We don’t really know. Nobody has tried it in UMvC3.
There’s speculation that the clone attacks faster than in vanilla, and that may remove the lightning loop (or it may just make the timing tighter, since he already can pause a little to let characters fall during it).
Btw I got 1million damage no X-factor off of a ground throw in the corner against Ammy today. That shit was so cool (Zero can self OTG small characters without X-factor or assists).
and you think you have not so great execution… if i could do those combos with zero i would mack to myself in the mirror and start beating off while staring at my hands and ask myself what im doing later…
There’s a big difference between training mode execution and match execution 
Also my hands aren’t asian or female so they don’t do much for me in that respect.
I actually understand where you are coming from now much better, but I still don’t agree(not vehemently mind you) for a pretty simple reason. Fighter archetypes are a standard now and I think part of what makes characters like Magneto, Phoenix and Wolverine such lightning rods are their tools in particular. Magnus has some of the best rushdown in the game and has fantastic mixup potential with the right assist. He has damage out the Wazoo, he had the fastest normal beam in the game with the fastest recovery and he could even get full combos off a grab after tossing you half a stage away which is the stuff that most grapplers dream of. The character basically overstepped his bounds for his character archetype as a rushdown/mixup character(what he should be). I think the same thing applies to Phoenix at an even more extreme level and Wolverine the least out of the three(no projectiles on this one, but the mixup potential and the safety of his moves was insane).
When a character passes beyond the realm of mixup/rushdown, power/keepaway, rushdown/grappler, and begins to hoard the best tools in three or more of these categories we can arrrive at disaster of an S tier that under the right conditions becomes nigh insurmountable for the average gamer.
Buffing Haggar so that he becomes GREAT at rushdown/grappling/power without caution just leads to dumb shit down the road if you arent careful. If you look at Capcom’s current approach it doesn’t seem like anyone in the game so far could perform so well on all these categories as most of the previous top tier. Buffing some of these guys carelessly completely throws the concept of these archetypes out for no good reason too. The reason why Haggar is bad is not because he is a grappler, but because of the annoying Japanese game design philosophy(among some Japanese devs, not all) which apparently favors the concept of weak characters and strong characters in a fighting game. Blame Japanese fighting game design, not solid fighting styles which can coexist just fine on their own.
The one thing I’d say for sure is that Haggar needs a good way to break past long distance zoning in conjunction with buffs(maybe super armor on some lunging moves and some sort of high durability projectile that covers his slow entry) that make him better at staying in the midrange where he makes people sweat.
Edit: The important thing is that we both at least recognize how bad the situation is for the low tier. That much is nice to know.
I wouldn’t say they need “staggering buffs” to become viable. I’d say they need great buffs and attention on par with what Ryu and Magneto are receiving.
I’m sure as hell that all of us low tier character users would have an orgasm if Seth said they’d be focusing on our shitty characters like they did with Ryu and Dr.Strange now that they are almost done balancing the higher tiers.
Haggar sucks because he’s designed to be Captain Commando. Strong assist dude, shitty on point. Same with Hsien Ko except the problem is she has to power up her assist so that it’s still not as good as Haggar’s. Capcom knew they couldn’t make Haggar good on point because his assist is fucking rape ur shit good. If he was also good on point he would be broken because he gives you luxuries that pretty much no other assist gives you. We’ll see if they feel the need to improve his point game with the assist nerfs but I doubt that. He’ll most likely have to rely on just super creative play from the opponent to take out one last character like usual.
I’ll never accept the idea of “assist characters”. I think it’s just another excuse to slap something on a character without giving them any more thought.
Lazy design and unreasonable deadlines are what comes to mind when I think of assist characters.
I highly doubt Haggar’s assist has anything to do with him being subpar. For instance: all of Dante’s assist are relatively good and yet he’s still balls-to-the-wall cheap. So… I don’t know about you, but I get the feeling Capcom put in as much effort as they wanted to without even caring for balance thanks to the idea of ‘assist’ backing them. It’s like they could make the shittiest on point character and whenever someone argues it sucks, another player (Or Capcom, but they don’t need to with tier-whores walking around doing it for them) comes along and says use ‘x’ assist you baddie. Alright fine, you go ahead and use ‘x’ assist, and ya know what? Your shit is still predictable.
Little known fact: Ryu isn’t actually that bad. I am definitely amused at all the stuff he’s gotten compared to the relative lack of buffs to characters that are much worse than him.
Except now he’s not even a good assist.
Doesn’t he still have startup invincibility or some type of invincibility on the lariat? If so it’ll still be pretty good. Just less retarded with being able to kill people off of it.
Compared to the other completely shittier assists that run the game, I’d say Haggar assist is still doing pretty good. From the way it sounds Tron fire is going to be worse off than lariat any way. Haggar is still going to cover both sides of you with a bunch of invincibility. The only difference is that you can actually stuff the damn start up of it and no more hard knock down. Which those were both unnecessary luxuries IMO any way. Commando assist didn’t even do that.
I really dont see what their issue was with taking away AA assists any way. They could have just made them all like Haggar lariat where you lose health or something and just not allow you to combo off them or something. I dunno. I guess they just want the ability to protect yourself from damage be character specific and not really reliant on assists outside of a few.
