I’m not gonna rank anybody yet, that seems kinda short sighted on day one.
Iron Fist can cancel his H/f.H into his rekkas which ignore pushblock and f.H also allows him to do feints with his low and overhead IIRC. Plus he can cancel recovery with chi power up. He also has jump cancellable normals which can increase his combo length.
Nova has an insane tridash once learned how to use it. Firebrand, low damage is his only weakness. Go watch Chris G on the Break. Scary ass. As well as Zucco. Strange is designed to control the spacing. You set up the moves during super jumps and buy as much time as possible. Going to be a while before he opens people up. Ghost Rider will not be terribad. His spike move and long range normals guarantee that he will have several good matchups plus the kara level three is a bitch.
And Raccoon people will have to learn.
Frank and Hawkeye have the new She Hulk slides. Playing against Remix on pjays and you can barely touch Frank’s slide and it anti airs into combos just like She Hulk. Frank roll + assist is going to set up some really fast mix ups. Even faster than Cap’s carthweel.
Firebrand also has much better abare than Morrigan that puts him into better positions than her.
Strider is actually pretty tricky, and he will definitely need a lot of time to develop.
The list of characters people should not tier for a while: Strider, Rocket, Strange, Wright.
Those four will take the most time for them to iron out. Due to there unique playstyles and high execution for Strider.
Like Viper.
I do see the Firebrand comparison to Vanilla Morrigan, but it’s mostly just in the low/expensive damage output.
His mobility is much better. His normals are much stronger, and his mix-up is among the best in the game IMO. Advancing guard does nothing against all of his command dives and flights. His dive grapple hit thing is +10 on block and puts you right in their face. His jab is +6 on block with a good hitbox, so it’s easy to bully your way in one way or another.
Just gotta figure out how to do some damage with the little guy. The best combo I’ve found so far only hits 600k for 1 bar, and that involves 4 relaunches.
I actually like playing him with Morrigan because it’s so hard to catch him if he’s just running away calling her assist.
Hawkeye has some pretty awesome normals, and his arrows are ridiculous. Firebrand is defintly the next MODOK, he is so hard to control but he looks really good. RR is weird because his combos arnt hard, they just have to be done extremly fast, that guys moves have NO hitstun on them. His crouching light is crazy though. Frank is weird, since he can stop almost anything with just a “SMILE” and when he is level 4 he is pretty hard to stop. But hes not as bad at Lv 1 as i thought. Nemesis is really awesome, kara cancel crouching hard or standing hard into grab is so satisfying, and hes just a ridiculous beast. Havent really tried anyone else, but that chris gun cancel rocks. Doom is still doom.
Doesn’t Firebrand and Strider have similar damage output?
Why does everyone think Strider is so much better? Is it the teleports?
They’re very similar characters IMO. Strider’s assist is definitely a cut above and makes him anchor-worthy material though, where Firebrand doesn’t really have an assist along those lines.
Which stinks, because he gets ridiculous with XF3 and a “homie”
i think hawkeye is going to be an awesome anchor especially in x factor level 3 the chip arrows and his track arrow make it so the opponent just has to sit there and not do a thing till your x factor is finished. that tracking arrow is just too good.
He’s more like vanilla Chun Li IMHO… it takes a lot of effort to get him to work but the payoff seems rather weak. He has speed but no range in his normals, his zoning isn’t that good, his traps aren’t hard to avoid, all those combos you see involving multiple spring trap seems bloody impractical when you consider how weak he is at building meter, he has no damage… at the moment it seems that if not for the log trap assist no one would have given a damn about him. He has his strengths but I am not sure if he’s worth it, he has fast overheads but it’s not like he’s the only one with them.
Firebrand seems to be a bit better than MODOK with wings, he’s not easy to use but the potential is obvious. I really hope that people stop using his lvl 3 stupidly, meters are just too valuable for him and they could do a lot more with 3 luminious bodies than with 1 lvl 3 without a plan behind it.
