The Morrigan Player's Guide (will keep updating and editing until finished)

Classic Fighting Games Ultimate Marvel VS Capcom 3
1

Guys, I’ve been working on a guide of sorts for Morrigan (stole some formatting from Karsticles) to help people out. So I’m just gonna post what I have so far, and hopefully this doesn’t end up too badly.

Ugh, this is a horrible guide and I feel like I don’t have the ability to explain Morrigan through writing. Darchon25 is starting a video guide for those interested in learning Morrigan, and he’s going over a lot of important stuff in his vids.

[media=youtube]Lv13kYuLDE0[/media]

He has a really good Morrigan and explains her in a great way, so go watch his vids first if you wanna step your Morrigan game up.
Everything else under this is just sort of a mess of info that you can try to sift through if you need to.

Morrigan’s normals

Morrigan’s standing L (40K damage)

Spoiler

Startup - 4 frames, adv. on hit - 0 frames, adv. on block - -2 frames. A normal with a 4 frame start up that hits low. It’s useful for connecting her jumping S into combos, and can be used to beat out most normals while close to her opponent. It’s also useful when putting on the pressure with high low mix ups. She can set up throw resets with it as well.

Her crouching L (30K damage first hit, 52.5K second hit)

Spoiler

Startup = 4 frames, adv. on hit = 0 frames, adv. on block = -2 frames. It hits high, despite being a crouching move. First hit can be cancelled into a St.M or Cr.M. Don’t mash it. Mashing Cr.L when you’re nervous can lead to a big punish because it leaves you in the active frames for her whole two finger poke animation. If you hit your opponent with Cr.L, then chain-cancel into Cr.M to make it easier to get off your opponent if it doesn’t hit, or to catch someone if they’re blocking backwards.

Her standing M (55K damage)

Spoiler

Startup = 8 frames, adv on hit = +1 frame, adv on block = -1 frame. It can be used as a hit confirm off of J.S and acts as a “safe” normal to use for failed hit confirms. It’s not really safe (I don’t think at least, I’ll edit when I find out), but you can end your pressure with this or Cr.M so you can back off if your mix ups aren’t working. It can stuff some normals. It can combo into her forward M, which can set up for a soul drain combo. You’ll usually be comboing St.L into St.M and then into Cr.M.

Her crouching M (53K damage)

Spoiler

Startup = 8 frames, adv on hit = -2, adv on block = -4. It’s probably her best footsie in her arsenal. Her crouching L starts up faster, but seriously lacks in range. Crouching M fixes that range problem, and it doesn’t scale combos as hard as two crouching L’s into combo. It’s not safe but it works a hell of a lot better than mashing down L into combo and stuffs a good few normals.

Her forward M (70K damage)

Spoiler

Startup = 12 frames, adv. on hit = +5, adv on block = +3, recovery = 22 frames. This is her “Splash Libido” normal, and does a huge amount of hit stun to the opponent. You used to be able to combo from forward M into astral vision with the help of an assist, but I haven’t been able to do it with my assists so far. You can also combo into her soul drain using her AV and Dark Quills. The Brady Guide keeps implying that it’s a godlike normal, so there’s definitely more exploring to be had with this normal.

Morrigan’s standing H (25K first hit, 46.2K second hit, 64.2K third hit, 79.5K fourth hit)

Spoiler

Startup = 9 frames, adv on hit = +11 frames, adv on block = +9. Works surprisingly well as an anti air. It sort of vacuums opponents in, allowing for easy combos instead of having to shadow blade into flight cancels and all those shenanigans. It’s plus on block, and helps on block strings if your opponent isn’t mashing down advance guard and can set up for frame traps if not pushblocked. It can also be used for mixing people up on forward tech rolls since it moves her forward. Use St. H + an assist while an opponent is forwards rolling if they seem to be the type to not wake up on rolls but block instead. It’s a decent mix up. But it shouldn’t be used during combos because it scales almost as bad as her jumping S.