He’s supposedly vulnerable during start up now but the exact amount of frames is not known ATM. Either way once those frames end he still won’t be able to be touched until the invincibility runs out. Considering the move originally had a whole second of invincibility to anything I say it’s still one of the better assists even with the nerfs.
His invincibility is still there. The hard knockdown is gone. The lariat kinda pops the opponent into the air now, meaning that starting and continuing combos with it will be done in a different manner than before, and the opponent now has the chance to air recover from it. The same thing was done to Akuma’s tatsu assist, I believe.
That’s the way both of those assists should have been from the beginning really. Akuma’s tatsu has the fastest start up of just about any assist in the game, goes through standard projectiles and gives you a year to hit confirm via a soft knockdown after 3 obvious kicks? Too easy.
Not to mention his air H (I think it is H) has a Ghost Rider like quality in distance and damage. As a matter of fact, a lot of Nemesis’s normals are pretty long range. Essentially a slower but stronger Ghost Rider. Not saying that its gonna solve all his weaknesses but its out there. With the right assists I feel he could be much like Sentinel but stronger (in damage).
That’s because according to Capcom: Underused = not strong enough (and also hes our posterchild so he must be godlike). Ryu was far from shit, he was low mid-mid tier IMO. Which is kinda where he should be…considering ya know…hes Ryu.Too bad they seemed to ignore the rest of the underused cast…my poor poor Thor.
OMG thank you. Been trying to explain that forever. The majority of his combos that rely on Buster follow it up with :l:.Raikousen anyway. From everything I’ve read, the float after a lvl3 Buster still hits - that’s always been the most important aspect, not the hard knockdown.
The early report is that it may be gone. Check the UMvC3 thread in the Zero forums.
The invincibility on lariat assist doesn’t kick in until he starts spinning in Ultimate. So he doesn’t really work as a GTFO assist while you’re being pressured.
I dunno if its just me but I feel if you’re using a GTFO assist you shouldn’t be able to combo off of it. Might just be my narrow-minded thinking or my silo filled with salt from constant Haggar/Tron blow ups but Its rather stupid you can combo off of it. Glad people will have to actually use it with SKILL rather than just tossing it out cuz they can. Its gonna be interesting to see how the pros handle this too now that invincibility is gone for both of those derp assists.
i really hope haggar gets a way to deal with fireballs…becuase thats the only thing holding him back now that he has an otg
He absorbs them with his face and loses this health(?) thing in doing so.
Chris got fast enough to punish teleports now, and didn’t Dante’s get just a few frames longer anyways? Either way an entire mechanic shouldn’t be dragged down for one character’s sake. Instead, as Capcom seems to have actually done, the character should be adjusted to deal with it. I mean, I don’t know if it’s just me, but Chris Guns look like a fucking 
or :h: DISRUPTAH now. At least what I’ve seen of magnum/smg. He can win projectile battles now. He can zone effectively now even.
The only thing I think Chris could possibly use now is some kind of 45 degree LOLNOPE weapon for anti-air purposes.
Although to comment on S-tier being as broken as ever… to be honest, yah, not too many drastic changes that weren’t compensated for.
Dante combos still work, the timing was just restricted, and the loops were taken. The teleport is even more obvious now, but an assist still makes it a solid mixup (dunno if you have to have a long(er) assist now to compensate but w/e). Wesker just lost health, he is still Wesker even at Dante’s health level. And Mags got a crazy new toy to make up for his disruptah cheese being toned down.
S-Tier is here to stay. Hail to the kings? lol.
The bright side though is that its looking like a lot of the new characters, and a handful of the old, are being introduced into said tier.
Firebrand looks bland, but incredible on all fronts. Projectiles covering all angles (one that works like Bottle Toss from Arthur), great combo potential, self-created unblockables, and zoning someone by mashing a standing attack (whichever one causes his little helper Arremer to divebomb back and forth) and then combo off of that.
Strange is like a dream. Dante-esk teleport mixups (and Strange’s teleport is fucking fast), crumples all day, a tricky projectile game that can cover the screen and even set up traps using Grace of Hoggoth > Flames of the Faltine off-screen or from above. Not to mention Illusion and the ungodly shenanigans it brings to the table. He’ll be hell to zone, and can instantly turn the tables should the opponent fuck up their rushdown, or just seal the deal should STRANGE open the rushdown. All in all I’m rooting for Strange to S Tier with what I’m seeing.
Vergil is just some weird mesh of Dante/Wesker, the only forseeable problem being the INSANE METER AMOUNTS HE USES. Other than that he has every option available to him in his moveset like his bro, and it looks like he has his very own BESERKER SLASH. So he’s looking pretty intense already. Wonder what we’ll see when players take the reigns.
Strider is fucking Strider. He has a history already, I don’t need to waste time saying how many options he has or how good they all are. What I WILL say is that the few things he had the were useless before, most notably the wall cling, have purpose now, which is surprising. +S-Tier?
Well, yeah. S-Tier remained, but it has a bunch of new members, more than I listed here I’m willing to bet. As long as everyone else in a lot closer grouped to this new S-Tier then that isn’t a problem to me at all.