Seriously speaking. His team has some tech that would really catch a bunch of folks off guard:
- Joe with Shocking Pink assist for situational OTGs; can also be used to trigger Strange's immensely invincible projectile counter super for free.
- Morrigan with Eye of Agamotto is just abusive, Die is like the only player who could legitimately hit Soul Drain loops frequently if he knew the setup.
There's probably more I haven't payed attention to, but I really think he should look at his team a bit more before deciding to change it, especially for something so wildly out of his norm. Hell, I suggested he keep Morrigan, add Dante but pick Amaterasu before he went full ZMC just because he'd still get zoning and good neutral space coverage. Even then, thinking about it now, he'd still have to get used to handling Dante proficiently & Amaterasu anchor in two weeks. That's a tall order.
He doesn't make good use of the Morrigan/Strange pairing at all. If he knew how to handle Strange better, he'd be a monster. When I ran Strange/Dormammu/Morrigan, it was a disaster because Strange just doesn't do well on point. But when I did get a flow going, there were a lot of OCVs because Morrigan is feeding him a ton of meter, and suddenly your opponent can't do anything without being punished by Spell of Vishanti. I ate through entire teams just with Spell of Vishanti sometimes. The meter generation is that fast. I considered running Strange/Hsien-ko/Morrigan, but I don't think it would work out in practice. Morrigan on point would, but only with Eye of Agamotto assist. I'm not sure if I'd want to do that.
Anyway, team report. SolarPowered, I'd especially appreciate your feedback on my thought process, since you were there:
I played a 25 match set with Shuma-Gorath (Mystic Ray) / Hsien-ko (Senpu Bu) / Dr. Strange (Bolts of Balthakk) last night.
Team Virtues:
1) If I get Dr. Strange up there backed by Shuma-Gorath and Hsien-ko, I feel borderline invincible. The combination is just as strong as I thought it was.
2) Able to deal with a huge variety of playstyles.
Team Weaknesses:
1) If Shuma-Gorath dies, Hsien-ko has to survive incoming mix-ups and take chip - gah.
2) The biggest problem - when Dr. Strange dies, Shuma-Gorath backed by Hsien-ko isn't actually that good. He's too slow for it to work well. Hsien-ko backed by Shuma-Gorath isn't too bad, but it's not good either.
3) The idea behind the team is Dr. Strange using Hsien-ko while being able to protect her. Unfortunately, with Shuma-Gorath on point it takes 2 bars to get Hsien-ko armored, and then I'm without meter for protecting her. It's not reasonable for me to try and wait for 3 bars most of the time, either.
4) Two low damage characters. Dr. Strange does good damage, but Hsien-ko and Shuma-Gorath don't, even in their full combos (which I admittedly can't do).
5) No good use for X-Factor outside of Dr. Strange, so if he dies there's almost no chance of making a comeback.
All of this leads me to what should be an obvious conclusion: Hsien-ko/Dr. Strange rocks, but Shuma-Gorath needs to be replaced. I don't think Amaterasu is a contender because she would have problems similar to Shuma-Gorath in getting zoned (my opponent was using Morrigan/Hidden Missiles). Right now, the team weighs too much on Dr. Strange, so I think I need another character that can really abuse Senpu Bu and Bolts of Balthakk. Doom is definitely a candidate for this, since he is good at getting in without using specials so he can call Senpu Bu at any time. The character also has to be good on point, because I don't want Hsien-ko or Dr. Strange taking damage so I can preserve the former for her assist and the latter as my true point character once I get him in. I also felt like my meter was completely wasted in going from Shuma-Gorath to Hsien-ko, because Hsien-ko just tagged out. I'd like a setup where Hsien-ko can follow up after the DHC to try and TAC glitch the opponent (since she's not susceptible to TAC counters while armored, though the TAC itself can still be countered).
Current thoughts:
Doom (still)
Skrull - gets full combos from Bolts of Balthakk, high damage and health, good DHC to
Hsien-ko through Skrull Torch (I assume), Senpu Bu gives him nasty command grab setups, excellent user of X-Factor
Spencer - gets in for free, loves Senpu Bu for mix-ups, Bionic Arm to Rimoukon is a good combination, big damage, good X-Factor user, and slant shot is a good assist for Impact Palm into big damage
I think I'll give Spencer a try, but I'm open to other suggestions, as always. I'm also considering Morrigan.
