The Comprehensive Firebrand Thread: Lab Notes for Beginners (almost done)

Ok Im back n_n

cr. L, cr. M, st. H, S, air H xxx hell dive M, air H, st. H, S, into rest of BNB.

It gives you more meter.

Another good teammate for Firebrand is Iron Man with Repulsor Blast assist:

-Sets up snapback loop (Repulsor Blast covers the same space Tenderizer does, barely)
-On a hard knockdown, call Repulsor Blast. Regardless of their tech roll, they’re forced into blockstun by Repulsor Blast, allowing for quick, easy unblockable reset.
-Repulsor Blast is a generally more useful neutral assist than Tenderizer; beats teleports, eats projectiles, is generally boss status. Easy to convert off of as well since you have a few hits to confirm into j.2H or Bon Voyage.
-In the corner, AA Proton Cannon is a good hyper to DHC into off of Dark Fire.

Everything you said is totally true, but there’s one small problem with that. It means sooner or later you have to use Iron Man.
I’m not saying he’s unuseable, but Tony is hard as balls to use well.

Also, if I was going to use Iron Man as a partner for Firebrand, I think I’d prefer to use Unibeam to cover approach.

LACTOSE!!! Whats good?

Repulsor is really good. I did the unblockable with it, but not the snapback loop.

However, I like Unibeam alot more it doesn’t knock down. Why is that important for me? Because I wanna fuzzy guard and get more damage off of resets. If you try to juggle off a beam, you gonna get like 500k, which is shit. I rather have the beam damage plus a damage reset. I wanna kill your ass man.

Unless you got another beam, then there is no reason why Repulsor Blast should be picked over unibeam, at least for Firebrand. Were you gonna play Doom with Firebrand and Ironman?

Yeah, either Firebrand/Doom/IM or Firebrand/Doom/Skrull. I think I prefer having Repulsor and Missiles to Repulsor and Plasma Beam in all honesty but that’s a personal thing. Also Repulsor makes Doom’s life less shitty.

Pay attention to 1:55-2:05

[media=youtube]YrFuetkAqgo[/media]

This is a different kind of guaranteed unblockable setup that doesn’t use lockdown of an assist or lockdown of a THC.

Yup, Vergils super is the perfect timing to allow Firebrand to start charging and hit the incoming character. Since the new character can’t come in until after that super ends, it works. You can do this with any of the supers that are longer than Firebrands, but Vergils is absolutely perfect.

As far as best partners for Firebrand, I nominate Akuma.
Tatsu works really well for Firebrand. It allows him to rushdown a lot more easily and it eats through projectiles for him. Also allows for easier instant overheads. Plus it’s easy to convert off of with Devil’s Claw and Bon Voyage. And if you use Tatsu assist, the Firebrand+Akuma THC is really good in the corner. Firebrand always leaves them in the corner anyway. Akuma also has a decent damaging DHC

Thought I’d repost here since people seem to have forgotten about KennySWISS’s original thread.
Here’s a video of the full-screen hitconfirm with the wall-cling fireball: [media=youtube]bXzXz7Thm0A[/media]
Sorry for shit quality. It helps if you TK the glide motion. My execution wasn’t good enough to pull off more than 2 in a row, but you could probably rapid fire his fireballs by doing the TK wall-cling over and over (I tried at the end).

Why dont you add my tech to the guide.
[media=youtube]IZuua8JKUOI[/media]

[media=youtube]mD9wsGgh-3A[/media]

Hey, we use the same color Firebrand/Dormammu

Anyway, here is Zak Bennett’s Firebrand/Dormammu DHC. I uploaded it because I couldn’t find it elsewhere.

You should also add that firebrand can set up an unblockable reset by himself too. Also… Chris’s combination punch makes it inescapable… I love this character…

Got some match-up shit from Osbjorn (forgive me if I spelled it wrong). I edited some of it. Took out some stuff I felt was irrelevent or redundant (there wasn’t much). Let me know what you guys think.

