I’m sure Sent, Hulk, Dante, Vergil and Nemesis players disagree too, but fuck’em.
Just for fun, this still needs work though. Balance changes, Capcom style
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Zero
-Can only buster cancel Hadangeki
-add more start up to lightning
Vergil
-Nerf the priority on swords
-Remove speed boost on Rapid Slash when in devil trigger
Viper
-Remove some invincibility on a lot of her EX moves
Dorm
-The liberation moves will not come out if he is hit upon activation unless it is use as an assist
-Flame carpet is no longer a low but lasts a bit longer
Magneto
-decreased meter gain on hyper grav
Morrigan
-half meter gain when Astral Vision is active
Doom
-Less hidden missiles on assist
-Decrease overall meter gain
Dark Phoenix
-Remove projectiles on LP
Strider
-Increase overall damage
-less time on orbs but can build meter when orbs are active
Wolverine
-Decrease damage on fatal claw
-Less hitstun on dive kick
Spencer
-minimal damage scaling on hooks 80k>20k now
System changes:
custom assists
custom thcs
meter limit raised to 6
Char changes:
X-23 can cancel slices into mirage feint. Red health regenerates twice as fast when not on point.
Morrigan: meter gain during astral vision is 1/3 of normal. Air soul drain fireball OTG. When hit all projectiles disappear, does not affect projectiles created by astral vision.
Storm: all specials increased speed by 25%.
Chun-Li: OTG kikosho, level 3 in air capable.
Shehulk: Emerald cannon does forced wall bounce, Slide range increase, air dash.
Leilei: Movement Speed buff of 15%. OTG cr.H. Health increase to 1 million.
Tron: Less pushback on j.H, bonne strike nullifies projectiles.
Trish: OTG hopscotch, OTG air fireball all versions.
Jill: OTG Slide.
I see someone wants to power up all chicks hah, you must love skull girls
What can I say I love the ladies. If most of them didn’t have such ass assists I would go with a all girl team.
Yo UMVC3 on PC , make it happen please. Damn think of the mods people.
I like to revisit this post from time to time. Now that it’s been a year, I find that I’ve been able to accept and overcome a lot of the “broken” stuff and still enjoy the game. I guess that’s what they mean when they say adapt instead of nerf. I know there will never be a patch, but it’s fun to imagine.
Having said that, I still feel like there’s room for improvement for many characters, but I’m only going to mention the one I’m most familiar with: Hsien-Ko, and boy does the girl need some help. Most of the time when people talk about what she needs improved they’ll go immediately to her mobility - which is for all intents and purposes terrible unless you get really good at plink dashing - I’m only going to talk about her specials, which could all use some work, and at least one (in my opinion) obsolete super. I don’t think any of this would make her overpowered and might bring her up to where she could make a stand as a point character
Anki-Hou: Remove bombs from the list of possible projectiles tossed by Anki-Hou, moving them to a new series of special commands to call them - :qcf::s: for a horizontal toss, :dp::s: for an upward overhead toss, :qcb::s: for an arching forward toss. Bombs will still have a randomly determined 3/6/9 timer before detonating, unless they come in contact with something during the toss or touch another bomb while being bounced around, on which they explode on impact. Icing on the cake: If she lands a star or flower pot and dizzies her opponent, her next forward dash will bring her directly next to them, no matter where she is on the screen until the dizzy wears off.
Henkyo-Ki: Increase the hitsphere size of the initial startup animation. Double the active frames of the light and medium version’s projectile.
Senpu-Bu: Alter the move so that it may be cancelled at any point by pressing :d::d::s: while allowing Hsien-Ko to retain the momentum she gained from the swing.
Houten-Geki: Lower the startup for all versions from 9/5/2 to 5/3/1. Increase the hitsphere range for the medium and heavy versions (they are absurdly short for how large Hsien-Ko’s hands are; the heavy version’s range is so small you practically have to stand on top of her for it to not whiff.)
Chireitou: Decrease the startup from it’s current point; a whopping 30+5 to 13+5, add invincibility for the first 20 frames. Since Tenrai-Ha(ball drop super) not only OTGs, has a faster startup, hits overhead, is mashable for extra damage and can be linked into itself, Chireitou is virtually useless in it’s current form. Making these proposed changes would make it a defensive “get off me” super, which she needs.
