Yeah I pretty much agree here. I can do my Zero BNB 100% on my TV at home but then I go out to a tournament with varying input lags… I end up dropping the rejump loop like 40% of the time (or on sentinel for some reason, 100% of the time). It’s so frustrating landing a hit, knowing you can kill wolverine or someone, but then not being able to cash the check.
Most people I’ve fought that know how to fight Zero will forever stay the fuck away. So by the time I’ve gotten in with zero, usually, I’ve already ran into a few projectiles / beams / assists, which for Zero usually means about half life. He’s just not durable like Wesker and Akuma and since he wants to be in close, you’re always putting yourself at risk to take damage. He’s absolutely fantastic at footsie and mixups, but it’s not like wolverine where you just call sentinel and berserker slash over and have an instant answer to 99% of the shit in the game. He takes a bit of discretion and as such, you can make a wrong choice and die.
Rejump loop is annoying because a lot of characters have a specific timing. Sentinel for example, is so big that you have to hit the J.M wayy early before you land, or he will hit the ground.
It’s like, Dante combos, you learn them once, and you’re sure it’s gonna work on everyone. Zero combos, you learn them, and then you gotta learn the timing on everyone.
That team can DHC glitch - just not in the order you have it. Trish can easily DHC glitch to Taskmaster (which leads to a dead character). Trish can also glitch to Sentinel, but you have to use a different combo that starts the glitch closer to the ground.
It’s not a bad team but it’s really light on mix-up. Trish is probably your best bet there. These types of teams seem to struggle to regain control if they lose it. If you’re behind a character, they can play defensively and now you’re having to rushdown with characters that can’t open people up.
You also may want to consider doing Trish’s Round Harvest -> Raw Tag to Taskmaster, call sentinel drones and unblockable. There are some setups for this that are pretty solid.
That’s one of his weak areas as well. He can’t really fight phoenix that well compared to some others. He’s pretty much like wolverine, where he has a VERY good chance of killing her with snapback + assists and putting her in multiple mixups in a row.
He can fight phoenix/dpx slightly better than wolverine though because he can shoot her out of the air with buster, has decent aerial movement options so he can stall XF a bit and can fish for a random super with his level 3(which doesn’t kill her sadly)
As for XF3 DPX, you can just pack up since she will chip you to death and there is no random beam super/hard drive/flight mode to save you.
He can snap her in and do mixups with assist ie jam session and ambiguous cross under. If they block that then you can go for a mixup with air dash j.C varying the timing to hit on different sides.
At neutral he can try to get above her in the air with super jump and then C command dash into level 3 buster > combo, or go for an air throw into a combo.
Vs Dark Phoenix,
he’s very limited. His best bet is x factor into level 3 to plow through her offense and one hit kill her but if she has meter she can just super through it.
If she x factors, zero will die from like 3 blocked homing balls in DP mode. He can stand in the corner and just do j.C if he expects a teleport, coming down on her regardless of what side she’s on, but projectiles and cover make that a different story. It’s a pretty shitty fight though, honestly.
I was too tired last night to really post a coherent response but in my mind Thor is probably up around the top of C and here is why
Pros:
Tri Dash L will cross up ambiguously, can be used as a tick into command grab or whiffed for a high low, if you dash from the right height you can do two shorts on the way down for a double overhead
Mighty Strike - great special for advancing, pressure, leads to combos, does good damage
Mighty punish - Can DHC glitch, is 1 frame startup allowing you to use it to punish some random hypers if you have a good dhc partner (akuma, or sent and others)
Really Good light projectile
Long Range, relatively safe, buff launcher
Good Anti-air Normals, or command grab (harder weird to time)
Damaging DHC glitch, kills with most characters that can start it
Reset Game midscreen is decent, reset game in the corner is amazing
Mighty Smash Assist is really good for certain people making for easier much more damaging combos (wesker, dorm, sent, basically anyone who can self otg but can’t follow it up)
Mighty Smash assist cross counter over is invincible for almost the whole thing, and safe on block and leads to a combo on hit
Highest Health in the game
Cons:
Slow walk speed (only truly bad in a few situations since you can just air dash around)
Fast but small Dash
Normals start fast but most have terrible recovery, meaning people need to block them or your fucked.
Neutral game is weak, so weak you basically need assists to help you get in.
Some Zoners ruin his life, Trish, Pheonix to some extent and others, you just can’t catch them especially not in a 1 on 1 situation.
Bad at punishing random supers
Im missing some cons but I can’t think of them right now lol…
But yeah Overall I’d say that he can do well against plenty of the cast with the right assists, noteable ones include, Sentinel - Drones, Wesker - Gun Shot, Dormammu Dark Hole… basically the assists that make everyone better really really help him.
