The Basics, Page 8
Hypers:
Snapback - :qcf: :a1: or :a2: (1 Bar)[
Details
Spoiler
Attack Data:
•Hits: 1
•Damage: 50,000
Frame Data:
•Startup Frames: 2
•Active Frames: 5
•Recovery Frames: 21
•Frame Advantage on Block: -3
Discussion:
•While not necessarily a hyper, as it costs meter, I felt this was the most appropriate place to list information about Dormammu’s snapback attack.
•Dormammu can land a Snapback after landing Chaotic Flame in the corner, as well as after a forward ground throw against a cornered opponent.
•Dormammu uses his s.H animation for his Snapback.
•When using Snapback against both a point and an assist character simultaneously, you can continue to juggle the assist character, and no point character will appear on the screen to defend the assist. However, at some point the game’s engine will allow the assist to recover, regardless of your actions against it. The mechanism that determines this is not yet known, but Dormammu is able to do all of the following against an assist post-Snapback:
- Two Purifications
- Purification, s.S, sj.M, sj.M, s.H
- Purification, Chaotic Flame
- Purification, Dark Hole, Chaotic Flame (recovers midway)
•When using Stalking Flare after using Snapback against both a point and an assist character simultaneously, the fireball will track the off-screen point character, possibly disappearing entirely from the screen. Stalking Flare will return from off-screen once a point character is back on the screen. [TEST]
•Snapbacks are an excellent tool against close range X-Factor guard cancels. If your opponent attempts to X-Factor your attacks to punish you, simply cancel your normals into a Snapback. Unless your opponent was performing a move with invincibility, or has an attack with less than two frames of startup animation in X-Factor, you will have successfully countered your opponent’s guard cancel.
[URL=‘http://youtube.com/watch?v=c1UIpTEmeDE&t=40s’]Chaotic Flame - :qcf: :atk::atk: (1 Bar)](‘http://youtube.com/watch?v=mZWkuLQsXq8’)[
Details
Spoiler
Attack Data:
•Hits: 30-60
•Damage: 281,400-338,300
Frame Data:
•Startup Frames: 8+3
•Active Frames: 59
•Recovery Frames: 41
•Frame Advantage on Hit: +8
•Frame Advantage on Block: -21
Discussion:
•Knockdown.
•30 sets of 1 high priority hit points.
•Chaotic Flame is Dormammu’s combo ender of choice. It has one of the fastest startups on a beam-based hyper in the game at a mere 11 frames, fast enough to punish many normal attacks on reaction, even up close - simply pushblock your opponent’s attack, and Chaotic Flame afterward; the validity of this tactic obviously depends on how much recovery your opponent’s move has. With high priority, it will also completely devour any non-hyper projectiles on the screen during its active period.
•Assist Punishing: Chaotic Flame does massive damage to assists due to the extra 50% damage assists take. If your opponent’s point character is not hit by Chaotic Flame, then the assist will also take unscaled damage, resulting in even further punishment. Against assists, Chaotic Flame ends in a hard knockdown. If you have the time and meter, after Chaotic Flame ends you can simply OTG Purification into a second Chaotic Flame.
•Chaotic Flame also pushes your opponent across the entirety of the screen, making it an excellent way to create space. However, it is generally a poor idea to rely on this tactic, as Dormammu needs to conserve meter for more fruitful opportunities. If your opponent is low on life, it is worth considering Chaotic Flame to kill them through chip damage - you may either kill their character, cause them to expend meter to swap their current character out, or force a naked tag, which will result in the incoming character getting hit by Chaotic Flame.
•When X-Factor canceling this move, you can cancel at any point and follow it up with a second Chaotic Flame. If you wait for Chaotic Flame to finish before you use X-Factor, you can catch your opponent in a Dark Hole, and then fire another Chaotic Flame. If you want something stronger, you can X-Factor cancel Chaotic Flame into Dark Matter, Mass Change L, and get a full combo, or X-Factor cancel Chaotic Flame into Mass Change M, air dash down, j.H into jump loops. Near corners, Chaotic Flame can be X-Factor canceled into Stalking Flare successfully.
