Doubt she would get much since they increased the hitstun on fireballs in umvc3
Donât forget that j.H and Shell Kick got fairly large hitbox and hurtbox adjustements. Shell Kickâs adjustment is far less important than her j.H adjustment, the hurtbox on j.H use to be nearly as large as the hit box, instead of a small dot in the center.
Morrigan handled Dark Phoenix better than most in vanilla, because of her relative safety, tiny crouching hurt box, and Shadow Servant. Shadow Servant+Hail Storm was still active in 10+1 in vanilla, still a THC allowing it to require no direction inputs, and still invincible And 2 bars for that shit was a lot less of a thing in vanilla. Think of everything Phoenix does that you can gimlet or Vishanti, and realize Morri+Storm could do the same thing even in vanilla. Several other hypers worked for that too, Storm just comes to mind first since she was such a godlike teammate then.
She wasnât top 3 back them, but she sure as hell wasnât bottom 2 either.
Shadow Servant -> Hail Storm is functionally no better than Bionic Arm/Hard Drive/Rage Trigger/Crawler Assault/etc. -> Hail Storm, and yet blahblah + Storm was not stopping DP in vanilla. The advantage that Gimlet/SoV have against Phoenix is not invincibility, but rather that she has to be careful about pressing buttons at range. Random DHC to Hail Storm as a solution is kind of extreme hindsight strategy, since that was not really working at all to kill DP during vanillaâs lifespan. (The other major flaw in that strategy is that unless the character that gets the Phoenix âkillâ is the character right before Storm, no more no less, then all that theorycraft is for naught because once DP kills a character, the next character in line canât DHC immediately and probably wonât live long enough to get to the DHC window.)
I used to that in vanilla. I also wasnât talking about a DHC, but a THC. DHCs didnât and still wonât work because you have to predict not just a teleport, but a side, and you canât react to a teleport at all after seeing which side. The THC auto corrects, so it gives you a (very, very tiny and difficult to hit) window to just react to the teleport at all. As I said, itâs not like Morrigan was a hard counter to Phoenix in vanilla, but she could fight it. Shadow Servant and her tiny crouching hurtbox were quite helpful in that match up.
Sorry, I thought you were using MVC3 terminology (DHC in MVC2 is technically called THC in MVC3). Maybe it had to do with me recently reading the Brady bible.
That actually only officially lasted for vanilla, or whoever does the games announcer voice just decided to go with Marvel 2 terms for the hell of it.
360 UMVC3 manual page 25 disagrees; itâs also plastered throughout the official UMVC3 Brady guide. For what itâs worth, the announcer does say âDelayed Hyper Comboâ in both games, so it is ambiguous.
In any case, to address the substance of your post:
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In vanilla, you had to pick useless DP assist (instead of meter boost) to get Shadow Servant as team super, which is a not-insignificant drawback if your gameplan revolves around team super (and you canât execute that plan if DP kills any character)
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Morriganâs low hit box is not low enough to duck under c.L, soâŚ
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Finally, random team super with large-area-effect-super in back is far from a Morrigan-specific strategy, and yet has not really been a practical tool against DP in vanilla or Ultimate.
Shadow Blade isnât a useless assist and never was. I typically prefer harmonizer, but there are plenty of times Shadow Blade is better, including anytime you plan to keep Morrigan on point. It gives her throw conversion potential she normally doesnât have for one thing.
If youâre crouching, how are you getting hit by c.L? The hurtbox size does mean you canât practically hit her with box dash j.H or any tri-dash normal but S.
Again, I never said she beat her, just that she has options to fight it out. My point then and now was Morrigan was mid tier as all fuck in vanilla.
Edit: So I did just pop vanilla in, and looks like more changes than we realized happened. Morrigan canât plink dash during flight at all in vanilla, which I find odd, since it works just fine with Doom. Also, the currently used Soul Fist combos simply do not work at all.
How does Shadow Blade assist (not team super) give her throw conversion on point?
The same way thousands of players get hit by DP c.Ls: teleport/empty jump/crossup/blahblah. And Morrigan still canât crouch under f+M.
Most everyone has options. My point was that Morrigan doesnât have any particularly special options relative to the rest of the cast, and we know how the rest of the cast does.
The idea of fighting DP head-to-head is a losing proposition, and even that much has barely changed in Ultimate. You kill DP by preventing her from playing, because once she gets started, you donât get a chance to execute whatever you were planning. And Morrigan is no better than anyone else in executing a plan to stop DP from stepping onto the playfield. In vanilla, you arenât going to zone a Phoenix team to death without Phoenix getting 5 bars, and Morriganâs ability to a) get in and mix up the point character to snap Phoenix in, and b) kill Phoenix on entry with a strong mixup are both rather unremarkable relative to everyone else.
The assist sets her to the proper team super. Shadow Servant can follow up an air throw or Vector Drain, Finishing Shower cannot even with an OTG hyper behind it. Itâs also a superb alpha counter in both games.
Youâre not talking about converting throws with the Shadow Blade assist (which sucks and is practically useless), but rather the team super you have to select that assist to get. And thatâs my point: you have to select the crappy assist to get that team super; the one you need for your random team super strategy. So thatâs another significant drawback of a Morrigan-based team in vanilla compared to Ultimate, where she can convert throws with Shadow Servant directly and keep the good assist.
Not sure how âsuperbâ her alpha counter will be with zero invincibility or armor, but I guess it is what it is.
Shadow Blade alpha counter is fully invincible in both games. Nothing changed with this assist or itâs crossover counter properties at all.
Morrigan is mid tier in vanilla. She loses to the top 3-5 or so, and AV+Missiles still shits on the other half the cast that donât have get in for free cards.
Youâre partially right; Shadow Blade AC does gain some invincibility, but not full. Fair enough.
In any case, vanilla Morrigan is like the inverse of SSF2 Boxer: she does extremely well against characters that donât matter, but against characters that do (particularly Phoenix), her most effective gameplan hands your opponent the match.
So I donât have a real objection to the claim that sheâs mid-tier, as long as itâs with the caveat that while sheâll do quite well against characters like She-Hulk and Spencer and Magneto, those characters will do much better against the characters that matter (i.e. Wolvie and Phoenix).
Assuming Shadow Blade was the same in Vanilla as it is now, it was by no means a shitty assist. Go watch Buckethead videos, he makes good use of it.
Yeah Shadow Blade is the 2nd fastest starting assist in the game. Only Chun Liâs up kick assist is faster. Has a good disjointed hit box and gives decent time to hit confirm. Like a fair psyblade. If youâre already running a beam assist its a great compliment for rushdown or defense. Plus shadow blade THC stuff.