ULTIMATE MARVEL VS CAPCOM 3 BALANCE CHANGES DISCOVERED/SUSPECTED THUS FAR
Read changes as:
+ = Buff
- = Nerf
+/- = A change in mechanics that can be either a buff or a nerf and needs more experimentation to determine which it is
General Changes
X-Factor:
X-Factor is now usable in the air, which means aerial hyper combos are now X-Factor-able, you can instantly recover after breaking a Aerial Exchange, you can cancel aerial blockstun, survive chip damage on an incoming character at low health, etc.
X-Factor damage and speed boosts are now standardized; all characters receive the same boost when activating X-Factor. Characters which did not receive a speed boost in MvC3, such as Hulk and Amaterasu, will now receive one. However, characters with such extreme power boosts, such as Sentinel, are now toned down. X-Factor still scales up based on the number of remaining characters on your team, but it appears as though X-Factor one boosts are either very minimal or non-existent now.
While damage and speed boosts are standardized, time in X Factor is not standardized. Some characters have longer X Factor than others.
Finally, minimum scaling for X Factor has been reduced from 50% scaling to 35% scaling so long combos with X Factor do less damage now. Scaling also applies to X factor'd hypers as well.
Team Aerial Combos (TACs):
In MvC3, an upward TAC provided a damage boost, a sideways TAC provided half a bar of meter, and a downward TAC provided a full bar of meter. In UMvC3, upward TACs appear to be unchanged, sideways TACs now drain a bar of meter from your opponent, and downward TACs provide +1 meter.
New to TACs now is a color-identification system. When a TAC takes place, the character being hit will briefly flash one of three colors: red (up), green (side), or blue (down). The flashed color is an indication of which direction the TAC was made, making TAC counters based more on reaction time than luck.
Whether hitstun scaling is negated post-TAC until your incoming character touches the ground is unknown, but several post-TAC combos which work in MvC3 were seen dropping on-screen, such as Sentinel's Rocket Punch series. This may have been due to execution errors or changes in attack frames, however. Performing TAC counters is much easier as the window to perform them has been made more lenient (confirmed by Capcom as well).
It is confirmed that it is now possible to counter attack after a successful TAC counter or combo off of it, possibly with air X factor.
Meter Gain
Through some testing of the preview builds of UMVC3, it appears that overall meter gain has been reduced. Overall the same moves/attacks in MVC3 now give 80-90% meter of vanilla MVC3 and on hit you receive around 50-60% meter gained from the damage that is inflicted. Essentially on damage inflicted, the player receives around 80-90% of meter off of 1 bar (when 1 million damage is inflicted non-scaled) and on damage received, the player receives around 50-60% of meter off of 1 bar.
DHC Glitch/TAC Glitch/Infinites/Hit Stun Deterioration
A host of glitches have been removed in UMVC3 especially the infamous DHC glitch as well as the numerous TAC glitches. More glitches and infinites are also removed from the game if they were previous discovered. Furthermore a lot of characters have received tweaks to hit stun deterioration and in general long combos appear to be more difficult to
do especially OTG pick up time frame.
Before when you struck an assist character in a combo, you could take advantage of their knockdown status to continue combos infinitely. The amount of time that you can do this has been decreased.
Further more, in MvC3 the amount of hit stun caused by assists was fixed, but in UMvC3 hit stun caused by assists will also be subject to hit stun deterioration during combos.
Mashable Moves/Hypers
Just about every character in the game has a mashable move or hyper of some sort. Mashing allows it to do more damage. Basically, unmashed the hyper does half of it's original damage but with full mash it does it's full damage. Fully mashed hyper do damage equivalent to the same hyper in MVC3.
Snap Back
Snap Backs function the same as in MVC3 however they are not 1 frame moves anymore. The reason for this is that in the original MVC3 Snapbacks could be used to counter an X Factor guard cancel punish essentially making that attempt to retaliate useless. Snap backs most likely can't be used for this purpose anymore and players need specific snap back combos now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_fhn...layer_embedded <-- Video explained the Snap back vs X Factor Guard cancel technology
In addition, after a character is snapped in the time it takes to call in an assist or tag back out is increased so anyone who gets snapped in is now worse off defensively. If a Snap Back attack hits an assist, that assist is disabled for a period of time.
Air Dash Change
NO character can block during an air dash anymore. In addition, the Down/Back air dash on a lot of characters have been slowed down. For other air dash speed changes, it's variable as some characters have faster tri-dashes (Dorm, Doom and possibly Thor) while others have slower (Magneto).