Her crouching H (60K damage)

Spoiler

It’s actually pretty useful for using as a move when using her frame traps. It also helps most of morrigan’s air combos link into her S normal. It can also be used to punish anyone trying to mash a button when recovering from tech rolls. It also has this really weird property that if you time it right when someone is doing a forward tech roll, then they’ll roll farther then they should.

Her forward H (70K damage)

Spoiler

Startup = 11, adv on hit = -13, adv on block = -13 frames. Forward H is one of her main tools. It’s used as a combo extender, is jump cancellable, and can make her safe in block strings by using the jump cancel and popping out a soul fist in the jump.

Her S normal (80K damage)

Spoiler

startup = 8 frames, adv on block = -12, recovery = 29. Very unsafe. It can and should be used as anti air for moves that have huge hurtboxes on the bottom of their characters though. (e.g. Tron’s jumping H, Akuma’s Air Tatsumaki.)

Her jumping L normal

Spoiler

Startup = 4, active frames = 13, recovery = 10. Extremely good air to air normal. It’s also REALLY useful for catching opponents who are too high for her to combo. For example, if you hit an opponent with soul fist, but you accidently call an assist that bumps an opponent up when it hits, you usually wouldn’t be able to hit with her normals, you can jump up and catch it with J.L and complete your combo. Plus, it turns into a monster when used in chains. I’ll explain in the using normal sections.

Her jumping M (55K damage)

Spoiler

Startup = 7 frames, active frames = 4, recovery = 26 frames. A good normal. Can cross up, and has pretty good range when used dashing in. Great in air to air matchups.

Her Jumping H (70K damage)

Spoiler

Startup = 10 frames, active frames = 8, recovery = 20. Extremely good when it comes to punishing moves on ground. It beats lots of anti airs, and can be used to severely punish someone who accidently presses a low L or even tries to cross her up from a reset. It also allows for the highest damage combos if hit confirmed from.

Her Jumping S (35K damage first hit, 64.7K damage second hit, 89.9K damage third hit)

Spoiler

startup = 5 frames, active frames = 23 frames, recovery = 18 frames, adv on hit = +8, adv on block = +6. This move is sort of a blessing and a curse at the same time, and her most important normal. You can whiff if during her downwards dash, allowing her to safely land on the ground. It’s a three hit normal which hits overhead all three times. If the opponent blocks low at anytime during the move, then they’re in for a good combo. It also can be used to get a hit confirm off of soul fists, and helps her combos out. The problem is that it’s a normal that hits three times and each hit counts in hit stun deterioration and damage scaling, meaning her combos can’t be as fancy or as powerful if used as a hit confirm. If used too much, it can turn a nice 600K combo into a 450k combo, no joke. It’s almost like using wolverine’s swiss cheese as a move. It should be used sparingly, maybe once per combo (add another one if you’re using jumping S for a hard knockdown from air series,) but filling a combo with like 3 of her shell kicks is just asking for low damage.

