It's difficult to engage in the fireball war up there with you because for every fireball I throw, it's one less time I can dash. Does Zero's buster count against his aerial special limit? My biggest problem up there was that you'd Raikousen, and the leftover lightning would catch me as I have to maneuver from you being under me. I thought about it last night, and I think it might actually be best for me to stay on the ground and engage in an anti-air fireball battle, using Bon Voyage to get under you and escape buster shots. Up top you definitely had the upper hand, because I can peck away at you with fireballs, but if you get me I'm just dead.
I love talking about this game, btw, so excuse my eagerness to talk /type about it.
Zero can only do each special move once in the air and certain moves prevent the other specials from being utilized. The only asterisk, and it's obviously a big fucking asterisk, is level 3 Buster cancels anything and more or less resets his available air option count back to zero. It's also what allows him to TAC glitch without X-factor as it puts him back into a neutral state.
So if he dive kicks, he's not doing his teleports to change direction. He's "done" unless he buster cancels. He cannot cancel with air dash, either.
If he "teleports" (really just a SPECIAL air dash), he can still dive kick or lightning. He cannot teleport twice in the air unless he at some point in the air level 3 Busters (I think).
Lightning, if it's not buster cancelled, leaves him completely helpless til he hits the ground and as you know he can also be hit out of it before the lightning goes active (he has to reach his endpoint in the "teleport" before it goes active. The worst feeling in the world is doing a horizontal or up angle lightning, missing, and slowly falling to the ground without lvl 3 Buster charged. Luckily, most are so scared of Zero you can get away with it sometimes.)
So, probably the MOST air movement he can do is air dash, vertical or horizontal air teleport, lightning (what I was doing to TRY and catch Firebrand), cancel with buster or buster at the end or at any point, air dash again, lightning or dive kick.
And I'm not 100% sure about the multiple air dashes with a buster in between, but it feels right. This is one of those things where muscle memory knows it even if cognitively I don't lol.
That's why Bon Voyage terrifies me. If you stay full screen, at best I can catch you with a cancelled lightning, but you're too far away to combo. You can keep tossing fireballs from the air and if I do divekick or slant down lightning for movement reasons, if you're quick you can Bon Voyage me into oblivion.
The only way Zero can hit Firebrand you is if you LET me do it or if I have an assist that forces you down.
I'm not a fan of the idea of Firebrand staying on the ground because of Zero's options with buster charged, though. You saw him versus Dorm, all I did was lazily superjump towards you and see what you were going to do. Up fireball would make me horizontal teleport or release buster into it (does it cancel or win?) and air dash / divekick down at you. If the idea is to keep Zero away, I've always experienced the absolute most trouble with people who can stay up in the air higher than he can go.
MODOK / Trish are huge pains in the ass.
That's true, there was that problem. Your Nova was effective against me, but I attribute that to a lack of matchup experience (I still don't have a strong grasp on a lot of the Ultimate characters), whereas Zero is just Zero. Nova's movement just messes with my head.
Once I got used to his movement, I loved it. It helps a lot that j.H when blocked is something crazy like +18. He's an amazingly simple and basic character, admittedly. J.H j.H j.H j.H THROW j.H etc.
But where he shines imo is the crazy damage Nova Force does, being able to convert every throw into half life, minimum (more now with hard tagging out to people), he can do crazy TAC air combos, and..
Takedown.
Yeah, I got air thrown so many times because I just didn't time things right.
Nova's air throw range is ridiculous. We're talking at least tied for the best in the game. A lot of times even if you know it's coming, that combined with his weird changeup / knuckleball style movements means you're screwed.
I need more experience to make the judgment about the matchup. Do you always get a full combo from Takedown?
Assuming I don't drop it? All depends on the height of whom I hit.
If they're on the ground / CLOSE to the ground, yes. On the ground, everyone can be combo'd as long as Nova goes down and is close to the ground after whatever the last hit is. And not only that, we're talking full combo. With my team set up, Nova builds a meter AFTER hitting with Takedown, so he's always guaranteed a Nova Force to end it. Combined with abusing X-factor2, an errant hit from a Takedown kills almost anybody.
If they're close to the ground, it all depends on how close to the ground / how big they are. Dormammu is huge and it's easy to combo him.
The other nice thing is if Nova quickly superjumps and does Takedown, unless your opponent has jumped already, it's basically an immediate 50/50 (barring specific craziness). It's not hard at all to fly past someone and come down behind them, hit them twice, and then combo after Takedown.
Well that and invalidating projectiles. You saw the one match where I intentionally flew through Stalking Flare, even though I missed you, to make sure it was rendered inert.
Yeah, it's awesome how fast it goes up. It made me able to play Phoenix on point in Vanilla easy. I would get Dark Phoenix in no time just superjumping and throwing out fireballs. The problem is that, because Dormammu's assists are so horrible, and I don't want to use Dormammu on point, I need a point character that can survive without assists. It's definitely a frustrating experience. I actually wish I could put Morrigan on point. I might mess with Rocket Raccoon on anchor today and see what Log Trap does for her Soul Fist walls, especially for comboing into Soul Drain.
Viewtiful Joe?
Wolverine and X-23 are pretty much why I won't use Dormammu on point. Ugh. What happens if you just jump back and j.H with Zero and cancel it into one of your command dashes to get space? I don't see how Nova would do better, since his startup movement is just as bad as Zero's. Wesker would make sense, though.
He gets air thrown by Wolverine
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Nova actually has SLIGHTLY better speed than Zero, especially if he's jumping backwards at the beginning of the match. Plus he can always air dash away.
