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Need rundown of assists and capabilities with assists

I’m looking to make a thread in the general mvc3 forum that helps explain how the assists work and how assists work for each specific character. Basically I’d just like a quick rundown of 3 things.

  1. A generic description of each of the character’s 3 specific assists and their uses in battle for offense/defense/adding hits to combos etc.

  2. A general rundown of which assists work well for their rushdown/defense/lockdown etc. Something like this…

DOCTOR DOOM

Spoiler

Reliance on assists on point without XF = Reliant
Reliance on assists with XF2 = Moderate
XF3/Anchor abilities = Solid

Strong assists for lockdown/pressure: Haggar lariat (stops opponent from attacking, hard knockdown for s.H OTG on hit) Ammy Cold Star (long mix up lockdown), Arthur Daggers (fast start up, long mix up lockdown) Sent drones (long mix up lockdown), Chun Li legs (long mix up lockdown, fast activating), Dante Jam Session (long mix up lockdown, keeps aerial characters grounded), Dorm Dark Hole (long mix up lockdown) Akuma tatsu (aerial lockdown, passes through projectiles during active frames), Iron Man repulsor blast (long lockdown, keeps opponent from jumping/flying), Iron Man Unibeam (standard beam lockdown), Tron Fire(standard lockdown, protects your block strings), any other long active multi hitting assist not mentioned.

Strong assists for projectile and assist clearance or unblockable set up: Iron Man Unibeam (projectile/assist clearance, decent active frames for mix up), Shuma Mystic Ray(projectile/assist clearance, keeps opponents from jumping/flying), Arthur Daggers(projectile/assist clearance/fast start up), Wesker gun shot (unblockable set up),Akuma tatsu(absorbs standard beam projectiles during active frames, loses to large hit box projectiles like Dante’s Crystal or Hulk’s Gamma Wave), Storm Whirlwind (projectile/assist clearance), Deadpool Quick Work (unblockable set up), Magneto Disruptah (projectile/assist clearance),Felicia Rolling Buckler (unblockable set up, high priority against other attacks once active),She Hulk Torpedo (unblockable set up)

General assist strategy is to have an assist that locks people down or keeps them down to set up high low mix ups and air M box jumps (aka air dash M cross up). The reason why Doom is more reliant on an assist to lock people down even though he can move around and fly like Mags and Storm is that he doesn’t have a dash that cancels with normals. Whenever you dash with Dr.Doom you get the ability to cancel it into a jump instead. This is technically a nerf since it makes your wave dash reliant on forcing you to jump first. Making you susceptible to air throws even though you’re basically on the ground.

To offset this though once you get an assist that locks down once you get in you can create really long block strings with very minimal gaps since Doom has the ability to cancel his normals into dashes. This means you can lock someone down with say Ammy’s cold star and go for a mix up. If somehow you don’t land anything they still can’t push guard you because of the assist. Once the assist is gone you can start throwing out c.L’s and follow them up with c.H which does a lot of block stun and can be OS’d by doing c.L~c.H so it comes out on a hit or block but not on whiff. If the opponent push guards the c.H you can confirm with the plink that they blocked and advance guarded and then just continue dashing through the advance guard with jump cancelling your dash into an ADDF once or twice to stay right in their face. By that time Ammy Cold Star should be available to lock them down again and if they advance guard too much they push themselves into the corner and lose.

Doom on point isn’t very reliant on DHC synergy because all he wants to do is have his assists plus his normal dash cancels through advance guards help him push people towards the corner. If they’re close enough to the corner Doom has TOD’s that can do up to 1.15 to 1.2 million damage without DHC glitch. 1.15. to 1.2 is easier to achieve with an assist but you can still get 1.05 to 1.1 easy without assist once you build the 2 plus meters at the end of the combo.

Doom also goes well on point with any assist that helps clear up point or assist based projectiles or attacks.

  1. How good the character is as an anchor.

Thx in advance.

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Reliance on assists on point without XF = Heavily Reliant
Reliance on assists with XF2 = Heavily Reliant
XF3/Anchor abilities = Solid
Great Assists for this Character
Akuma:tatsu (this assist is useful in so many ways. It’s one of the few assists that you can add in shuma’s mid screen combos to juggle them into hyper mystic smash as shuma heavily struggles to incorporate hypers into his combos outside of the corner. It also allows him to extend combos by calling in this assist then using jump s to otg as well as easy hit confirm out of the assist with standing heavy aka tentacle rape. What’s great about this assist as well is the fact that you can actually get an easy mystic stare while the person is being juggled as it’s extremely difficult to land a mystic stare combo out of a crouching heavy in a real game.Overall, if you want to play shuma on point, akuma is probably his strongest assist.

Iron Man:Unibeam(this assist is just so amazing for shuma because it locks the person in place allowing you to cross them up with medium mystic smash, and it helps him approach as shuma has a weak approach, especially without assists)

Doctor Doom:Plasma Beam ^same as above

Tron: gustaff fire (this assist is great for any character… shuma is no exception)

Sentinel: Drones [charge] (these are nice for shuma as well because they add a solid approach, but they are dangerous to use with shuma because its easy for sentinel to get caught, and shuma has very weak punishing potential due to the long startup and travel time of both his hypers and the fact that none of his moves have high priority)

Amaterasu: Cold star (great for approach and locking the person in place… allowing you to transition from high to low with crouching mediums and tiger knee light mystic smashes as well as crossing people up as it locks them in place. Also great for extending mid screen combos into hypers and comboing out of jump s otg with the assist out)

Chun Li: Hysakrkrkekrkwkrewr (I would not recommend lightning legs as it’s not a very safe assist and shuma is not good as saving his assists, similar to sentinel drones.)

