Honestly I think Dr. Strange is to Marvel what C.Viper is to AE. Most people think C.Viper was a versus character when she first came out due to her shenniagans, but thats far from the truth. C.Viper is a KoF style fighter in AE but I digress. Why I say Dr. Strange = SSFIV’s C.Viper, is because you can play both ways with him, however to truly shine with him you MUST play both ways (zoning and rushdown). Rushing down Hulk and nemesis is suicide with Strange and its only a matter of time before Zero, Wesker & Magnus can break your zone. Rush down a rush down character with Strange is the funnest thing to do like ever… People cant handle it. When I say rush down, I mean port mix ups and IP loops. This is just my 2 cent.
strange = some of the best assists in the game = a viable anchor since you probably shouldnt even get to use him most matches
additionally, you dont need safe blockstrings with strange. just mash cr l and hitconfirm into impact palm
he works well in any spot imo. just make a team that builds a ton of meter so if he needs to come in youl have a bunch of books ready to be read. however if you have zero bars, they have 3 bars and xfactor, you lost
good assist =/= good anchor always but yes, Strange works well in any spot in a team. some characters make better use of XF than others though and Strange isn’t nearly as stupid an assist or with XF as Wesker. imho he is best on point with assists. Ryan Hunter’s shown that Strange with the momentum going is very difficult to block and can do good meterless damage. he probably makes the best use of XF1 than anyone in the cast so far because he can kill Hulk off a SoV punish or throw. there are better anchors out there anyway, and if you’re planning on playing Strange seriously why not run him on point or at least second?
safe blockstrings are needed because his best combos require the correct spacing of the GoH glyphs and to setup the jump loop midscreen. too many cr.L’s used in a hit confirm also reduces your damage and can potentially cause you to drop your combos because of the HSD.
my team synergy relies on strange being 3rd. it wouldnt be as good with him 2nd. wolverine/iron fist/strange
the combination of iron fist and strange assists is very likely the best assist combination in the game for wolverine. better than shopping cart, better than tatsu, etc. broken mixups with dragonfang assist + crazy lockdown with strange.
strange hasss to be the best assist in the game for iron fist. you can sneak a bolts of ballsack call in from full screen, wavedash into a 50/50 mixup or hitconfirm. iron fist with strange assist is so scary.
i seem to win a lot with this team order so il stick to my guns for now.
id really like to up my strange game though. I always just end up superjumping doing glyphs, teleporting…pushblock do SoV, etc.
How well does c.L, s.M, Impact Palm xx Fly work as a block string? Enough block stun on the Impact Palm to cover fly start-up? Also, how about Impact Palm xx Flames of the Faltine with no Graces on the screen? Enough block stun to cover the slow speed of the flame?
risky if pushblocked. you can be hit out of the startup of Fly which is 22f I think
Amy I the only one that thinks Stranges assists are overrated? 
they’re good but certainly not Doom tier in versatility or Haggar tier in cheapness.
Hmm, so if I did straight H or Impact Palm into Fly, Strange could be hit out of start-up?
Maybe the Eye, but the if the Bolts force the opponent to stay grounded (i.e. will hit opponents trying to jump after the first beam), that could be one of the best beam assists in the game. Long range lockdown, a lot of time to confirm into combo off of a long range hit and the durability of two beams to help in fire fights and shut down certain assists (Doom Missiles, Sent Drones, etc).
agree with view. only problem with bolts of ballsacks is that its extremely unsafe if you call it at the wrong time. hes literally completely vulnerable and easily punished for the entirety of the assist until he folds his arms.
my hit/block confirming on crumple has gotten way better since day one now. I can usually block confirm with 2 cr.Ls into Mystic Sword M now and off a dash forward Impact Palm I go into Alzarath’s jump loop setup with the graces 90% of the time.
basically what I’ve been working on lately are:
midscreen
- Mystic Sword L cancels at the proper distance. when used with the correct spacing, this is a ridiculously good AA and poke.
- dash forward Impact Palm. at 6f startup, this is relatively safe to do and you can easily confirm into Alzarath’s jump loop setup with 2R/2Y if you’re fast enough, but 1R/1Y works fine too. you can cancel into the appropriate version of Mystic Sword obviously. L version at close range/corner, M version at jump range/midscreen.
- Mystic Sword M pressure. with Doom beam assist, this is basically combining two of the game’s quickest and most durable projectiles to shut down any zoning attempts from fullscreen. with Strange sitting at fullscreen vs a non-teleporting character attempting to zone (i.e. Magneto, Doom, Hawkeye), throwing out M Sword + Plasma Beam assist shuts down pretty much any attempts to lame out Strange. likewise if you want to get the Graces up, at midscreen call Doom beam assist + Eye of Agamotto, Impact Palm xx Y Grace, Y Grace. you get 2 as long as Strange is behind the EoA. Plasma Beam + Bolts of Balthakk also discourages any tridashing/jump-ins.
- getting the opponents to not jump away from 3Y traps. with the EoA setup I mentioned earlier, I usually just call Strider Vajra assist, then SJ up-back, Y Grace. Strider essentially jumps offscreen and pins the opponent to prevent them from jumping out of the 3Y mixup. it doesn’t work quite as often as I want it to. gotta make sure those 3Y mixups are as difficult to block as humanly possible.
