True, but just because you have to build a team around a character doesnt make them bad (looks at Vanilla Phoenix)
Plus Zero’s “teams built around him” ussually just have 2 other S or A tier characters lol.
The better I get with Zero, the less I think that’s true.
Sure, there are assists that go well with him, but as I said above learning Lightning Loop means that you can put whomever else you want on that team (to an extent obviously). This is because Zero’s game is 90% air. The 10% on the ground in simply to call an assist to put more hitboxes on the screen, making it safe for him to get back in the air. A good Zero is gonna Buster cancel you until you do something wrong, then he’s gonna kill you.
Corner Carry into Lightning Loop is all you really need because as said before even if you mess up Lightning Loop you’re still doing more damage than Rekkoha and since you’re in the corner that next TK Raikousen is probably gonna cross them up anyway.
Here are characters off the top of my head that can go with Zero if the player is good enough to corner carry and LL solo (doesn’t include the known top partners):
Captain America, Viper, Chris, Hulk, Spencer, Nova, Strange, RR, Phoenix, Iron Fist, Storm Skrull, Joe, Ryu, Frank
I’ve said from vanilla I think the best overall Zero team structure is: Meatshield/Zero/Anchor. With that, the following teams work (I’ve tried these):
Captain America/Zero/Sent - Really, really good
Chris/Zero/Sent - Good, but my Chris sucks
I want try to Hulk/Zero/Sent or Hulk/Zero/Doom also.
Basically, the meatshield just wrecks house and Zero cleans up whatever is left over. The meatshield should have at least 1 million health and be able to control space somehow.
Not sure if I can agree with that, Zero is not only a character that needs an assist to fill the screen and control space like Drones/Missiles/Beams+Projectile, he is also one of the greatest beneficiaries from assist extensions, especially ones that open up possibilities for the LLoop. Thats why Zero/Sent/Dante is so potent, along with other variants like Z/V/D. This of course, being opposed to characters who only really need 1 or the other, such as Captain+Drones or Hulk+Drones or Morrigan+Missiles
I also have to disagree with putting him second, you’re risking one of your best characters ( who not to mention, also has a level of health that you can accidentally ToD with a lot of characters, and regardless of what people say, in an actual match, health does matter. Its the difference between surviving an XF guard cancel Doom Time and coming back, or instantly getting blown up from 100% life for it, not to mention, people DO drop combos that require you to do 1.1 mill+ combos, whereas doing 800k~ are non-droppable or non resource reliant combos for much of the top cast ) having to come in on a nasty mixups without any Buster charge available.
Of course you can always DHC to Zero and not always have to have him come in on a mixup, but its still risky to rely on just that.
Whats the point of having Zero clean up, when he can mop house right from the get go? He doesn’t need meter, he builds it during his own combos, he doesn’t even need X-factor to slap down the highest health characters. Not sure where the logic comes in that having a “meatshield” is good for Zero, I feel you give up many of Zeros strengths like that. There are of course benefits to having Zero, but you’re not always going have the chance to cross over into Zero ( considering you need 2 bars, if you get slapped at the start of the match, there goes any chance of abusing that )
Just my opinion, although if you have any real solid reason as to why having that kind of team setup is advantageous for Zero i’d like to hear it.
Mainly because Zero does have crappy health. Putting a meatshield on point allows you to clear the traffic. If that meatshield takes out even on character Zero is exponentially more safe since the opponent has his options limited. This is not theory. I’ve done it and it works really well.
The only drawback is the incoming mixup, but honestly that’s a problem everybody has. But not everybody has Zero’s j.H to help against some of it.
Thats it? Seems pretty shaky but whatever, what if the meatshield dies right away? Lots of the meatshields in this game are more prone to getting hit than Zero ( nearly every character in this game is like that to be honest ), and having Zero start the round off makes him way more safe than when hes coming in 2nd. Everyone does have to deal with the incoming mixups but Zero not being able to have his buster charged is reason enough to not go this route. As I said, Zero is way more prone to dying off an incoming mixup rather than if you had a higher health character sitting in 2nd. Now you’re down a potential assist and have a much higher chance of having Zero die.
I was hoping for some real solid reasoning, rather than " I tried it and it worked out for me ". Like, there can be arguments for having characters like Dormammu 1st 2nd or 3rd, 1st because having an OTG assist significantly boosts his damage, along with having a 2nd assist to help with crossups. Then theres things like, i’d rather have Dormammu 2nd because hes really scary when he has the meters to burn. Same premise for characters like Hawkeye etc etc. But I don’t see any kind of stance on this for Zero, because he doesn’t need the meter, he builds it all on his own during his ToDs, he needs multiple assists to make all his approaches and defense safe. Not many characters can actually carry to the corner, ToD a 1m+ health character, and set up easy straight up multiple 50/50 lightning mixups into another corner carry or kill. Zero isn’t even supposed to be getting touched, thus again, the reason for multiple assists. Very apparent in teams like Zero/Vergil/Dante, like watching Arisu in the top 8 of a recent tournament.
Oh well, i’m glad it works for you.
Well I’m not going to apologize for not writing a book. I’m also not going to apologize for you not understanding the reasoning or simply choosing to ignore it because “I tried it and it worked” ain’t it. Read the the post again.
I think its debatable if Zero is better than Spencer or Wesker…but 1 thing I can say:
Zero is BY FAR, the best point character in the game. None is better than zero at going first.
I won’t say that I think Zero is bad in the second spot, but I think he should definitely be the point character for aforementioned reasons. He’s extremely pesky from the start of the match with two assists, and that’s reason enough for me to put him on point.
I think he has the tools to survive incoming mix-ups, but I’d rather not risk it when I know I can get results if I put him up front. He’s also an excellent battery for a meter-hungry secondary (Hawkeye, in my case.)