Firebrand Vs Wolverine Match up
4-6 Wolvie’s Favor
Summery on why:
Firebrand’s big strength in this match up is that wolverine solo does not have much ways to deal with Keepaway and Firebrand is a keepaway genius.
The big problem with this though is that you can almost never run away from wolverine and if he touches you in any capacity you will die. Dive kicks and Wolverine’s mix up options and normals make fighting on the ground a losing battle for you. His close range air game utilizing a mix of drill claw and air throws can slaughter firebrand instantly the moment he tries to anything in the air next to wolverine.

Tips:
The first thing the firebrand play needs to do is stay in the air, firebrand is to air game as wolvie is to ground game.

  • Once in the Air chuck L Fireballs and M Fireballs
  • never throw out those H Fireballs he can run circles around them and it dissapears if you get hit on hit or block.
  • dive Kick only works at certain times for Firebrand, his is signifcantly slower than wolvies and puts him in flight on hit or block.
  • Air Bonvoyage is a good idea only if a) you know it’s gonna hit(block or hit) b) Wolverine is on the ground or underneath you. Don’t use it if he is next to you in the air. I say this because using it if the opponent is next to you works in some match ups not this one though you will get popped if you do so.
    -Remember to air tech regularly Wolverine hold back and press H when you anticipate tech. If it ends up coming out as air H then Input a dive kick
    to follow up.

your Dives are really helpful but we have to set out some rules.

  • Don’t swoop if he Wolverine is in the air with you or in front of you (Pretty much this match up in a nutshell is if wolvie is in front of you: Block him! then push block)

  • Super Jumping and swooping is good as long as they air far away

  • Now for things that you can do Air H Dive when you are full screen away then do a wall cling and then fire a L Fireball to cover your offense

  • Using your assist get in with air M Dive and uncharged Hard Demon missile

  • When you are right beside the opponent use st M plus Assist then input a M Hell’s Elevator to nail a cross up if they block that then go for
    an instant overhead using air LLMS or if

  • For Blockstrings you can use M Hells Elevator to negate Pushblock but be careful doing this raw against wolvie as he has quick punishes
    he guesses right

  • Shooting fireballs into Lb is a life saver here because you can full screen hit confirm if your eyes are quick enough

  • Mid screen chicken block those dive kicks and then throw the wolvie player once they hit the ground if you have good enough oki you
    can finish the round after one air throw

Against Wolvie’s Toolset

Berserker Rage: The best thing to do if you see them start tossing aout swiss chees in front of you is to shoot a fireball then Cancel into
Luminous body then dash and cr H into full combo. EDITORS NOTE: Probably can just slide into it.

Drill Claw: Drill Claw is unsafe if you force it to whiff. so if you anticipate it on the ground
you can neutral jump then dive kick into a combo.

If they hit you with drill claw and you anticipate that they will dive kick to keep themseleves safe then pushblock the drill claw
then as they land from their dive kick Use bon voyage to punish the recovery on the whiffed dive kick.
If the you dont get the punish right then use luminous body to make your ground bon voyage safe.
Remeber that after canceling into LB attempt the Instant overhead.

If wolverine uses drill claw to fly over you then you can dash up to him and go for either an instant overhead or a cr l for 50/50

Dive Kick: You can either chicken block it and try to punish it from there or you can make it whiff and punish accordingly.

Beserker Barrage:Block and Punish with Cr L or st l

Berserker Slash: If you see wolvie chucking this out in the neutral game you can react to it with Ground Bon Voyage the animation for Ground Bon voyage will go through the opponents assists if it hits wolvie before the assist.

Okizeme:

Unfortunatly as Firebrand you don’t really have any incoming options so just block and pushblock Guess right!

Moral of the story is: Don’t get hit

Wolverine’s Wake up
Luckily though Wolvie’s wake up is nearly as bad as yours
HE does not have that many options besides his Cr L
which you of corse can stuff with meaty attacks and assist

Wolvie’s incoming
Every one of wolvie’s options on incoming can be beat by a well timed super jump into Air Bon voyage
Call out your assist before you do this to cover you (Cold Star is the best)
so if they block bon voyage you can go for mix ups afterwards

This method will beat incoming Drill Claw and Incoming Dive Kick

If you don’t think you have enough time then just time a m fireball from the ground and call your assist

Combos on Wolverine
If he is crouching both kinds of Instant Overheads don’t work against him
If he is standing then you can do Jumping LLMS into full combo

There is nothing to note about him in terms of regular combos with firebrand.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Stay in the air. Wolverine dominates the ground game in this match-up. He gets you to block, he is in a way better advantage. From there he can stop all your options because Firebrand doesn’t have a GTFO me move.