A guy can dream, right? 
Took me some time but I wrote up a wishlist these past few days of changes for the entire cast. I’m not well versed in every character, but thats where everyone elses opinions will come in handy. I’m not a fan of huge nerfs, and I honestly don’t think there is that many necessary changes that need to be made to characters in this game, as I feel (almost) anybody can win when backed with assists. Also, there are many characters (Jill, Strange, Modok, Joe, Spiderman etc) that still have not been fully explored/given their time in the spotlight, so I’m trying not to make sweeping, massive buffs and/or nerfs when I write this. Feel free to add in your opinion
Capcom
Akuma - Health back to 800. Good where hes at.
Ammy - No changes
Arthur - Where to start? Health to 900, no hard knockdown on armor break (soft knockdown), increased damage taken in boxers state is 10% more, not 30%, faster recovery on heavenly slash M, also causes more hitstun (his only “real get off me” move should be great), fire bottle toss works in corner in gold armor (wtf?), possibly some kind of dash/better mobility option?
C. Viper - no changes
Chris - can place mine in prone stance while staying in prone, shotgun does slight stagger on every hit (I think it staggers on counter-hit now…not sure how it works though I know I’ve gotten it to stagger opponents). Idea for possible new move: grenade launcher: shoots at a vertical, 45 degree angle in front of chris then explodes, L version is closer to chris and the ground, M is midscreen and slightly higher, H is almost fullscreen and higher. Helps him cover an area that he cant unless superjumping
Chun Li - I know nothing about chun…any opinions?
Dante - Personally think he’s fine where he’s at…other top tiers can get higher damage easier, and Dante has to work for it a bit more now, but he’s still great…if anything slight damage buff to certain moves.
Felicia - I feel she’s underrespresented and explored, but I’m sure others can come up with a possible change or two that would buff her.
Firebrand - Level 3 helper does more damage, Firebrand himself gets damage buff while in Level 3. Possibly allow him to do slightly more damage by changing the values of his damage scaling (might not be needed).
Frank - no changes
Haggar - dash moves him farther and is faster
Hsien Ko - What Ranadiel said above
Jill - IMO a very, very good character. It’s a shame she isn’t more popular…she’s a rushdown monster. Not too experienced with her though, so someone else can add to this if she needs any changes.
Morrigan - Half of normal meter gain while in astral vision (or 1/3).
Nemesis - Launcher slam assist is armored like normal version, cross-cover combo for that assist changed to biohazard rush (this would be awesome, but I’m not sure if it would be broken or not). C.H armor activates faster, hitboxes on all command grab versions increased slightly, biohazard rush starts up much, much faster (near instant?), fatal mutation is actually usable (instant startup).
Phoenix Wright - Someone else can handle this one. I dont like the idea of invincible assists, maybe armored while in turnabout.
Ryu - Change command for denjin mode to backwards DP, Denjin mode has slightly increased meter build, gives greater durability to hadoukens, shin hadouken hyper otgs like original hyper, shin tatsu hyper causes longer hard knockdown than it currently does. Possible: Hadoukens have slightly increased durability in general without denjin, all shoryukens special cancelable by L air tatsu.
Spencer - possibly make dat 80k scale.
Strider - Legion has much better durability, starts up slightly faster. Allow for longer combos and more point viability by changing damage scaling a bit.
Trish - Hopscotch otgs, round trip starts up faster, possibly make all versions of low voltage otg (these all might open up combo potential and increase her damage).
Tron - old J.H back, first hit of bonne strike can cancel projectiles, when servbots run back after servbot launcher, they still have an active hitbox and cause one hit while on the ground, but if tron is hit, servbot hitbox is canceled (causing a kind of cap. america shield slash double hit kinda thing)
Vergil - decrease durability of spiral swords, helm breaker recovers a bit slower
Viewtiful Joe - Red hot kick M otgs, Desperado starts up slightly faster.
Wesker - Glasses buff removed, old counter hyper given back.
Zero - Lightning scales, health decrease to 800.