Have people actually shifted their views on Hsien Ko after seeing LLND having success with her? I used to think that she’s in a Roll tier too but over time I have believed that she is far better than what people give her credit for. Her pendulum swing is a good assist even without gold armor bluffs and while her mobility is a joke the speed of her normals are actually very good. If someone rushes in at her they can be punished easily.
If we’re going on the assumption of perfect to near-perfect execution, which is the point DevilJin’s trying to make, then the only way XF makes a difference here i by how helpful it is in landing that first hit. If that’s what you mean, then you have a talking point for debate. if you mean that once that hit is gotten, the damage is greater and execution easier, then it becomes irrelevant because a competent Zero will kill you on a touch, XF or not. I guess what I’m saying is “better character” is a bit ambiguous. If you’re syaing lvl 3 Wesker can land a hit better than Zero, then that is very possible, though I think the fair comparison would be to lvl 3 Zero 9which I haven’t used so can’t comment on specifically).
in xfactor lv3 everyone is a monster, Zero is no different…
He can kill Thor from scratch with one meterless combo in less than 1/3 of the xfactor bar in time… also, every move gets better… surely there are other better options than him in xfactor, but Zero does quite good.
Anyway, your team consists of 3 members, not all of them need to be broken in xfactor, my team, for example, is Magneto, Zero and Phoenix and I hardly use xfactor with Zero, I tend to use xfactor with him only if I get 2 characters in a combo, so I can be sure of killing both or if Zero manages to be the last man standing, sometimes in other rare situations…
Of course xfactor should be taken into consideration, but it’s overall weight in a character power is not that big, I think someone in your team MUST be an absolute xfactor beast, if one or another char isn’t this will not be much of a problem to your team.
When trish tries to space me I just pelt her with mighty sparks until she gives up and tries to rush me down. Note that in the air she has no projectile that can go directly across the screen, but you do.
Agree on the post transformation clusterfucking that goes on. Also for pre-transformation snaps Zero is one of the few characters who can actually put together extended combos on his own that lead to snap-back opportunities.
i personally am NOT on baord with zero being best in the game. hes good no doubt… but best in the game when you’ve got wesker,mag,wolvie,dante,phoenix vying fr the current title and c.viper among others vying for the “has the potential” title?
not in my mind.
sure he has cheap ass shit, but so do all the other top characters, and like ALL the other characters, he dies once put in blockstun from a helper…
to me, fighting zero is kind of like fighting against sent/hulk which basically equals dont try to fuck with there armor/priority and just run away and try to manufacture frame advantage via blocked or hit assist into death combo.
its not so cut and dried of course but thats how marvel 3 deals with pretty much anything:
avoid blocking, try to get your opponent to block.
once that happens you’ve got high/low mixups into death.
zero isnt highly mobile unless hes up in your grill. at range all he really has is charged shot… be careful of getting hit by the damned thing.
its not easy… but defending against ANY of the high tiers in this game isnt easy… shit, defending against the lower tiers isnt easy if they somehow manage to get close.
also, as of late with abare game getting better and transitioning to more and more lower damage combo opportunities, hp is becomong a factor once again. its NOT always possible to use your perfectly setup dhc glitch starter cause that mkes ones gamme predictable about the ranges you need to get to, whereas a high abare rate means getting damage from many different positions and thusly being less predictable about where that damage comes from.
i cant remember how many streams ive watched where the commentators comment on how HARD it is to kill tron/she-hulk/wesker
abare (random damage) is counter to the lower hp characters… and random damage is EASIER to get.
having said all that, i do think zero is quite good. and i DONT think hp matters as much as i alluded to… but it DOES matter… more than people would lead others to believe.
Wolverine/best friend/Phoenix is not a top tier team.
It’s good sure! But has several things working against it.
—Wolverine’s best friends are akuma and sentinel.
—not great assists for Phoenix, Phoenix like defensive assists, projectiles, or low assists.
—they both have below average health. Against either team, if you do combos right, you can blow through two characters and kill PHX before they get to level 5. That makes this team really weak to… Wolverine! Hello msp mirror bullshit!
—It creates a harder choice For x factor and meter usage. Face it, sentinel and akuma really like their meter, and feel gimped without it. Wolverine can use XF, but you’re gambling hard on that 50/50 character kill for the 2nd character. Why gamble when you got the sure thing in the back? Why then pick wolverine?
—if Phoenix gets snapped in and dies, options start looking grim. Bc then you have best friend in w wolverine assist (lol). You need to spend two levels just to right the ship.