CHARACTER SPECIFIC CHANGES
Akuma
+ Akuma is able to use Demon Flip and moves in the air now. Akuma can use his ground bounce demon flip in an aerial combo and then follow it up with a relaunch fairly easily
+ All of Akuma's hypers can be mashed for more hits/damage except for the beam hyper
- Tatsu Assist is no longer a soft knockdown, so it's a bit more difficult to extend combos with it
- Decreased priority of Tatsumaki Zankukyaku as well as increased horizontal knockback range
- Does not have a light Tatsu infinite in LVL3 XF anymore
- Slight health nerf to 750K
Amaterasu
+ Can switch weapons in the air now
+ Increased active frames of cr.M
+ Increased active frames of charged Thunder Edge
+ Sword portion of Glaive Chop causes knockdown
+ Additional hits can be added to Divine Instruments (LVL3) through rapid button presses
+ Air sword charges faster (?)
+ Cold star appear to be faster when on point and as an assist (?)
+ Counter/Reflecters come out faster (?)
- Decreased untechable time of Assist β (Cold Star)
- Decreased hit stun time on all normal attacks (L,M,H)
- Decreased hit box size of M, cr.M
- Can no longer do instant overhead with jumping L canceled into Down-Forward + H in Glaive stance
Arthur
+ Increased health to 850K for normal Arthur with a corresponding increase in health for his other forms as well
+ J.S drops him downward more quickly for easier OTG after air combo
*His j.S diving down isn't just good for relaunches, it helps him combo in general, since against some characters, he does have to rush
+ J.S can OTG
+ Added start up invincibility to Heavenly Slash
+ Increased untechable time for first hit of Hellbound Slash
+ Arthur's Boomerang/Scythe attacks as well as other Arthur projectiles have better start up now and are much better for their "get off me" purposes. They also have better recovery (?)
+ Range on Scythe seems to have been increased (?)
+ Gold Armor lasts around 5 seconds longer
C. Viper
+ New move described as a laser coming from C. Viper's eye (called OpticLaser). Has to be charged with the attack buttons like Zero's Mega Buster. Can only be released on the ground. It's super cancellable.
+ Increased feint input timing slightly for L and M versions of Thunder Knuckle
- Slightly decreased forward moving range of Thunder Knuckle M
- Untechable time from Thunder Knuckle H decreases with combo length
-Various changes made to her that remove her infinite or makes it more difficult to do
Captain America
+ Shield Slash specials are faster and have better recovery
+ L Shield Slash now hits OTG and it is possible to combo a hyper after it or relaunch.
+ Has a Double jump now
+ M/H versions of Charging Star now cause an untechable soft Knockdown and their horizontal knockback increased
+ Both Beta and Gamma assists received a damage increase
+ Captain America's Back Flip/Cartwheel move has start up invulnerable frames now
+ Hyper Charging Star can be mashed for more hits/damage
- Medium and Hard Charging Stars have had their damage reduced
- Shield Slash now inflicts less untechable time
- The amount of time that an opponent is knocked down after a Hyper Charging Star has been decreased
Chris Redfield
+ Chris can now cancel/empty cancel out of his gun attacks by doing another special move. f+M, cr. H and j.d+H are all special cancelable. An example is that Chris can OTG cr.H into Magnum easily.
+ Decreased startup of j.S and increased active frames.
+ Chris has a proper wave dash now, he can act immediately after a dash
+ H Grenade fire puddle seems to last longer/pops the enemy up more (?)
+ Has faster start up/recovery on his specials including his Flamethrower (?)
+ Increased active frames of Shot Gun but with decreased damage
+ Decreased gap of Prone Shot
+ Machinegun portion of Sweep Combo can OTG
+/- Minimum damage scaling on special attacks has been increased
+/- Increased float of cr.H
- Decreased untechable time of first hit of Combination Punch H
Chun-Li
+ Appears to do overall more damage in combos (?)
+ M and cr.M can be jump canceled
+ Chun-Li appears to be no longer completely vulnerable after doing her Tenshokyaku in the air. Can act out of this move.
+ Lowered arc of Air Tenshokyaku L
+ Increased untechable time from last hit of Tenshokyaku
+ Slightly increased priority of Hyakuretsukyaku
+ Yosokyaku can OTG
+ Chun-Li has a new attack which is a different version of her Spinning Bird Kick. It's instant and appears to have invincibility similar to her EX SBK in SF4 but it has to be charged. Has 3 different versions with L, M, H
+ Kikosho hyper can be mashed for more damage
Dante
- st.L jab has a smaller hit box meaning it's not as effective as an anti-air (still good for that purpose but not as godly as before). Same for M attacks.
- st.H hit box nerfed. Less vertical range
- Smaller hit box on QCF+L Killer Bee Dive kick (?)
