I’m excited to see optimized setups with tags and stones, like million dollars on hit, tag into Morrigan, activate time storm, do harmonious spear and spam soul fist, or even some combos with reality storm elemental bullshit.
But at the same time, I’m scared it will get boring if everyone end up using Dante because million dollars is the best lockdown super.
The mind stone command grab I believe is designed to give everyone a Command Grab Lite if they get in bear hug close. Otherwise it would be redundant for command grab characters if they get another command grab with the same range and would be a bit too stupid if zoning characters can just run up to you and threaten an unblockable grab.
Plus Zero with a command grab is dishonest by principle
Guess there will be a tier list for the gems? I personally think the power stone is the worse as it doesn’t really help improve any characters neutral. The fact there are no TODs in this game means the main benefit of its storm, more damage, isn’t that significant. Unless it enables characters to TOD then it’s awesome.
I think the reality stone has the best applications in neutral of all the gems released so far. I’m not sure about the durability of its surge. Then again, I’m expecting everyone trying to play seriously to pick at least one chatacter that already has a projectile or beam that covers the screen anyway. Not sure if the elements during its storm are random. But the gem does a good job of disrupting the opponents game overall, while assisting the users.
Space gem probably has the best storm. Its surge will only be effective situational e.g during combos or when opponent is already in disadvantageous position. Should be able to just use it raw against a competent player.
Time gem is useful in neutral. Aids characters with poor mobility or those that struggle to get in. But you would already need a hit confirm to take advantage of its storm, or the player could render that (gems storm) useless by running away.
Not trying to mess with a Zero with the mind gem and a good partner. Refillable meter during its storm is ridiculous for characters with great meter abilities eg sougenmu. A person should really be getting hit by a command raw in neutral, and would especially not want to when they are also stunned afterwards. But with assists gone, and the game shifting towards footsies, its surge is likely to come into play more often.
I think the reality gem is the best of the 5 released so far as it is useful for the whole cast. Mind next as it’s surge is somewhat practical in neutral, and meter can also be used for counter switching if you are getting dominated in neutral. Space gem has the best storm. But doesn’t really help outside of it and you’d have to be getting dominate to build the gauge, which would mean the gem couldn’t protecting you during play. Time is next. But feel its surge is generally more useful in neutral than it’s storm.
Cap could otg in Ultimate. His charging stars had full projectile invincibility when active. So it worked the same against air projectiles as it did against ground projectiles.
His counters also activate off projectiles. He can use it on activation to safely tag in a partner. And if used sparingly, can catch an opponent out.
Still, think he’s biggest problem has always been keeping people away from him than off him. He’s good in the mid range. But his poor recovery means most of his attacks can be punished if used incorrectly. And they could be moved around. Even his 4 frame light, if still the same was -2 on block I believe- still was definitely not a true frame trap.
But his new trick shelds and the counter, give him tools deal with various situations.
I think he may benefit from the reality gem more in neutral, or at the very least disrupt his opponents attack patterns. The time gem can help him maneuver about the screen more, especially in the air.
Wary about him with the mind gem as he won’t be able to force situations where he can use its surge against characters with good mobility. And his hypers are hail Marys, especially if he is solo where he will be free to a punish if he uses it wrong. Plus the damage reduction means its got a more unfavarouble risk/reward now.
Was hoping Iron Man would maneuver better though.
Unless one of the stones is overpowered, the gems strength will be in teams.
Particularly one of the biggest obvious team aspects of the game will be putting 2 characters together that can make a gem broken or near that. You don’t want one strong space gem user with a mediocre space gem user as an example.
Mind Storm is pretty damn powerful though, it gives you hard knockdown and instant dizzy, if it’s range was any bigger it would be broken to hell. Only thing I wonder is what the scaling is like on using it.
Power seems to be the least flashy of all the stones.
How good it becomes depends on how much damage versus meter build you get out of the storm. If you can get decent damage out of it without giving your opponent meter for counter switch, then maybe it can be useful.
scaling looks prett brutal in beta footage
I think power stone has one of the better surges, which balances out how situational the storm is. Having an instant “get off me” move in neutral that can anti air and start combos is a godsend for characters without a traditional dp. I imagine characters like Spidey and Frank would love power for this reason (Frank never had a dp, and Spidey’s was always more of a combo extender/offensive tool than a traditional dp).
