Those final 3 Friday Night Fights are great for some new ideas. 
soā¦ is it just me or does it seem as if 2 character teams are looking the best āon paperā
my points:
3 character teams will be exposed to welcome mixups more than 1 and 2 character teams (still dont know if welcome mixups will be strong in SG though)
3 character teams lose tools quicker than any other teams via character deaths, and while that may seem balanced by the fact that 3 character teams come with MORE tools than any other teams, those tools arent all available at any one time.
3 character teams will need to use lots of meter to inflict the same kind of burst damage that 1 and 2 character teams will have available for less meter (this is an assumption that they will need dhcx3 to inflict the same amount of damage as 2 character teams that use dhcx2 and also assumes that meter building is balanced across the board ie 3 character teams build the same amount of meter per hit as the lower charactered teams)
1 character teams have no assist.
1 character teams dont have access to dhcā¦ (slightly offset by doing mucho damage of course)
and last but not least, 3 character teams have the āorder switchā in effect which makes them harder to play and create cause they will be constantly changing order, effectively making the team different everytime they dhc. 2 character teams dont have that problem nearly as much since the team will always be 1,2 or 2,1<----- much easier to manage and build a team around imho.
so i was wondering, what balance decisions has the SG team done to make sure that 2 character teams arent overpowered? the only thing i can really see is if 3 character teams get longer combos on average than 1 and 2 character teams as they seem like the weakest team in the game right nowā¦ āon paperā but admittedly i dont know much about the SG mechanics which may of course make all that ive posited null.
-dime
Players with strong defensive game will be able to maintain their trio tools longer (having more assists helps too). Which gives them more chances to win. More characters in team = easier match-ups. As of damage itās still unknown if optimized combos are better with duos or trios so probably trios will be more efficient in high-level play damage-wise. As of meter management - yeah, you can see that trio is in disadvantage, but on the other hand itās easier to find opening for spending your meter with assists. Solo-char would have tougher times to confirm her super probably.
I think that trios potentially stronger but requires more thinking, practice and skill. So itāll probably be go-to option for top players but on the more common level I tend to agree that duos seems more ācost effectiveā so to speak.
As of solo teams I think of them as low-tier heroes of some sort. I pretty much sure there will be guys winning tournaments with solococks or whatnot just because they want too, but that does not mean that solo is universally good choiceā¦
i agree with damn near everything you say here. i also think that 3 character teams will be the āexpertā teams. i also didnt think about matchupsā¦ them being easier with 3 character teams is a damn fine point. i also agree that highly optmized defensive trios and /or offensive trios will probably be required. ie your going to want to win as a trio with your fist character i thinkā¦ or at the very least, do EXCEPTIONALLY well with your first character. i dont think having a character/strategy that lends itself to a more neutral style will cut it on a trio team whereas i think its suited perfectly for a 2 character team.
my big problem though is that ātopā players usually use characters and strategies that arent labeled expertā¦ how many ibukis/gens (sf4) ironmans/jills (umvc3) do we see? top players usually pick top strategies and characters and leave the āexpert level characters and strategiesā to those midlevel loyalists.
basically what im saying is that if 3 is a go to for top level play in the beginningā¦ what happens when a top player starts winning with duos? everyone will abandon trios and switch to duosā¦ im just thinking progressively in a future fashion. reason being cause as ive seen it, trios require more skillā¦ and well, weve all seen that top players arent by and large picking skilled characters, just easy ones that give the w as fast as possible for as little effort as possible. i also dont really see how an extra assist makes much difference when it comes to extra ability to open characters upā¦ in marvel most characters are only callig one assist the whole time anyways while using the other as utility/ combo extender at mostā¦
i kinda see it as how powerful will combo estending assists be?
anywho great points all around, its going to be interesting how this game developsā¦and im starting to like the SG art style after watching much more footage, soā¦ yeah.
-dime
I think you got it switched up. Everyone is gonna be on their SFIV Bison/Balrog, MVC3 Wesker stuff when the game comes out I think. As far as top players are concerned I wouldnāt be surprised that the regular Capcom top players just go running 2 character teams because you get an assist and a bit of damage boost so basic combos will add up a bit more. The people using 3 character teams most likely wonāt have optimized combos and in a real anime style fighter where thereās weight classes and you might actually have to hit confirm stuffā¦yeah I definitely 2 characters being the way to go to start the game. As a matter of fact the finals of that really basic Skullgirls tourney they had at Texas Showdown was two 2 character teams.
Thereās nothing āexpertā about 3 characters though. Itās not like the concept of using 3 characters is overbearing for people and I definitely see a future where having 3 potential characters to always have access to will just prove better in the long run. That shit will ultimately be where the game is going because 3 characters get access to the most life points of any team set up and 2 assists will always be better than one for any character. Especially if people start finding that 2 assists can help really extend some combos or certain types of offensive or zone based pressure.
The only thing I see being āexpertā is certain characters and optimizing combos and certain movement techniques.
Yeah the majority of top players will for a while be using easier 2 character teams or whatever is the Team Scrub 3 character setupā¦but just like in Marvel 3 the top players of more advanced, optimized stuff will fuck people up too (Mihe, Chris G, Marlin Pie etc.). A lot of that has to do with character loyalty also. People just like using characters and when you change characters in a game like Marvel or Skullgirlsā¦sometimes you have to change more than one character of the entire team. Itās not as easy to just switch between characters because you sometimes have to pick up characters you may not prefer to optimize the one you want to focus on.
What it will be if itās anything like Marvel 3 is generally a solid mix of both types of styles dominating for a while.
A trio combo with 2 DHCs will do more damage than a duo combo with 1 DHC. IIRC if you look at damage modifier vs. opponentās life modifier, trios do about the same damage per hit as duos.
