I ran Zero/Doom/Strider for awhile, then sold out for Zero/Wesker/Strider, and then tried to redeem myself with Zero/Dante/Strider before selling out again by switching to Zero/Dante/Vergil. Zero/Dante/Strider-Vergil is definitely the best combination and both teams are brilliant in their own playstyles. I don’t think that one’s necessarily better than the other, but I liken the ways you play the team to Cascade vs Flexible playstyles:
ZDS is good because you get an outstanding neutral game for Zero with Jam Session and Vajra, meaning that he can cover virtually any part of the screen, with some parts of the screen being covered in multiple mixup-y ways. On paper, you then get the perfect cascading team: Zero dies, you get the Dante/Strider shell, and when Dante dies, you get the Strider anchor BS. The weakness in this cascade style is within the meter management, however. In the situation where your Zero takes a ton of damage, you either A) Leave him in to conserve meter or B) Tag him out using DHCs. Raw Tag and TACs are other options but they’re highly situational so I don’t put too much weight on them. Anyway, you then get DT|Dante/S|Zero/Strider, which is still strong in its own right, but if you lose Dante and Zero, you’re probably at 2 bars, even less if Dante gets killed while in DT and Zero dies to right away to an opening mixup while Sougenmu’d. So Strider comes in at a 2 bars, and in the worst case scenario you’re up against 3 characters. With Strider you have to make two different decisions, when to burn your X-Factor and when to burn your bars. If you don’t burn your X-Factor, you have to burn bars, so more often than not the plan I go with is X-Factor guard cancel one character and kill, then Ouroboros the next character. By then XF has run out and you are playing solo Strider, no X-Factor and no bar against your opponents XF3 anchor. Which means lots of chip and helplessness. Ordinarily this wouldn’t be a huge deal because if you had started with 5 bars, you could have enough to do 2 Orbs in a match. But with Dante and Zero, you burn bars too quickly in the neutral game and effectively gimp Strider as your comeback anchor. Looking more closely, standard Zero corner-to-corner BnBS likely cap out at 500k meterless, especially when you have to use Jam Session early in the combo to pick up midscreen. The solo corner-to-corner BnBs are nice but are dependent on having a buster charged, and if you’re playing a zoning game with Vajra you’re not always gonna have it. So assuming the damage gimp from an early Jam Session to corner carry, in order to kill in one combo you need to burn about 2 bars on a double LL. And this is discounting if you land a hit off a stray buster, in which a corner to corner carry is impossible. Then when Zero dies, you have Dante/Strider, which again is great on paper, but if you burn too much meter on DT or on a Level 3 to avenge Zero, you gimp Strider. I think Dante/x/Strider is a brilliant combo for that reason, because then you can drop a battery in the middle slot like Wesker and that will be enough to sustain Strider. In no way am I saying that this team is bad as it is probably one of the best in the game, but I find that the overall “plan” of the team is too strict in meter management to be able to adapt to certain matchups that require a strong zoning game, which is ironically this team’s strength.
While I stressed the strengths and weaknesses of ZDS’s cascade style, I want to stress the strengths and weaknesses of the flexible playstyle of ZDV. First off, ZDV’s neutral game is nowhere near as strong as ZDS’s. You lose the ability to cover all blindspots for Zero with Vajra, and Dante/Vergil, while a strong combo, isn’t nearly as busted or stupid as Dante/Strider. The positives of this are that you instantly turn Zero into a 1 hit KO from any position on screen, due to the relatively low damage scaling on Rapid Slash as well as the ability to corner carry easily. Also, if Zero dies and you’re at Dante/Vergil, one hit from Dante means a 1 mil combo for about 2.5 bars with sword loop DHCs. And, you get Vergil anchor, who I humbly believe is the best anchor in the game. As far as flexibility goes, you get the ability to Devil Trigger between the twins freely, because there are plenty of people who argue that Dante is a strong anchor as well and Vergil with Jam Session isn’t too bad at all. So depending on matchups and situations, you can change your order at will, and even adjust your anchor. And, unlike Strider, if you burn too much meter with Dante and Zero, Vergil is NOT gimped at all. All it takes is one meterless XF3 combo and in the worst case scenario, you’ve got 2 bars and half of XF3 to kill 2 more characters. Say you kill the next character with the remainder of your XF3, burning a bar but building one as well. You then have 2 bars, no XF against your opponent’s XF3 anchor. Unlike Strider (who would have no bars in this situation), you’re at an advantage because you have the ability to kill with your two bars without XF, or if they pop theirs right away you have the ability to instantly reset the situation to a neutral game with Swords and eat their XF time. So Vergil’s a good anchor not just in his offense, but in fighting your opponent’s anchor too. And with all of this, Vergil can still make use of all 5 bars right away, unlike Wesker or something. So you can still play the team the same way meter-wise as you do with ZDS, but you’re free to decide if you want to or not depending on how the match is going.
This turned out to be a lot longer than I thought, haha. In short,
ZDS Pros: Strong Neutral game, okay mixups and okay comboability from Vajra assist, strong team comp at every point during the match. Cons: Strict meter management, less flexibility when switching orders to adapt to certain matchups
ZDV Pros: Okay neutral game, okay mixups and strong comboability from Rapid Slash, best anchor in the game while still not gimping Z/D with meter management but still benefits from large amounts of meter, can DHC freely to take advantage of DT assists, to regen health, or for better matchups. Cons: Dante’s effectiveness is less without Strider assist, Zero has a harder time (5/5, lol) with zoning characters, anchor Vergil is not the “Free 1 kill” that Strider XF3 Orbs is, though he’s still pretty derpy.