Marvel
Cap. America - standing overhead, only canceled with launcher/hypers (forward H motion)
Deadpool - change his level 3 to a level 1 while decreasing damaging appropriately (or make it a level 2), give him a new damage dealing level 3. Not sure if cuttin time has invincibility…if it does, increase its frame length.
Dr. Doom - Decrease hard knockdown time on footdive. Hidden missiles assist either has less accurate tracking, or less missiles launched but the time the assist stays on the field is the same.
Dr. Strange - Slightly faster recovery after SoV. C.L hits low. Mystic sword L hitbox hits lower to the ground, isn’t so “random” in where it hits. Mystic sword H animation increased in size as well as hitbox.
Dormammu - no changes
Ghost Rider - not familiar with him at all. Someone else can add to this one
Hawkeye - no changes
Hulk - Slightly faster startup on L and M command grabs. Increase time it takes to fully charge forward M, while adding a point or two of armor the longer it is charged. Makes cancelling to command grabs better.
Iron Fist - Not too familiar with him, but make it easier to combo off of all grabs (more hard knockdown time, he falls to the ground faster after airthrows). Let him stack two different Chi, but not all three (this might be too good, idk). Can use Rising fang at any time, St. M nullifies projectiles. If they wanted him to dominate the ground, then these will most likely let him.
Iron Man - Possibly a derp air knee dive move causing hard knockdown. Air dashes are faster. Launcher isn’t terrible. Both proton cannons start up faster, less recovery time. Possibly throw in war destroyer hyper, or a more Iron man-esque variant but with the same general idea.
Magneto - no changes, except MAYBE slightly more recovery time on disruptor (can still zone out many of the “zoners” in the game when both are backed with assists).
MODOK - I dont play much modok, but I do know there needs to be more incentive to get cubes. HSB base damage upped to 200; increases from there with cubes. killer illumination starts up faster. Hyper battering ram also affected by cubes, but only up to 3 cubes; damage increases with each one. 3-6 cubes (I dont know which would be more appropriate) gives access to a version of the big barrier that CAN block all projectile hypers.
Nova - no changes
Phoenix - health to 450.
Rocket Raccoon - Larger hitboxes on J.H and J.A and much more hitstun on J.A. Larger hitboxes on all standing normals (especially forward H, even though its decent as is, this would help with comboing off throws after the TK spit) besides the lights. All traps cannot be destroyed, stay out if coon is hit. Gets another air action after using air spitfire (ex: rocket skates). If oil bomb flame is blocked, the pushback from adv. guard is less.
Sentinel - health to 1 mil.
She-Hulk - old slide back, emerald cannon forced wall bounce, one point of armor on lights out streetlamp move
Shuma - faster forward air dash, larger hitbox on all mystic smashes,more hitstun/blockstun for mystic stare and ray, faster startup on mystic ray assist (possibly as fast as the non-assist, heavy version), new move(ish)- make devitalization also a projectile teleport counter. when a one hit projectile (or multihit, say 3 max and change devitalization to work this way) is absorbed, player presses l m or h and teleports (tracking, similar to dorms, stranges, etc) to a location based on the button press. This is a possible awesome counter to morrigan and others.
Spider-man - S.m doesn’t wiff on a ton of crouched opponents that are either in hitstun or blockstun. Web swing assist changed to L web throw (would be awesome to have a throw assist) and player cannot hit opponent until throw animation finishes, no hard knockdown on it. More hitstun caused by webzip when hitting otg.
Storm - increased meter build all around, as well as a slight general damage increase. faster startup on typhoon as well as assist version. Lightning attack assist changed to lightning sphere L (she appears floating at about one of her own full character lenght above the ground, then lands after she fires the assist).
Super-Skrull - Worm squash instant kills opponent. lol. For real though, I’d like to see skrull with a level 1 power up state super that grants him a two way horizontal air dash where he turns invisible when he dashes (could also function as a ghetto teleport ala Hsien ko or shuma backdash) as well as a flight mode, and maybe some sort of flame projectile. Other than this wishful thinking, no changes.
