Team Hyper Combos- How they really work & strategy

Classic Fighting Games Ultimate Marvel VS Capcom 3
1

Yesterday, while in the shower I thought about THC a little. And no, it wasn’t about weed.

Everyone has said (including the guidebook) that Storms’ hail storm becomes a one frame super when you THC it, so I decided to mess around with it a little. I had visions of THC frame killing Wesker’s who try launcher against me.

But it didn’t work.

It also didn’t work against Magneto’s Disrupta or Akuma’s sweep.

It also couldn’t even punish Tron’s Launcher (-20)

Not only that, but faster hypers behind me in the THC like Chaotic Flame couldn’t punish Tron’s Launcher!

What gives? I figured it was Storm’s startup. (something that was supposed to be gone)

Then I tried Dormmamu and could only punish things that Dormmammu can usually punish w/ Chaotic Flame.

But wait! I could punish Wolverine’s launcher! (It’s -9). Chaotic Flame can’t normally punish it (it’s 8+3)

Then I figured it out

**When doing Team Hyper Combos, all pre-freeze startup is tied to the pre-freeze startup of the point character’s THC super. Post freeze startup remains unchanged. **

That means, when point dormammu starts a THC with Storm’s hail, storm’s hail essentially becomes (8 startup frames of chaotic flame+ 1 frame Storm super activation post flash) a 9 frame super.

So what can I do with this?

Well, first is to look at Pre Flash super startups for characters supers that are in THC’s (no cinematics or level 3’s, sorry)

Notables:
4- Bionic Lancer (has startup invulnerability) (DAMAGE)
4- Magnetic Tempest (has startup invulnerability-getting nerfed)
5- Hyper Charging Star (has projectile invulnerability)
5- Giant Haggar Press **(DAMAGE) **(OTG)
5-Gamma Crush (invincible) (DAMAGE)
****6-Gamma Quake
6-Gamma Tsunami (OTG)
6- King Kobun (DAMAGE)
7-Messatsu Gohado
8-Mach Speed (invincible)
8- Phoenix Rage (invincible)
8- Chaotic Flame
8-Sphere Flame
10- Machine Gun Spray (invincible)
10- Shadow Servant (invincible) (OTG)
10- Hoyokosen (invincible)
12-Hyper Stars and Stripes (invincible)
13- Rage Trigger (invincible)
14- Burst Time (invincible)

**And these are the supers that start on the 1st frame post super flash. **

NOTE: some of these supers have range issues or take more frames depending on how far away the opponent is.

0- Hyper Stars & Stripes (invincible)
1-Hail Storm** (nearly full screen) (OTG)**
1-Lightning Storm
1-Okami Shuffle ** (nearly full screen) (hard knockdown)**
1-Deperado** (damage)**
1-Maximum Voltage
1-Plasma Storm
1-Legion Arrow
1-Happy Trigger
1-Million Dollars (longest super in game, combo opportunities after)
1-Messatsu Gohado
1-Phantom Dance
1-Shinkuu Hadouken
1-Kikosho
1-Godess Bracelet
1-Hyper Psionic Blaster
1-Magnetic Shockwave (OTG)
1-Proton Cannon *
1-Sphere Flame
1-Photon Array

note (the physical cannon hit of the proton cannon hits during the super flash, and is weird. When used by itself, it’s 3 frames)

So what do I do now?

1st is to pick your point starter w/ a fast starting hyper. invincibility really helps here, because it allows you to blow through attacks and eat those assists for breakfast.

Bionic Lancer is really in a class of it’s own by the way. Not only is it incredibly fast, it puts that 250k right up front of your combo, allowing for 600-700k THCs. Gamma Crush/Haggar Press come in later, and do less damage.

Remember, assists matter for the THC hyper selection!

For example, Akuma’s Tatsu assist makes him do Messatsu Gou Shoryu.
You need Hyper Grav assist to do Magnetic Tempest in a THC.

2nd is to pick an appropriate full screen hyper.
Hail and Okami shuffle are really tops here, for obvious reasons. Proton Cannon and Million Dollars are good too.