Are we ready for the inevitable discovery of the character/stone combo that breaks the game? Which combo are everyone’s bets on? Mine is looking like Haggar/Space so far. The surge and the storm essentially guarantee free command grabs, and since the storm gives a free lvl3 he gets enough free damage to kill both characters. The only thing that can leave the box is projectiles, which his barrels can block…just too much safety and free damage on that combo.
It’ll take time to see which stone is the strongest tier wise. If it’s like Alpha 3 Ism there will be one stone that’s clearly better than the rest. If it’s like CVS2 there will be 2 or 3 stones that are top tier over the others, but the other will still have characters that are arguably the strongest in one of the others. Like how Cammy was arguably best in P groove even though she’d have to be in a groove that’s not 100 percent optimal for other top tiers to get that power. N groove Morrigan was pretty similar. I assume it’ll be most like the Arcanas in Arcana Heart where it will likely be a variety of ones are best for a character, but some that are clearly top.
Power stone definitely improves neutral just on the surge alone. The surge creates a big hit box with decent start up and recovery from it seems that wall bounces the opponent for combos. For defensive characters like Hawkeye this is really good as he can use this to either move in for combos to extend damage or use it to do full screen combos or shot setups that keep the opponent away. Would also help Chris as it covers that angle of the screen that he is vulnerable from otherwise. It sounds like tridashers will have to be pretty careful with their offense vs that stone. One bad attempt could send them flying. Power storms best attribute is that it negates pushblock so once you let someone get in with power storm, you are basically getting hit somehow, someway. Which means if you kill one character with it, the next incoming character is getting wrecked as there’s no pushblock to save them. Using it with characters that already have great offense and mobility like a Captain America or Spiderman should prove to be pretty dangerous.
Reality stone seems pretty good just because everyone gets essentially an H shot fireball to occupy space on the screen and it’s the only gem that allows you to double the power of its surge by tagging into another person using it to get 2 on the screen. From what I’ve heard the game doesn’t use Marvel 3 durability system anymore, so a lot of projectiles just generically clash now. Not sure how beams vs projectiles interact but it’s probably more similar to what it was in Marvel 2 or older games. The storm like written in the OP says that the elemental attacks are activated by simply pressing one of the attack buttons. Each one performs a different element. The elements work like Dormammu’s spells/summons where once you press them they will release and stay active regardless of if you get hit or not. Meaning they also essentially act as combo breakers if you input one right before you get hit.
Time gem surge/teleport is obviously good. Most likely will have some interesting shenanigans with tag, although using it raw has enough recovery where it seems like you can’t abuse it too much. It also throws you nearly the whole screen across so it doesn’t help if you need to be in a specific spot vs a very mobile character. It looks to be the most situational of the surges, but a good use basically gets you in. Plus the surges generically build your stone gauge a bit when activated. The storm gives you crazy attack strings that most likely will have ways to stop pushblock and takes the recovery of all of your specials to near zero from what’s been said. Which means there are likely plenty of characters that can chase you down or lock you down with projectiles once they activate. Characters like Morrigan will most likely be able to create astral vision patterns that lock off the screen and stop a lot of push block tactics. Captain Marvel being able to just ram herself forward with teleport surges and lightning attack punches until she gets you sounds scary as well.
If they don’t change the properties of Time Storm too much by launch, I can see some of the cheesiest stuff in the game happening with clone activations + Time Storm. Morrigan, Zero and Gamora will all be busted in that storm.
Mind stone will likely be a top tier storm because getting lots of meter in a game where meter has traditionally been the deciding factor of top tiers is going to be really good. It’s just there are definitely other gems that look like they can build super meter pretty fast for you and there are characters with activation supers that let them build meter and have options that build further meter for them. Like Zero with lots of meter for sogenmu is good, but Time Storm Zero with 3 meters of time storm sogenmu with zero recovery specials is likely going to be cheaper. Sogenmu just by numbers and frame data will be cheaper in the storm that makes the data on it cheaper. Morrigan with always refilling meter for astral vision is good, but Time Storm astral is where it’s at because astral vision still builds meter on hit any ways, harmonious spear adds a big meter buff to connected soul fists and zero recovery soul fists will allow her fireball and attack patterns that are more busted than her flight cancels in Ultimate. Which is great because these are all things that make them powerful enough to comeback by themselves with the surge and are just more busted if they have a tag partner available.