Yeah optimized combos from 3 character teams sound like they should be pretty similar in damage and technically more since thereās more you can potentially add to the combo.
Thatās kinda what I meant: you certainly need to study more and practice more to use trio effectively but potential is better as well. Since top players arenāt afraid of such hurdles I can see them going with team of three. Because they want that potential. The reason why no one is using Iron Man in UMVC3 AFAIK is that you need to pour much more time and dedication in him to be just good while you can get the same level of āgoodā with top-tier character for much less effort. Duos and trios however donāt seems like itās a deal. They seems to really offer something back for your efforts.
Spoiler
Hey man just wanted to chime in and say this is some great insight as I too am looking to play Painwheel due to her likeness of MvC Sentinel, and trying to pick my other characters with the same likeness to MvC characters.
Just wanted to say I totally mentioned jab assists as a way to be silly and troll with tick throws and then Mike Z just comes in on the stream and almost justifies it!
Man, I was gonna do that anyways.
LOL yeah I remember that. Weāll see if it ends up being really viable or something. Heh.
So i have been trying to think of optimal strategy playing 3v1 vs for example solo Cerebella or Parasoul. How do you think is the best way to approach a 3vs1? Should you just keep going for resets over and over and save up 4-5 meters? I donāt think using meter quickly is the best way but maybe iām thinking about it incorrectly. Also getting your assist hit and happy birthdayād will do a lot more damage 1v3 than 3v3 so probably should be a little more careful when calling assists. Any other ideas about this?
Fighting against solo cerebella vs. solo Parasoul are two really different things.
Youāll probably want to force Cerebella into the air where her options are super limited. If soloBella canāt 360 you, then your in a much safer position. You canāt really zone her in the typical fashion because she has reflector so a good Cerebella will be able to get in against projectile spam. In that sense, I think Painwheel will have a decent match-up against Cerebella if she stays to the air with her offense and does her throw resets and what not.
The main thing to keep in mind is that solo characters donāt have access to DHCās, Assists, or Alpha Counters which means that lockdown and high pressure set-ups are going to be good against them since they will have limited access to get off me stuff. This is why Parasoul is good solo because she has Napalm Pillar as that option to stop high pressure. So if you can bait out NP against Parasoul, your good to go!
Alright so messing around day one with my Painwheel (c.MP), Valentine (Mortuary Drop), Parasoul (Napalm Pillar) team I like it alright from the start though I may have a bit of trouble using Painwheel on her own to get through some stuff. Napalm Pillar when used correctly definitely stops a lot of shit and helps clear a path but she doesnāt necessarily have really big hit boxes for her normals. The only normals that have really big hit boxes like her j.HP have huge start up and force you to be a certain height in the air first. I think the command grab assist should help her mix up a bit but Iām not sure if itās absolutely ideal yet. I guess it depends on how important it is to extend combos with assists.
I guess if I can make Napalm Pillar the only assist Painwheel really needs I can just do that and then have command grab for those small situations. Itās just after seeing how good some of Valentineās normals are (her s.MP is ridiculous range and locks down a long time) I may end up running that instead of the command grab. I definitely want some type of lockdown assist for Painwheel also until I learn more about how she works.
Still gotta figure out if any of her supers are safe on block. I do like the bionic arm effect of her death crawl though. Shit is mad invincible and fast. DHCing into her hatred install super and cutting a meter off the spend will probably be the best way to set it up so you generally only burn 2 meters instead.
I love love love Valentine. She just feels so natural to play. Very 3S Ibuki, GG Chipp like. Both were characters that were heavy on mix ups but had strong fundamentals and footsies also. The Morrigan/I-No style dash will take some time to get used to but I like the options once I figure it out. She definitely seems like sheās based around comboing into poisons and constantly setting people up to build meter for her supers.
Parasoulā¦sheās gonna take some time to figure out since Iāve studied her the least but sheās definitely like the Bison/Wesker of the game as far as her normals are concerned. She can just throw shit out there.
how in the hell are you ad i playing the same team/charactersā¦ again. LOL.
-dime
Oh I thought I told you in some other thread we were playing the same team.
We justā¦have this thing for characters I guess. LOL.
Iām on that wonderful process of coming up with the combos that fit my own pace for now. Iām doing around 5000-6000 with Ratio 2 Valentine with 2 bars, itās still very simple but works everywhere on the screen and doesnāt trigger the IPS.
I wonder whatās a good damage per meter used per ratio in this game.
no doubt!
though, my team order is different from yours, m planning on going para/pain/val or para/val/pain
i dont know how good invincible gtfo assists will be in this game and if they arent great then para looks to be good at first slot since she can control the pace of battle well and that means good meter on average for pain and val, who both seem to like there meter, also ima get more into te custom assistsā¦ pains cr.mp might be what i go for in the endā¦ but ima be seeing what i really need player specificallyā¦ im more int liking the neutral game assists like gtfo ala capcom or beam like doom/im
i need at least one of those on my team i think, but yeah, sill thinking like mvc3, this isnt mvc3 though so shit may change upā¦ god the wait for me is suffocatingā¦ stupid ps3 and its earl release (im TOTALLY hating)
-dime
Yeah Iām finding that not a lot of the stuff I learned from Marvel 3 is not really translating here. I feel like someone who was more familiar with Marvel 2 or Darkstalkers will get into this faster. Thereās a lot of different hit states and what not that people will have to understand and teching throws is very old school. The window feels shorter than in Marvel 3 for teching so people are definitely going to have to get used to that.
So last night on UltraChen, Mike Z was showing some stuff with the custom assist, and how you can set it to dash for some interesting strategies for Alpha Counters. How do you guys feel about that? Catching up to the archives as we speak.