3rd is to pick the flavor/damage super. It can be something like Chaotic Flame, Chris’s Grenades (causes all sorts of weird shit), or whatever. It’ll probably come from one of these lists anyway, to maximize how much you can use the technique.
Why/When would I use this?

Hmm… when would I use a 4 frame invincible startup, screen filling super that can do 600k damage easily?
:slight_smile: answer? whenever you want. That’s usually one dead ass akuma assist without even having to use Xfactor.

2

It’s especially fun with Spencer + Amaterasu. Okami Shuffle continues for a while after Bionic Arm is fully recovered… meaning even on block, you have opportunities to mix-up the other character, including a small window where you can command throw them during the shuffle.

So the game then is to spot the assist call, smack the THC. Even if they block, it’s going to be brutal.

3

Spencer’s also great b/c since many different’ supers will either hard knockdown, or put them at a state where you can snag them with the unscaled up wire grapple for that extra 80k damage. Chaotic Flame, Million Dollars, and Okami Shuffle all do this.

4

A Norwegian player called R1KO used this effectively. He used Zero, Spencer and Trish, and whenever his Zero was dead he’d go all out and fish for mistakes with THC’s. If it was blocked you had time for mixups using Trish with Maximum Voltage. If it hit - that’s a combo (or reset). Spencer can get this kind of situation with a lot of different characters as long as the hyper itself lasts long enough (and prefereably, it’s also a projectile).

Another thing about THC’s: with the right team you can also get really fast invincible overheads that you can get damage off + a combo. Here’s an example of THC shenanigans: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6NtOmZBkj8

5

THCs are something that I also feel are really under-explored in vanilla. It’s worth noting that with a full team and proper team chemistry there are many THCs that easily (even at the end of combos) eclipse the damage of a level 3 Hyper. My favorite combo was Chris, Amaterasu, Storm.

If they block and you actually caught their assist there’s a good chance that the assist is dead.

6

THC are also extermely useful for a character doesn’t have a damaging level 1 super. A great example how THC can unlock damage potienal is how Jill can do a million damage combo with the right team composition.


That’s a level 3 damage right there, that’s completely practical damage right there.

7

I think my absolute favorite THC so far is Zero/Ammy/Doom (Sphere Flame)

Sphere Flame carries them up and does the usual business while Okami Shuffle gets a few hits, Rekkoha kicks in and holds them in place then finishes before Okami Shuffle which slams them back down to the ground. If you have 4 bars, you can do another Rekkoha after the first finishes, assuming Zero is on point. Since Shuffle is fullscreen, it’ll prevent point characters from doing much to protect their assist who will almost definitely die to this.

It’s unfortunate that none of these have invincibility.

8

I think with the removal of the DHC glithc you’ll be seeing more of these in ultimate. DHC sorta eclipsed THC’s thanks to the glitch doing as much if not more damage, while letting some characters even continue to build meter doing so. That said 2 bar kills are going to be a big deal and I remember seeing several awesome setups with Chris/storm that lead to 1 million dmg combos for 2 bars.

9

THC’s are rather underexplored because for the meter, DHC glitches are always going to come out ahead when it comes to combos.

When it comes to full screen OMG my assist just died! Nothing beats THC!

10

Or quick pre-flash startup. You’re asking for a lot randomly chucking Rekoha’s out there. It’s slow as balls.

11

Another good point you mentioned that’ll be more relevant in Ultimate - when a THC gives you access to a quick OTG you wouldn’t have otherwise. For instance, Dante can’t normally combo after a ground throw, but by THCing into Hail Storm he can :slight_smile:

For some characters like Trish or Chun Li, it gave you an easy combo after a knockdown. Land and THC… Hail Storm OTGs while Round Harvest picks them up and lets you get a few extra hits in to regain some of the spent meter.

I think it will be more relevant in Ultimate because so many characters seem to have OTG supers in it. Ghost Rider, Nemesis, Firebrand, Strider, Phoenix Wright, Rocket Racoon, Frank West and Hawkeye, maybe more. Craziness.