If you as a player are interested in picking up shuma, it is wise to note some of his weaknesses and strengths, so that you know what to build your gameplay upon. The general deal with assists for shuma are assists that lock the person in place so that you have an approach. Mystic smash is one of the weakest approach mechanics in this game because of it’s low durability, inability to cancel it, and the fact that you can be thrown out of it as well as push block negating your approach with mystic smash. If you have good lock down assists such as uni-beam or cold star, its very easy to do air medium mystic smash to close the gap and meanwhile go for high low mixups with tk light mystic smashes and his awesome crouching medium. Shuma lacks in the dhc department. It’s not hard to dhc from him into someone else but like viper, it’s not safe to dhc into him as his super often doesn’t even connect off of say full screen akuma beam due to the travel time-speed, and slow startup of hyper mystic smash as well as the startup of hyper mystic ray. Shuma-gorath has no participation in the dhc glitch except for chaos dimension, which is overall not worth the 4 meters for the dhc glitch. Due to the glaring weakness’s of his hypers, it is often smart to save your meter for chaos dimension for a solid unblockable 350k damage.

Shuma is decent on point like any character with the proper assists, mainly lockdown assists and assists that allow him to sneak in an air mystic smash. A viable strategy is also to call in your lockdown assist then ground mystic smash heavy or medium because the ground version is much safer.

With the proper assists such as hidden missles, you can actually spam full screen heavy mystic ray over and over and the missles will protect you, creating a strong barrier for keepaway as mystic ray covers the entire screen. You should be very cautious when throwing out mystic rays however because the startup is amongst if not the slowest projectile in the game.

If you have akuma as an anchor, shuma is not too bad second because he has that assist and you do not have to rely on him to make a comeback, which is great because he has a lot of bad matchups.

As an anchor, he is solid.

  1. You get his assist
  2. He gains a lot of speed
  3. If you save meter dark phoenix style, chaos dimension is much easier to get off with the speed increase and does high damage
  4. He can mix people up much easier because he can combo out of his standing heavy and medium mystic smashes

Overall, shuma is heavily assist dependent if you want to play him on point because of his weak approach and low durability on his moves. He is still fun and decent on point and can definitely win like any character. Anchor is his most suitable slot because he becomes a killer and his assist is good to have for your better point characters.

Feel free to edit for grammar mistakes and whatnot. I hope I helped!

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Need a rundown of the uses of Shuma’s assist also. Thx again.

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It’s a laser that covers the entire screen! What can it not do.

  1. It wipes out a large number of projectiles.
    Example A. If sentinel the mutant killing robot decides to make an entrance and send out the mini sentinels, mystic ray will completely wipe them off the screen. It has high projectile durability.
  2. It’s great for controlling space as it covers the entire screen. It punishes dive kicks and will also hit dante if he teleports.
  3. Slow startup but has increased protection if you dash forward, removing him from sight of the screen.
  4. Can otg. It can otg, but it has a long startup, so if you want to use it to otg for combos make sure you end your combo closer to the ground because it is not as fast as weskers gun or rocket punch assists.
  5. the beam also does decent lockdown as it locks the person in place
    Overall, mystic ray is the most versatile beam but at the same time, the most risky of them all. It has a slow startup and should never be used with the haggar/tron mentality because he will get punished and die.
  6. The further away you are, the less hits and less time it locks the person down but at the same time, it’s strongest position is in the corner because it literally covers the whole screen if you use it midscreen, it only covers the area of the screen infront of him, but due to the broken hitboxes in this game, it sometimes also hits behind him.
  7. Great for uses in keepaway for characters like magneto who can cover the ground space extremely effectively but lack air keepaway.
    Example A. Spam disruptor… call mystic ray boom you got full screen covered

Edit: 8. Great anti non dark phoenix assist as it can delete all fireballs from the screen and also take out around 10% of her hp if she gets hit by it.
9. If you call this assist as a character comes in, you literally have all of the area they can possible move covered… if phoenix air dashes up, she will get hit or have to block mystic ray. If she doesn’t, she is subject to mixups.

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Shuma’s Reliance on assist without XF- 100% reliant, if you don’t have strong assist just put down the controller.
Shuma’s assist- Mystic ray is only one worth using at all. Hits full screen and is good for safety similiar to hidden missles. Downside is that it does 0 damage and scales the shit out of combos.

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I’m running Wolverine/(Slash)/Shuma(ray)/Strider(Vajra) and having a lot of success with it. Wolverine benefits from from Shuma’s ray assist to help him get in and keep the opponent in the lower portion of the screen. Strider can help Wolverine with those characters with flight mode. My basic BnB with Wolverine (700kish with one bar) can be done with Strider alone. So Shuma is relatively safe as Wolverine is constantly moving in.

Shuma/Strider works well (granted not as well as beam assists). Strider allows for a full screen pressure and he is relatively safe on hit or block. Shuma on second also builds a lot of meter for me to use with an XF3 Strider anchor. I can use Strider in a basic BnB with Shuma (although not necessary) to knock the opponent down from an S launch into Chaos Dimension grab or Hyper Ray.

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I would strongly suggest switching strider to another character or switching to an assist that can let Wolverine do Fatal Loops. Wolverine/Shuma + Random assist for loops is extremely good and off certain combos can reach as high as 900K for 1 bar and builds 2. If you are not killing them in 1 hit then reduce the initial damage and work on a strong reset.

Shuma already controls the skies, no need for vajra really. Use an assist for tricky resets/mixups that also doubles as a fatal claw loop assist.

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Speaking of controlling the skies Dante, strider, shuma is one of the funnest teams out there imo.