Taskmaster - no changes
Thor - larger hit box around the hammer on mighty spark as well as on the projectile to hit some crouching opponents that it misses. One hit of armor on mighty smash light (could function as a “get off me” as it really doesn’t have much use as is), air mighty strike M otg’s to allow combos off regular air throws as well as more combo/reset options.
Wolverine - no changes
X-23 - Pretty damn good as is, but a few things: both air throws do not push her so far away from the opponent so that it is easier to combo after (especially back air throw). Uncharged ankle slice otgs, but does far less hitstun as charged version (charged is still the same). Allows her to combo with a greater variety of assists and could place her on more teams. Neck slice assist changed to fully charged version, does not hard knockdown, otherwise exact same as charged version.
i want trish to have dantes devil trigger lightning beam, in yellow of course. of course to balance it, make it usable only once per jump.
Discussion #1 - If you could only change one thing to each character to make it balanced, what would you do? Here’s my suggestion for the Top Characters, I tried to avoid health/dmg nerfs and buffs as a balancing crutch.
Zero: Buster causes hard knockdown of opponent when charged (pushes them out of combo). Because fuck that shit.
Vergil: Spiral Swords is a lvl 2 super. Because fuck that shit.
Spencer: Zipline disappears when opponent attacks or blocks it, causing recovery animation. Because fuck that shit.
Magneto: Gravity squeeze needs an OTG to hit. Because fuck that shit.
Wesker: Is 20 percent slower. Speed boost on super makes him as fast as he is now. Because fuck that shit.
Dormammu: Longer recovery after pillar. Because fuck that shit.
Dante: All C attack hit boxes can only hit in front of Dante. Because fuck that shit.
Morrigan: Can’t build meter during Astral Vision. Because fuck that shit.
Doom: Foot dive goes into soft knockdown. Because fuck that shit.
Taskmaster: Longer recovery after arrows. Because fuck that shit.
Wolverine: Berzerker slash has more recovery on block.
There’s more of course. Zero, Dormammu, Dante and Spencer all have moves that cross up ambiguously where they just press C without even knowing what side they are attacking. That has to go. As does Wesker’s hitbox-less C attacks. And Dormammu, Task, Wolverine and Spencer have health and/or damage that’s probably a little high for how good they are. But if I had to pick one change per top character, the above would be it.
Discussion #2 - What Necessary System Changes Would You Impliment to the Game’s Engine?
- Change the function of TAC’s: We all read Ricky’s interview where he basically agreed with everybody’s disdain for TAC’s. But what if we changed the nature of them? Where TAC’s are changed from meter-based attacks to character position-based.
TAC | DOWN now brings in your second character, TAC | UP now brings in your third character. And TAC | SIDE now shoots the opponent to the other side of the level where your same point character jumps on the opposite side they are launched and keeps the combo going ala DBZ, as noted in the “things we would like to add to UMVC3” discussion at EVO. No meter is gained or lost and the attack does no damage, it is purely positional. This would take away a lot of incentive to spam TAC but keep a bit of strategy they were supposed to present, ala bringing in your next character mid-combo. Plus, now, if you see your opponent TAC into Strider, you know they’ll probably go for Strider again since they probably rely on that combination. Meanwhile, side TAC’s will add flair but just let you readjust positioning, as you’ll just continue where you left off in your combo before your TAC. Meanwhile, TAC’ing UP would surprise your opponent but now your assists are swapped around and could mess you up, especially if you keep going for the mix up and getting your order all crazy. And if you lost a character, pressing up or down would block the transaction as your second character would now be assigned to both up and down, leaving the TAC attacker to either take that risk or be forced to do a side TAC with their same character, thus lessening TAC’s viability as the match goes on.
- Tech’ing Throws Pushes Opponents Farther Away (And other throw stuff…):
Throws Now …
- Push the opponents far enough away from each other that they can’t mash throw until they win.
- Teched Air-Throws drop both opponents to the ground after a tech and suspend assists during that time.
- Throw distance is the same for every character.
- Throw tech window is increased from 2 to 7 frames ala SFIV.
Throws are kinda bullshit right now. Especially against characters like Nova, Spencer and Wesker that have huge hit boxes on their air C attacks.