- teleport mixups with Doom beam assist. call Doom, crossup/fake crossup, Mystic Sword L (if you have meter so you can punish if they pushblock) or M. safe, easy to confirm into a 4-rep jump loop that does good meterless damage.
corner
- Ryan Hunter’s 1Y-1R mixup. that shit is godlike and is probably the best corner mixup so far.
- mixups off a blocked M Daggers which pushes the opponent out of the corner.
other
- taking out “the problem character”. if you know your opponent well enough, you can identify who his “problem character” is easily. unless you’re playing Phoenix or another character that relies on XF3 to be really stupid, I would take any throw/SoV punish opportunity on the problem character and burn the XF to get rid of him/her. Strange in XF1/XF2 is no joke either so after you get the kill, if you can land the mixup on the incoming character, that one’s as good as dead too since you should have enough meter to end the combo with a DHC if needed. off Mystic Sword L you can go right into the jump loop thanks to the speed boost he receives. 4 reps of the jump loop in XF1 should get you around the 600k-700k meterless.
overall, I find that your spacing has to be really good with Strange and you need to be patient in setting up those mixups. Strange has a lot of tools that, combined with assists, can really pester your opponent and catch them off guard for a mixup. having an EoA out nearby Strange at all times is an insurance policy of sorts as well, in case you mess up your AA timing or whatever. it also acts like a stationary Flame Carpet that can home in on your opponent. at least as of now, I find not many people respect EoA. they just airdash into the thing like crazy.
Yeah, I’m noticing that. If you have a decent low poke though, you can cover it pretty effectively. Handle characters that can stay low to the ground like Wesker & Amaterasu.
I agree. You have to purposely play both ways to get in with him to set things up and get in. A lot of his projectiles take time to start up, and stay on the screen for some time, and being long range allows for mixups and putting so many things on the screen that your opponent goes nuts. I played with a friend who said that only works on him online, and when we played next to each other it still worked haha. Gosh I love Impact Palm…but ya you have to get far away to set things up with him and then go in. You cannot do one or the other to be effective
is bolts of balthakk a bad move? i have been using b.o.b with taskmaster assist and is seems to make it quite safe.
my friend tells me to just use daggers instead but i prefer to use b.o.b because its quick and a good super cancel.
should i listen to my friend?
Bolts of balthakk actually shuts down most projectile assist like sentinel doom missile but you need a character that can quickly get to the other side of the screen for punishing. The best option to have for strange when he is on point is magneto disruptor you have a 50/50 mix up left or right fierce teleport is interesting at times. He can confirm in to a full combo from all 3 teleports.
My current team is Doom/strange/magnus
I’m a Cap main, I’ve started using Strange again as Punish Ignorance inspired me with his Cap/Strange play. I’m with the comment above, in that I found the most effective way to use Strange is to pair him with Disruptor and go for teleports lol (my team was Cap/??/Mag’s a thankfully I found a way to make Strange fit as well as a viable character for me).
I’m seeing a lot of people saying Strange should be used as a rushdown/zoning character, but I would assume that regardless of your approach with him, he definitely needs an assist back him up? With his slow start up and limited range, the only way I’ve been able to open up any decent opponent with him is if they were either slacking, or I got them with a surprise Impact palm or L Mystic sword. I’ve occasionally had success with the raw teleport, but with the increase in popularity of characters like Vergil, and peoples tendency to press buttons lol, I get hit out of teleports if it wasn’t covered by assists (I’d respect them if they’d do so on deliberate lol, sometimes bad habits pay off).
Another useful thing I recently discovered (I literally only picked Strange back up again last week lol) was that if your opponent is cornered, while the medium teleport places Strange right in front of the opponent, the Light teleport always places Strange away from the opponent, and only moves with exceptional range (i.e. Vergil ¬_¬ ) can get him. I try to use this to bait whiffed attacks that which I can capitalize off.
Has anyone tried doing an up TAC to strange, impact palming, and then setting up graces while you are really high up? You can do palm canceled into a grace, letting your opponent fall, do another grace, fly, set up the third grace, and then shoot a flame and teleport down for a pretty nasty reset. Of course this isn’t something you can do all the time, but it seems like it could be a pretty cool way to save some meter against people without ways of reaching you at the top of the screen.
Also instead of shooting a flame and teleporting, you can do a dagger and teleport to save the graces up there for later.
Sooo I’m going to bump this topic back up for quite a few reasons.
Dr.Strange’s support abiltiies are bigger props. People don’t have any ideas on what to do with Dr.Strange on point, and or what to do with him as a character.
Right now, I’m not sure people know what exactly to do with Dr.Strange’s unsafe normals. There are already people like IFCYipes who are trying to fix this problem. Right around 11:00 was trying to test if Dr.Strange has a safe string, but he annoyed with how Spencer could punish the mystic m string.
www.twitch.tv/ifcyipes/b/342285525
So I’m going mess around with the strings in this post to see Dr.Strange has a few safe strings.
Videos of Dr.Strange having confirmed safe strings could really help the character.