Team Order

Team order in Marvel is quite important. I don’t know everything about it but I will give you the basic run down that I know. Now being there are 50 characters in the game, there are a billion ways you can create your team, but there is a format to which you SHOULD create it if you should wish to be successful.

Format 1: Battery, User, Assist or Battery, Assist, User

This is great use for the DHC glitch, but since it’s been removed it kinda killed it for this sort of team. HOWEVER it doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t have a team structured this way. It can now be more put into an “Anchor” based sort of team. The way this team works is the “Battery” basically acts as the character that builds meter for the “User” and the “Assist”, well, is you assist character(usually a good anchor as well).

Breakdown:

Battery- This character has a really easy rush down ability and can build easy meter with simple combos. Even though this character will build the meter, he won’t use it (unless it’s for the kill). You would usually save about 3 meters just for you anchor character. Also, your battery character acts as you first point character in dealing damage so don’t rush in recklessly as if you don’t need this character.

User- Now you can use all the meter you like. Your “User” basically is the reason why you built the meter up. You now have the meter necessary to do all the flashy comboing you need to do already stocked up for you.

Assist- You assist…what else?

Application:

Now you may be saying “Since the DHC glitch is gone, are you just saying that this team format is only Phoenix scrubs?”, not necessarily. This team works great for Phoenix, but can also be used for other characters. As I said before this will mainly be used for characters that are great anchors such as Phoenix, Strider Hiryu, or even Morrigan because if you were to lose your first two characters, then you can clutch it away with you anchor. Phoenix can turn into Dark Phoenix with her 5 bars and mash A. Strider can activate ouruboros and turn the tide on your opponent. Morrigan can simply chip your opponent to death with her Mirror super and fireballs.

Example Team: Marn’s Team (MvC3)- Magneto, Zero, Sentinel

Marn’s team was the perfect example of “Battery, User, Assist”. Magneto would build all the meter in the world for Zero and once he had 2 meters, he would DHC into Zero and kill your character, then snap Magneto back in to build some more meter and then repeat the process. Obviously Sentinel was there for his Drone assist to help Magneto get it.

Format 2: Point, Point, Assist

This is format is more commonly used because you don’t need to worry about meter building and all that fancy shtuff.

Breakdown:

1^st Point- This is probably your best character or just a very strong offensive character. With them you can easily finish off their first or maybe even their second character with just a couple of mix-ups.  

2^nd Point- Another one of your best characters.

Assist- Just your assist (and anchor).

Application:

This works out to be the best team format because you can kill your opponents characters so easily. While they are busy working on building meter or something else, you are just focused on getting in.

Example: Team BFF- Wolverine, Dante, Akuma

I’m pretty sure you all know this team very well and that you’ve seen it a lot. This is one of the best teams for this format because Wolverine is kills effenciently and can deal quite a bit of damage before he dies, Dante can come in and basically finish off Wolverine’s work, and Akuma has one of the best assist in the game (and the fact that him and Wolverine practically can’t live without eachother) and works as a good anchor.

Format 3: Point, Assist, Assist

You could say this is one of the harder teams to run because you MUST keep your point character alive or else everything falls apart. Your assists are there to help your point character get in and to continue their combos. On the good side though, this would be a “one touch and your dead” sort of team.

Breakdown:

Point- Your absolute BEST character that you know for sure you are good with. You not only know the combos but their match-ups as well.

Assists 1 and 2- They are here because they work well with your point character.

Application:

Althought this is a team that is hard to work with, once you get a hit on your opponent the combo will never end and they will no for sure that their character is dead (if you don’t drop it). However if they manage to kill your point character, then you could say that your basically doomed.

Example: TBA

Picking your Ultras

 So usually when your just casually gaming and playing Street Fighter with your friends for fun, when you get the choice to pick your ultra, usually it's either the one that does the most damage or looks the coolest. Honestly I did this a lot. I would pick Ryu ultra 2 rather than ultra 1. Obviously ultra two is almost useless. In this post I will be talking about the importance of picking your ultras in certain match-ups. Now this becomes VERY character specific but I'll try my best.

Fireball Specific Ultras: When facing a opponent that has a fireball, these are usually the ultras to pick. These ultras are meant to shutdown their fireball game. They either have invincibility at the start up or throughout the whole ultra. This means that you will go directly through the fireball. Now ones that only have it on start up then that means you'll have to be quite close to your opponent and have fast reactions. That's another thing with these types of ultras, you need fast reactions. If you react too slow to the fireball, they might have already recovered from the fireball or the invincibility frames could be gone so you'll get hit by these ultras. As I said before, these are meant to shutdown fireball heavy characters such as Sagat and Ryu. Now as for other characters like Ken and Seth, these characters do have fireballs but they don't heavily rely on it, so choosing these ultras would be quite hard. For example,  If I were to be playing a Ken and I was Chun-li, choosing my ultra would be a crucial decision. Do I choose ultra one in hopes that he will think that Ken is a fireball-ey character (which he really isn't) so I can counter him, or do I choose ultra two knowing that Ken isn't really fireball reliant so I can get free damage? This also goes along with knowing the PLAYER that you are facing.