Morrigan’s meter eating fireball may very well be insane depending on how dmg/meter works out for cast/teams. I realize she’s got all the issues from before, but since meter isn’t a non factor anymore i could easily see her being major important, especially on phoneix teams which don’t just get free meter for dying.
Edit: someone talked about the phoneix wright gamble. I think it’s going to depend on how often it happens. If he’s got dark phoneix like game in turnabout that can wipe a team it’s worth it, even if it means you’re playing 2.5 characters with a bad grab. God knows people have figured out good 2 man teams.
Also cap. Need moar cap. What are we thinking? I’m seeing it from low mid to high. His damage is nice but at the end of the day getting in for him is ugly. That said his mixup got better too so IF he can hit you life will suck.
Oh and while haggar’s fists suck becuase you can fall out of them, for that sort of lvl1 dmg i expect to see setups for it. That’s just insane.
You could probably do 500K and set yourself up for a ridiculous mixup situation instead of ending in a hyper and adding that measly chunk of damage at end
Or just end in luminous body/lvl 3. I think the real question will be how good his Lvl3 is. For 3 bars having a kitty helper better be damn impressive, and if it is maybe that’ll be where he pulls weight. 4 bars and x factor i can see this guy wiping teams since dmg is no longer an issue and you’ve got two super fast angry birdmen trying to tear your arms off.
LOVE morrigan’s meter stealing fireball. I don’t know why more people aren’t talking about it. Meter building becoming important now makes this very threatening imo. It’s slow, so you can have multiple on the screen, or mix them up with regular soul fists.
I just like the effect it has on people, makes them think about their approach.
So, are hypers counting against the air action limit a universal thing now, or just a character specific nerf? I’m really put out over FS/DI counting against the limit now. Morrigan’s damage is significantly improved thanks to the damage and initial hit stun increase to Soul Fist, and mashable hypers, but she lost so many of her vanilla air combos, especially in the corner.
gimlet is pretty much the only reason i even play hawkeye. this move BODIES characters like phoenix for example. i’ve even punished a guy for whiffing jab.
WARNING! PLEASE NOTE THAT I DO NOT HAVE A COPY OF THE GAME BUT AM MERELY SPECULATING FROM WHAT I HAVE SEEN!
Has anyone tried using backwards wavedash with Nemesis? That is probably the single funniest looking thing I have seen in this game so far he moves so goddamn fast for his size!!!
His foward wavedash is actually pretty decent and it’s likely that when your opponent see’s it, they will shit bricks.
In the air he’s looking pretty slow but it looks like he can use his long ass air tentacle normal to keep his opponent at optimal spacing from him or if it isn’t blocked and Nemesis lands a hit confirm, the hitstun from the tentacle will allow him to continue a combo from a long range, thanks to Nemesis’ great distance normals and specials.
Shuma can net solid 500k bnbs at midscreen now and can essentially combo off of any hit with J.S.
He’s still assist dependent a bit for mobility but his damage is clearly upped from vanilla.
In other words he’s a pretty solid character now.
Pros:
Can pull off 500 - 900k bnbs midscreen with little help from assists (combo wise)
J.S - causes a reliable hard knockdown that allows him to hyper combo afterwards.
Remains mostly unchanged from vanilla.
Meter-efficient. Builds it quickly but uses it sparingly.
Both level 1 Hypers cause an OTG, can easily and safely switch out after doing a 500k bnb to other teammates.
Cons:
A lack of teleport/high priority mobility move hinders his assault somewhat.
Timing for his combos are still somewhat strict.
Somewhat depends on Assists for approach
Overall opinion:
Shuma Gorath has been buffed significantly in Ultimate, his damage is high and he can KO half the cast in two relatively simple (non chaos dimension) combos with only a small amount of meter required. (But Shuma’s combos build tons of meter though)
He still has trouble on the approach without a solid assist, but if he has one, he becomes extremely effective. His speed increased a little since vanilla which is cool. He’s still a hard to learn character but he now has a payoff for learning all of his tricks.
Grade: C+/B-