Arthur really?
I’m actually pretty surprised Arthur made it on the best anchor list. Sure, he does a lot of chip with xf lvl 3 and armor but he’s so easy to get in on and destroy in one combo. Especially if you have a teleporter. As much as I love Arthur, I think he’s too easy to destroy.
I keep her third because her assist has more value to my first two characters(wesker and tasky) than assists they give to her. Not to mention if I’m staring down Tron vs3, I fucked up earlier in the match and my opponent has already won.
Agreed on Iron Man. I think he is good and needs some time to be developed, but he is mostly just overshadowed right now, by characters like Magneto and Storm. And for good reason, what with all the DHC shit flying around.
Apart from that, I feel Felicia and C. Viper are underrated, while they are very solid characters with potential. I will seriously be picking Felicia up just to see how I can make her work. She seems to be a solid anchor though, as her low hitting assist can be very useful and she becomes insanely fast in XFC 3.
But I think the problem with both her and Viper, are that they require specific teams/assists (for example, something to counter Super jumps) to function properly on point, and as such it’s somewhat hard to really fit them in on different teams and finding that synergy. And of course, there is always the execution these characters require (but let’s be honest, MvC3 execution is jack shit)
With Felicia you can do 2 things. Either put her on front and team her up with a low hit or overhead assist so she can get easy unblockables when she gets in or do what’s probably the better option and put her in the back. She’s definitely a top tier anchor. She basically has a self sufficient unblockable game with a 5 frame command grab at huge range and her point blank H command grab is one frame start up. She can even set up damage off regular throw. She has a bunch of moves that keep her even or give her plus on block and her normals are fucking ridiculous good so if she hits you with anything air or ground you’re pretty much going to lose. She gets much faster in X Factor and has a sick air throw game as well so there’s no turtling her anymore either. Oh and of course the infinite that also works as an infinite block string.
My brother’s main team is Captain America, Zero, Felicia and that shit is pretty damn nasty. Captain America got shield slash to infinites all day and can keep his block strings safe with Felicia’s low assist. This makes him coming at you with his 4 frame c.L (only 3 other characters have a 4 frame c.L that hits low) very scary. If he touches you with that or shield slash you go home. You have to hope you have a big health character like Wesker or Hulk so that there’s a chance he may drop it. He’s not going to drop it on anyone with low health and if he doesn’t drop it on a big health they’re dead especially if he builds enough meter to tag on unscaled level 3. The low assist also allows Captain to create unblockables off his jump ins like j.S which can already ambiguously cross up at the right range any way. Zero of course is just Zero and Felicia is a gdlk anchor.
You underestimate how FAST his F+H is under level 3 X factor, making it actually difficult to pin Arthur down, as well as the fact his jump also benefits A TON from the speed boost. Furthermore Gold Lance blockstun LINKS INTO ITSELF. If level 3 X factor Arthur touches you with a projectile and you do not have X factor yourself, you are dead.
And the same can be said for Sentinel in that he’s not hard to get in on and destroy in one combo. Except oh wait, he’s one of the most threatening Anchors in the game still.
Hulk is a terrible anchor. No way to open people up. He absolutely needs assists to be effective.
An anchor needs to be able to open you up without assists or chip you out with meter.
Hulk can do neither of these things.
Arthur, Phoenix (duh), Dorm, Spencer, Sent, and just about every Top Character (Wesker, Akuma, Storm, Magneto, etc) are all good anchors.
Well, Hulk have three ways to open people and kill them with two meters and xfactor:
Air grab, Gamma Hurricane and jlp jlp overhead mix up, the last one is a combo, with level 2 or 3 is enough to kill anyone. After gamma hurricane or air grab you can Gamma Tsunami KFC Gamma Tsunami for killing almost anyone.
Also a level 3 normal grab does very good damage against the whole cast, if they try to tech you can keep mashing h for option selecting grab/sH.
And don’t forget he can KFC Gamma crush any blockstring, if the enemy have used xfactor and you block a beam ultra, is gg.