•In corners, connecting c.L, c.M, Chaotic Flame leaves your opponent with enough hitstun still to connect a s.M at the end of the hyper, and then connect a launcher, air combo, and a Purification OTG into a second Chaotic Flame.
• If you whiff a Purification or Dark Hole against an opponent and he is able to punish you, consider spending meter on Chaotic Flame if it will make you safe. Losing a bar of meter is much better than losing a character.
• After using Chaotic Flame in a corner, you can land a Snapback against your opponent before he recovers.
[URL=‘http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kg0pqQ7j47U&t=03m20s’]Stalking Flare - :qcb: :atk::atk: (1 Bar)](‘http://youtube.com/watch?v=c1UIpTEmeDE&t=40s’)[
Details
Spoiler
Attack Data:
•Hits: 20
•Damage: 256,000
Frame Data:
•Startup Frames: 31+4
•Recovery Frames: 62
•Frame Advantage on Hit: +19
•Frame Advantage on Block: +18
Discussion:
•Homing, lasts until “hits” are expended.
•Disappears if Dormammu takes damage.
•20 sets of 5 high durability hit points.
•Due to the long recovery of this move, your opponent must be full screen or near-to if you want to cross-up via Mass Change. If you want to achieve this effect at a closer range, you must expend X-Factor to do so. The opportunity to cross-up with Mass Change is Stalking Flare’s strongest attribute, as success will likely either put Dormammu in a position to perform a full combo afterward, or provide him with enough time to charge three Dark Spells, if the opponent was caught by the fireball from underneath.
•Stalking Flare disappears when Dormammu takes damage; it must be used cautiously. On the other side of this coin, Stalking Flare can provide you with a perfect baiting hyper; use Stalking Flare when you know it is unsafe to your opponent’s hyper, and when he takes the bait, DHC into a hyper which beats his, while also getting the damage that you would have lost in losing Stalking Flare. While Stalking Flare can be useful for dealing chip damage, Chaotic Flame will cause more, and you may wish to consider whether it is worth your meter to chip your opponent rather than wait for an opportunity to deal full damage. Lone Stalking Flares may buy you a moment to gain Dark Spells, but educated opponents who cannot realistically avoid taking damage from Stalking Flare will rush toward it to block the 20 hits it deals as soon as possible to remove the threat from the screen, and Dormammu will not have time to gain the benefits of three Dark Spells in this situation. It is generally foolish to run away from Stalking Flare to buy time without a sound plan to cause damage to Dormammu, as Stalking Flare will not disappear otherwise. Summoning a Stalking Flare off of a Purification hit or 1D2C usually guarantees your safety.
•It is not recommended to use Stalking Flare to attack assist characters unless it will certainly kill them, as the 20 hits Stalking Flare deals are the same whether they are all received by one character or divided by two. Thus, using Stalking Flare in a combo that affects both the point character and an assist will result in both only receiving roughly half of the damage they would have if either were alone.
•After nearly any corner DHC into Stalking Flare, Dormammu has enough time to charge 1D1C and release it to extend the combo. How you proceed from here depends on your team setup.
•If you have 1D2C readied and are in a corner, using it as soon as you recover from a Stalking Flare that connects underneath your opponent (and is thus dragging him upward) will drag your opponent back down to the ground, from which you can cause further damage depending on your positioning, readied assists, and hitstun decay. In corners, you can combo into Stalking Flare from 3D0C, and have time to charge up three Dark Spells again.
•You may fire unlimited Stalking Flares on the screen simultaneously, but it is difficult to maintain more than two on the screen due to the move’s massive recovery. Stalking Flare will remain on the screen and act normally if you DHC out of it. If your opponent’s point character dies while Stalking Flare still has hits to expend, it will wait for your opponent’s next point character to arrive and then behave normally. Due to these properties, it is sometimes useful to place several Stalking Flares on the screen after killing a point character. The incoming character will suffer the chip damage from all Stalking Flares until they expire unless he is willing to expend X-Factor to negate the damage.
