I was having fun trying out combos with Ghost rider today, Dr Stranges Bolts of Ballsack is godlike for combo purposes ^^
:h: :a1: :h: wait :h::h: as a starter ^^ then you could either do QCB+:L:/:H: or DP+:L: and continue of that. Missiles would probably help that combo out quite a bit ^^
So I spent about 2 hours messing with Ghost Rider in training mode, and I decided that to really utilize him, he needs stuff that lets him combo off of a j.S when it’s an instant overhead. As far as I can tell, there are only 4 assists that let him do this from anywhere on any member of the cast:
Greyhound
Plasma Beam
Unibeam
Dagger Toss
Since this is my projectile assist for the team, it’s likely that this character will anchor. It’s also likely, since I’m using Ghost Rider, that my anchor will have a ton of meter coming in. So, Hawkeye and Arthur seem like the best fits. Doom has no use for excess meter, and Iron Man is Iron Man. Between Arthur and Hawkeye, I’ll try Hawkeye first. I don’t see a compelling reason to pick one over the either, though. XF3 Arthur isn’t a strong argument because it’s likely that I’ll burn my X-Factor to get a Penance Stare somewhat often. I also slightly lean toward Hawkeye because Arthur stays on the screen for a while, and Ghost Rider can’t protect assists well when he’s trying to get in.
My other thought was that maybe I don’t want to use Ghost Rider on point. He has a really nice assist, and he also has two good hypers to DHC into. Spirit of Vengeance gains hyper armor on frame 1 when DHCing, meaning that it’s good for punishing assists, and it would be nice to have a way to safely DHC into Penance Stare through another hyper.
I decided to mess with some other things to help determine my other partner, since there are a lot of interesting options for quick DHCs. One thing that has been bothering me about Ghost Rider is that he gets a lot of throws and air throws, but all he can do off of them is Spirit of Vengeance, which isn’t really worth a bar to me unless it kills. I also think that Maelstrom is a crappy level 1 that doesn’t do a lot of damage in practice. Then it hit me - a lot hitting assist! Ghost Rider does have the longest range overhead in the entire game. What if I called a low hitting assist while doing j.S for unblockables on wakeup?
I went through and tested all the low hitting assists, and Felicia’s came out too slow to combo off of a j.S if I called them both simultaneously (I’d like to be able to use this for combos off an instant overhead, too), X-23’s was pure crap, and Wesker’s only worked when I was very close. Deadpool’s worked at mid-range. She-Hulk’s low hitting assist turns out to always hit regardless of the range at which I j.S from, though!
This also solved the previous problem: Taking out the Trash is the perfect hyper to DHC into Penance Stare from, giving me an Abegen-like setup. Sure, it’s 4 bars of meter, but I’m not ending Ghost Rider or She-Hulk combos in hypers in favor of resets anyway, and it’s not like my game is revolving around this trick.
So, it looks like my next Ghost Rider team setup to mess around with is:
Ghost Rider (Chains of Rebuttal)
She-Hulk (Torpedo)
Hawkeye (Greyhound)
Also, new fact to me: She-Hulk can cancel Torpedo into a THC.
Any thoughts on the setup are welcome.
That team looks really promising but really, you NEED Hidden Missiles or Mystic Ray to get the job done. Your team will have problems with zoning or high rushdown characters (Magneto) Anyway, ill play that team online, see how it goes
I went 20/20 against my regular sparring partner with the team. I don’t have a problem with zoning, I just have patience like any other character without projectiles. Hidden Missiles is really hard for Ghost Rider to protect, I think he’d get block up a lot. Mystic Ray means I have to play Shuma-Gorath, which just isn’t happening, haha. I enjoyed it and thought it played well, but I can see Magneto being a problem. Then again, a lot of stuff loses to Magneto!
I dont know about She hulk 2nd, she needs two assist imo
Why?
I agree with Dizzy that that team is weak to zoning. It’s completely free to Morrigan/Doom… Then again… So is a lot of stuff. The other problem I find for Ghost Rider teams are Phoenix teams, no incoming mixups/guard breaks is bad news bears. I also think the unblockable is not really that legit. On wake up it’s potentially good, but that situation occurs so rarely that I don’t see it being a staple or effective game plan. Outside of a wake up situation it’s nothing more than a hail mary and there isn’t any reason for a good player to be in a position to be hit by it.
The new GR team I’m trying out as my B team (Can’t play GR competetitively anymore, to frustrating, to many bad matches for tournaments) is GR/Vergil/Strider. Essentially, I use Strider to somewhat mitigate the runaway problem and I use Vergil’s DHC to help mitiagte GR’s terrible damage output. With GR I essentially try to wear down a team and play a game of attrition, I try to snap in bleeding assists (even though I can’t mix them up). Then use Vergil to clean up the mess. The Vergil/Strider shell also is great against zoning and help mitigate a lot of GR’s bad match ups.
I’m not too worried about Morrigan/Doom. My main team is Vergil/Dormammu/Morrigan.
Wakeup occurs pretty regularly. First, Ghost Rider, in my experience, gets a good number of air throws. Second, instead of ending combos into Hellfire Maelstrom, which is a pretty shitty hyper for some reason, I just let my opponent recover and go into the unblockable. So, it gets used fairly often.
Now, outside of wakeup situations, you’re right that the unblockable rarely lands. That’s the point, though. It’s not about actually landing the unblockable. As with many things in this game, it’s about the threat of it happening. Players who are chicken blocking aren’t doing much else, and they have to land if they pushblock, which gives me more time to advance again. It’s kind of an anti-pushblock strategy that I don’t have to do anything for.
I tried Strider assist and hated it. It covers very little area and doesn’t lead to anything if it hits.
Sick! haha i might try that team. See how it goes
Fair enough man! From my experience no one is ever threatened by GR so setup based things just aren’t effective for me. My experience is that people rarely put themselves in a position to even have to block GR because his angles of attack are very odd and easy to avoid for mobile characters. I think it’s very hard, if not impossible to force good players into those situations. Once a good player realizes this, the threat of the unblockable goes away and it’s relegated to nothing more than a wake up gimmick. If GR wasn’t so weak in the neutral game I could justify the low assist, but I think he has too many holes to use an assist solely for a setup.
My thought on using Strider isn’t really about putting hit boxes on the screen or converting off the knockdown. I’m trying it out because it’s the only way GR can get control of the air and force people into the areas he actually can attack. GR is very bad at putting hit boxes on the screen and controlling space, he mostly works as a whiff punishment and poor movement punishment character. When I use Strider is force people to move on the ground more where I can actually attack and punish poor movement or whiffed normals. GR has no game in the air at all, and Strider helps to mitigate that.
I feel the same way you do, but I suppose my thought is that the best Ghost Rider will get in the air is an air throw, and She-Hulk can make that air throw count big time. Maybe I’ll feel differently over time, though.
Why not use Jam Session? It has a lot more utility than Vajra, at least for Ghost Rider’s problems.
I do feel where you are coming from, though.
Jam Session is cool, and it is pretty damn good with him. I honestly just use Strider because it’s a for fun team and he’s easier to play then Dante. Haha.
Alright. I spent about 4 hours in training mode playing with Ghost Rider team combinations, and I am fairly confident when I say that Vajra is his best anti-air assist.
Of all the anti-air assists in the game, Vajra is the only one that can actually lead to decent damage. As a bonus, if you call Vajra slightly before jumping into j.S, it leads to full combos. If it’s blocked, your opponent is in enough blockstun for you to go for another j.S or go for a c.H.
Vajra is also solid at extending Ghost Rider’s combos, netting him about an extra fourth of a bar when you chain two Hellfire L OTGs together. Ghost Rider doesn’t use the meter he generates unless he goes for Penance Stare, and Strider needs a lot of meter.
I think that none of this thus far is particularly special, but something else is. Ghost Rider’s j.H seems truly awful. He can’t chain out of it, and he can’t combo out of it. On the other hand, j.H has a fricken massive hitbox on it - it’s like Vergil’s s.S and s.H combined in terms of height and width, but in the air. It’s so big that if you just jump and perform j.H, your chain is literally a pixel or two away from hitting maximum superjump height.
It also turns out that if you call Vajra before you leave the ground and hit your opponent with j.H, Vajra combos off of the j.H. Ghost Rider lands with enough time to OTG into a hyper for about 500K damage. It’s not big damage, but it’s damage that will make aerial characters much more careful around Ghost Rider. You can always XFC into a full combo too, of course.
So, I think I’m set on Ghost Rider / Strider.
The only question left is whether to use Iron Man (Unibeam), Doom (Plasma Beam), or Arthur (Dagger Toss). I think these are Ghost Rider’s best horizontal assists because they have three important traits that he needs:
Number 2 is my reason for deciding not to use Hawkeye with Ghost Rider any more. During my few hundred matches with him, I have lost a lot of happy birthday opportunities because Hawkeye’s arrows only comboed one of the two characters on the screen. I think that Ghost Rider’s pressure and ability to catch assists is a boon in his game, and a team should be organized to take advantage of this.
Thoughts?
Edit: Also, not a game changer, but Ghost Rider has a double overhead on most characters by doing j.M at the peak of his jump into a second j.M on his way down. It’ll likely catch people who aren’t used to fighting Ghost Rider.
Yeah, GR and Strider are very good together, i tried that J.H combo…really good find. Try using Taskmaster’s arrows, its the best projectile assist for GR. And for the overhead thing imo thats pretty much useless, and you cant really close distance with GR, cause you get pushblocked all the fucking time.
Good post.
I’ve played around with Doom in that position and I like it. I like that he works well with Strider so you have a competent shell outside of GR. I like how far back Doom comes out which allows you to stop (some) pressure when you cover it with back H. I like the DHC from Bike > Sphere flame. Too me, of those choices Doom seems like a no brainer.
GR/Doom/Sent for me. Missiles and Drones with GR’s normals just do so much zoning. Here’s my optimal one meter combo (which I’m going to post in “missiles or vajra” thread but here you go).
:h:+:a2:, :h:, :qcb:+:l:, (bounces off of one or two drones), :dp:+:m: (wallbounce), :h:+:a1:, :h:, :qcb:+:h:, (missiles OTG), :h:, :h:, :qcb:+:l:, :qcf:+:l: (OTG), :qcf:+:atk:+:atk: (mash)
If you only let the hellfire OTG hit once or twice, meaning you cancel very quickly to hellfire maelstrom and mash then it’s over 725k. Of course, if you choose to to Spirit of Vengeance, you get better DHC options.
Ghost Rider - Doom - Sentinel
what about ghost rider/taskmaster/doom?
frank west and ghost rider have some pretty great synergy. i’m really impressed with how well they go together.
i think you can whiff dhc into frank from ghost rider’s bike super, i know you can do it with deadpool, take a snapshot
i guess you can use frank’s shopping cart to push them back