I finally got around to trying out Viper/Dante/Akuma and must say it makes life much easier. The Akuma assist is pretty much a long hit confirm that you can kill off of and gets you out of a lot of situations where you’d otherwise want to spend gauge or rely on normals. He starts up fast enough and has hit stun for long enough that he’s ridiculously easy to use in combos and if you only get 2 hits of tatsu in it barely scales damage either (Though the time means hit stun scaling is less than preferable) I think I’ll be running this team except when against Haggar/Tron assists as it demolishes so many things and the opening section of the game is even more in Viper’s favor than usual.
I’ve been thinking about using Akuma with Viper but I haven’t found a team composition I like to go with it but I’ll do some testing to see what kind of mix ups I can get from it.
Found out during the weekend that M TK completely whiffs on Amaterasu, you have use L TK agaisnt her.
M TK whiffs on crouching Ammy in hit/block stun or neutral, it hits her if she’s in standing hit stun. L TK is safer to use just in case.
^^^ This is true unless you use it in a hit stun string. But you cant use it as a long poke :[
that akuma sounds very tempting…
It just makes life easier my combos do less damage than with Task IE they won’t instantly kill every important character, but that doesn’t matter with the number of opportunities it opens up and how stupid good it is if you go for throw and press Akuma at the same time and for their tech you get a really solid mix up. 
I’m just going to stick with Viper/Dante/Ammy for the time being. I like having 3 great characters I can play, I tried playing tron/akuma centric teams and they just fall apart at anchor (akuma is a great anchor with some meter though). Got some games in against my sparring partner who plays wolverine and I must ask how exactly do you think that she beats him so handily? What tools should I be abusing to get such an advantage? It seems more like even or 5.5 in his favor to me honestly. Magneto also is pretty tough. The hardest matchup I’ve played with viper undoubtedly has to be Trish tho. If she wants to rust you down her air C is great against viper and she wants to play lame all I can do is call jam sesh and pray it hits. Really hard. Other than that I think she has the tools to wreck everyone. It was times yesterday where I just went on a complete train and OCV’d in like less than a minute. All it takes is a couple guesses. Some of my unblockable setups were even working 
Glad I picked this character up she is amazing
When Wolverine is 3/4 of the screen away and you throw out a seismic hammer you can react to every option he has to avoid it even without having rapid or focus seismos and one good connection kills Wolverine. Viper can keep him out and is one of the few characters with real get out of jail free cards when he’s pressuring, the only issue in the match at all is Akuma assist since it prevents seismo from hitting but catching him in a Burst Time punish into million dollars/magnetic shockwave etc will give them pause at summoning that bloody seismo eating kick.
When wolverine’s in unless you have him in block stun and/or a superior point blank assist it’s often best to use a gauge to either establish pressure or space against him. The fact that unless you’re in block/hit stun he can pretty much never dive kick or berzerker slash makes the match far more obnoxious for him.
Mags is close to even but I’d say slightly in Viper’s favor as long as they’re not both anchors as what Viper gets out of a horizontal assist lets her blow up Magneto even if he has an equal horizontal assist. I’ve written a lot on this one previously in this thread and it’s all about establishing control, if you let him start running all over you Viper will be very dead very quickly.
Trish hurts. X_X
i tried viper/doom/akuma and i did lose some damage but i think i have an easier time placing my assist correctly to continue my offense/extend the combo than i did with taskmaster. i’m still keeping doom rocks assist so far, but we’ll see if i ever switch to beam!
also having 2 characters who perform well under x-factor (if i were to lose viper) is a huge edge. not that taskmaster or tron doesn’t do well with x-factor, but imo doom and akuma do comparably better under x-factor. will be running this team for some time since im seeing a good amount of success. =)
Good stuff! I would actually go missiles for Doom if you have Akuma assist as that means any safe missile summon with the enemy cornered you get to kill a character off of.
Summon missiles, pressure string until the first missile is blocked, focus, summon Akuma half way through missiles falling, hit unblockable.