•Chipping with Stalking Flare:
Since chipping an opponent out with Stalking Flare is so popular, I decided to calculate the damage of Stalking Flare chip damage at various X-Factor levels. This will allow you to better determine if Stalking Flare is a worthwhile expenditure of your meter. All damages assume Advancing Guard is not used. Stalking Flare deals 256,300 damage, and all chip damage is 30% of normal damage. However, Stalking Flare will actually deal more chip damage than this would suggest, because it does not suffer from damage decay when blocked.
The damage, per hit, of Stalking Flare’s chip damage:
Normal: 6,000
X-Factor 1: 7,800
X-Factor 2: 9,600
X-Factor 3: 11,400
Since Stalking Flare hits 20 times before expiring, the full chip damage:
Normal: 120,000
X-Factor 1: 156,000
X-Factor 2: 192,000
X-Factor 3: 228,000
Consider whether this expenditure of meter is worthwhile; it is generally a good idea to chip out a character with little life using Stalking Flare, as the flare remains for when the next character comes on the screen. It is also a good idea when the chip damage from Stalking Flare can kill your opponent’s last character before he or she touches ground, thus removing their use of X-Factor, assuming it is still available. Otherwise, remember that while a level 3 X-Factor Stalking Flare does 228,000 chip damage, a successful Chaotic Flame deals 534,660 damage, and a successful Dark Dimension will deal 760,000; both of these alternatives are very easy to land as a punishment against an opponent. Weigh your options carefully.
• If you whiff a Purification or Dark Hole against an opponent and he is able to punish you, consider spending meter on Stalking Flare if it will make you safe. Losing a bar of meter is much better than losing a character.
[URL=‘http://youtube.com/watch?v=kg0pqQ7j47U&t=02m56s’]Dark Dimension (OTG) - :dp: :atk::atk: (3 Bars)](‘http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kg0pqQ7j47U&t=03m20s’)[
Details
Spoiler
Attack Data:
•Hits: 1
•Damage: 400,000
Frame Data:
•Startup Frames: 8+0
•Active Frames: 20
•Recovery Frames: 72
•Frame Advantage on Block: -69
Discussion:
•Frames 1-36 invincible.
•Untechable knockdown.
•5 sets of 5 high priority hit points.
•Dark Dimension leaves your opponent in a state of untechable knockdown, allowing you to use an OTG move or assist to continue your combo afterward. Your most basic option is simply to tack on an OTG Purification followed by Chaotic Flame. Dark Dimension hits OTG, and is thus appropriate for ending aerial combos with. As with all level 3 hypers, Dark Dimension is unaffected by damage scaling.
•Dark Dimension is noteworthy for its extended invincibility frames - 36 frames is more than half a second, and actually lasts longer than the hyper combo’s actual startup and active frames. However, with 72 frames of recovery, throwing Dark Dimension out during a match with your opponent able to act freely leaves you completely open for a punishment of your opponent’s choice. Besides this, Dark Dimension travels along the ground at a somewhat slow pace - it can be avoided entirely merely by your opponent jumping, and it is not unblockable.
•Since all specials in MvC3 can be canceled into hypers, if you are using Dark Dimension in a combo, be sure to get a free Dark Spell off before canceling it into Dark Dimension.
Assists:
[URL=‘http://youtube.com/watch?v=kg0pqQ7j47U&t=01m10s’]A: Dark Hole 
](‘http://youtube.com/watch?v=kg0pqQ7j47U&t=02m56s’)[
Details
Spoiler
Attack Data:
•Hits: 9
•Damage: 122,200
Frame Data:
•Startup Frames: 50
•Active Frames: 33
•Recovery Frames (This Assist): 98
•Recovery Frames (Other Assist): 68
Discussion:
•Knockdown.
•10 sets of 3 low durability hit points.
•Dark Hole’s assist version has a massive 50 frame startup; this is nearly a full second, making Dark Hole difficult to utilize in a fast-paced fight. For some characters, the slow activation rate may actually be beneficial, and proper timing of the assist with certain attacks may make them safer, with Dark Hole beginning right as the blockstun on your attack ends. To help Dark Hole connect, it is often beneficial to switch what side you are on of your opponent after you call it to mix up your opponent’s blocking. This is easiest with teleporters.