USING THE NORMALS

HIT CONFIRMS -
[LIST]
[]THE HIT CONFIRM FROM THE AIR (DOWNWARDS DASH) (FLIGHT MODE) - J.S is going to probably be your only hit confirm during flight mode. The reason being is that if you whiff a move while Morri is in flight mode she’ll stay stuck in the air in flight mode where she’s free to mix up and punish. J.s lets her land on the ground without having to do any unfly BS. But to help out the mixup, you can cancel out of flight mode when she’s at the bottom of her arc, and use standing L to hit low, or try to do Vector Drain OS (63214 + ATK xx S, S). The OS is so she can cancel out of the recovery of her Vector Drain, essentially making her command throw safer.
[]**THE HIT CONFIRM FROM THE AIR (FORWARD DASH) (FLIGHT MODE) - The thing about forward dash is that it’s better to cancel into another dash from this one instead of just advancing by pushing forward with forward dash. J.H ** is a really good one for this, as well as J.S. But here’s something you should take into consideration. Multiple air dashes really help out with Morrigan on this, because it allows her to do left/right mix with an assist up instead of high low. Air dashing forward or backwards while in flight mode will allow her to cancel into another dash (such as her downward dash or her upper dash.) and help mix up from left to right. You can place an assist on one side of the opponent, forward dash while in flight mode for about a half a second, and then cancel into a downwards dash (Just dash downwards during her forward dash, no flight cancel BS needed) and whiff J.S or J.H.
[]THE HIT CONFIRM FROM THE AIR (DOWNWARDS DASH) (NO FLIGHT) - J.S shouldn’t be used as a hit confirm too much (aka: using it as your only hit confirm) from her air dashes without flight. You’ll get pushblocked across the screen when your opponent catches on, and it scales combos hard and severely hurts your hitstun and damage if all three hits get in on your opponent. **J.H and J.M CHAINED INTO J.M, or even J.L chained into J.M **should be your other ways to get in using her downwards dashes when not in flight mode. If they’re blocked, then hit S and you should cancel from flight if you were doing it from flight.
[]**THE HIT CONFIRM FROM THE AIR (FORWARD DASHES) (NO FLIGHT) - If you’re forward dashing, your best bet is to throw out a J.H/THROW OS (AKA: hold forward while throwing out your J.H) if they’re chicken blocking, and if they’re scared and walking backwards, **you might want to throw out an assist (like a beam) if you’re able to cross over your opponent without them anti airing you, use your **J.H **to cross them up from behind while the beam hits in front.
[*]**THE HIT CONFIRMS FROM THE GROUND - **Morrigan’s ground game isn’t the best. She can’t ground dash, which makes getting in on opponents from the ground damn near impossible unless she has an assist backing her up. But she has pretty decent normals that let her challenge people on the ground and give her a fighting chance. Cr.M and St.L are gonna be two normals which you’re gonna use as hit confirms from the ground. Cr.M has pretty decent reach and is relatively safe. St.L has great start up and can beat out many normals. Cr.L is also a decent normal to use, but chain in into Cr.M when hitting your opponent. Don’t use Cr.L as your panic button. You usually won’t get away with nervously mashing two Cr.L’s, you’ll get punished hard. St.H, and F+H are great anti airs, and can be used when an opponent is dashing in on you and you don’t have enough time to challenge them with a j.L. Cr.H can also be use sort of like a street fighter style sweep (I like to think of it like Rufus’s sweep). It doesn’t seem that useful, but if used to beat out a normal or to even catch someone off guard, it can lead to one of her extended combos and make the opponent eat big damage.
[/LIST]
HIGH/LOW MIX UPS

Morrigan’s Specials

Soul Fists: All versions of Soul Fist have 85K damage.

Ground soul fists have slower start up compared to their Air soul fist counterparts.
Durability on all soul fists = 5 points. Very standard projectile.

Ground Soul Fist L

Spoiler

– Soul Fist L will head across the screen at a slow rate.

Ground Soul Fist M

Spoiler

– Soul Fist M is a faster version of Soul Fist L. Not much to say about it besides that.

Ground Soul Fist H

Spoiler

– This type of Soul Fist is an angled soul fist which heads from one corner of the screen to another, and can be really annoying for characters that rely on super jumping.

Ground Soul Drain (Soul Fist S)

Spoiler

– This projectile is the slowest of the group, and has a huge amount of start up on it. It can be fly canceled to avoid getting hit during start up, but it’s best to combo into it using Astral Vision or THCs. Gives about ¼ bar of meter when it hits, and nearly ½ meter when used in Astral Vision (if both Soul Drains hit).

Air Soul Fist L

Spoiler

– This soul fist is the slower of the regular soul fists. It has the same durability as her other soul fists, and can easily be hit confirmed off of with Soul Fist L — Dash in, Jumping S.

Air Soul Fist M

Spoiler

– This version of soul fist is the normal speed soul fist, and flies at the same angle as Soul Fist L. The only difference is speed, and this version of soul fist is usually used in combos. Soul Fist M will usually pop the opponent a bit upwards to allow Morrigan to dash down mid combo.

Air Soul Fist H

Spoiler

– This version of soul fist heads straight across the screen, and can be followed up with another fist or a combo if hit confirmed off of. This soul fist is also used in combos. It pops the opponent forward if used in a combo and allows for extended combos.

