Starting combos: What looks like it can land a hit easily?

[shaowebb]

I've been going through videos since I'm sick and stuck at home doing nothing much and I thought it'd be nice to discuss combo starters.

As someone who suffered through MVC3 and UMVC3 with characters who had trouble mixing folks up it is something VERY big to me to consider with Injustice just what tools look to open people up easily for me to start my combos. Block string pressure is nice and all that, but whoever can land a hit and convert it the easiest tends to dictate a lot of who people will learn first. Regardless of who learns what character though I'd like to discuss some tools that look particularly good in here and let others point out tools they think will do well for them.

Also mixup setups you are considering for characters would be great in here.

Two folks that look to have some dickish combo starters are Aquaman and Sinestro in my eyes. BOTH have a low projectile that comes out fast directly under someone and launchers them. Sinestro can do his during flight mode and convert it too. I see these as very harsh to deal with and those who have been hit with Kung Lao's teleport know that it can be hard to contend with if used right. Plus this game has directional blocking so they will also need to crouch block this thing.

I'm also eyeing Batman's remote bats setting up mixups on folks trying to recover. That is a dickish combo starter right there.

 

[PizzaMasta]

Well, from what I've seen, Deathstroke seems to be a really good zoner, but at the same time when he gets up close he seems to have both a low combo starter and an overhead launcher, two very valuable tools. Combine that with his high range sword combos and I think he will have no problem getting these pesky superheroes to fly all over the place.

 

[Circus]

I don't know if we could be 100% sure that Aquaman's ground trident and Sinestro's floor construct while he's in jump could be lows. But this topic is something I've thought about too.

Batman:
First of all my biggest concern in the game is Batman for this very reason. He gets his remote bats after a cooldown that doesn't seem too long and it basically setsup a free safe mixup. When he activates them, they hit like 3 seconds afterward, so at this time Batman could try to go for an overhead combo starter, a low combo starter, grab gimmicks, crossups, fake crossups. It's just so... idk... scary to think about fighting against. You'd want to have him never be on the offense when you know his bats are off their cooldown because you know you'll have to block a safe and dangerous mixup.

Flash
Flash could slowdown time........ I know it's probably on a bigger cooldown than Batman's electric batarangs, but still. That is mixup heaven for Flash. If the Flash player has some decent setups to trick his opponent while in slow mode, it's basically lights out for his opponent. You're a sitting duck while he slows down time. It's not like Batman where he'd had to be on the offense to get a mixup, Flash could just activate the slow mode and he'd immediately be on the offense.

Sinestro:
Same thing but different. He charges up the little orb thing, and when it's done charging he has free mixups because of safe cover fire from the floating thing.

Hawkgirl:
This is one I really want to examine once the game comes out. In the Battle Arena trailer it shows Hawkgirl spinning her mace around then throwing it. If it lands the opponent goes into an immediate juggle state and Hawkgirl could fly in and start a combo. The thing is.... it showed Hawkgirl using this charged mace throw on the ground AND in the air AND in flight mode. This basically means that she has Zero's buster charge from MvC3 which is basically one of the main reasons Zero is so broken in that game. At any point if she sees you whiffing or doing anything and she has her mace charged, bam, your done. I think that plus her mobility is going to be a serious problem.

 

[Impractical Joker]

I've been going through videos since I'm sick and stuck at home doing nothing much and I thought it'd be nice to discuss combo starters.

As someone who suffered through MVC3 and UMVC3 with characters who had trouble mixing folks up it is something VERY big to me to consider with Injustice just what tools look to open people up easily for me to start my combos. Block string pressure is nice and all that, but whoever can land a hit and convert it the easiest tends to dictate a lot of who people will learn first. Regardless of who learns what character though I'd like to discuss some tools that look particularly good in here and let others point out tools they think will do well for them.

Also mixup setups you are considering for characters would be great in here.

Two folks that look to have some dickish combo starters are Aquaman and Sinestro in my eyes. BOTH have a low projectile that comes out fast directly under someone and launchers them. Sinestro can do his during flight mode and convert it too. I see these as very harsh to deal with and those who have been hit with Kung Lao's teleport know that it can be hard to contend with if used right. Plus this game has directional blocking so they will also need to crouch block this thing.

I'm also eyeing Batman's remote bats setting up mixups on folks trying to recover. That is a dickish combo starter right there.