Akuma’s feet do a similar job to rocks/plasma beam already so you get more out of missiles than those with that team IMO. I actually prefer X-factor Taskmaster to Akuma any day of the week but it’s much easier to be safe and aggressive with the Akuma assist than it is with Taskmaster despite the lower health. I should actually try Viper/Doom/Akuma as that set up sounds skeezy with how fast that team moves people toward corners, I’m not as much of a fan of Doom/Akuma as Dante/Akuma though so it really relies on Viper not dying.
yeah i’m just too used to playing doom ^^;; his point play is def not as good as dante, but i feel like i can make it work. there’s two ways he can combo off of tatsu assist also (as long as you can successfully bunny-hop your way towards the juggling opponent), i’ll just need more practice.
I love playing Doom but yeah him on point is nowhere near as solid as some other character choices.
i think having akuma assist helps a lot. as slow as he may feel, it really is up to the player to make doom as fast as they can make him, and akuma assist makes his trijumps (bunny hops) with high-low mixup more viable. been doing ok with it.
haven’t made the switch to doom’s plasma beam assist yet – my viper is still surviving off of akuma assist pushing her forward / hitting things on its path. i feel more and more comfortable with this team now though. also made a corner to corner combo off of a hit and a throw, using akuma assist.
Nice stuff Divine! I was playing Viper/Dante/Akuma the majority of last night and holy fudge does it make things easier. Viper + Akuma is so beyond a terrible match for Dormammu it’s not even funny.
chrisis – yes dormammu gives viper huge trouble… i think i’d have to go back to viper/tron for that one if things really came to that! flame carpet beating ex thunder knuckle = blasphemy QQ
i think dormammu blows up magneto/akuma as well, as far as what i’ve seen.
btw, the corner to corner combos with viper + akuma tatsu assist are:
off hit: stand ABC, seismo A, sjc adf CS, stand BC, seismo A, sjc adf CS, stand BC [+ assist], thunder knuckle B, dash forward, stand CS, air BBC dj BCS, seismo A OTG, burst time
off throw: seismo A OTG, sjc adf CS, stand BC [+ assist], thunder knuckle B, dash forward, stand CS, air BBC dj BCS, kara thunder knuckle B, burst time
kara thunder knuckle B is a pretty sexy tool for closing that gap towards knocked down opponent when you wanna burst time!
XD, I meant the other way around Divine. I was playing against Champ’s Dormammu and with Viper/Akuma the match is WAY easier than normal since they shut down all his zoning tools and are superior on rush down, Champ’s Mag on the other hand… I need to practice that fight more…
Seismic hammer and Tatsu in tandem make Dormammu is practically free gauge and a mix up on the next character unless he’s in X-factor.
As for Akuma combos, I found out that anywhere on the screen off of basic launch into knockdown you can summon Akuma, seismo, then tiger knee a burn kick moving forward and get a relaunch to corner them off anything that leads into launch! Mainly important with Dante assist though since that’s necessary for the better follow up afterward. 
chrisis, i saw you play on stream yesterday and i really liked it. the way your viper and dante play together improved alot since i saw you play last time (which was basically the first time you played dante at starbase, lol). one thing about dante/akuma assist that may help you: if you do a basic ground series with dante and the akuma assist hits, after dash in you can go for st.m, st.h xx cold shower, prop shredder, hammer (or maybe acid rain loops). this way you have more damage potential and way better meter gain with otg-loops than with just day 1 bnb into million dollars.
That sounds good Don_t know! It just requires a few minutes of that very needed training mode in order to get it to muscle memory.
Don’t think my Chris/Zero/Viper team is gonna work out. With keepaway being super craptacular for anyone not named Dormammu, Chris needs different tools to be effective. Sentinel drone assist is probably best as it cuts off the top half of the screen, forcing them to take Gunfire M and allowing time to put down mines.
With that being said, I want to go Chris/Zero/Sentinel and create a different team for Viper because she’s just too much fun to use.
How bad does she need a horizontal assist (beam or otherwise) to get in?
Having a horizontal assist is a dramatic benefit to her if you want to get a full quality Viper. It’s not necessary just to function but it really helps, same with a strong Vertical assist/lock down assist.