Main Points are: Soul Fist S takes ¼ of meter from opponent. Soul Fist dominate the air, especially the H versions of Soul fist if used together. Air soul fists can be hit confirmed off of if you dash in and follow up with J.S. Air soul fist > Ground soul fists, all day.

L Shadow Blade (80K damage)

Spoiler

– This special isn’t really used for comboing, but I find that its main purpose is to keep you on your opponent if he’s advance guarding in the air or to throw in an unexpected overhead in a blockstring. For example, if you go for a throw on a jumping opponent but fail the throw, you can cancel into shadow blade L, and then cancel into fly to dash away from the opponent or dash in to even attempt another throw. If you have your opponent in a blockstring, and not advance guarding, you can use shadow blade L, then cancel into flight mode and use J.s to give yourself an overhead allowing for potential mixup. It’s also a decent anti air.

M Shadow Blade (94.8K damage)

Spoiler

This will be one of your main combo enders. You’ll have to get used to cancelling M shadow blade into Finishing Shower, because it’ll be in nearly all your combos. Not a great anti air, and doesn’t do very well as a reversal (yeah, reversals can sometimes work in this game, mindblowing) so it’ll basically just be in your combos. If you try to use it like L shadow blade to get in, you’ll just be pushblocked half a screen.

H Shadow Blade (114.5K damage)

Spoiler

This shadow blade can work as a reversal, but it’s usually used to end combos that are meterless or follow up a Finishing Shower in corner in the air to add that extra bit of damage. You can actually use it move around the screen, and get back inside of your opponent’s area if you’ve been pushblocked.

Main Points are: Shadow blade isn’t just an anti air or combo move, it’s a mobility tool that helps you stay in the opponent’s face and allows for mixups and allows you to cover the ground after pushblocks. M shadow blade is your most important shadow blade, so practice doing that one, and practice cancelling that into Finishing Shower.

2

Vector Drains

Vector Drain L (120K damage):

Spoiler

5 frame start up. A lot slower than Vector Drain H, but has pretty good reach considering Morrigan’s size. Not as useful as Vector Drain H, but an example of how I like to use it is when I see a Wolverine try to berserker slash mix up.

Vector Drain M (150K damage):

Spoiler

3 frame start up. No clue on how to use this one. You’ll usually be using VD L or H when trying for it.

Vector Drain H (170K damage):

Spoiler

This is the Vector Drain that matters that most. From what I’ve heard, it’s a one frame start up command grab, and can punish a hell of a lot of stuff. Use it to punish non true blockstrings, or when someone is trying to pressure you after a hard knockdown. You can Shadow Servant off of it, and regain some space, or DHC into someone else to get up to 550K worth of damage (if DHC’d into Storm’s Hail Storm.)

Main Points are: Your main Vector Drain is Vector Drain H, and it’s godlike. It can be used for lots of punishes that standing L can’t beat or just trades with (It’s better to grab then to trade and mash for a combo) and reset the pace of the match if an opponent is dropping assists and mix ups on you (especially when you’re in a hard knockdown state). It can also be used right when an opponent hits the ground. Use Shadow Servant afterwards to gain some space, or DHC to gain a good bit of damage.

Flight Mode (Huge part of Morrigan’s game)

214 + S , 11 frame start up, 1 frame recovery.