Zero has to be played first or second. If your third character provides him with a good assist that gives him a kill combo or a DHC, then there’s no problem running him second. If your first character dies, chances are he died and let Zero inherit a bunch of meter in his will. Now all you have to do is land a hit on one character, get the free kill, and you have a free mixup on the next character. And you probably have level 2 x factor on top of that.
Where is the best place to get the basics of this character? The threads here are very specific(combos, match ups, etc), and that’s really good. I appreciate the tidiness and orderly fashion of this board, but where do I go as a rookie? Where to figure out what normals are good, best jump attack, etc.
Thanks 
For normals, check the hitbox thread:
The official strategy guide is also pretty good too for getting an overall feel for the basics of the character. I think most of us have been playing the character since Day 1 vanilla, so we end up neglecting the basics. After getting a feel for his normals, you should work on learning his neutral game. The Zero Movement Thread should be a good place to get you started.
the zero vs spencer matchup is different. During my tournament matches I shot a buster and his grappling gun canceled. I wasn’t to sure what to do.
Advice anyone? my assists are dantes jam session and sentinel.
edit: wesker is SO overrated. Noel Brown complains a lot about how zeros normals destroy wesker.
That’s exactly why I hate Spencer more than anything, fucker just interrupts anything and everything either lightly zone at sj. height and wait for an opening or you wait for him to air grapple his way in (once the dash has begun he can’t block so feel free to punish). The thing with this matchup is you can’t chuck buster as freely as you can against others, here you need to use Raikousen Buster Cancels a lot (surprisingly these work well against random Bionic Arms since L Raikousen comes out slow so it punishes him after the initial hyper animation).
The worst thing you can do is fight him from a distance on the ground or attempt to zone him out while you’re on the ground.
I haven’t played our resident Spencers in about 3 or 4 weeks now I haven’t got the matchup down to a T but I know what I shouldn’t be doing against him for sure.
BTW try peppering him with air L Busters while covering Sentinel drones assist so he doesn’t bionic arm it for free this’ll go a long way to shutting down his defense, just be very wary of that air grapple cos of Sent’s massive ass hitbox =/
All the spencer’s I fight like to air web zip forward, which is easy to anti air if you’re ready for it and if they don’t have a projectile assist.
Otherwise, it’s better to stay in the air and find a good time to attack downward. At range, projectiles will help, and force him to air web zip to move forward which is when you counter with an anti air or cross under. But if you can’t win on ground-to-ground, I think air-to-ground is the only way to go.
I’m going to tell you guys a secret because we all use the maverick hunter. Spencer is easy to deal with. Having used Spencer since from day one vanilla I’m very familiar with his weaknesses. First off Nathan relies on you making a mistake to open you up his advantage is people are afraid of him so he can force mistakes easily. Whiffed normals are what gets you killed in a Spencer matchup. Don’t throw out anything unless you are sure It’s going to hit or be blocked. Long block strings get you killed against Spencer. Spencer wants to pushblock a string to force a normal to whiff then “arm” it. Zero is especially venerable to this because if you get a 5C or 6C pushblocked on the first hit its a free arm. Next Spencers approach is junk. Ziplines are terribly unsafe. If you crouch an air zipline its a free airthrow into combo for Zero. If you have three Meters Genmu that shit. Spencer can’t cancel zipline to arm so its totally safe to just blast him with it. On the ground the only thing Spencer can follow up a zip in attempt with is a 2A his telegraphed overhead or command throw. Solution, jump up back and punish a whiffed OH or throw attempt. Be careful though if it was a 2A he can cancel the whiff into arm so don’t try to j.C it in that case. Stay fullscreen as much as possible Spencer needs to get in to do the most damage. Arm is invincible for 8 frames on startup if he does it beyond about half screen its not invincible anymore. Just block and punish it when its done *or *he is forced to use his xfactor to keep it safe. If thats the case, he has the same followups as stated above. Genmu Zero blows up arm even up close as its hitbox stays over Spencer until after his invincibility is up. Do it on reaction if Spencer tries to hit a whiffed grounded normal with it. Try not to airdash much as Spencer will be fishing with grapple lines. If you block a Grapple line up close punish it. Its very unsafe.
TLDR; Don’t whiff normals, Play it lame. Genmu Zero
lightning loop is one of the reasons zero is top tier
being able to convert basically any suboptimal starter (assist, random air conversion into full combo, any throw at all, DHC, TAC) into 600k dmg for 1 meter is absolutely retarded.
and please don’t say it is hard.
I say LL is hard so that they think im a good player.
I’ve been cooking a zero in the oven since I believe he is the true end game character. And from playing him seriously for like a week, I have to say that a majority of the zero “mains” have either got to be the laziest fuckers in the community, or just don’t know how to flesh out their the character. I mean I’m just going by the ones I see on streams but no one really is doing his optimal shit. Kerahime and atashiwa are like the only two zeros I’ve played that I can say are optimizing him on every hit. I mean I got the LL at 50% in a week and people who have been playing him since day one don’t opt for it? wtf. I will say that easily shows that he is the best in teh game since people are using him at a fraction of his effectiveness and still easily blowing things up.
The majority of Zero players I see on streams make me sad, but it’s not really an optimization thing, they just seem to have down-right dog shit for fighting game fundamentals.
I blame it on MvC3 though, I feel like most people that started or mainly play this game have poor fundamentals.
Agreed. The standard of Zero play we see on streams is way too low for a character so strong. I mean if you have a character that can kill off a touch practically, why neglect it?
Unfortunately, the Midwest doesn’t get recognition like the East/West Coast do, so when people see Zero being played at like half his potential, they think that’s all the character is capable of