So I am delaying the entry about Wesker because it's going to take a crap ton of time and school is owning me at the moment. Pretty much up until the last year of my life I had pretty bad confidence issues. Whenever I did anything I always thought I would fail at it and if I did manage to do it I always thought I could do it better. This affected lots of area in my life, but because this is a blog about video games I'm going to talk about how it effected my performance in tournaments.
The first game I ever traveled for was Smash Brothers. I played Melee and Brawl. I took Melee pretty seriously and mostly played Brawl to troll people. People would tell me I was pretty good and I could hold my own against the better players in casuals. When it came to tournaments tho, I would lose my cool and drop everything or fall into the most predictable of patterns. This happened a lot and it would cause me to lose to players I shouldn't lose to. When it came to playing known players I would get even more freaked out and play even worse. I have been working on this a lot and I still tend to choke in some clutch situations, but I am never nervous until those situations. Here is a prime example, I am playing a person in winners bracket. I catch them in a Sentinel mix up and all I have to do is quarter circle a for a rocket punch to win the match. I choke and the rocket punch doesn't come out. After this I am mentally messed up and I lose the match despite having a huge advantage.
THERE IS GOOD NEWS!!! YOU CAN FIX IT.
Here is what I have been doing to fix it. First, is to not care and act like it never happened. Look at Diago's face when he messes something up. It doesn't get to him. Where as look at someone like Marn. He freaks out when something bad happens. Second, practice simple execution like that until it becomes second nature. After I whiffed that rocket punch I went into training mode and did like 200 rocket punches to make sure I never missed one. Third, listen to music. Listening to music can help you zone out noise, get you pumped up, and focused.
I am going to T3, a tournament in Indianapolis, in a few hours and I am planning on winning and not getting nervous. Hopefully I'll do well because I could use some extra money. Remember, never give up you can do it :D.
I lied about using Dazzle for this entry. I’m in a really boring class, so take what you can get.
WHEN TO CALL AN ASSIST
There are 3 main situations that you want to call an assist in.
1.)On An Approach
2.)Defensively
3.)Footsies / Zoning
On An Approach
I play primarily a rush down team so this is when I am mostly calling my assists. Assists can be used to create amazing mix-ups and keep pressure going. Here are some more awesome pictures to help illustrate my point.
So right now I called my drones assist and I have a few different options I can do to mix my
opponent up.
1.)Command dash behind him and force him to guess what will hit first.
2.) Command dash and do an overhead.
3.) Command dash and do a low.
Selecting option 2 and 3 are the best situation to do. It forces your opponent to guess
twice. They have to guess what will hit first the drones or you. They also have to guess if
you will hit high or low. Unfortunately this won’t work if your opponent isn’t bad and
jumps. Most of the time it comes down to should they block you or the sent drones.
JAY WHAT IF MY CHARACTER DOESN’T HAVE A COMMAND DASH???
You can still use them to cover your approach. For instance, She-Hulk can call a beam or projectile assist while she is moving in. This protects you and helps you get in. For instance, if you get hit on your approach, but you called an assist like Sent Drones or Taskmaster arrows and your opponent starts to combo you and doesn’t launch you fast enough they will have to block mid-combo or they’ll get hit. Most of the time they will block the projectile giving you time to get in.
1.)They Block
This is good. It moves them back and resets the situation. It also gives time to think of a way to counter what is going on.
2.)They Get Hit
This is also a good situation. If this happens I combo off the assist and do some decent damage. Practice combing of an assist hit, it’s really important. Also, if your opponent isn’t on auto pilot or not retarded then they are going to think twice about rushing down and possibly shift to a defensive role.
3.)It Whiffs And They Don’t Punish
This is bad, but it could be worse. The only really bad things that happen are you can’t call an assist for a few seconds and you’re in the same situation.
4.)They punish the assist.
This sucks, but you can turn it into a situation that benefits you. When I call an assist I generally know if it’s going to whiff or not right after I call it. I don’t know if this comes with time or what. But, if I know it’s going to whiff I generally assume a punish is coming. If they just try to straight up hit it with normals, I’ll punish with my normals. If they super it then my assist either eats the super or I counter with my own super. Zero’s level 3 or Sentinel’s Hyper Sentinel force are generally my two ways to stop this. Research your characters and find your ways to counter supers.
Using Assists to Make Unsafe Moves Safe
Calling assists at the correct time can make certain unsafe moves safe. For instance, let’s say that I am pressuring with Zero and my opponent has a move fast enough to counter my 6C (Forward C). I can call the Tron assist to cover me and possibly get a combo if the opponent tries to counter it. Look at this picture. Assume I whiffed a 6C.
Footsies / Zoning
From full screen call a projectile assist to control space and be ready to protect it. It’s that simple. Or when your close up call one and try to get a hit. It’s that simple.
WHEN NOT TO CALL YOUR ASSIST
1.)If the character is good on point and you don’t want to lose them.
Zero is my best character. If he has half red life and a sliver of yellow life I won’t ever call him. If I already used X-Factor, Felecia has a ton of red life, and I need to call her, I generally will call her because she isn’t as important to me on point.