Morrigan is a character based around air dominance and versatility and her flight is essential into making her this type of character. In other words, Flight mode and gliding will be the one of the main things you’re doing in a match. She relies on it HEAVILY, and lets her dash in without getting BIONIC AAAAAAAAAAAAAARM-ed in the face. Here are a few things you should probably be doing in her flight mode (Flight cancelling will be its own unique section).
[LIST]
[]Use her flight mode and her soul fists and try to predict where opponents will tech, dive kick, or teleport. If you can line her soul fists up with where they’ll end up, you could end up with two free soul fists on them, and more importantly, they lose their momentum.
[]Learn to glide with Morrigan in her flight mode. Instead of cancelling into flight mode, dashing down, and all that, just glide along the screen with her, and when you reach normal jump height, then you can dash down or whatever you want to do. This movement is huge to her game.
[]Don’t just shoot out soul fist in one spot. Superjump and spray one soul fist at max height, and then fly cancel then glide down+back and launch another soul fist. This gets REALLY annoying if you have a horizontal beam assist that’s covering the ground with those soul fists as well.
[]Use her flight mode to bait out anti airs such as Strider’s Vajra H or Hawkeye’s Gimlet. People know that flight characters can’t block, but morrigan can unfly and block very quickly and let people waste a meter on her, or she can land and use a command grab if low enough to the ground. Just watch out for super jump throws.
[]You can use multiple dashes in her flight mode like every other character. I find that multi-dashing backwards is great when playing keepaway, or multidashing backwards then down helps Morrigan position herself for the high/low game.
[]If dashing in Morrigan’s flight mode, then make sure you know the height limit of her dashes. She cannot dash below her jump height, so if you’re dashing under the height restriction then you’ll just throw out a random J.H.
[/LIST]
Flight cancelling (also huge part of Morrigan’s game)

Flight cancelling is the act of using the special “Fly” to cancel the active frames or even the recovery of certain moves of Morrigan.She can cancel most of her moves besides Vector Drain and her J.S, so it’s pretty useful in making her safe or allowing her to completely ignore the recovery of some of her moves like Soul Fist or J.H. Flight cancelling is essential to Morrigan’s big damage combos, as the recovery of Soul fist can be ignored and she can jump up and use a jump loop combo to continue a combo or even dash in mid combo to extend combos. You can also cancel into her flight during ground combos and use J.S to give yourself a free overhead or even an unblockable if you have a low assist paired up with her.

**PRACTICE FLIGHT CANCELLING SOUL FISTS, SERIOUSLY. **I can’t stress this part enough because Morrigan becomes nearly useless if you can’t. The way I flight cancel is weird, but it might help you out if you’re having trouble.

Super jump, 236 + L, M, or H (soul fist), 63214 + S (fly cancel) right after her soul fist shows up on screen, then 41236 + L, M, or H, and then 63214 + S (flight cancel) until you hit the ground.

You’ll get the hang and rhythm of cancelling soul fists and her other moves if you can do this perfectly. It seems really difficult at first, but once you get the hang of it Morrigan starts becoming a more fun character to play as.

Morrigan’s Hypers

Finishing Shower

Spoiler

(Damage depends on spacing and position of character) – Main combo ender for her combos. Can be controlled to go in the up direction or down direction, and much of the hyper’s damage depends on where the opponent is in front of Morrigan (like, if opponent is above Morrigan, less hits, but if they’re right in front when hyper is activated from M shadow blade, then more hits and damage.) It gets more damage if used right after an OTG, and can allow for a free mix up or if it misses or even a semi-safe tag in depending on the matchup. Gets destroyed by most projectile hypers though, and does count as a projectile. It has a small hitbox on the back of Morrigan, if that helps at all.

Shadow Servant

Spoiler

– Morrigan’s invincible hyper, it almost reaches fullscreen, and causes a good bit of damage. It’s wise to use this hyper as a punish to other hypers as long as they are not completely a full screen away. It OTGs, and can be used right after any of her throws or command throws. It can also be used after Darkness Illusion. It can help with her DHC synergy as well. If your character has a power up super (like the Sparda twins DT, then practice using this hyper and DHCing into their power up super to see if you can hit a combo after it.

Astral Vision

Spoiler

– This hyper will create a clone of Morrigan and have her clone so everything she does. The clone can shoot soul fist, which will be one of the main uses of this hyper. It helps with heavy zoning teams, and can kind of mix up opponents who aren’t familiar with the match up. You still gain meter in this mode as well. It’s best to start using this hyper when Morri has X-factor LVL2 or LVL3, or when she’s being heavily zoned out. It helps with her one on one match ups, but use it wisely. It only lasts for about 590 frames, which roughly translates to 10 seconds it won’t stay with her if she’s tagged out or if she activates another hyper…

Darkness Illusion

Spoiler

– Morrigan’s Level 3, and her hardest hitting hyper. Does about 405K damage, and has a decent amount of startup invincibility frames. Extremely easy to cancel into from shadow blades M and H, and can be followed up with a Shadow Servant.