Zero works out as S tier for me because the only characters that really give him a hard time are the ones that run away and you can’t really runaway from Zero forever either unless you’re using Phoenix. Though Zero is always best in my eyes in the front where he wont have to deal with Phoenix any way. Your other characters should be fighting Phoenix not Zero. If Zero is fighting Phoenix you really need to reconsider the order of your team. There’s no way for even the top tiers to safely attack at Zero. Especially not one with a good assist holding on to charged buster shot. Unless you got Haggar or Tron assist expect charged buster shot to blow up whatever assist you like using and make it his birthday.
It’s only hard to kill Wesker/She Hulk now because people aren’t maximizing the damage on their combos and going the American way and just only doing the shit you wont drop even if you had to sneeze in the middle of the combo. Of course they’re going to be hard to kill if you’re going for the ABC BBC. That’s what you get when you dont practice combos and hit boxes. The shit Guilty Gear players had to go through to make sure they were consistent with combos against all characters was ridiculous. You had to learn different bnb’s for like every character unless you were using Potemkin or something and they got that shit down consistently. That’s why this game is so boring right now. Nobody wants to really grind bnb’s. Wait till some Japanese Guilty Gear players start running this game. They’re not going to be dropping anything. Combos are gonna be cake compared to GG. The only character I feel who’s execution is so hard that like even a GG player would drop shit to some degree is C.Viper. She’s purposely made to just be an execution side show. Everyone else is very doable including Zero.
Even I’m a culprit of not maximizing my damage with certain characters on my team especially with X23. You can definitely viably get up to 700k with her bnb’s but using her MFC game to get constant frame advantage on block you kinda have to skip out on the big 700k. Which is fine because it teaches me to work on my reset/frame trap game afterwards and be confident in turning post combo situations into more damage. X23 can land DHC glitch off Dante’s Jam Session from any stray hit any ways so as long as Dante is still in the fight I can turn any random hit from X23 into 1.1 million if I really need to get rid of a problem character.
Why does Phoenix need good assists with Wolverine+Best Friend? Wolverine allows you to play with the cheapness of Phoenix in a whole new way. Now it’s no longer about “well I can kinda wait things out since she’s using her meter gimped minions to fight me” Now it’s “Wolverine can viably kill off my first character off a c.L or throw and then still have enough XF to viably kill off my second without burning a meter”. Unless the team Tokido is fighting against has two big health characters he wont have to spend a meter to get rid of two. Especially considering all it takes is one random stray hit from Wolverine to kill you now people are going to be scrambling for Wolverine counters against this team. Phoenix wont need an assist when Wolverine has 2 of your characters down in seconds, likely without burning a meter. Which gives strong incentive for the team to still get the 5 bars so you have to fight 4 characters. Even if Tokido has to spend a meter or 2 to kill off 2 characters…he’s effectively won the match strategically any way.
Even if Phoenix doesn’t get to the 5 you will most likely be left with one character who will have a hard time getting snap kills on her unless it’s like Dorm in the back and he still has to land a physical hit against freaking Wolverine and by that time will have no assist to help him do it. If Phoenix doesn’t get to 5 bars and has to come out on screen unless you somehow got Dorm with enough level 3 XF to chip her down at the end you have to deal with healing field regular phoenix which has enough health to easily last in a one on one fight. Regular Phoenix only having to deal with one character is something she can very easily do considering her potential by herself + healing field to take combos like a tank.
All this team pretty much requires is being comfortable of letting go of thoughtless XF3 DP. Which is fine because what makes this team powerful is it’s a team that gets the opponent mind fucked about spending meter but now they have to worry about losing 1 and 2 characters on any stray hit in the front. Before you could just kinda wait it out and just try to get the snap before Phoenix got the 5. Now your whole team can crumble before Phoenix gets the 5 and unless you snap kill Phoenix in you’ll still most likely have to deal with healing field regular Phoenix with like one character and if you’re forced to pop DP due to her rushdown, non XF DP vs. another character that has most likely ran out their XF by then can very easily lose. Now that you can’t be ensured 3 characters to fight against Phoenix anymore shit will get really stupid.
It’s harder to use than a sit on XF3 DP team but not by much. All it requires you to do is make Wolverine cheap with XF which takes all of 10 seconds to figure out. It’s very likely you could go to Evo and lose to Wolverine killing off 2 of your people in 10 seconds and that’s what makes that team retarded. Even if you finally get rid of Wolverine or snap Phoenix you most likely have lost two also unless you’re also using Wolverine and get lucky or use someone that can actually scare him like Zero or Dante. Wolverine’s mix up generally allows for a circle of bullshit where even if you block the left right you could still easily lose to another mix up.