- Hit stun scaling has been changed a bit for Dante which has affected some of his combos. Some of his more advance combos have stricter timing to them and less time to perform OTG follow ups. There are numerous examples cited but it was getting out of hand so I am just making a general statement here. This is because there is generally increased knockback for almost all his moves
- Hammer takes longer to start up it's invincibility and overall it's invincibility frames are decreased
- Decreased cancel time during startup of Bold Move
- Decreased damage of Volcano-Beehive
- Slightly increased horizontal knockback from Beehive
- Decreased minimum damage scaling on normal and special attacks.
- Lowered float of Clay Pigeon (most likely his Up Gun shots which allowed him to perform a loop)
+ During Devil Trigger, Dante gains Triple Jump and Double Air Dash.
+ Input on moves for Dante involving Rekkha like motions (like Dante's Hammer which was QCF+L~QCF+L) are just simply changed to a double tap (so new Hammer input would be QCF+L ~ L). So far this has been noticed for Acid Rain, Hammer and Beehive. It is suspected that this is an across the board chance for Dante and this makes some of his specials have faster start up times like Hammer.
+ Million Dollar Jackpot can be mashed for more damage/hits
Deadpool
+ Quick Work: The distance/range/speed of this attack is said to have been increased.
+ All of Deadpool's normals can be cancelled into his taunt (which has a hit box)
+ Supposedly faster specials and Ninja gifts (?)
+ Guns have less recovery time/better start ups
+ Deadpool's throws now cause longer knockdown time.
+ Quick Work is now Team Hyper Cancelable.
+ Deadpool can now cancel special moves into his Teleport which include Quick Work and Trigger Happy
+ Chimichangas! can be activated from Quick Work
+ Happy Happy Trigger can be mashed for more hits/damage (both air and ground versions)
- Mad Wheel (Overhead) cannot be canceled anymore
- Bolo Loop is removed through various changes to the Bolo trap:
* H.Ninja Gift floats lower.
* H.Ninja Gift causes longer opponent incapacitation.
* Incapacitation time from H. Ninja Gift decreases with combo length.
Dormammu
+ His zoning specials have become better in speed and recovery including Dark Hole and Purification (?)
+ Dark Matter (f+H) can be special canceled into Mass Change (his teleports) and Dark Spells now. In fact, Dark Matter can pretty much be special canceled into any of Dormammu's special moves.
+ Increased the pushback on both of his ground Light Attacks
+ Increased distance on backdash
+ Ground dash is significantly faster (?)
+ Ground throw now causes a untechable hard knockdown. Air throws will always do a hard knockdown now
+ Dormammu can now chain his cr.M into cr.H for 3 ground chains
+ Can chain cr.L into cr.H giving Dormammu a universal hit confirm on all characters
+ Can charge Dark Spells while airborne. Can only charge one at a time and is vulnerable until he lands. He stops in the air when performing this special, in the same manner as Dark Hole.
Liberation in the air causes him to teleport to the ground and then perform the release.
* Liberation (2 red, 1 blue) is guaranteed to activate (active from 1st frame) meaning if you activate it and you get hit during the start up the spells would still appear
* Liberation (2 red, 1 blue) causes untechable knockdown
* Liberation (2 red, 1 blue) rocks come out slower
* Liberation (2 red, 1 blue) rock damage has been increased
* Liberation (2 blue, 1 red) is guaranteed to activate (active from 1st frame) even if you get hit on start up
+ Can attack out of down-back airdash. Most likely up-back too.
+ Chaotic Flame hyper can be mashed for more hits/damage
+/- Dorm puts Flame Carpet slightly further out & hitbox change(?). Flame Carpet disappears when Dorm is hit.
- Reduced hitstun on cr.M
Dr. Doom
+ Doom is generally a faster character now especially on his dashes (?)
+ J.H laser beam is faster. J.H has a better hit box/hit detection and better start up along with a bigger hit stun allowing for potential combos after hit confirming with it in an air to air situation.
+ Doom's forward throw causes a hard knockdown now
+ Air S moves faster vertically
+ Air S causes an exaggerated bounce in an anti-air situation but is not a true ground bounce (too low for it) it's more like a hard knockdown. Enough time to OTG after it into a full combo. Can be canceled into Flight and go into Doom's M&M combos, either from a Jump or Super Jump state.
+ Doctor Doom's Photon Array and Doom Time hypers do more damage/hits when mashing
+/- Photon Shots in the air have less active frames
Felicia
+ Can use Delta Kick in the air now
+ Delta Kick in the air causes Ground bounce when used as part of an air magic series.
+ Sand Splash can hit OTG
+ Decreased total frames of Sand Splash (all versions)
+ Dancing Flash can be mashed for more hits/damage
+ Please Help Me hyper can be mashed for more hits/damage
+/- Rolling Buckler no longer automatically tracks opponent's position
- Toy Touch now causes less hitstun decay after extended combos
- Decreased total frames of Kitty's Helper
Haggar
- Lariat assist no longer causes Hardknockdown (it causes Soft knockdown). Still causes hard knockdown as a point move
- Double Lariat assist is now vulnerable during startup for around 2 frames. It still beats just about anything but it's not going to go through a beam hyper for example
+ Haggar falls faster after an air throw
+ cr.H now hits OTG and it knocks down. Cannot be cancelled.
