UMvC3 Team Construction Critiques

Classic Fighting Games Ultimate Marvel VS Capcom 3
1

I hope this is appropriate to create a new thread with this. Apologies if not. I didn’t want to post this in any individual character thread, as it didn’t seem to make sense, since the focus isn’t on any specific character.

I wrote down some thoughts on my team, because a friend made a point that my team isn’t like…a VERGIL team, or a VIPER team, or a STRIDER team. So what is my team anyways? What am I trying to accomplish? I put some thoughts down about each character, and why I have the assists I do, and why I have the order I do, and I want to post it somewhere to try and generate some critique of my construction and thought process.

Vergil (Rapid Slash) / C.Viper (Sesmic Hammer) / Strider (Vajra)

Vergil gets some of the focus by using Seismo assist for his combos, and Vajra does help quite a bit with round trip shenanigans and keeping aerial opponents from getting their zoning going. I guess it’s not a Vergil team in the sense that I chose the absolute optimal assists for his game, but an OTG assist and a hybrid AA / mixup assist seem to me to be what he needs to complete his game. So there’s definitely some focus there in making sure Vergil gets optimized as much as possible with the character choices.

Viper gets Vajra, which alone nearly makes it a Viper team. She also gets someone to battery for her, so she nearly always comes in with 3 bars, which is definitely the place to be. In an optimal world, I can DT Vergil and then bring Viper in, which makes her even more dangerous with a DT’ed assist (a caveat to this point is that I’ve found very little Viper can actually DO with any of Vergil’s assists, but I feel strongly that’s more my lack of creativity than a problem with any of the assists. I’m sure there’s something I’m missing). I think she also has terrific DHC synergy with Vergil - Burst Time is stupid easy to connect after Dimension Slash, and Burst Time to Spiral Swords is equally easy / awesome. DHC to Legion isn’t great, but Ragnarok works well if it’s appropriate to burn the meter.

And Strider’s the anchor. I treat him as somewhat of a Dark Phoenix - my gameplan is to make sure he comes in with at least 3-4 bars and XF. I feel Vergil and Viper both build enough meter (esp. with Viper’s easier TK feints) to make this strategy stable over a large sample. A downside is just getting mauled by someone’s point character - since both characters don’t have a lot of health, there’s no meter sponging for being my opponent’s combo dummy. I don’t use Strider very well yet, but I feel like from what I’ve played, he can do very well in 1v1 situations, and as long as he has the XF+3 bars a 2v1 isn’t a horrible place to be either. I think Strider will prove to be a really good anchor in a few months when I can start generating safer, more consistent, and more CONSTANT offense with him.

Please, flame away. I’d love to hear some thoughts on my logic and choices.

2

Somehow, I feel like your team is made up of all great point characters…Well sort of at least, Vergil is better for 2nd slot since he’s a meter whore, and Strider I guess is best at anchor but either way I think you can play this team in any order. All of them are beast with XF and all of them are viable point characters, though I gotta say this team is pretty low HP, careful careful.

3

Too many meter whores on one team as a critique. The positive is any of these characters can make a comeback using level 2 or 3 X Factor.

4

Cool. I had thought about starting a thread like this,where people could post their teams and have them critiqued, but you did it first.:slight_smile:

Anyways, mkeller73 has a point. All of them need a lot of meter and have to really avoid getting hit. Thankfully, Strider and Vergil can teleport. Unfortunately, Viper can’t, so I might advise you might want to test putting Viper first to compenstate for her lesser mobility. Also, she has the most health on your team, so if she gets bodied, you’ll have more meter for Vergil.

