characters make everyone else seem underused in comparison.
Also, regarding popularity based on execution, how/why is Magneto still popular despite his greater than average execution requirements? Or is it just that the prominent Magneto mains (MarlinPie, Mugetsu, Nerses, etc.) happen to have really good execution and make them stand out?
As somebody who based his team on Deadpool as a point character and hitting the lab hard ('pool/dante/akuma), I agree that he is underrepresented so far at tournaments, he is the definition of solid mid tier. He’s a really unique character because I think he can be played at top 2 in the pure keepaway role, up there with trish, but he also has a very solid offensive game as well with his great normals and mixup potential, which is basically necessary to complete good keepaway in marvel. Put that together with solid bnb damage and a dhc glitch starter and you’re looking at exactly what I was talking about above, a medium tier character who can be competitive at a high level with a touch of death. He’s very mobile and he has good abare, which I think are two qualities that gives even medium tiered characters a high ceiling and makes a character rewarding to put time into learning.
He fills roles well, he has versatility and isn’t difficult to find synergy with. He’s good as a support character because all of his assists are really good niche assists, he’s solid without assists and can only get that much better with them. Quick Work is one of the best assists for unblockable setups, Katanarama is a super-fast otg and trigger happy is great for air control. I love his game so much that I had to put him on point and base my team around him because he is one of those characters that can be awesome with a team based on him. I mean think about it, Deadpool on point keepaway with jam session and Akuma tatsu for spacing/pressure/mixups. This is keepaway with good abare and solid pressure/mixup, and the dhc glitch to Dante makes him a touch of death. Then he becomes an unblockable assist support character for Dante w/ Tatsu coverage. Akuma anchor, enough said. Sorry, I know this should be in team thread but I couldn’t resist once I started talking about Deadpool. My point is that Deadpool is a soli… wait a minute, am I still calling him middle tier?!
Magneto’s really easy to start with, people starting Magneto if they come from MvC2 won’t be discouraged at the beginning while people starting those like Viper can see the immediate bad normals and the like.
You can be very basic with Magneto and still be very hard to block then just develop that further through play.