2.)If it’s obvious they are going to get punished.
There are lots of situations like this. Take this one for example. Say I am fighting against a Storm and she is full screen or is tri jumping in my face. I don’t have 3 meters, but I decide to be an idiot and call drones. If the player is smart and close to me they’ll block drones, do a super basic combo on Sentinel and kill him. If they are full screen they’ll just hail storm and do a ton of damage to Sentinel.
Ok I’m done. This should help you know how to use your assists.
NEXT UP: WESKER, YOU ARE NOTHING TO HIM. NO REALLY… YOU ARE...
Now that everyone knows how broken Tron’s assist is she is popping up on everyone’s team. I play probably the best Tron in the Midwest and easily one of the best in the country on a pretty frequent basis. I learned the hard way to block, so now you don’t have to. (Sorry John :p) She has a really linear approach, but if she hits you she’ll combo you zero to death. Really her best and only approach is to call a projectile assist, super jump, and then air dash C at you. This creates a pseudo 50/50 because most people are bad and can’t see where their character is. Luckily there is an easy way not to get hit by it. LOOK AT YOUR TRIANGLE that tells where you are. Very few people I know do this and it’s one of the most useful things you can do for any super jump cross up in this game. Look at these pictures so it’s easier to understand.
See the triangle. USE IT TO NOT GET CROSSED UP!!!!
HOLD LEFT HERE
HOLD RIGHT HERE
WHAT IF SHE CALLS AN ASSIST AND JUMPS TO CROSS YOU UP??
Tron is slow and doesn’t have a good command dash or anything. 9.5 times out of 10 the assist won’t cross you up. It’s almost always the safest to block for Tron and not to worry about an assist mix up.
JAY WHAT IF SHE IS DIRECTLY ABOVE ME????
Wavedash away from the assist and position yourself so you are on one side of her and you don’t dash into the assist like a scrub.
JAY MY CHARACTER JUST GOT KILLED AND TRON IS TRYING TO CROSS ME UP WHAT DO I DO???
This situation sucks. Most of the time it’s a straight up guess, or if your reactions aren’t bad you can block on reaction. So just be good and don’t get hit. One thing you can do is if your character has a dash, dash upwards and hold up back. BE READY FOR A GRAB! Tron is cheap and has like 200 million years to combo you off a grab. So just be ready to tech it. There you have it, this is how you block Tron.
NEXT UP: USING ASSISTS TO CREATE MIX UP SITUAIONS, WHEN TO CALL YOUR ASSISTS, AND ACTUAL DAZZEL FOOTAGE / REAL PICTURES OF THIS STUFF.
I should probably be finishing my homework right now, but I decided to start this blog instead. I’m not naturally good at many things. Honestly, MvC2 and MvC3 might be one of the few things I have some natural talent in. I know a ton of people who want to get better, but have no clue. I have a Dazzle video capture device that I bought for Smash, but I never play anymore. So I decided to make this blog to tell people how not to suck. I’m going to start this blog by telling who I am and what team I use.
ME
That’s me and my awesome stick. I’m graduating college in like 25 days and going back to grad school. I usually hang out with people and do school work. When I have free time, no homework, and no one to hang out with I play Marvel. I do pretty decent in tournaments, but have a huge tendency to choke in clutch situations. I got top 13 in my first 2D fighting game tournament regional and placed top 5 in most locals I go to. I traveled to Final Round 14 and got bodied due to a combination of nerves and a lack of sleep. I did take a game off Marn though :D.
MY TEAM
Zero is my favorite video game character. I’ll play him regardless of his tier and how bad he is. Luckily, his solid rush down and versatility make him an incredible character. His command dash and ability to set up for crazy mix ups make him a dangerous character. His normals also have incredible range and priority. His low HP and the inability to do massive damage with simple combos hurt him. While he is not Wesker or Ammy good, he is still a pretty solid character.
Sentinel is my favorite fighting game character hands down (Lambda 11 is a close second.) He can zone, he hits like a truck, and he has one of the best assists in the game. When he activates level 3 X-Factor he gets a new name… God. With the recent health nerf you have to be a lot more careful when calling out assists and he is much more vulnerable to instant overheads. This character is so good people will call you a Sentinel scrub if you use him. When this happens I just tell them to hail their new robot overlord. Overall, he is a huge robot, does lots of damage, looks cool, and has one of the best assists in the game.
Felicia is one of my favorite characters story / personanlity wise. Honestly, it doesn’t get much more awesome then a cat that stars in Broadway shows, and is a nun. The main reason I use her is for her low hitting assist. It creates unblockables for Zero and Sentinel and is easily one of the most annoying assists in the game. Also, she makes for a solid anchor. When she activates X-Factor Level 3 she gets an infinite, she has jabs faster than Dark Phoenix, and can create unlimited block pressure. Combine that with the unblockable setups from calling a Kitty Helper and you have a pretty cheap and annoying anchor. The cheapest thing ever is to call a kitty helper and force a new character in the corner right after a character kill.
