I’m with Stark on the Hopscotch assist being better than Peekaboo in your case. Tatsu fills many roles and to be honest, it fills the roles of peekaboo better. Mainly:
You can convert all throws (both air and front ground) into combos with Tatsu assist
Makes a great GTFO and lockdown assist
Good for combo extenders
Can help in a lot of hit confirms assuming you practice hitting :a2: when you go into an improv combo
Eats up space and pushes opponents back
The biggest advantage of peekaboo is that you can play Task as a “camper”, meaning you can sit there shooting arrows all day since you really limit the approaches of your opponent. However, Peakaboo is a terrible combo extender (I don’t think you can really do much other than the reset presented unless you setup a mixup trap which is hard with task) and you have to be very confident and patience in your footsie game since you aren’t adding anything to your mix-up game with Peekaboo. It should be noted though that once you get on your opponent, Peekaboo makes an awesome pressure tool since it allows for such an easy hit confirm.
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Or you can kind of fudge it into other things as well
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but Tatsu still works better in this regard as well. I’m no technology expert but I’ve played against enough Task / Trish combos (I run it myself sometimes) to know that Peekaboo slows down the game, but doesn’t do much to turn the tables in your favor against a lot of the cast (mainly anyone who can either dodge arrows well or can stand toe-to-toe in a projectile battle.)
The biggest weakness I would see with a team like that is dealing with vultures or air-based offenses. Task has to fight a battle of attrition against (super jump) air happy people unless you can get a solid AA , AA Spidey Swing ( :f: + :h: ) or AA Shield Skills ( + :h: ) and that usually means your opponent is being undisciplined rather than playing a solid strategy if they can establish air superiority and don’t abuse it. Aim Master :h: ( :d::df::f: + :h: [fully charged]) & air Aim Master :l: ( j.:d::df::f: + :l: [fully charged]) or sort of your only recourse in this situation. Trish sucks without air superiority (ask anyone who mains her and they will tell you the first thing you need to master with Trish and take her to the next level is plink-dashing in her flight mode and that without air superiority, you’re in for a tough fight) and in an air-to-air battle, she can only really run away since she doesn’t have a dominating projectile presence nor any really easy air hit confirms. Only Akuma with the purple pimp slap that causes a ground bounce can deal with air people pretty well. However, due to his low health, you aren’t going to get too many chances since you’ll have to eat projectiles on occasion as you work your way in since his beam super doesn’t really help against people who have high air mobility.
Hopscotch isn’t the best air shutdown tool but since it covers vertically, it really hinders you opponent’s air movement options (and air approaches) in conjunction with impeding ground based approaches. Also Shield Skills + Tatsu is near broken in terms of ground dominance so you are best using your other assist to take away the air as best you can.
My team is Firebrand/Taskmaster/Amaterasu; it’s probably weird to be posting that here and not in the Firebrand team thread or the general team thread, but I really have no idea about how Taskmaster synergizes with Firebrand (I know the H. arrow assist and the DHC from Dark Fire are probably good for Firebrand in some way, so I chose him without knowing anything.) or Amaterasu.
Is second a good place for Taskmaster on this team? Should I let his assist be H. arrows? Should Taskmaster even be on this team?
And I notice tons of people run Taskmaster with Amaterasu… how do they synergize together? (Not doubting it, just wondering. I’m incredibly bad and new to this game so it’s not too far of a stretch to assume I know nothing.)
Thanks for the advice, it’s really appreciated. I will play around with both to see what I like. I can see how both can be good assists to use, just really trying to find a replacement for Hawkeye who isn’t Wesker, Doom, etc.
Thanks for that, I’ll definitely look into it. I noticed that it was mad fun to play with Felicia on mission mode (the same was for taskmaster, spencer and nova). But I already replaced Wesker with Nova, which I feel is like is my waifu. I put some more work into him and absolutely love him.
More and more am I’m seeing how difficult it is to tackle opponents who like to attack from the air or from super jump height so I switched My Hawkeye assist to his vertical arrows and I must say this helps out Task big time IMO. It keeps the opponent locked down and helps with Tasks keep away, which also keeps the opponent on the ground for Task+Tatsu. I think that this assist is best for Taskmaster if your run both Taskmaster and Hawkeye.
So I’m starting to realize that I might be better switching my Doom assist for Task based on the team I am facing given that each assist can fill different roles. Plus, being able to switch assists after each round helps prevent opponents from being able to develop a counter strategy very quickly. Here’s what I’ve been thinking and I was wondering if people think this is dumb or not.