Anti-Air Ultras: I think the name explains itself. These are meant to shut down characters that have a move that makes them move toward you in the air (eg. Fei Long's chicken wing, Akuma's demon flip). Usually any move that invloves moving closer to you is used as a tool to "get in" on your opponent, such as Fei Long's chicken wing. On a stream that Crosscounter streamed pre-evo, Laugh was playing exhibition matches with Gootecks. I saw Gootecks pick Fei Long and as soon as he did that, Laugh went back and picked ultra two. Now right then I thought to myself, why ultra two? In only a couple of seconds, I was shown why he had picked that ultra. As soon as Gootecks chicken wing'd to get in, Laugh reacted and did ultra two. The ultra connected and went into animation. My mind was blown when I saw that. I'm not sure how far this applies for certain moves but I'm pretty sure that with the right reactions and ultra, you could stop quite a lot of moves.

Counter Ultras:
I'm pretty sure most of you know what this kind of ultra is and what does. They literally counter almost any move that you opponent will throw at you. The only thing that will stuff the counter is any move that breaks armor (BUT not moves that attain armor breaking properties when used as a reversal) or a projectile. Not sure if that made sense or not but moving on. These you'll want to use on mix-up heavy characters, or if you always seem to block with your face (like me). Most characters that you'd use this on are C.Viper, Akuma, and maybe even Ibuki (risk is getting cut by the kunai). Once you've executed it, it will for sure leave a mark in your opponent because later on they won't know whether or not you'll do it again or not. So once in a while, buffer it just to fake them out.

"Match Pace" Ultras: There arent very many of these ultras, but they can help you get out of sticky situations or help you regain or keep a lead that you need. Now this is character specific like always so I will go into to the characters since there are really only two of them. First off is Juri's Fung Shui Engine. Incase you don't know this allows Juri to chain normals that usually would not be chainable. This ultra is meant to rush them down after a knock down. This ultra actually is like a win-win situation. Once you activate, your opponent will be forced to block because of the fact that if he were to attack you, then you would regain more ultra meter and you would simply be able to activate again. However, this isnt always the case. If you were really low on life, then your opponent will just take you out, so be carefull when you activate it. Next up is Rose's "Soul Satellite". Her ultra is sort of wierd in my opinion but it still works. If you need you to sit on a lead or just trying to gain some life back you might want to activate. All I know activating out of desperation is not the best idea at times. Her ultra isn't the type to just activate it because you need to catch up (besides it doesn't even do that much damage), but more to sit on a lead or escape a sticky situation. That's all I know about Rose's ultra.

I think these are really the only ones that need to be REALLY specified on tactics for them but if you think I'm missing one then go ahead a tell me!

-Dive Kick Edition

Akuma-Intro and Normals

I will be making a little Akuma "tutorial" based on my own knowledge. If you find something I wrote incorrect, I'm missing something, or have a question, feel free to leave a comment below! Otherwise let's get started!

INTRO:
Name- Akuma/Gouki
Life- 850
Stun- 850
Pro's- INSANE mix-up game, able to rush you down and zone you out, has air fireballs, power house when it comes to damage, 3-frame uppercut.
Con's- Low life and stun, spacing needs to be top notch to play Akuma, execution must be spot on.

NORMALS:
Standing Normals:
Jab- Like almost any other jab out there. Comes out it 4 frames, not bad.
Strong- Same as the other shoto's practically. Not to bad of a hit box, I guess at times it can be used as an AA but I'm not to sure about that.
Fierce- This is when I need to specify on the range of it. This move is quite nice to use in certain circumstances. For example, your sitting on your lead or zoning out an opponent with air fireballs. So your just sitting back throwing fireballs and air fireballs and every time you throw a normal grounded fireball he jumps over it and hits you. Well, with proper spacing, when he jumps over a fireball, you can press that fierce button and WHAM! Anti-air him. The range that the far fierce has is actually really nice. Now there will only be certain times when you can combo off of this normal since it's REALLY hard to hit confirm this safely. Best time to combo(into the usual Tatsu combo that is) is when you know FOR SURE that this will hit. If you just throw this out there and do Fierce>short Tatsu, then you will be punished for it. Also, since you can cancel a fireball off this move, it works well for pressure with FADC. I'm pretty sure you guys have seen the usual Fierce>Fireball>FADC combo, but one thing that really caught my attention was when I saw Infiltration(a GREAT Akuma player) burn his entire super meter on Fierce>Fireball>FADC twice just to frame trap his opponent. Now that will cause legitimate pressure. Now I'm not sure if you want to burn your whole super meter just to do that but when you need that pressure, Fierce>Fireball>FADC will catch you opponent if they are mashing. If you do not cancel this move however, then you will be open for a free punish since it is -10 on block.
Short- Just like Ryu's. Can also be used as a "fake fireball".
Forward- Honestly, I can't find any good uses for this move. It's kinda just...there.
Round house- At close range, it's alright, but when you use Forward+Round house, it's a GREAT move! It forces stand so you can do stand specific combos, it applies enormous pressure, it moves you forward(like Ken's step kick but on steroids), and it hits twice so focusing it isn't such a smart idea. This is one of his best normals and has a nice hit box too. I guess you could say this is one of his best "pokes"-ish.