5

you should try MODOK/Thor/Captain America

6

Thanks for the repsonses! Here’s my thoughts:

Only Winged Angel - low HP is definitely a concern, and I will admit that my blocking isn’t always up to the task of keeping them alive. But I’ll take low HP as the weakness for what I see as a ton of great options. Also, I like your thought on ‘they’re all point characters’. I played a lot of MSS in MvC2 (I mean, who didn’t) and it’s kind of the same vibe. There’s also some snapback protection built in that way…who exactly do you like snapping in? You don’t want ANY of those characters to be on you with XF3 (imo).

mkeller and just5moreminutes - I’m not so sure about the meter whore thing. With an OTG assist, Vergil’s doing 900k with one starting bar and coming out almost neutral in meter, and I’m just now incorporating a reset game within his BnB that, if I have thought it out correctly (still needs testing against higher level comp) will more or less negate his need to use meter (It’s very much like Wesker’s reset tech from Vanilla) - one reset to kill all sub 1mil characters rather than spend any meter to do it - 1mil health characters will still require burning a bar to grease. But Vergil should have built at least two bars by the time that’s necessary if I’ve thought out my reset tech correctly. Hopefully I can get over to Chrisis’s place on Friday and he can expose my strategies for good or ill.

Also, Viper is second for two reasons. First, Vergil NEEDS an OTG assist to unlock his INCREDIBLE GODLIKE POWERS AHAHAHAHAHA - um, yeah. Anyways. He really does need thast assist. Without an OTG assist I feel that Vergil’s combo and reset game are lacking that “oh shit if he touches me I’m in so much trouble” vibe. And should Vergil die, Viper has the double jump / air dash to help her deal with the “welcome mixup” while Vergil does not, unless he’s in DT. Which is another semi-solid reason (I think) for Vergil first, sometimes I’ll be able to DT him out and then when Viper does die, Vergil’s got some better defensive options against the welcome mixup. And while this is probably my lack of creativity in creating good options, I don’t feel like Viper gains as much from Vergil assists (especially non-DT’ed) as Vergil does from Viper (again, stressing that OTG assist hard).

Thanks for the thoughts, would love to hear more.

7

Anyone saying that Viper can’t be on a team with others that need meter doesn’t know how to play her.

I’d be interested in what you feel about if Viper gets killed though, do you feel that Vergil Strider in any order has few enough weaknesses that it’s okay to play them?

8

Onikage, who do you feel is your main threat on the team that can really put the hurt on your opponents? Usually, there’s one character on a team that you really excel with.

9

Strider isn’t going to have enough meter unless you restrict your other 2 characters from using meter a lot.

10

Your team seems pretty solid. But as others have said, meter appears to be a problem.
I guess just going for resets instead of a hyper would fix this though.
However, I do feel like Wesker would be a better pick than Viper. But, when is Wesker NOT a better pick? Hahaha. Plus, I fully understand not wanting to run Wesker, fuck that guy.

My team is Iron Fist(Rising Fang)/Hulk(AA Charge)/Sentinel(Drones)
I’ve noticed a real problem against keep away. I just can’t get in at all, but I feel like there really is some way to get in I just don’t know what it is yet.

11

I don’t really like vergil on point when you could be keeping that nigga second for easy tods and safe DHCs. IMO, Vergil is the best character to have in the 2nd spot in this game. Also, coming in after the first char died with a Helm Splitter has gotten me many a happy birthday

12

I like the viper/strider pairing since she is one of the characters who can easily self otg into serious damage, but I don’t feel vergil fits into the team too well. His assist won’t do much for viper(to the best of my knowledge) and he doesn’t take good advantage of vajra since he can’t otg into full combo. Id switch the team up to someone/viper/strider. The someone should be a character who can take good advantage of the vajra like wesker, dante, or dr doom. If your gonna go with either doom or dante, then maybe placing them in second would be better since they both have really nice assists and it would be a shame to not take advantage of them.

Just my 2 cents.

13

Chrisis - REALLY good question. Obviously I need a lot more matchup experience, but in the playing time I have gotten in, I think the duo runs well together. Viper dying means Vergil does become something of a meter hog, because the OTG assist is no longer there to extend his combos. Otherwise, since Viper doesn’t bring anything else to the table with her assist, I feel like I’m running Vergil/Strider pretty much from the time the match starts. I feel like the duo can keep aerial characters honest - I’ve gotten a lot of time in against Firebrand lately, and while it’s a pain, I feel like it’s not disgustingly lopsided. Though I’m sure your FB will make me change my mind hehe.