The mind stone surge sounds strong just on the fact that it gives characters with no business having something unblockable, something unblockable. Likely will have weak frame/box data, but if you catch someone slipping it’s there.
I was just saying moreso that Captain America’s problem dealing with fireballs is that he has a lot of tools that can stop ground based zoning, but diagonal/aerial based zoning he can’t do much about. Charging star just doesn’t hit those spots of the screen where Phoenix, Trish and Morrigan dominated with their zoning.
Yeah Cap could OTG, it’s just he started out in a Vanilla game where he couldn’t and it’s nice that he’s now in a game like Ryu is here now where you just don’t have to give a shit about OTG rules anymore.
Counter just seems like it’ll have too many ways to be baited with the tag system. Too many ways to activate it via a projectile then tag into a character that is moving around the hit box for the counter. Which the hit box for the counter activation just seems like a generic launcher attack. It’s not like he charging stars across the screen or anything. Just seems like a generic hit box with a certain range that can be baited. Anyone with a command grab is going to make it really risky as well.
I think he’ll be pretty scary in Mind Storm as your hailmary supers suddenly turn into relatively safe FADC style supers where you can just bash out an invincible or projectile invincible super and if it works great. If it doesn’t work you tag into someone safe who most likely gets free pressure. He’ll be able to bully the neutral a lot with the tag system and refilling meter. That’s with 2 characters though. If you’re down to one then he isn’t anything special in Mind Storm.
We’ll see about Iron Man come launch. Just in my playtesting it didn’t seem like plink dashing or anything did much to improve his mobility. Like it barely worked with him so people are going to have to come up with other tech or something to get him to move.
Space Haggar sounds really really really scary. Both with the surge (which I hear can do things like force people’s air dashes to fly out of the way of the opponent) and storm.
This is likely going to be Haggar’s best game. The gems essentially give him powers that he shouldn’t be having and that’s the sign of potential for a character to be busted. As cheap as XF and UMVC3 generally was, he wasn’t allowed to do the things he can do with the tag system and these gems.
And people say I write walls of text… sheesh.
We talking about a lot of things here. 5 out of 6 different gems and lots of characters.
I never figured out how you write walls about one character or one tool of one character in SFV lol. If you can do all of that for a simple, barebones fighter what’s going to happen in MAHVEL?
All dps anti-air, from stars and stripes to Wolverine’s to Hulk’s to Spiderman’s. It was their properties that were different e.g pushback, cancellable, multi-hitting etc.
I would need to know more about the newer characters to say lol. Will also need to know what the soul gem does. Still, no one should be getting hit by space surge into command grab. Being inactive is one of the worse things you can do in a Marvel game besides blocking.
General comment… power surge is decent- within range. Virtually useless outside of it. When I say neutral I consider all parts of the screen; a character unable to get in has no use for the power gems surge nor storm.
That said, the better characters can make better use of the gems. Whereas some gems may npt make a character any better.
I’ll be using spoilers again more frequently.
I’m figuring space surge will work where using it at the right time on reaction or anticipation will allow you to pull in and armor absorb attacks and then punish.
I don’t know if there will be very many unable to get in characters anymore. If Haggar is in power storm fighting a 2 character zoning/8 way air dash team, then maybe. Otherwise with how strong basic movement is in this game he’s likely to get in at least once even with power stone. Which with no pushblock and the removal of early chicken blocking all it’ll take is one get in with power storm and it’s over. A Haggar that stops pushblock basically has to drop the controller for you to not get hit.
I see power surge being better for “if people get in on you”. Meaning you’re playing a zoning character where you just have it there ready as people approach. An extra defensive option that characters with otherwise slower/tougher to set up defensive options like Strange could really use. Hawkeye is going to love anything that throws the opponent back full screen if they get hasty up close.