Crouching Normals:

Jab- Normal jab. Use this to hit confirm in your combos.
Strong- Used after a couple hit confirmed jabs for more damage in your combo. Can also be used as a frame trap.
Fierce- Best use is to AA opponents. Other than that...not too many uses.
Short- Probably used primarily as a low to catch opponents off guard when they are blocking high. Example: Demon flip-Palm(whiffs on opponent who is guarding high)>Crouching short.
Forward- Can be used as footsies some what. It's pretty similar to the other shoto's .
Round house- In my opinion, Akuma has the best sweep out of all the cast in street fighter. Comes out in 6 frames and has a nice hit box on it.

Jumping Normals:

Jab- Who's gonna jump in with this button? Really...
Strong- Since it's got some what of a different hit box than Fierce, then it can be used in certain situations(which I don't know yet).
Fierce- Probably the best jumping "punch" button you want to jump in with, but no necessarily the best jump in attack Akuma has.
Short- This is one of Akuma's best ambiguous cross-up normals he has. It can be quite hard to guess when blocking this, but when in the corner, USE THIS! It sets up for a fake cross-up. So when you get the knockdown in the corner, jump in with a cross-up short. What happens is that the opponent thinks that this will COMPLETELY cross-up, but it won't. As he is holding back(or technically forward), when the short connects and as you fall to the ground, you will end up landing in front of them thus being a fake cross up. This is a DANGEROUS tool for Akuma.
Forward- Another one of his good cross-ups. This just gives you more hit stun so it is easier to combo with.
Round house- Not such a great cross up but still usable at points.

Unique Normals:

Forward+Strong- This is his overhead. It's not too bad. You can probably use this when you jump in with air fireballs and catch you opponent crouching. The best use for this is to kara cancel your demon.
Down+Forward(Medium Kick)- Akuma's dive kick, it's not the best though. If only it didn't have height requirements. To perform this move you need to be at the top of you jump arc which means the angle of this kick can't really be changed. However, this moves still has it's pros. If you can space this correctly then you do a fake cross-up, which is really hard to block. Although the spacing will have to be VERY precise.

Next up will be Special Moves!

-Dive Kick Edition

Who I play and why!

Who I play

Street Fighter:Akuma

Why Akuma?
Simple. Before I played him I played Guile. When I played Guile I would jump in like no other. Of course that's not how Guile is suppose to be played. He is a turtle character. Not a rush down one. So after I got my Guule blown up at a fiends sleepover, I knew I needed a new character. I remember seeing a cousin of mine using Akuma and how he was just beating everyone. So at the time when I had alpha 3, I played and trained my Akuma. So basically you could say I chose Akuma because he's a rushdown character. Great mix-ups but he can also turtle a bit too. Another HUGE point I like to make is that he is the ONLY character in Street Fighter HISTORY(I believe...if not correct me) to be able to throw a fireball in the air! To me that was the sickest thing EVER!!! I of course abused this. Along with an air fireball he had one of the COOLEST supers ever!! If you killed your opponent with it, it would make that "JIIIIIINNNNGGG!!" type noise thing at the end which I thought was SICK! I would always wait until round two just to use it and finish them off with it. Now of course Akuma's health suuuuuhhuuucckkss. Same goes for his stun, but I guess that's what ya get when you play such a mobile character! Plus, what's better than a 3-frame uppercut? No one can safe jump you!