Maybe those really are low projectiles but I am still under the impression that they will be blockable with stand block just as Shang Tsung's skulls were in MK9. Making a full screen projectile that comes from beneath you and possibly launches a low seems a bit unfair and I bet it only seems that way because none of the gameplay has really showed the players blocking.

And as for starting combos, it looks like Catwoman's trait allowing her to get unblockable hits will make her very dangerous but I don't know how that works exactly as giving a free combo seems a bit unfair. Most of the traits will make getting combos off much easier obviously such as Flash's slowing down time and Sinestro's floating ball. I also think that Cyborg will have an easy time starting combos with his unblockable missile setups similarly to how easy Cyrax could start combos (at least when MK9 came out).

 

[Impractical Joker]

I don't know if we could be 100% sure that Aquaman's ground trident and Sinestro's floor construct while he's in jump could be lows. But this topic is something I've thought about too.

Batman:
First of all my biggest concern in the game is Batman for this very reason. He gets his remote bats after a cooldown that doesn't seem too long and it basically setsup a free safe mixup. When he activates them, they hit like 3 seconds afterward, so at this time Batman could try to go for an overhead combo starter, a low combo starter, grab gimmicks, crossups, fake crossups. It's just so... idk... scary to think about fighting against. You'd want to have him never be on the offense when you know his bats are off their cooldown because you know you'll have to block a safe and dangerous mixup.

Flash
Flash could slowdown time........ I know it's probably on a bigger cooldown than Batman's electric batarangs, but still. That is mixup heaven for Flash. If the Flash player has some decent setups to trick his opponent while in slow mode, it's basically lights out for his opponent. You're a sitting duck while he slows down time. It's not like Batman where he'd had to be on the offense to get a mixup, Flash could just activate the slow mode and he'd immediately be on the offense.

Sinestro:
Same thing but different. He charges up the little orb thing, and when it's done charging he has free mixups because of safe cover fire from the floating thing.

Hawkgirl:
This is one I really want to examine once the game comes out. In the Battle Arena trailer it shows Hawkgirl spinning her mace around then throwing it. If it lands the opponent goes into an immediate juggle state and Hawkgirl could fly in and start a combo. The thing is.... it showed Hawkgirl using this charged mace throw on the ground AND in the air AND in flight mode. This basically means that she has Zero's buster charge from MvC3 which is basically one of the main reasons Zero is so broken in that game. At any point if she sees you whiffing or doing anything and she has her mace charged, bam, your done. I think that plus her mobility is going to be a serious problem.

Let's hope Batman has crappy high/low mixups since he already has great defense tools, air mobility, and blockstring pressure it woudl appear

 

[Circus]

And as for starting combos, it looks like Catwoman's trait allowing her to get unblockable hits will make her very dangerous but I don't know how that works exactly as giving a free combo seems a bit unfair.

The general theme behind all these traits is that they are all really unfair lol. It's either free mixups, free offense, free unblockable damage from a simple slash or gunshot.... Basically if someone's trait is not cheap, it's not going to be on par with some of the rest of them.

This game is going to be fucking nuts.

 

[Impractical Joker]

The general theme behind all these traits is that they are all really unfair lol. It's either free mixups, free offense, free unblockable damage from a simple slash or gunshot.... Basically if someone's trait is not cheap, it's not going to be on par with some of the rest of them.

This game is going to be fucking nuts.

I feel bad for the likes of Superman and Bane who just get damage boosts, it better be one hell of a boost to compete with Batman and Flash's

 

[Grumptronix]

MORE UNFOUNDED SPECULATIONS!

 

[Zyphox]

good thing they can patch these things without actually havig to release a full patch. make these traits things have a long cool down time and there goes your balance right there. hawkgirls mace looks to be dash cancel-able hopefully she has a levitate cancel too <3

 

[shaowebb]

Hawkgirl:
This is one I really want to examine once the game comes out. In the Battle Arena trailer it shows Hawkgirl spinning her mace around then throwing it. If it lands the opponent goes into an immediate juggle state and Hawkgirl could fly in and start a combo. The thing is.... it showed Hawkgirl using this charged mace throw on the ground AND in the air AND in flight mode. This basically means that she has Zero's buster charge from MvC3 which is basically one of the main reasons Zero is so broken in that game. At any point if she sees you whiffing or doing anything and she has her mace charged, bam, your done. I think that plus her mobility is going to be a serious problem.