- Increase Block Window For Teleports - As an online warrior these days, I can only attest that teleports are very hard to block either due to online lag or the engine itself, but it seems to be a bit of both as even offline I feel like I predict a fair amount of teleports and yet can’t block them. The game has to allow a larger window for reverse blocking of teleports because there’s very little incentive not to spam them now. Increase the teleport time from one place to another by some frames and the engine and player should be able to do the rest.
A lot of that seems dumb.
I know that I should say something about that blasphemy but I just don’t know where to start.
Game is already broken, might as well throw in everything go all out.
Custom assists. Selectable THC hypers. Aerial THCs. Tag throws. Tag cancels. Variable Cross. Character ratios. Hyper ratios (Choose if Silent kill is a level 1 hyper with 200,000 scaled damage or a lvl 3 unscaled hyper! Why the fuck not?)
Because that would suck.
Would not, no it would. It would, wouldnt it. Sorry there lad
Cap doesn’t need a standing overhead. Only thing I’d buff him with is
[LIST]
[]:atk:+:s: is invincible to throws
[/LIST]
or
[LIST]
[]:atk:+:s: can be special canceled (which would be awesome).
[/LIST]
As for Zero the real issue centers around buster and lightning. there’s too many options after confirming hit, block, whiff and it’s just a win no matter how it’s used for little risk. There needs to be some limitations on the combination of these two. I propose:
[LIST]
[*]Limit 1 air lightning. This means even if zero uses his command ground to air dash, he still only gets 1 lighting before he must touch ground to refresh it. Zero still keeps lightning > buster and buster > lightning, he just can’t go full derp with lightning > buster > lightning and sit on free frames after 2 cross ups with very minimal risk.
[*]Hitting Zero kills lightnings hit box.
[*]Lightning does not appear if cancelled before traveling from point A to B
[/LIST]
He still gets a lot of his stuff, but it just takes away the ability to mindlessly fish for TODs with stupidly long self generating cross ups embedded in pressure strings that almost ignore advance guard. He has to commit to his options and the opponent is rewarded with a break in the pressure if they block right. Currently you have to block mix up after mix up and there’s very little reward for blocking his very tricky set ups, usually blocking one derpy set up means you’ve arrived at phase 2, then 3, then 4, wait an assist, start again…etc…
Wow. What a great discussion! Thanks for the insight!
To be fair, it’s a pretty astute analysis.
Someone said make everyone’s throw range the same. I like that, as well as the idea of increasing the tech window to ~10 frames as seems to be somewhat the standard for fighting games. As it stands now, against certain characters (Chris and Spencer, I’m looking at you) it’s really easy to anticipate a throw, try to compensate for their seemingly massive throw range by pressing f.H or b.H ever so slightly early, but getting your H instead of a tech and then getting thrown because you misjudged the distance by a pixel or two.
I would also like to see a universal toning down of X-Factor. Remove the damage and speed boosts, keep the reduction to damage scaling, the health regen, the chip immunity, and the one-time cancel back to neutral. That puts it a bit more in line with being a powerful, but non-derp, comeback mechanic. It provides the opportunity to squeeze a bit more mileage out of a character, and potentially turn the tide of a losing battle, all without making scrubby ABCD sj.ABCD combos into death sentences. Leave the only difference between XF1, 2, and 3 being the duration, and make the durations universal between characters.
As far as everyone complaining about Doom’s j.S footdive: I can get behind REDUCING the hard knockdown time, but REMOVING the hard knockdown altogether will 1. make doom the only character whose j.S doesn’t cause hard knockdown even in launch combos, and 2. effectively limit his combo options, even in the corner, to Buktooth loop or M&Ms, which are both pretty mediocre.
Personally, I’d like to see something done about Haggar’s goddamn jumping pipe. I get that he’s not a super-ohmygod-whatthefuck ridiculous character, for the most part, but a move that has half-screen range, something like a 270-degree hitbox, a groundbounce that ends in the longest hard knockdown I’ve ever seen, and recovers fast enough to be safe before Haggar even hits the ground from normal jump height? Seriously? Take off any one of those four items and it retains the majority of its power without being retarded.