PD: He still sucks as an anchor not because his options but because some characters can keep themselves away the whole match and reversing OCV is almost impossible unless your opponent don’t knows shit.
Oh wow! I had no idea the blockstun linked into itself. Thats incredible. I guess I just don’t see enough arthurs as anchor. He just seems to fragile with hardly any mobility options. I imagine one of these days I’ll run into an arthur anchor and he’ll annihilate me from not know much about him.
I usually consider someone viable as an anchor if we assume that it’s 1 on 1 and they both have X-Factor.
I love Kara Canceling his H to M Hurricane, but honestly, relying on a throw to open people up is not a feasible option. For the life of me, I can’t get the L overhead mix up on half the cast. Maybe that would help.
He’s great against players who try and chip you out since Gamma Crush has a ton of invincibility frames. I still don’t put him as a viable anchor because he does have so many limitations against certain characters.
I wonder about Hsien-Ko as anchor specifically against Phoenix/Dark Phoenix. She seems…dare I say…built to kill her?
My only guess is that if Phx/DP decide to run until armor is down, she’d have the advantage.
Viper isn’t a meter hog… her combos easily outgenerate the meter she spends in them. Not sure why Arthur isn’t in that meter hog list either, he’s probably the most meter dependent character in the entire game.
Poor Spidey, he didn’t even make it to a list. 
Pfft, she shoots too many projectiles and way too fast for henkyo ki. Plus they don’t reflect, they just blow up and probably in Hsien-Ko’s face since she can’t fire gongs off fast enough. Phoenix has teleport, that alone kills Hsien-Ko, IMO.
IMO in this game, the best anchors are those who can wipe a whole team with or without xfactor on his own with the most ease. I mostly like wolverine xfactor 3 because he can kill outright characters like Dorm with a single Berserker Slash xx Weapon X. Dorm is also a great anchor while being 2vs1 because he can chip the last character before he can land and activate xfactor.
Being able to kill an entering character in one hit is a good anchor requisite… and having options for escaping such situation also it is, an air special or double jump is required if you don’t want to guess or die.
I’m learning him right now, if he was that bad, i wouldn’t be using him
Someone already stated why Spidey is fairly underrated and some of his major merits. It’s just he’s not a very popular character right now. It’s only a matter of time before his popularity blows up with all the crazy stuff being found with him.
I don’t think Arthur should be in the anchor tier. If all you have left is Arthur and you’re at a big life dis-advantage, your opponent can just superjump and run away all day for free.
I actually thought of this myself in the other tiers list thread and brought up the gold armor vs phoenix point. It works out pretty well since if you have 4-5 meters, you either wait out x factor in which case she’s manageable or she tries to rush you down and you hit her through it.
^Hmmm… Isn’t that a bit gimmicky tho? It seems to me like it will only work as long as the Ph/DPh doesn’t know the matchup. Zoning Lei Lei out forever shouldn’t be too hard, and as long as the Phoenix player doesn’t go crazy and pops X-Factor too early, or tries to rush an armored Lei Lei down she should be able to stay safe. Between teleports, projectiles etc. I’d posit Phoenix has just better tools to outlast Lei Lei than the other way around.
I think Ryu makes a great anchor. He does have some trouble getting in, but usually when you’re down to your last character, so is the opponent, so you don’t have to be too worried about assists. Also his damage increase from lvl 3 X-factor (200%) is pretty great and can help you not only chip your opponent to death, but also push them back giving you breathing room. His range on his normals are lackluster imo, but he more than makes up for it with his projectile spam/zoning ability.
Just my 2 cents.
You dont even have to worry about assists (minus the dumb invincible ones like Tron and Haggar at close range) when Ryu is out with XF and meter. Once you get on the screen with 4 or 5 meters no one in their right mind is going to call an assist from a distance anymore. The range on Akuma’s normals is even worse so he’s not fairing too bad in the normal department other than the important fact that his dash to normal cancel game is really sluggish.