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.
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.
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.
This is gonna be short, not a terribly complex char. If I missed something I’ll come back.
Taskmaster’s Assists:
[LIST]
[]Assist 1 - Aim Master (Horizontal). Fires 3 arrows straight ahead. Easily Taskmaster’s best assist, high durability on arrows means they’ll beat out just about any other non-super projectile, very useful for zoning/projectile wars. The arrows also hit hard and scale very little. Fantastic for characters w/ teleports/command dashes.
[]Assist 2 - Aim Master (Vertical). Fires 3 arrows into the air which come down a bit in front of you. Doesn’t get used as often as H arrows. This doesn’t cover the space right in front of you making this impractical as any sort of anti-air. Could be used to control airspace but there are better assists for that.
[]Assist 3 - Aim Master (Parabolic). Fires 3 arrows diagonally. The angle of the shots makes this nigh-impossible to use for… pretty much anything (mixup, combos, etc). Honestly, no reason to pick this ever.
[/LIST] Useful assists for Taskmaster:
[LIST]
[]Taskmaster’s mobility/mixup is a bit lacking, so ideally he’ll want an assist that helps him get in and/or perform high/low mixup or unblockable setups (Tatsu, Cold Star, etc).
[]Assists that help cover space (eg, Jam Session) also benefit Taskmaster.
[]Not very reliant on assists for combos. Does not need DHCs at all, the majority of his combos do over 1m. Even the weaker stuff does 850+. Builds 2-3 bars in just about all his combos so they pay for themselves.
[/LIST] Taskmaster as an anchor:
[LIST]
[*]Decent. Aforementioned speed/mixup issues hurt him here. Does even more chip damage (and his chipping ability is already ridiculous…), excellent at punishing moves/bad assist calls.
[/LIST]
I’ve seen ComboFiend specifically use the arrow assist before specifically against Phoenix teams to help lock down her fly up air fireball during snaps. Horizontal definitely has the most utility it seems. Thx again.
Combofiend uses vertical arrows with Taskmaster on point to lock Phoenix down.He doesnt use the vertical arrows assist though.
I’d say Taskmaster horizontal arrows assist really helps cover Dante and Weskers teleports.The fact that horizontal arrow assist uses up hardly any hitstun in combos is really great for Dantes long precise combos if he does land a hit from the teleport mixup.Horizontal arrows also help dante get a combo off of his airthrow.See Genghis and Dacidbro for good Dante/Task play.
*** DISCLAIMER: If the change is true about Task vert arrows having shorter range, then these ideas may be completely negated in UMvC3 ***
I use Task (Up Arrows) / Dorm (Hole) / Doom (Beam). Here’s some uses I’ve developed for Vertical Arrows as an assist:
With Doom on point, If you fire beam ( :d::df::f: + :h: ) and call up arrows assist, you pretty much have a guaranteed hit for chip of about 80k if they block or a near guaranteed hit for about 130k if they try to dodge the beam. If you fire photon shot ( :d::db: + :atk: ) and up arrows, you basically can force your opponent to block and fall back to Earth if they air block. Most important, it helps deter super jumps as a means of closing in on you (can call assist pretty much on reaction and then even try to mix them up or juggle on the way down depending on if they block or not) and really forces someone to approach you cautiously if you are trying to keep them at bay with projectiles as they usually can’t see the arrows coming. One sneaky trick is to fire up arrows (from a distance) and then start calling hidden missiles a little later. Usually the opponent will begin wave-dashing to close the distance and get hit by the arrows and then you can start applying pressure as the missiles start coming down for free. Also, some people will do a hyper on reaction to the hidden missiles without realizing arrows are coming and then be knocked out of the hyper by the arrow.
If I score a front throw with Doom mid-screen, I will call the up arrows ASAP and then begin dashing forward. Since the arrows will make contact if my opponent either tries to roll forward or doesn’t roll a direction, I can begin applying pressure risk-free. If my opponent rolls backward, no worries because he or she is pretty much cornered which allows me to really begin hurting them with Doom’s corner pressure.
If the opponent is far away, I simply call up arrows assist and then just simply do a low-height foot dive ( jump then :f: + :h: ) to close the distance safely. Since Task is usual off-screen when I call him and Doom yells Foot Dive, it almost acts like a stealth shot that hits pretty frequently. Also, since the opponent can’t jump away, it usually forces them to block which allows me to apply pressure with Doom safely.