Beam
Beam and Arrows combined basically owns any grounded projectile battle because of durability
Comes out fast and therefore hard to punish
Can basically control the ground with Assist alone
Great combo extender and high damage once damage scaling has kicked in
Up arrows backed by Doom beam can be really hard for people to get in on
Cover Shield Skills nicely since you get clean launch or lock opponent in block stun long enough to be safe
High Damage
Hard to hit confirm
If you cross up with Beam, damage scaling is pretty harsh
Teleport characters still can make your life hell if backed by beam
Does nothing to help you regarding air happy attackers
Hard to convert air throws into combos using Beam and no ground throw conversions
No GTFO properties, even when used as Crossover Assist
It seems like Beam makes the best backup for Task if you want to alternate between rush down and zoning. You can zone relatively well with it and rush relatively well but it doesn’t really make you dominant in any one of the tactics. The biggest thing it seem to give you is ground dominance so I think it works best against characters who are reliant on closing the distance on the ground. I think some characters it works best on are Hulk, Chris, Deadpool (sort of), Frank West, Ghost Rider, Hawk eye, Hsien-Ko, Iron Fist, She-Hulk, and Tron
Missiles
Missiles and Arrows is a very brutal zoning combination
Covers all 3 levels of combat (ground, jump super jump)
Can still be used for combo extensions but not as versatile/ requires more premeditated use
Acts as a pretty good combo breaker
Not the hardest hit confirm but does require significant skill to convert combo since they are usually at an awkward height for Task
Helps slow down teleport characters since the missiles track
High Damage
Can Lock opponent for two full Legion Arrows Hypers if you call missiles, allowing for a pretty decent chip trap if you are willing to burn the meter. Tactic can be brutal when combined with Morrigan on the team to help build meter faster.
Slow (& Long) Assist that can easily be punished by Full-screen supers
Have to call Doom, wait a while, then apply Shield Skills pressure which is a big handicap for Task since Shield Skills relies on it’s speed to catch people for a hit
No GTFO properties, even when used as Crossover Assist
Doesn’t really help with improv hit confirms
Slow cross-up potential
No help converting throws into combos
It seems missiles works best if you dedicate to zoning with Task as you can basically help lock someone down from a distance and make it very hard for them to do anything unfettered. It seems to work best in my opinion against people who lack powerful safe full-screen projectile hypers or who don’t have the best mobility to avoid all the missiles. Examples would include She-Hulk, Haggar, Spider-Man, Dante, Felicia, MODOK (not fully charged up), Spencer and Trish
Rocks
Excellent lock down assist
Can convert air throws and front ground throws into full combos (albeit damage scaled ones)
Makes pretty decent cover
Very good GTFO assist (especially when used as crossover counter) but does require caution
Can cover Shield Skills pretty well
Very easy hit confirm and helps with improv combos
Since a 360 assist, can help slow down teleport people (but not the best at it)
Useless in projectile battle
Fairly punish-able since Doom is out for a while
Damage scales pretty harshly
Projectile can’t control ground level on it’s own meaning you can’t just worry about jump and super jump height
Not the best combo extender due to the awkward positioning it puts someone in
Whenever I’ve used rocks, I go full rush down with Task as it seems to work best in that capacity since it causes a lot or blockstun very quickly. This seems to work best on characters who don’t have the best close-range defensive options. Examples would include Dorm, Wesker, Arthur, Doctor Strange, Jill, Shuma, Sentinel and Storm.
Basically I want to be able to look at another person’s team and be able to switch up my assists to help put me in the best position to win. Am I crazy or does this seem like a viable tactic?
When fighting Vergil I play the waiting game. Block. block, block until they make a mistake. See them jump? Go for the air throw. Teleport? Shield Skills, his teleport is punishable. Almost all of Vergil’s normals and specials are unsafe on block so use that to your advantage. He may be a pain, especially with good assist, but he’s not too bad if you can be patient. Also be prepared to break grabs.
Against Vergil teleport, Task has a pretty good option select. Presuming Vergil is left player and Task is right player, as soon as you see Vergil start a teleport, push right+H, then quickly do down, down/right, right+S.
If he teleported behind you, you’ll get Spidey Swing (S won’t come out), which you can follow with air M->H, land, blah blah.
If he teleported in front of you, you’ll get Shield Skills into launch.
If he teleported above you, you’ll get Shield Skills, then turn around and do Sharp Sting in Vergil’s back. Vergil will not air autocorrect in this situation, so his ridiculous hitboxes will not save him; if he hits a button, he gets stabbed. Follow with combo.
Of course, if he calls his assist and then teleports, there are other variables to consider. The good news is that if he calls a projectile assist and teleports up or in front (depending on timing), you may be able to take advantage of Shield Skills’ anti-projectile properties and continue normally. The other solution is to call your assist and force him to call+teleport on reaction, which means that your assist can soak up the drones/arrows/snowflakes while you whale on Vergil.