TripleXraider - I think Viper is obviously my best character on the team, since I’ve had many more months with her than Vergil or Strider. I think that with sufficient time, they can all be equally deadly, which is something I’m shooting for. In a perfect world, everyone’s a threat! I like putting that mindset in my opponent - fear that whoever’s out is deadly. Of course I need the execution to back it up, both offensively and defensively.

NiniHeart - I still think that Vergil needs that OTG assist to be the really godlike character he can be. Running him second would mean putting Viper third to gurantee access to the OTG, and I’m no KBeast. I haven’t found any really great combos with him solo or with Vajra, and the Seismo sets up some nasty resets that I haven’t been able to replicate without it. I think the team kind of breaks down badly in any other order, but what do you think? Something like Strider/Vergil/Viper? Then no one gets Vajra, and that’s bad I think, since I am relying on that to keep the aerial characters honest.

Mr. Puppy - Is it really? My Vanilla team was Wesker/Viper/Doom, and I think I’m following more or less the same formula - a battery with access to two good assists, a killer user character who gets one really good assist for their game, and an anchor who can light shit up in XF with a couple bars. Is every Viper player playing Strider now? I mean I think they work together amazingly well, but it’s not like it was my idea at all.

14

@Onikage
Now that you mention DT, I have an even better reason to put vergil second. With two bars, you can OTG relaunch with Viper, then DHC into Vergil with DT and continue the combo. As Mr.Puppy said, you are going to have a lot of trouble DHC’ing into Viper because Vergil Can DHC out of 3 things:
[LIST]
[]Maximum Vergil (Fullscreen Swords)- From what I hear, Vergil seems to DHC to random locations out of this. Using the wrong hyper for Viper could end very poorly.
[]Spiral Swords- Disappears on tag-out. Enough said.
[*]Devil Trigger- Oddly, this actually would be best. If you could (somehow) work your way to 4 meters as Viper, you could DHC into Vergil’s level 3, resulting in a VERY damaging combo. However, this is very impractical.
[/LIST]
By comparison, Viper has:
[LIST]
[]Emergency Combanation- Leaves Vergil right in their face.
[]Burst Time- Functions as an OTG relaunch, giving you yet another way to relaunch and is able to combo into all 3 of Vergil’s hypers, just like the other one.
[/LIST]
In short, it’s better if Viper is first.

@ShotgunLogik
The main reason you are likely having trouble against keepaway is because all three of your characters are heavy bruisers with a poor range game, except possibly Sentinel. If possible, take advantage of Sent’s standing and crouching :h:.

15

You know, in my playing, Vergil’s placement after Dimension Slash doesn’t seem random to me. I have always seen him land exactly where he started the Dimension Slash, so the DHC to Burst Time works flawlessly for me every time. You can still DHC while Vergil is sheathing his sword after the DS, which is dumb to me but I’m gonna use it, and with the OTG properties of Burst Time it’s pretty awesome hehe.

I dunno, I’m just not sold on Vergil second in my playing time. So I’ll ask another question - how important are these points overall? Am I focused on the wrong things?

  • I want Vergil to have access to the OTG assist for cheap (meter wise) high damage combos and a Wesker-style mixup/reset
  • I think too much meter has to be burned to get your kills with the Viper / Vergil order, and I do need to save some for Strider.
  • Viper survives the welcome mixups better, unless Vergil is in DT
  • Viper doesn’t really get much out of Vergil’s assists (I’m almost positive I’m 100% wrong about this)

I’m really stuck on that mentality, so I’ll definitely go outside my personal comfort zone tonight and start Viper when I play after work. On paper, the math seems really wrong to me though.

16

Good characters but your team is made of glass lol

17

Viper honestly needs to go on point. With more gauge left for Vergil you’ll do more damage with him too when you hit so lack of an OTG assist will matter less or if you brought him in via DHC you have Viper assist still and killed a character most likely.

The main time I’m not an advocate of Vergil second is against Viper and Firebrand as he just dies if that’s the case. >.<

18

Firebrand on point with shoop/frank west with th Cart/ Hawkeye with the triple arrow

19

There is a new thread dedicated to this very subject stickied at the top of the forum. Going to close this one out. Please feel free to continue the discussion in the dedicated thread though!