12

Hold on there. Hyper Stars & Stripes is 0 frame… Wait, does this mean that if I have Spencer on point, and I do a THC with Cap, they have 4 frames pre-freeze to block, and if they’re not blocking pre-freeze, they eat a THC? :o

13

I haven’t tested it, but I think that’s how it would work at least point blank.

I’m pretty sure Iron Man’s Cannon works the same way, b/c the cannon itself hits you during the super flash.

14

btw. I’m really excited about ultimate, being as there’s no way they changed THC mechanics, and some of the hypers look very useful.

If Hawkeye get’s instant omnidirectional arrow as a THC starter, shit will be bannanas.

15

Anything fast, anything that OTGs or anything invincible will be very useful in exploring how to exploit this further.

16

This is a very nice post, I was actually planning on testing how quick hail storm comes out when its THC’ed cause it felt faster but I guess I was mistaken. Can’t complain I guess, a 1 frame hail storm woulda been some serious bullshit, and this is coming from a storm player.

My current(and prolly ultimate) team is storm/sentinel/amateratsu. Its not the most broken team in the game, but what it lacks in bullshit, it makes up for in thc’s since two of my characters have disjointed hypers and the third has two very interesting lvl 1’s. N matter what order they are in, or which two character are alive the thc’s always do silly amounts of damage and even open up interesting options in some cases. For example storm can get a 2 hail storms in one combo with 3 bars and ammy in the back since okami shuffle last for so damn long.

Im definitely looking forward to testing out some more shit with my current team in terms of THC’s and DHC tricks.

17

I just tested it, and surprisingly, no. You can still block after the freeze. I tested with Spencer/Cap/Ryu against a Jill point blank in the corner, and I was able to block after the flash.

18

My favorite THC combinations are:

Ammy/Storm/Sentinel: you can activate it after flying screen. Hail Storm locks them in place for HSF to get maximum damage and Okami Shuffle gets to localize all the fire and ice damage before showering with the lightning. In fact, Okami Shuffle + Hailstorm / Hailstorm + HSF is godlike in itself.

Spencer/Ammy: I call it the “Torture Chamber”. Bionic Arm finishes stupidly fast, allowing him to jump around and press buttons while the screen is heavily obscured. You yourself won’t notice the other guy being hit most of the time until you see the combo numbers appear because the screen is filled with so much shit.

I use it against Phoenix but my mix-ups aren’t all that great but when I have enough meter and she randomly gets clipped by his standing overhead, OTG Bionic Arm finishes her off in a Combofiend-esque manner: with me popping off against Phoenix. The only plus about using Spencer instead of someone like Dante or Magneto for mixups is that he doesn’t need to blow XF. Same goes for Jill and anyone else with a hyper that finishes quickly.

If you want max damage off of a THC, it’s Spencer/V.Joe/Hulk. The 5-6 hits from the hypers up close deals 700k-800k straight up.Lv. 1 XF deals about 900k-1mil (IIRC). It’s the closest thing to OHKO’ing someone by pressing 1 button. I was messing with that team once but building enough meter to random someone out was tough. That and I don’t like V.Joe much. The assists might be a bit wonky also. Spencer has Armor Piercer, V.Joe can have stars or one of his other assists. I forgot Hulk’s assist.

19

I might actually build a spencer team to take advantage of this THC thingy tbh, I mean spencer with ammy in the back is deadly, he either gets a deadly combo with the THC bionic arm, or bionic arm DHC into vale of mist for some nasty damage. Hmmmmm…

20

While stuff like Ammy/Storm/Sent is a good THC, the point of my research was to see how FAST stuff could come out.

THC’s that do a ton of damage have been used in combos.

THC’s where a point character can move around and mix you up have also been used.

However, I haven’t really seen them used in a way like cables AHVB, where oppoenents have to respect it and play you differently.

I think invincible startup is a must. I think speed is also a must.

If you have something like Magneto/Storm/Sent, they literally should never be able to call Tron against you, b/c you can even punish it on block w/ Team Super.

Think of applications like if you’re getting rushed down by wolverine/akuma. See akuma pop out and hit two buttons, done.