MvC3:

Wolverine, Amaterasu, Zero: Team Synergy? I haven't really gotten the chance to experiment with this team yet but I like them. As for DHC's, I think I can do Fatal Claw or even Berserker Barrage into Ammy's super. I still need to experiment with DHCing into Berserker Charge and Zero's Clone super. I pretty sure you can DHC into Zero's Clone super from Ammy's Super but if your full screen, then you've gotta rush them down again.
Wolverine: Who doesn't wanna play Wolverine? He's got a very nice hit boxes on all of limbs and he's got a dive kick! He's got great health and speed(even better with Berserker Charge).
Amaterasu: Many people say Ammy is one of the best characters in the game which I partly agree with. She has great mobility, great combo and damage potiential, and not to bad of an assist. Plus shes got a super that slows everything down which I think is great!
Zero: Zero is just one of those "you gotta have them" characters. I say he's pretty well rounded.
Now obviously I need to learn a bit more about MvC3 yet, but hopefully I will soon.

That wraps this one up. Now in the next one I will REALLY be talking about fighting games!

Intro and welcoming!

Well hello to you if you are reading this. My name is Nathan and I am a huge fighting game fanatic! I will be posting thoughts, ideas, vents, basically almost everything that crosses my mind. Now  most of my knowledge is on Street fighter but I know some amount on Marvel vs Capcom 3 also. As for other games such as Blazblue and Tekken, my brain has yet to be introduced to these games but I hope to soon learn these games. Also, just a side note, I don't CURRENTLY have console(I did, it's kinda a long story), I'm just a nerd about the game that's all.

How did I start to get into fighting games?
When I was around 9 or 10(possibly even younger) a cousin of mine gave me his old game boy advance. One of the games that he gave along with the Gameboy was Street fighter alpha 3. Now of course at the time I knew nothing about the game and just pressed a lot of buttons whenever I played it. Soon I learned that if I pressed the punch button a lot that blanka would electricute the opponent. I showed this to a cousin of mine which actually knew how to play the game. He told me that there was actually other moves to do also. Of course he showed me how to do the basic hadoken. After that I went crazy trying "down-forward and punch" on every single character. Soon I learned that it was only used for certain characters. I started to play it more and more and as I played it more I would ask my cousin for more moves. Of course there was a limit to how much they knew(or maybe I just stopped asking...I dont know for sure). He showed me how to do the super move which made me even more stoked! Soon enough tho,  I got tired of that game and started playing other games. Later on I sold my Gameboy for money for a DS. I then never cared about street fighter for a LONG LONG time. Not until I had moved and was about 14, had I relearned how awesome street fighter and fighting games were. I just had gotten a iPod for christmas and a few months after I had gotten it I saw that they had released street fighter on the iPod. I was extremely excited when I saw it so I had to "buy" it as soon as possible. At first I was just doing what I remembered like the basic hadoken and then I saw that they actually had a command list so I took a look at it and BAM...flash back into time. I remember the shoryukens, that wierd spinny kick, and the really awesome giant fireball that he shot(don't worry, I know what their real names are). Now that I had a that I wanted to get better at the game(even thought it was just on the iPod). I had also rememered that I had a cousin that had a ps2 and was pretty good and street fighter himself. It wasnt till a sleepover that I noticed that I sucked at street fighter(I thought I was great, I was, just on the iPod and nothing else). *If you don't have a clue what I have been saying this whole time then well, just read farther down* While at the sleepover we were playing street fighter alpha 3(ironic right?), and at this time, I had learned that there were charge characters, grapplers, and "down-forward" characters. I was convinced that my Guile was the best Guile out there and that I would be comboing my friends all day. (Yes I know, alpha 3 doesnt have Guile, it had Charlie, samething.) Boy was I wrong, I was the one being comboed on. I kept jumping in and kept jumping in with jab(light punch). I would only complete my combo once in like, a billion years. After the sleepover I wanted to get better and learn more about the game so I looked up "street fighter tournaments" just to see if I could find some pro action out there. Sure enough, the first video I would watch was the infamous video of Daigo parrying Chun's super. I watched that at first and I didn't have a clue what I just saw but I knew it was AWESOME!! So I looked up tutorials and the first video I came across was by this guy named "Tbirdsf4"(shout outs to him for great tutorials).  I watched all the parts of his tutorials and tried to apply them to the iPod version. Of course only certain things worked but I was still happy. I eventually got really invlovled with the game and was soon not to bad at it(on the iPod that was). It wasn't until later that I had learned of a even more in-depth tutorial by "Vesperarcade" (shout outs to them too)!! With this I was able to learn frame-data and option selects and many other things. I learned many other things later also but I think I've pretty much covered my whole life with this thing.

BACK TO SOME STREET FIGHTER!
I play Akuma and my MvC3 team is Wolverine, Amaterasu, Zero. In another post I will explain certain reasoning why I chose these certain character but as for right now, I shall allow you to take in that huge story I just wrote. If you skipped the story then well, your loss.

So please follow me and comment!!!

-Dive Kick Edition