**I’m sure people will eventually find counters to this team but for now this team is the best in the game because it is the team that’s going to win Evo. Almost free. Our only hope is J.Wong not succumbing to the BS or using it himself. I doubt anyone is going to have a strategy/team down well enough to consistently beat the absolute speed of death and removal of options that this team brings until after Evo. **
** If you’re comparing what team has been most consistent at tournaments (yet to lose a major) it’s that team. Maybe this team will have hard counters by next Evo but for this Evo…it’s taking your money. Too many of even the top players are still too unstudied and dont grind the game hard enough to really entail anything that will beat that team by Evo. Everyone sticking to the easy mode shit is exactly why Wolverine will win. He’s the best of the easiest. Tokido saw this and took advantage of it and knows the US wont have anything to counter act this hard enough to take him out by Evo because they’re the ones that came up with “Wolvie is NUMBER 1 cuz I can face roooollll”. A Japanese using a face roll is better than a US player using a face roll. Free.**
** If Justin’s counter to Tokido’s Wolverine wasn’t USING Wolverine without Phoenix…we might have a chance. America’s laziness will get owned by Japan unless we step shit up and get more creative outside of Wolverine by like THIS MONTH.**
Uh, no matter how good your normals are, projectile assist+ teleport means you’re gonna get into a block string.
No matter how good your normals are, when your best tool in a projectile war only travels downwards in the air or straight on the ground, you’re gonna get zoned.
No matter how good your normals are, they lose for free to fireballs.
A lot of the top tiers can either cover their approach with something, making Zero’s overprioritized normals moot, and those that can’t can just stay in the back chucking plasma all day.
And how is Zero best when he won’t have to deal with phoenix? Unless you’re saying your other characters have a 100% proof strategy of dealing with phoenix, then no matter what your team order is, he will have to deal with phoenix.
Zero is a good character but come on guys, he is not god. He has weaknesses that are easily exploitable.
As for Shulkie/Wesker/Tron, they’re definitely hard to kill. Even with optimized combos, you’re looking at spending AT LEAST 3 bars off a CLEAN HIT if you want them out of the picture. Even then, that’s for characters with almost limitless combo potential. If you’re playing someone like Wesker/Wolverine, good luck hitting that 1.2m mark without blowing 5 bars or XF. And i’m including the DHC glitch in this. Without it, only a select few characters could finish them off with 3 bars.
Considering that clean hits are relatively rare in the fuckfest that a MvC3 match is, you’re looking at 2-3 combos to kill those guys.
Also this isn’t GG. Grinding BnB’s is good and all but that’s not gonna make you win.
Grinding BnB’s in GG didn’t win you anything either. Execution is the easiest thing to learn in any fighting game. It was just the first of many barriers you had to overcome. People dont even want to get past the very first barrier of this game and that’s why we’re not where we should be in this game at all. We’re trying to skip the first barrier that the Japanese wont. Relating grinding BnB’s to winning in Guilty Gear is an insult to the game. It’s just the first thing you had to do.
Zero effectively will never have to deal with Phoenix because he’s ideally best as first on a team any way. Especially against another Phoenix team where your combos can push a character to the corner and then a snap back with assist can easily grant you an extremely strong mix up with Zero to kill her before the 5 meters.
Dealing with fireballs is an issue every character has to deal with. Zero has plenty of tools to fight a firefight compared to the other cast. Compared to like X23 or Felicia who literally only have movement without an assist. Zero with another strong projectile assist can fight his way down any war especially if he finds a spot to command dash in with the projectile assist.
Characters with strong mix up/reset games like Zero and Wolvie can easily hit characters like She Hulk or Wesker with one combo, get a hard knockdown or air reset in the game and convert that into another combo which will easily kill them off. Zero doesn’t even have to worry about this because he builds 2 meters in his full on bnb’s any way after the lightning loop. He can do enough damage to kill off the entire cast by the end of his bnb now.
that tokido team is great, but its not as bleak as you make it seem man. Zero can handle it theoretically, as can Trish geared towards zoning. This game is random as fuck, that team just minimizes the randomness to almost a flowchart level with how it is played Its a really lame and uninteresting team to watch but thats Logan in a nutshell. I personally don’t see Tokido winning, placing high as hell yes, but who knows who will come out on top. Jwong could have legitimately beat him if he didn’t want to play the dumb ass “LOL I’ll Grab you first!” game at the end of that set. We will wait and see. You going to evo btw, you seem like a great mind to pick while playing and I would love to get some casuals in and discuss some of this shit.