Morrigan Combos

Combo tips:

Okay, so are you having trouble learning how to do soul fist combos? Don’t know how to do 'em?

Here’s the first thing you should know about soul fist combos:

Each one of her “segments” ( your jump loops after her F.H or Soul Fist) has its own rhythm. It’s got a beat to it that once you get down, it’s pretty hard to forget. Let’s look at this combo so I can explain what I’m trying to say.

J.:s:, St.:l:, Cr.:m:, Cr.:h:, Foward + ****:h:, J.:m:, J.:m:, J.:h:, :qcf::m:, :qcb::s:, :d:+:atk::atk:, J.****:m:, J.****:h:, :qcf:****:h:, :qcb::s:, :f: (Walk forward for like half a second), ****:s:, SJ, J.:m:,J.****:m:, J.****:h:, :qcf:****:m:, :qcb::s:, :d:+:atk::atk:, J.****:s:.

Alright, so the segment that I’m referring to is this one

** Foward + :h:**, **J.:m:, J.:m:, J.:h:, :qcf::m:, :qcb::s:**, :d:+:atk::atk:, **J.:m:, J.****:h:, :qcf:****:h:, :qcb::s:**, :f: (Walk forward for like half a second), ****:s:,

This is the part of the combo where the soul fist and the fly cancels and unfly cancels are at. The hard part for those new to Morrigan. So, I’m gonna try to explain step by step how to accomplish this part of the combo, because a lot of Morrigan fundamentals are used and learned by just doing a combo like this. But remember, RHYTHM is the thing you gotta listen for to master these combos.

**Let’s start with the steps: **

Once you’re comfortable with her ground chain (her regular :l: :m: :h:), you need to move on to using Forward**:h:** into the rest of her combo. So here goes:

[LIST=1]
[]Press Forward :h:***, and hold :uf:. (Roll your stick to up-forward if it makes it easier for you).
[]Now right before you reach her max jump height, mash out her first J. :m:***. This makes it so that it’s easier to link moves from her ** :d:+:atk::atk:.**
[]**Go into her ** **J.:m:, J.:h:. She should be at max height by now.**
[]**Now here’s the soul fist. Launch her ** **:qcf::m:. Once you’re done with the ** :qcf: part, you should already be inputting ** :qcb:. You should press :m: right when you reach the end of the quarter circle forward ( :qcf:, (**This part “:f:” **), **but you should also be buffering the input for her :qcb::s:. So it’ll look like this.:qcf: + :m: into :hcb: :s:. This is the cancelling of the soul fist. You should be cancelling it RIGHT after the fireball has come out. (Morrigan should only say “SOUL --” when you’re cancelling it, or at least when she’s in Japanese audio she should be.)
[]Good, now you should be in flight mode! This is where the rhythm is essential to listen to. Dash downwards ( :d:+:atk::atk:) and wait till you reach the bottom of her arc. Your opponent should be right in front of Morrigan preventing her from going up when dashing down. Now, go into her ** J.***:m:, J.****:h:. Keep trying it, and you’ll eventually hit the right rhythm. Experiment with your button pressing tempo and timing to get that rhythm down.
[]Once you’ve got that part down, go into ** :qcf:***:h:, :qcb::s:. It’s the same exact motion as in Step 4. So, it’s basically: ** :qcf: + :h: into ** :hcb: :s:. You should cancel it with the unfly ( :qcb::s:) right when she lets the fireball loose. Same stuff as Step 4.
[]**Once you’ve hit the ground after your unfly, you want to hold forward for half a second, and press ** :s:***.
[/LIST]
Now you can go into your air series, and finish off the combo with ** J.:m:, J.:m:, J.****:h: XX ****:qcf::atk::atk: or go into J.:m:, J.:m:, J.:h:, ****:qcf: ****:m:, :qcb::s:. **:d:+:atk::atk:, J.****:s:.
The key to getting this Morrigan combo is learning how to cancel that soul fist with the half circle back motion, and learning the rhythm of it. Trust me on the rhythm part. It helps a lot especially when you get into learning Morrigan combos with like 4-6 Soul Fists.