Ditto on all the other points but I left this one highlighted to point out one thing. For her mace to be as threatening as Zero's buster it would need to be able to be used to CANCEL any move she does. Thats how Zero became so dangerous. He had huge combos and stuff before, but the ability to buster cancel gave him safe pressure, loops, and ridiculous extensions. Still its not unlikely that this may be how it works given she is about aerial based pressure.

If Hawkgirl was a different spin on Zero buster cancels it'd be cool. Honestly if she can mace cancel anything in this game though it may be at the cost of meter. I really wish meter and health had been left on during some of those vids, but it seems like they were chopped together from various plays from guys doing combos so it would have broken the theme to not see health progress downward since it would have been spiking up and down all over the place given how piecemealed those battles were.

One thing I'm considering is overheads in this game. Some folks got some really fast ones and if anyone here has played against a good Spencer or Ryu in UMVC3 you'll know that it suuuuuuuuucks to be in blockstring only to eat an early overhead and then get put through their whole combo. Ryu's overhead punch was scary during blockstrings since he could go into it easy out of a low and the same could be said for Spencer's. I had one with Ironfist but it cost me a much needed ground bounce and it messed up his combo since it also robbed him of his crumple extension. Still if they were blocking his pressure I'd settle for that overhead and getting something over not getting anything and it worked really well.

Flash's overhead looks like it'll be opening up some folks out of timeslow or normal blockstrings. Its really fast looking. High low blocking is gonna mess with some folks not used to it yet early on.

Let's hope Batman has crappy high/low mixups since he already has great defense tools, air mobility, and blockstring pressure it woudl appear

In Battle Arena it was shown that Batman's kick stuff isn't safe on block so he may not have the safest block strings. That'd make him and in and out guy reliant on his counters and remote bat gimmick for his combo starters if this is the case.

 

[CrimsonShadow]

You never really know what hits low before release.. For example, you'd think Mileena's roll would hit low too, but it doesn't (It can even become an overhead!)

 

[Fractured_Shadow]

The only character gimmick that has me a little wary is Cyborg's health recovery... If he has ANY move that disables you for say 3 seconds... i.e Kabal dash, Subby Ice, a NutPunch/Sonya 112/Kabal f4 special or string this could become an issue.... couple that with his great zoning and I could forsee this as becoming a large problem that needs to be looked into.

As for Batman his air game is what has me worried. I picture him being a....bird-bat...man? He has TONS of air options that will make to skeptical to AA him (He has a dive kick right?).

 

[babalook]

god what if batman has unblockables like eddy from GG, it wont even matter if he has bad low/overheard options since his cross up game is probably going to be ridiculous.

 

[shaowebb]

The only character gimmick that has me a little wary is Cyborg's health recovery... If he has ANY move that disables you for say 3 seconds... i.e Kabal dash, Subby Ice, a NutPunch/Sonya 112/Kabal f4 special or string this could become an issue.... couple that with his great zoning and I could forsee this as becoming a large problem that needs to be looked into.

As for Batman his air game is what has me worried. I picture him being a....bird-bat...man? He has TONS of air options that will make to skeptical to AA him (He has a dive kick right?).

I think Batman has a divekick but I can't remember it used outside of the one he canceled his glide into that was at a bad angle vs bane. Plus on that glide he has it slows his decent to try and bait out stuff but it got him destroyed vs Bane when the guy didn't fall for it. So far I like his jump ins that crossup.

Still we don't know priority on stuff yet so dont get all worried about things like divekick pressure yet. Wolverine's had a ridiculous hitbox and priority and so did the one Rufus sported. Not all divekick moves are instantly godlike. They are just good for catching folks offguard due to their redirect ability IMO (like Yuri's in KoF XIII). For now Batman's crossup looks pretty good though. He was pretty far out there when it hit so that seems useful.

Im still hoping I can setup a trap from Lex Luthor and then vacuum someone into it for a nasty little gimmick.

 

[CCVengeance]

I feel bad for the likes of Superman and Bane who just get damage boosts, it better be one hell of a boost to compete with Batman and Flash's

Just wait my Kal-El wont fall for such gimmicky s**t and will eat the likes of Flash alive.

I think Batman has the most versitile of all the traits revealed so far.