You can create some really nasty reset situations with up arrows and a character who has re-launch capabilities. For example (assuming Task is :a1:), I will go through the Buktooth Loop with Doom and on the 2nd re-launch, I will hit :s: + :a1: and not follow up for an air combo. Basically, this creates an amazing situation for me that breaks down like this as they will recover in the air before the arrows hit them. When I say dash-forward, I mean the jump up and air dash down as it is faster.
a) If they air recovery backwards or don’t directional recovery at all, the arrows follow them (preventing them from air-dashing away) which allows me to mix them up how I see fit. I can attack from either side by dashing or choose high or low with a j. or cr.:l: . The other benefit of this is that if they try to mash an attack, the arrows keep me safe. You can also do this mix-up from flight mode by hitting them with a low height j. xx :s: xx air-dash :df: into cr.:l: if you want to go for an overhead starting attack into a low attack.
b) If they air recover forwards, then the fun really starts!
b1) I can dash forward immediately (alter the timing to affect what direction my opponent needs to block) and wait for the arrows to hit them. Most people don’t even see the arrows until it is too late and they get hit down by the arrows. I can just simply hit :s: and re-launch them again and go through the Buktooth Loop again.
b2) I can go into flight mode and control which way my opponent needs to block. If my opponent gets hit, I just catch them with a j. and then do an MnMs loop. If they block, I’m at a frame advantage and can either start attacking or go for an air throw.
b3) If they block and I stay grounded, they fall fast to Earth while in blockstun and I can start a left - right mixup or a high-low mixup with a frame advantage.
I’m pretty sure other people have far more crafty ways than I do of using up arrows.
Horizontal Arrows are great for applying pressure in regards to left-right teleport mixups and re-launches, which is how I guess most people us it. Since I can control horizontal space with my characters, I find the up arrows are much better compliment and since I can do the Dorm teleport mix-ups with Doom’s beam, I don’t need another horizontal mix-up tool.
After going into training mode and experimenting in real matches, Horizontal arrows are just way too strong. The fact that Vertical arrows dont even go full screen, really doesnt suit me.
If you begin tri dashing with four buttons (l,m,h and whatever assist taskmaster is on) you can almost get to your opponent before the arrows have even caught up.From there you can either do a box jump into j.m or tri jump into cr.l.
I THINK(I am still trying to learn both of these characters, so this could be total crap) horizontal arrows with Spencer is usefull. When you try to zipline in with that Spencer(the S+any attack and direction version) the arrows can make it safe when it usually isn’t. Only downside is that Taskmaster tends to be out there for awhile after he is called, a badly timed assist against a character with a full screen super(or one that can just go over your head and hit him like Akuma or Trish) can be hard to deal with. Still trying to figure out how to get my Horiz arrows not get hit.
i used parabolic with hawkeye but recently switched to horizontal for the THC gimmick stuff. but that’s like a hawkeye specific thing because he has a strange blind spot in the exact area where parabolic shoots when he’s doing standing arrows of both horizontal and DP type.
i think for everybody else vert or horizontal is good since most folks don’t have to worry about that blind spot in the first place due to the tools they have/other much larger holes that vert arrows covers.
like hawkeye’s angles of coverage are :the entire opposite side of the screen, and whatever’s horizontal to him. since there’s a delay to when the DP arrows are active and the single shot can cover the horizontal area somewhat decently the most open spot is the normal jump/slightly above normal jump area where they can dash in real quickly/jump the single shot and dash in. the parabolic arrow forces them to sit there and take the chip.
vert’s also good but in a different manner- that’s more if you believe your coverage of the normal jump area is better (and your timing of doing DP arrows is good enough to where hawkeye and task don’t get wavedashed on and hit during the delay)
also it’s not mentioned in the OP at all but i believe the long term “space consuming” assists help task- stuff like peakaboo, nova grav. pulse and whatnot. they compliment his game perfectly since it forces people to play real ass footsies with him which is not in their favor while also giving him a good pressure advantage/forcing the opponent to think about their movement and pressure which is still in his favor. that he can convert into full combos off both is really good too.
peakaboo with task is really unbelievably good since it lets him confirm off all his throws, shock sting, and a bunch of other crap that normally he can’t combo off of. it also gives him amazing pressure options when you put it near the opponent (low or throw and if they jump into peakaboo you can dash cr.m crossup for some weird looking crossunders)
also it makes doing mighty swings safe because if they jump to punish it they get stuck in the trap. and probably a bunch of other stuff i’m forgetting at the moment (stray arrow -> fall into trap confirms) that all compliment task’s game while also covering his very few holes.
+ :atk: ) and up arrows, you basically can force your opponent to block and fall back to Earth if they air block. Most important, it helps deter super jumps as a means of closing in on you (can call assist pretty much on reaction and then even try to mix them up or juggle on the way down depending on if they block or not) and really forces someone to approach you cautiously if you are trying to keep them at bay with projectiles as they usually can’t see the arrows coming. One sneaky trick is to fire up arrows (from a distance) and then start calling hidden missiles a little later. Usually the opponent will begin wave-dashing to close the distance and get hit by the arrows and then you can start applying pressure as the missiles start coming down for free. Also, some people will do a hyper on reaction to the hidden missiles without realizing arrows are coming and then be knocked out of the hyper by the arrow.
or cr.:l: . The other benefit of this is that if they try to mash an attack, the arrows keep me safe. You can also do this mix-up from flight mode by hitting them with a low height j.