**Intermediate main BnB **
J.H, Cr.H, F+H, jump up forward, J.M, J.M, J.H, Soul Fist M xx fly, dash down, j.m, j.h, soul fist H, unfly, walk forward, S, super jump, J.M, J.H, M shadow blade, Finishing Shower (590K – 610K midscreen, 562 -570K w/o follow up shadow blade H, 604-610K in corner with.)

Vereth’s combo (High Damage Combo)
J.H, Cr.H, F+H, soul fist H xx fly, J.H, Soul Fist H, land, jump up forward, j.m, J.m ,j.h, soul fist M xx fly, dash down, J.H, Soul Fist H xx unfly, Cr.H, S, J.m, J.m, J.h, H Shadow Blade, Darkness Illusion (917K, corner only)

Easy and Basic Morrigan Combo
St. L, Cr. M, Cr.H, F+H, J.M, J.H, J.S, Cr.M, Cr.H, S, J.M, J.M, J.H, M shadow blade, Finishing shower (519K-521K midscreen, 506k w/o SB H, 537K with.)

Extended version of Easy Morrigan Combo
Cr.L, Cr.M, Cr.H, F+H, J.M, J.M, J.H, J.S, Cr.M, Cr.H, F+H, J.m, J.h, J.s, S, J.m, J.m, J.h, M shadow blade. (542K midscreen, 530K w/ SB H in corner)

**Lvl 3 X factor basic combo (also works in lvl 2 X factor, but it’s tighter) **
Cr.M, Cr.H, F+H, jump up forward, J.M, J.H, J.S, up forward,( J.M, J.M, J.H, J.S) x 3, Cr.H, S, J.M, J.M, J.H, shadow blade H xx fly, J.H, shadow blade H = 107.5 mil damage

Astral vision combo in XFactor lvl 3 ( also works in lvl 2)
(cr.m, st.h) x 5 (x4 in lvl2 xfactor), S, J.H, Shadow Blade H xx fly, j.h, Shadow blade H = 1.1 mil damage

KayEyeDee’s Soul Drain tech in a combo. (credit goes to vereth again for the combo)
j.H, st. L, st. M, f.M, Soul Drain, fly, j.S, Shadow Blade M, fly, j.H, j.S, launch, j.MMH, Shadow Blade M, Finishing Shower, Shadow Blade (720K damage)

3

MOBILITY

:qcb: :s:, HOLD :df: FOR 1/2 OF A SECOND, :d::atk::atk:.

Okay, Darchon put up a pretty fulfilling guide on Morrigan’s movement. But I wanna add something that I don’t remember him going in depth on, but might as well, right?

Alright, so a huge part of Morrigan’s movement is in the air. Yet people don’t understand how a rushdown Morrigan can dominate ground based characters and, hell, even rush in with her in the first place. People aren’t understanding how she can be so damn fast and literally fly past some hypers and moves during her rushdown.

So, in order to maximize that efficiency with attacking from the air, you’ve got to understand one of her biggest tools that nobody seems to talk about on these forums.

**Welcome to a lesson in Flight Momentum, people.

Whoa whoa, flight momentum? What does that have to do with air movement?

Wait, what are you talking about by her flight momentum? I don’t understand where the momentum part comes in.

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STRATEGY AND PLAYSTYLE

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TEAM SYNERGY

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MATCHUPS

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[ spoiler ] [ /spoiler ]

I’ll check out the content later this week.

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Just a heads up, I won’t be able to work on this guide for about a week because of work I need to turn in before finals in school, so I’ll probably update it the Saturday after next, and hopefully I’ll have a Brady Guide to work with by then. Please, leave some feedback guys. I wanna make this as good as possible, and that’s kind of hard to do by myself.