How does power’s storm work? I saw Ryu getting multiple wallbounces and hard knock downs on the initial trailers. Does the storm continously reset hard knock downs, ground bounces and wallbounces?
But yo- they took nerfed chicken blocking? Kind of balances taking out frame perfect high-low unblockables. But ok. They’re making players have to deal with these hard-to-blockables now… @Intuitive2011, screw you
The risks of using Cap’s counter are not really that high with tags. You can counter and immediately tag out so that if you guessed wrong your incoming character can react. Cap seems to be designed around a lot of ways to turn defense into offense for your partner. I imagine he will be a good partner to zoners with combo potential. Zoners can build the life lead that forces the enemy to play more aggressive, then Cap can take advantage of that to counter/dp/charge through their approach and tag back for a full combo.
Oh, there will be walls, and they will have text the likes of which you have never seen.
Not sure on the specifics of that, though what you said is likely.
Read this as it basically details an outline of some of the smaller properties of each stone. Says more hitstun is added and slam property is added. Plus opponent can’t pushblock
https://docs.google.com/document/d/16KLreX4v30LAESkprWXYy7OYMC0ZxeoDomPBvHxOfnw/mobilebasic
Right, it’s just also with tags the rate of success with the counters will be pretty low. Likely just be a lot of stalemate situations where he tries to catch an attack and then he tags, but then the opponent tags to and he’s not able to actually hit anything. Counters are generally pretty bad in Marvel or require way too much reading of what the opponent is doing and accounting for whatever they called as an assist. Better off just doing a DP that won’t lose to grabs or baited air dash/teleport movements.
Thoughts on the stones:
[list]
[] Power: The surge seems easy enough to appreciate (especially for characters who lack a wall bounce move of , but I think the storm is significantly less useful for zoning characters. As an example, consider Hulk, Hawkeye, and Rocket Raccoon. The lack of pushblock is ridiculous on Hulk, and the extra hitstun gives characters like Rocket Raccoon new combo routes. Unless there’s something I’m missing, Hawkeye would be at a disadvantage among Power Stone users because his main role as a space control character isn’t enhanced. You might get some cool combos, but you don’t pick a character like that for combos.
[] Time: While I think Time+Clone supers will be pretty busted, I’m not sold yet on it being across-the-board strong. The teleport is pretty weak compared to most of the MvC3 teleports. In addition, not every character will have the kind of moves that lend themselves well to a Custom Combo system. I think Time will be really strong when built around, but you won’t be able to just tack it onto a team like some others.
[] Space: While people were really excited about the box, I’m more interested in seeing how the suction attack will work on characters like Haggar or Hulk. Being able to directly move your opponent is really good for characters that don’t have the best movement themselves. The shame cube prevents runaway and tag outs, but a trapped opponent can still pushblock and force you to keep moving forward. Another thing I want to try out is using the space stone with mine/trap type projectiles, which could make for some really trippy zoning patterns.
[] Reality: If there’s any stone that should be good on its own without worrying too much about team composition, I think it will be the Reality stone. Being able to add another projectile onto the screen is strong for any character, and any team can abuse the double projectile trick with tags. Reality storm also has a lot of potential for pixies, zoners, rushdown, and big bodies alike.
[*] Mind: People are sleeping on this stone hard, imo. While your combo from the command grab might be scaled to shit, the stun gives you an insane amount of time to set up something to circumvent it. Also, there are uses for this meter from the Mind Storm that aren’t making waves yet. Doesn’t Dante’s level 3 OTG now, on top of causing a hard knockdown? I’m thinking about ending a combo with the level 3, activate Mind Storm, end the follow up with a free level 3 from the Infinity Storm, then tack on ANOTHER level 3 using all the meter you built from the storm. You’re looking at a combo with potentially 3 level 3 hypers, which if memory serves will still hurt like hell even at max scaling.
[/list]
I really want to see the Soul Stone, as the rumored “resurrection” mechanic might not work the way people think it will. I say this because all the Infinity Storms so far have had some sort of “duration” to them. The storm might be a temporary boost to both characters that enables you to use dead partners again.
Time stone is definitely my first toy