+ Has some frames of start up invincibility on his Rapid Machine gun punch hyper
+ Additional hits can be added to Final Haggar Buster through rapid joystick rotations
Hsien-Ko
+ Chiretou seems to have faster start up. No specific timing after an air combo was needed for this hyper to connect. It can be mashed for more additional hits and damage (?)
+ Gongs come out slightly faster.
+ Rantetsu can chain combo into Edoga.
+ Increased untechable time from Edoga.
+ Reduced startup of cr.M and decreased active frames
+ Jump attacks cause slightly less float
+ Appears to do slightly more damage due to less hit deterioration from her previously multi-hitting normals (some of them still have multi-hitting properties) (?)
+ General hit stun changes allowing her to do easier combos in the corner involving cr.H, f+H, M Henkyo ki for 3 reps on opponents (?)
+ Grounded Henkyo Ki recovery is faster (?)
+/- She has new projectiles to toss during Anki Hou:
* Oil drum(the wooden log everyone thought it was). Supposedly has high projectile durability points but given the randomness of items, it's hard to test this out.
* Hunk of meat. nothing special at least from what I saw.
* Samurai Doll/Cat doll. Causes stagger.
* Chris's stun rod. Also staggers with an electric effect.
* Snowman. Freezes opponent, rather, it just has an ice effect similar to Ammy's Cold Star. It doesn't actually freeze you ala Chris's grenade launcher hyper.
Hulk
+ Has a new charge move (The Incredible Punch) now where he charges up a straight punch (essentially charging his st.M) which has some super armor and causes wall bounce on impact. Can follow up after an OTG move/assist. Does damage on block and can be cancelled out of while charging into any of his specials including his command throw. It's possible to chain into the Incredible Punch from Light and Medium Attacks.
+ Gamma Charge's attacking priority has been improved
+ Grounded Gamma Charge now has Super Armor. The second part of grounded Gamma Charge now floats higher (the rising version).
+ Anti-Air Gamma Charge's second hit (Medium version) will now cause a wall bounce
+ Gamma Wave's charge time decreased.
+ Gamma Tornado's (Command throw) damage increased to 200K
Iron Man
+ Iron Mans UniBeam is faster and recovers faster, spammable while on the ground. Both as an assist and as a point character. In the air, his beams most notably his L Unibeam is pretty much the same speed as before (?)
+ Ground dash moves him at least 1/2 screen across. Before it moved him about 1/3rd distance (?)
+ Repulsor Blast/Spread activate faster. Upon hit Repulsor Spread causes a hard knockdown and it can be followed up afterward with Smart Bomb -> Proton Cannon
+ Repulsor blast/Repulsor Spread input has been changed to reflect Iron Man's current orientation (so he doesn't cross himself up and input incorrectly) and Repulsor Spreads are now activated by just adding a button like H.
+ Smart Bombs have better recovery frames, start up and do more damage on hit for both ground and air Smart Bombs
+ Iron Man can now cancel his normals into dashes in the air like Magneto allowing him to perform new flight/dash cancel combos
+ Even faster flight cancel with better start up
+ Iron Man's cr.H is now SPECIAL CANCELLABLE. Can even be canceled into flight mode. Iron Man can also now chain cr.H into launcher making his ground series much easier to execute
+ Standing H and j.S have better hit confirms into a combo because they have better priority/hit box
+ The amount of untechable time after someone has been hit by the cr.H Shoulder Missile has been increased
+ Proton Cannon hyper can be mashed for more damage/hits as well as Iron Avenger
+/- Overall damage scaling for Iron Man has been tweaked. Normal moves' damage scaling has been reduced and special moves damage scaling has been increased
- Repulsor Spread priority lowered
- Decreased untechable time for opponents after a Smart Bomb hit
- Triangle jump/air dash mechanics reworked. Seem to have different trajectories and acceleration (faster acceleration slower velocity). Possibly different types of dashes. In any case most players seem to agree that Iron Man's tri-jump game has been significantly nerfed because of this change due to the general speed of it is greatly reduced.
- Removal of double jump
Jill Valentine
+/- All attacks float a little higher.
- Slightly decreased forward moving range of cr.M.
- Slightly reduced hit box sizes of all jumping attacks.
- It's very much possible that some of her infinite block strings/lockdown that negated Advance Guard in Mad Beast are removed or tweaked. This was hinted by Seth in one of the interviews (?)
M.O.D.O.K.
+ MODOK can cancel moves in the air with a dash
+ Killer Illumination hyper does more hits/damage when mashed