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Not enough j:l: whoring advocated. It’s a fucking amazing normal air to air, and is one of two 4 frame aerials I can name off the top of my head, the other being Storm’s j:l:.

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Putting something like this together is a labor of love. It’s something you do because you want to; you’ll rarely receive help.

  1. Statements like “it sucks, I don’t like it” (c.L) are silly. c.L is a move with virtues, and you even acknowledge it. Certainly, if an opponent is in range of c.L and c.H, it’s best to use c.L since it comes out much faster.

  2. Your s.M comments lack context. How is s.M comboing off of Soul Fist, exactly?

  3. Some of your comment boxes take off as though the header is part of the sentence, others don’t.

  4. How on earth does Morrigan get thrown out of c.M?

  5. Soul Fist has relatively low durability in this game. It only beats things like Samurai Edge and Dark Matter.

  6. Flight has 11 frames startup IIRC, not 3.

In general, I notice that you make a lot of valuations. For example, your Astral Vision section:

Many well respected and quality players feel Astral Vision is a big part of Morrigan’s game. I think a good guide shares community knowledge, but does not preach or take sides.

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Soul Fist has 5 durability, that is basically standard for single hit projectiles that aren’t command normals. Any single hits with more are the exceptions.

I actually mostly(completely if we were talking about vanilla) agree with his assessment of Astral Vision, but you’re correct about it needing to be more objective. It’s a massive boost to her zoning game, and a solid boost to her combo damage, but doesn’t really help her land hits against people actually used to dealing with it, and can often be a wasted bar.

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I know Soul Fist has 5 durability. I am criticizing the italicized part of this sentence:

Soul Fist does not eat through a lot of projectiles. As you said, that’s standard - it tends to negate projectiles, and lose to non-fireball projectiles.

Astral Vision lets her outzone every character in this game. No one has an answer to fireballs coming in from behind. It guarantees that your opponent has to be on the defensive. Sure, it can be a wasted bar, but only if your opponent does nothing but turtle against you; forcing your opponent to be defensive sounds like a good use of a bar of meter to me, especially since you’ll build it all back if you get a hit in during this time. Just look at what ChrisG did to people using Astral Vision - it’s monstrous. I fought a Sentinel last night that got hit by 1 Soul Fist in XF3, and I juggled him until he died with them as a result. That doesn’t happen without Astral Vision. It’s worth considering.

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But then you get the games where Morrigan comes in against Wesker with a life lead, and no matter what you do, if they’re experienced at run away, you’re not taking that life lead even with Astral Vision. If you want somewhere Wesker is actually broken, it’s his ability to simply run the clock against most of the cast.

I would be far more supportive of AV if it didn’t have the abysmal start up and recovery. This myth that activating is is completely safe if an opponent blocks a Soul Fist needs to die. Soul Fist causes 20 frames of guard stun, AV has a combined 29 frames of start up and recovery. That’s enough time to Akuma beam or Gimlet it on anticipation depending on range. And that’s if they don’t chicken block the Soul Fist. Air guard stun is cleared the moment you land, so any beam or fast full screen hyper will connect if they chicken block the soul fist.

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Still, in this situation, I think you have a better chance of gaining on him with Soul Fists coming in behind him than not - he has to land sometime.

No doubt that’s a criticism of the move. Personally, I usually Soul Fist, cancel into AV, and then XFC that. Certain characters I don’t use AV against, but it’s still a great tool to have.

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Yes, it is a good tool, which is why I’m not saying it’s worthless. I’m just saying it’s highly overrated by a lot of people.

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It depends on how you play Morrigan and how your team is setup. If you love playing lame with Morrigan and abuse the heck out of her flight-cancels, Astral Vision is one of her most vital tools. It really helps her against teleporters, even the Sparda twins. I also don’t see how Wesker can run the clock on AV Morrigan, unless it’s Dark Wesker. Because otherwise he’ll be eating a lot of chip and Morrigan has fireballs to cover any part of the screen.

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I’ll be making good use of this guide in the months to come- thanks for making this!