I think Marduk benefits from anyone who can get him in with meter. Opening up the threat of empty jump into cross rush>ex DLT or SPD among other things.
Rolento is a very good battery and deals well with dedicated zoners. If all goes according to plan, Marduk comes in with at least 2 meters to work with and a post-gator slam set up.
Rolento doesn’t really need meter unless you want to wake up with something invincible. They did nerf his meter gain in 2013. His pressure strings have been shortened by the nerf on Patriot Circle recovery and chained normals. Not only that, his back roll (qcb+p) no longer generates meter. And knifethrow (dp+k) only generates meter on hit or block. But he still is an effective partner. What his nerfs seem to translate into is Rolento simply needs to play point longer than before.
Though, I have been thinking about replacing him with Nina.
Nina seems to not require meter to deal stupid damage and seems really solid in her footsie game. Coupled with Marduk, rounds can literally end in two mix ups. I don’t have enough matchup experience with her to speak with any authority on how she deals with zoning, though. She does have a command dash that’s projectile invulnerable. I’ll post more about the team as I learn it.
Double post.
Has there been any discussion on using Marduk’s back MP as a tag cancel? The stagger state guarantees a throw afterward. Typically, Marduk seems to be too far away to “link” a normal throw. However, if you cross cancel it, your partner comes into range and can successfully combo a normal throw.
It’s situational in that you’re giving up a lot of damage from an SPD or linked cl.mp, using a bar for the cancel, and throwing out an unsafe move in the first place. But I think there are situations where the reward of taking away recoverable damage outweighs the risk.
At this point I’m probably overexplaining it, but here’s a hypothetical situation.
Ryu has a lot of recoverable health and is playing his fireball game to zone you out. You make a read and hit back MP as Ryu throws a sweep-range fireball (or normal). You tag cancel into your partner and combo a normal grab to take away his recoverable health crippling his Ryu more so than if you simply followed up with a normal combo.
I think it’s definitely an interesting, unique option a Marduk team now has. Though not the safest. But what do you guys think?