•Dark Hole will devour any low durability projectile in the game, and it also covers a large space in the middle of the screen, making it a solid assist for screen control. Dark Hole can also be used to increase the lockdown period on an opponent in blockstun. Remember, pushblock is effectively disabled while a character is blocking an attack from an assist. Use this to mount an extended assault on an opponent via high-low mix-ups. For characters such as C. Viper and Taskmaster, the blockstun of Dark Hole may provide you with enough time to execute their unblockable attacks. For almost every character in the game, Dark Hole being blocked provides a setup for very strong combo opportunities - see the individual character sections for examples.
•Unfortunately, due to Dark Hole hitting 9 times, any combos started with Dark Hole will suffer a dramatic damage decrease due to scaling. It is easiest to start combos with Dark Hole when using a highly mobile character, or one with great reach. Dark Hole can be used as a combo extender under the right circumstances, but the actual extension is also limited for this same reason. As an upside, the large number of hits can lead to reset setups via air throw, as opponents usually recover very quickly after being hit by Dark Hole at the end of a combo. Alternatively, if your character can self-OTG, you can use Dark Hole as an easy way to hold your opponent while you snap in another character while still attaining respectable damage from your character’s combo. Dark Hole can also be useful for locking down incoming characters for long periods of time.
[URL=‘http://youtube.com/watch?v=kg0pqQ7j47U&t=01m16s’]B: Purification :l: (OTG)](‘http://youtube.com/watch?v=kg0pqQ7j47U&t=01m10s’)[URL=‘http://youtube.com/watch?v=kg0pqQ7j47U&t=01m16s’]
Details
Spoiler
Attack Data:
•Hits: 4
•Damage: 120,300
Frame Data:
•Startup Frames: 56
•Active Frames: 23
•Recovery Frames (This Assist): 103
•Recovery Frames (Other Assist): 73
Discussion:
•Spinning knockdown for the first 3 hits.
•5 sets of 3 low durability hit points.
•Purification is an awkward assist, primarily due to its 56 frame startup - this is nearly a full second of in-game time. This makes Purification awkward to use for its OTG effect outside of corners, and even in corners, you must finish your aerial combo as close to the ground as possible for Purification to OTG in time. Purification also fires your opponent straight into the air, far out of reach for many characters to follow-up with a combo. While it performs reasonably well against projectiles, it cannot be used on reaction to defend against them.
•On the positive side, Purification is rather wide, and it covers the entirety of the screen’s vertical axis. Outside of specialized character combos, Purification’s primary utility is in creating a pre-emptive wall to prevent characters who are airborne from closing in on you. This makes Purification a worthwhile consideration for keepaway-focused characters who have difficulty covering themselves from the heights. Similarly, Purification can be useful as an assist for characters with few or no options against opponents who like to stall in the air. Simply call Purification while standing on the grounds below, and they will be brought before you. Again, the one second startup time is considerable here, so this application is somewhat limited in practice.
C: Liberation - see the above list of Liberation Combinations.
Details
Spoiler
**Discussion: **
• All assists have a startup of the base attack plus 24 frames. Use this to gauge how long it will take for Dormammu to assist your point character when he possesses various Dark Spell combinations.
•Using Liberation as an assist will function as the normal move at all times. All Dark Spell charges will be consumes upon calling the assist, resetting the Dark Spell charges to zero for both Creation and Destruction. Dormammu must store Dark Spells while on point to perform anything other than 0D0C Liberations.
•Both Dormammu’s best and his worst assist, depending on the situation. 0D0C is objectively awful as an assist, but many characters are able to DHC into Stalking Flare and provide Dormammu both with enough time to charge 3 Dark Spells, and raw tag another character in, all without losing damage potential or putting a character in harm’s way. No other assist in the game comes near the power of any fully charged Liberation Dormammu has at his disposal, but your teams needs to be oriented around making use of it. See the Team Building section for a list of DHCs that allow Dormammu to build 3 Dark Spells.
- Medium Attack
/:f: + :h: