This is a topic that I see little discussion about (obviously since everyone runs Zero on point), but I want to know some general opinions.
What do people think of Zero’s assists (both with and without his double super active).
Here’s my thoughts
Ryuuenjin-a decent anti air assist despite it’s lack of invincibility. It’s moderately quick and has good priority. It can also be used to some degree for combo extensions.
Ryuuenjin (doubled). A better anti air than solo Ryuuenjin. A better combo extender for Dante.
Shippuga- A sub par block string extender and not great for mixups. As a combo extender it’s okay (interesting thing is that as an assist it actually causes soft knockdown). As a crossover counter it’s pretty cool too since you can just go into standard zero pressure.
Shippuga (doubled)- One of Zero’s best assist options in my opinion. It comes out fast and Zero doesn’t stay on the screen for that long with this assist, so it’s great for abusing the fact that the clone can’t actually be hit (and also continues even if Zero gets hit, I’d like to know more about the clone mechanics in this area). I treat it almost like a Tron assist as far as stuffing approaches goes. It’s got good duration as well if you actually plan on hitting with Zero and not just the clone.
Hadangeki- Well…it’s a projectile assist. Not a very fast one, not a very strong one…yeah.
Hadangeki (doubled). Another assist that gets a lot better when doubled. With 2 shots it’s decent at aiding projectile wars, the two shots are too close to really navigate between, but far enough to not be a true blockstring (making it a nice projectile for mixups, albeit no “drones”). It doesn’t decay combos too heavily and it’s slow enough to approach behind.
Does anyone have different opinions/more detailed information about zero’s assists?
Also,
I personally think it’s pretty viable to do a combo into Sougenmu and then just TAC Zero out (gaining the one meter you used for Sougenmu while also making the TAC uncounterable) to have a doubled assist. It’s not the best thing to do all the time (Zero would probably end up doing as much or more damage on his own, and you lose the ability to DHC glitch into zero), but it’s an option that’s more meter efficient than Doing Sougenmu and hardtagging/DHCing out.
Zero’s a pretty good off-point character for a lot of reasons, and it’s not just his assists. But I’ll go over them.
I prefer Ryuenjin assist on most teams for one major reason: **Ryuenjin is an invincible cross over counter. **COC’ing to Zero will beat anything as long as it’s in range. It’s also a really good anti air that characters like Dante and Sentinel and maybe even Doom can combo after easily. It’s really good with Sougenmu because even if Zero gets hit, the shadow can sometimes continue to hit them out of a punish. When doubled, I think there’s a total of 46 active frames. That’s almost a full second of time where no one will be directly in front of you. Very useful.
Hadangeki is pretty basic, but as you might guess, it becomes amazing with Sougenmu. Not much to say about it really other than it keeps opponents standing, which is useful.
Shippuga feels kinda useless to me, and is a bit more specialized. It’s basically Wolvie’s Berserker Barrage assist. It’s good to use with Dante’s Stinger, to cover the gap for when you bold cancel the stinger to continue an offense, and also becomes strong with Sougenmu.
He’s a good DHC partner too. Rekkoha is OTG, which is uncommon among a supers, so it can DHC from supers that normally wouldn’t work. Sougenmu has near instant recovery, making a good super to DHC to to keep a point character safe.
And as OP pointed out, the uncounterable TAC trick could make him even better of an assist. Most players aren’t even prepared for a TAC, so doing one into a TAC you can’t counter is really tough to deal with.
It comes down to what you need with whoever your other main point character is (because I highly doubt most people use zero as anchor and the main assist).
If your character benefits more from a full screen ground game, use hadangeki
If your character can OTG but could benefit with an unrecoverable soft knockdown after that otg, use Shippuga
If you want a decent anti air assist, I’d say use Ryuejin
Zero isn’t really a point character IMHO. The Shadow glitch changed that a bit but still a true point character is someone like Magneto, Wolveriene, Dante, Wesker, and such. A character that can destory an entire team in seconds. Zero can in some ways but just not nearly as effectively as others which I why I think he’s like Solid Mid to High Mid tier in this game and no higher.
Anywho again all his assist I think are good but for different reasons. None of them are “great” though except one. Both UpperCut and f+C are are fine without Shadow. SRK assist is a good antiair because you can combo after it, f+C is just really nice as a combo extender after otgs. Normal fireball assist is trash. However if you can get shadow up Shadow Fireball is IMHO one of the if not the best projectile assist in the game. It become great for extending combos too in this form.
Honestly I use f+C assist with my team for OTGs to make my life easier cause I’m a lazy ass. If I actually owned this game and cared enough to practice though I’d roll with projectile assist. It works well with my team and if I actually learned the hard combos I wouldn’t need Zero to OTG.
Disagree. Zero has enough tools to 100% characters with a team on his side. His setups on incoming characters are better than anyone else (that aren’t unblockable, at least.) Zero has extreme air mobility and is almost impossible to catch, and it’s very easy for Zero to get a hit. It’s easy to hitconfirm off of any of Zero’s attacks and they all lead to 100%. Zero is best as a point character.
shippuga=soft knockdown, can combo into 5s whatever on CoC, which actually is very strong IMO. can punish certain unpunishable supers into great damage with 1 meter
i used to use that assist just for that. dropped it because of bad cross up synergy…
No offesne but you’re showing your ignorance to. Extreme Air mobility? He has a slow air dash and a command dash he can only do once in the air that is completely vulnerable. Sorry Extreme Air mobility are people like Mags, Storm, Sent, Iron, Doom, DP, DT Dante, and so on.
There are no unblockable setups on incoming characters because if there was Phoenix would never be a problem cause you’d just killer her everytime. His cross ups and mix ups are overall weak compared to characters of the same class because his command dash is to slow and he is 100% vulnerable during it. You can be thrown out of command dash or free if they time it correctly. He does have some good mix ups on incoming characters but nothing that other teleport characters can’t do and for the most part can’t do better.
And Zero does NOT do a 100% off of anything unless you blow X-factor or do a near impossible corner loop which costs too many bars considering the damage output.
Zero is not a good point character. Like I said he’s best saved for the second slot in a team where he can utilize his super easy DHC glitch and he can get ahold of Lvl 2 X-factor which is substantially better for Zero than lvl 1.
That’s all I’m saying on the subject. Disagree if you want to and play the game however you like but if you put Zero second on a good team I guarantee you’ll find yourself winning more.
Zero’s air mobility is among the best, even against some with flying. He can literally stay in the air longer than some flyers can using buster shots, air dashes and hienkyaku. And because the buster shot changes Zero’s direction, it’s easy for him to change his direction when crossing over an opponent, which not all characters can do, at least not as fast. And because his air normals and specials are so strong, it’s easy to control the air with him.
There are unblockable setups and they use Sougenmu. With the right assists you can create an unblockable, unpushblockable situation on an incoming character. It’s difficult, and I don’t often use it to save the meter since I just probably used a snapback. (my mixups might as well be unblockable anyway.) Phoenix is not a problem for Zero at all. Zero’s probably one of the best Phoenix killers in the game, if not the best.
Zero is easily capable of 100%'s. They require assists, but that’s what they’re for. That’s why Zero’s better on point. So he can use the assists he has available to him. He doesn’t even need meter to start a combo, and builds way more than enough bar to finish off anyone. 100%'ing with Zero is no problem ever. You don’t even need the lightning loop.
Trust me, I know Zero. Having 2 assists is what makes Zero the best he can be. He doesn’t need high levels of X-Factor, he doesn’t need meter, all he needs is a full team and the opponent in blockstun.
Agree with Toast, Zero gets a lot more being on point than the 2nd slot on your team. Combos difference a ton when you have 1 assist to extend them than 2. Most of Zero teams have an assist for mix-ups/lockdown, so if that assist hits you’re left with no assists to continue the combo and the combo will not do the desired damage. Once Zero is done with his job as a point man (at least killing the other point character), he can DHC with Sougenmu to the 2nd character in the group and now you have a very powerful team now thanks to the powered up assist.
Also have to agree with Kef and Toast. I can also attest that I went from having Zero 2nd to putting him on point and started winning a lot more. If you can’t 100% with Zero off of anything (except a midscreen ground-throw) you just haven’t practiced enough.
Putting Zero second on your team was so 6 months ago…
In any case, it really depends on the team. Zero is probably one of the more versatile characters in the game, IMO. He just requires a lot of good execution.
I made a team to abuse Zero’s DHC glitch as much as possible, and put him in 2nd slot and that team was a lot worse than my current one. For his assist, I use his DP for the invincible crossover. Also, I have no idea how you can’t kill off a good portion of the characters in this game without X-Factor with Zero. He does huge damage and builds more meter than he spends. If your Zero BnB isn’t doing 750K+ with one assist and 1 meter you are doing something wrong.