So Im considering picking up skeletor, been trying to build a dante team for quite sometime now and Im looking into taskmaster/dante/akuma. Task seems like a good point character with his opening shield skills option select and he and dante are interchangeable depending on the match-up. Plus either of them can play battery or meter dump roles(although dante fills that role better than task). And akuma’s one of the best at cleaning up messes so worst case scenario he comes in with a few bars and does his thing.
How do you gentlemen feel about the team? I don’t know much bout taskmaster so I might be missing something but it seems pretty solid. Tatsu should help keep shield skills attempts safe, while also allowing him to combo off all his throws and-correct me if Im wrong-his counter hyper as well. Just not sure what assist to run dante on yet, but Im sure ill figure it out with time and practice, but naturally any suggestions are welcome.
Im not an expert by any means but I would probably use jam session as its a good anti-air and can help with Task’s zoning. If i didn’t hate Dante so much I would probably run that same team lol.
Makes sense, jam session covers the vertical when I wanna shoot horizontally, and tatsu covers the horizontal when I wanna shoot vertically. Plus turns out jam session not only allows akuma to make his dragon punches safe, but in the corner it allows him to actually combo off them(no use to you since you don’t use dante, but figured id post it anyway).
And lol, how can you hate dante? Dude is so stylish. Although Im guessing its statements like that that make you hate him.
Dante’s cool, I have nothing against Dante I’d like to run my nails along those washboard abs he’s just a stylish character in general and he seems fun to play, lots of options which I can really respect. I merely don’t play him.
I Think my hatred for Dante stems from my early days of playing this game and getting caught with helm breaker by people who spam helm breaker over and over and over, I think it ruined my view of him. Also the annoying lines that he says like "jackpot!“and also the fact that he has a 1000 special movies where he can make almost everything he does safe. He’s so fucking annoying, everything about him from his character design to that stupid ass electric guitar just annoys the shit out of me. The same thing can be said about Vergil and the annoying ass english voiceover he has, how his taunt is him brushing his stupid hair back and how " I dare challenge the son of sparda”, all soooo annoying… Really all the top tier characters are fucking annoying prob because there so played out and over saturated in this game.
Any who Dante’s jam session is an awesome assist for task and since your running Akuma you don’t really need a projectile assist to cover Task horizontally.
Taskmaster and Dante work very well together. They’re one of those duos where both characters help each other out.
Jam session is great for Tasks zoning and chip damage game. You can convert pretty good off of jam session and it makes his shield skill pressure alot better too.
Horizontal arrows provide perfect coverage for dantes teleports and dont scale his combos at all.
They also both dhc into and out of each other really well from any angle for good damage.
Yea I had a little test run against one of my friends and while he wasn’t very good I definitely saw the potential in the team. Shields skills + tatsu seemed extremely effective, their might be a way to punish it but Im yet to figure it out. It also has really good DHC synergy aswell since they all have full screen hypers.
Yeah its a good team. Its nothing broken (aside from dante+tatsu bs) its just a solid fundamental team that can be taken a very long way if you figure out the spacing. Task and Dante are pretty ryu like characters that have all round tools but nothing busted for the most part.
^I honestly dont think drones helps task that much. He just doesnt get that much mixup off of them. Although it helps his zoning like any other horizontal assist, it doesnt really stand out from plasma beam, unibeam or disruptor when paired with Task.
Anyone playing Taskmaster, Vergil, Akuma? Or Taskmaster, Vergil at all? If so, what assist are you using for Vergil? Rising Sun helps Taskmaster extend his combos while Rapid Slash helps Taskmaster push the opponent way while zoning.
, AA Spidey Swing ( :f: + :h: ) or AA Shield Skills ( 
+ :h: ) and that usually means your opponent is being undisciplined rather than playing a solid strategy if they can establish air superiority and don’t abuse it. Aim Master :h: ( :d::df::f: + :h: [fully charged]) & air Aim Master :l: ( j.:d::df::f: + :l: [fully charged]) or sort of your only recourse in this situation. Trish sucks without air superiority (ask anyone who mains her and they will tell you the first thing you need to master with Trish and take her to the next level is plink-dashing in her flight mode and that without air superiority, you’re in for a tough fight) and in an air-to-air battle, she can only really run away since she doesn’t have a dominating projectile presence nor any really easy air hit confirms. Only Akuma with the purple pimp slap that causes a ground bounce can deal with air people pretty well. However, due to his low health, you aren’t going to get too many chances since you’ll have to eat projectiles on occasion as you work your way in since his beam super doesn’t really help against people who have high air mobility.