As the title suggests, I wanted to make a thread devoted to keep-away. This would be a good place to talk about keep-away tactics, keep-away characters, keep-away counters, keep-away counter-counters, and post videos of really good keep-away as examples.
Keep away is very neglected in this game. That is understandable, since most of the cast is designed to rush down and invincible AA assists are no longer present (lariat nonwithstanding). But there are some characters (Arthur, Hawkeye, Chris most notably) designed to play at long range. In a game devoted to rushdown, keeping away can maul some characters/teams pretty hard. X-Factor is a double-edged Spiral Sword here, because it can increase your damage and allow you to cancel bad projectile calls, but it also allows people to negate your chip. But the system is still more accepting of keep-away here than in previous MvC games.
To start off, what do you think are the best keep-away shells? There are keep-away characters, but MorriDoom proves that assists are vital to keep-away, and zoners should not be observed in a vaccum.
Missiles/Drones is another zoning shell that’s up there.
I think MODOK(blaster)/Strange(eye)/Doom(missiles) is one of the best zoning teams. You get the momentum right away at the beginning of the round since you can fly away and call assists to safely descend and setup the zoning. j.L also stops throw attempts at the beginning of the round and you can fly cancel it to block right away if they do something like Magnetic Shockwave. From there, you get to zone like crazy with assists, cubes, blasters, slime, barriers, and bombs. When they get close, they are pretty much guaranteed to be at a disadvantage, which is when you get to use Dok’s pressure to open them up. Any touch from Dok allows you to build 2 bars with both assists, which you can spend for around 1,100k at the end of your BnB (which corner carries). You can also opt to jam them or go for an unblockable reset. Dok has some ridiculous incoming mixups/unblockable setups. If you are facing a zoning team, blaster is one of the fastest beams and barrier stops everything. Even Hawkeye will have some trouble with it. You even have the ability to ToD anyone anywhere on the screen from L blaster if you have 2 bars and XF (it’s even nicer when they call in their assists). When Strange is in, missiles help him with setting up his traps and whatnot while MODOK’s blaster gives him easy teleport mixups which ends up giving you 2 bars if you get the hit in.
Let’s not forget Dormammu. Even without Missiles, he still zones like a boss with 2C1D/2D1C Liberations, Purifications, Dark Matter and the oh-so-deadly-and-annoying Stalking Flare. Missiles give him more liberty in doing what he wants: charging hands, more chip damage and/or more meter. His teleport also gives him the option of running away from his opponents.
With trish, when done in the right variation your able to call doom missiles twice while in the air keeping your opponent locked down while laying traps and throwing voltages.
This team has some great synergy no matter who is on point
Missiles is good, but I think a lot of people are sleeping on Lariat. Can you imagine how much more annoying MorriDoom would be if she could call Lariat when people get close? It makes characters with poor close range options (Ghost Rider, Hawkeye) much better because you have a reset button if they do get through your obstacle course. It becomes even more effective if you can convert a full combo off of it. The only downside is that you have to put Haggar either second or last, neither of which are good positions for him. However, if you can accept looking at Haggar like MvC2 Captain Commando, you will have a very solid assist behind you.
Somewhere between Spencer and Dante. She’s what I call a pseudo zoner in the sense that she can delay the inevitable but throwing her crappy projectiles but she can only win by directly attacking her opponent, sort of like Trish. Lightning Sphere is pretty much Storm’s only good projectile in my opinion except for Hail Storm obviously.
When considering Storm you have to remember she has her float move which allows her to vary her descent and prevent her landing from being as obvious as it should be, allowing her to land (relatively) safely and then get back to the very top of the screen and stay there.
That shield is underrated quite a bit. It still comes up if he’s interrupted, and given Psionic Blaster L is practically a high-hitting EM Disruptor, it makes him pretty damn awesome against a lot of characters.
You can surprise so many people by using the shield, they hit you with LMH and the shield absorbs the S, and then grabbing them (Character specific, though.)
I rather like Magneto/Doom. You can use disruptor H for chip during missiles, and then alternate between standing Disruptor L and air versions for keeping people back and preventing jumpins. Should someone start getting close, you can either wait for the next missile assist to hit and try to go in, or use Shockwave to push them back (and DHC into Doom safely if they AG it.)
Depending on how easily your opponent gets in, and how well you read their attempts, you can build half-decent amounts of meter and do good chip damage as well. Can be risky versus certain characters, though (namely Vergil, Zero, and various DHC setups.)
Anyone who has played me knows my unorthodox team plays some of the best keepaway which is very hard to do given the size of Nem and Sent who can get hit with almost anything if 1 is not careful.
Does anyone think that teams like mine (Ammy/Arthur/Haggar) and TheTR3NDSETTA’s (Nem/Sent/Dante) play off of matchup unfimiliarity just a wee bit?
Also, Nemesis’s keep-away is VERY underexplored. If he scores a hard knockdown on an assist, he can kill them from fullscreen with air rockets. I found that out the hard way. He has better keep-away than Ghost Rider because he can mix in projectiles, armor, and command grabs into his game. Plus, any hit = reset hell.
EDIT: Another question, for those willing to awnser. What is best, Zoner/Assist/Anchor, Zoner/Assistx2, Zoner/Convinent Shell, Point/Zoner/Anchor, Point/Zoner/Assist, or Shell1/Zoner/Shell2? Sorry about all the options, just wanted to offer every idea I could think of.
I’ve always thought Hawkeye, and certainly to a lesser extent Strange, are phenomenal as the total package in terms of Anchor + Assist + Keep away.
So much so, I will go out of my way 90% of the time to snap in either of them (if I can) to prevent the dreaded XF3 on either. I mean…the ability to annihilate any mistake or an assist and then XF on top is just icing on the cake…and Hawkeye with faster recovery is really damn scary.
I think the general consensus is that Missiles is that assist of choice for keep away generally. It’s just wonderful. And, in my experience, Unibeam can actually be a pretty solid assist for keep away–granted you have that whole disadvantage of, uh, well, Iron Man.
(Character specific, though.)