How do you set-up the unblockable with jam session assist off of a snapback? They always seem to be able to jump out of it.

does anybody know any resets using spencers grapple assist that firebrand could use to extend combos or make hard to escape situations

Combo into Bon voyage, dash backwards s. H call spencer xx into swoop. Hard to escape

That works with hard knockdown grapple, not slant shot.

smart stuff i’m shocked i never thought of that, you mean the charged unblockable swoop right? that just made me think you might can use the hard knockdown grapple into the ground fireball than call assist to setup unblockable im goin to try that and test it some matches to see if that works

I could see that working timing is kinda tight tho. Grapple doesn’t give an extended hard knockdown… Chris does tho…

ugh chris!

I want to know what you all think about some proposed buffs to Firebrand (yes, I do think he needs buffs when compared to characters like Magneto):

-Hell Spitfire H’s startup time and recovery is halved.
-Hell Spitfire H no longer leaves Firebrand prone when done in the air.
-Hell Spitfire H no longer disappears when Firebrand takes damage.
-Hell Spitfire L replaces Demon Charge M as an assist.
-After a Hell Dive H/M, Firebrand’s direction auto-corrects (it’s dumb that I can’t Hell Claw after swooping past my opponent)
-Demon Charge H is now Demon Charge H (charge) as an assist (i.e. he now has his unblockable as an assist, complete with the massive chargeup time)
-Flight (qcb.S) is removed.
-qcb.S now performs Hell Rise, which swoops Firebrand higher into the air (basically an inverse Hell Dive L - I think it’s dumb that Firebrand can’t fly higher if he wants to)
-All Hell Dive moves now place Firebrand in auto-flight after use; auto-flight has no startup time
-Hell Elevator and Hell Claw no longer have flight startup time, but still have auto-flight.
-Hell Elevator can now be canceled into other specials and command normals, just as the Hell Dive moves can
-Firebrand’s total time in auto-flight after leaving the ground is limited to 120 frames so as to prevent continuous Hell Rise moves (qcb.S)
-Dark Fire now causes a soft knockdown (I can’t even DHC into Chaotic Flame from it, which is really annoying)
-Chaos Tide’s helper summon now performs its H swooping attack regardless of which button you input - the L and M attacks have been removed (completely useless); the hyper now consumes 2 bars of meter (I think this should be the standard for all of the current level 3 utility hypers, but I am worried that it would become spammable now, since Firebrand can gain meter during this hyper)
-Luminous Body now upgrades Firebrand’s fireball attacks along with its previous benefits. Hellfire L/M’s fireball increases to 8 projectile hit points and doubles in width (roughly to MvC2 MM’s uncharged blaster size) - damage increased to 120,000 from 100,000, and Hellfire H’s fire is now Firebrand’s height and travels double its normal distance; I don’t see these changes having particularly strong effects on Firebrand’s point game, they’re more about giving him good assist options a la Zero

Thoughts? I know this might sound like a bit much, but I continue to think “what does he need to get picked over Magneto?”, and it turns out that it’s a lot. Currently Magneto has better hypers, assists, screen control, damage, and mix-ups. Truly, the only thing Firebrand has over Magneto is a guaranteed unblockable setup. I don’t think a character should ever be based off of such a flimsy gimmick, particularly because while being able to 300% teams off of a hit is definitely an asset, it’s not an interesting one for either the player or his opponent (who wants to sit through 60 seconds of 400,000 damage combos followed by snapbacks?). It’s the perfect example of a bad gimmick. I don’t think Firebrand’s unblockable should be removed, but I do think Tenderizer should be slightly changed so that this option is rarely present.

More importantly, I think this makes for a fun, more filled-out Firebrand. The current character feels like an unfinished concept, much like Dormammu was in Vanilla, when he had silly restrictions like having the only soft knockdown ground throw in the game and not being able to attack out of a down-back or up-back air dash. It’s these small tweaks that made him into a more fun character to play.