Over the past few weeks, I have grown rather fond of Marvel vs. Capcom 3. While I still play Super Street Fighter IV with my coworkers when they are online, Marvel has (for now) taken over as my go-to fighting game of choice.
What I’m enjoying most about the game is the team element of the experience. In other vs. games, I would choose my team simply based on who I liked and/or who I was good with. Once in battle, I wouldn’t pay any mind in regards to who my opponent’s team was, either. I was just looking to beat people up for the win. But now that I’ve actually taken some time to learn this game, I’m realizing that there’s so much more to the team-based gameplay than that if you want to go far with the game.
I’ve found that when it comes to building a team, simply picking your best three characters doesn’t necessarily guarantee that it will be your best team. I’ve realized that you really have to think about your team’s chemistry in these vs. games. I don’t have to reach far for real-life examples of this. In the NBA, the Miami Heat is considered to have the best trio of superstars in Lebron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. However, they’re not the best team in the league, largely because they don’t have the best team chemistry as some of the other top teams, such as the San Antonio Spurs and Boston Celtics.
What then defines team chemistry in Marvel vs. Capcom 3? I’m by no means an expert, but here are a few factors I’ve think matter when you build a team:
Play Style
How do you like to play the game? Do you like to rush down? Do you like zoning your opponents with projectiles? Or do you want to have the ability to switch up your play style depending on the situation?
Ultimately, you’ll need to pick a team that fits the way you like to play. Over the past few weeks, I’ve seen a lot of players online pick Sentinel. I suspect they’re only picking him because the popular perception right now is that he’s the best character in the game. I can tell that this is the case because they’re trying to force their own play style onto Sentinel rather than taking advantage of his strengths, which usually leads to disaster. If you’re going to make a serious team, make sure you’re comfortable with using them.
Order
How you arrange your lineup can make such a huge difference to the outcome of the match. Based on the characters you want to use, who would you want to start out a fight? Who do you want to close out a fight? Who do you want to use mainly as an assist? On my team, I like to use Wolverine to start because I can do a good job of putting my opponent on the defensive from the outset. However, I don’t think my Wolverine would be good as my last character standing, especially if I’m stuck in a 3-on-1 situation. When thinking about your order, consider which characters will work best for you during the beginning, middle and end of a fight.
Assists
When you first start playing this game, it can be really easy to ignore the fact that you even have assists. What I’ve learned over time is that assists are critical to success. When thinking about assists, consider who you have on the screen and what an assist can do to make things easier for your point character. As a Wolverine player, it can be difficult to rush in on a zoning character like Chris. While Wolverine may not have a projectile attack of his own, his assists might. Pairing up Wollverine with a projectile assist can help negate your opponent’s projectile pressure or give you an opening to rush in. There’s all sorts of ways you can improve a point character by using assists, so experiment with combinations to see what works best for your team.
Meter Management
Hyper combo meter is an extremely important resource to draw from. When putting together a team, you need to consider how much meter each character on your team will need. Some characters work well without a lot of meter, while others live and die by their meter use. The most extreme example of meter management is Phoenix. Without 5 full bars, Phoenix is a sitting duck that will likely die in one combo. However, with 5 bars, she’s the single most dangerous character in the game. For a Phoenix team to work, you need two complementary characters that work as your first and second option that also don’t rely on meter. If the team you like requires a lot of meter, you may want to add a character like Morrigan to your team, who has an assist that instantly gives you a meter boost.
Team Combos
Team combos can greatly improve your damage output. It’s important to have a team that can string together high damage combos. On a simple level, you ideally want a team that can effectively Delay Hyper Combo or Cross Over Combo. You don’t want to be in a position where the first hyper combo hits your opponent and the second one completely misses because they don’t cleanly connect.
On a more advanced level, you may want to consider how you can use your assists to extend a regular combo. For instance, you can have Chun-Li use her lightning legs assist in the middle of a ground combo in order to add extra hits. This can be really tricky to manage, but it can really open up damage opportunities for you.
I know this post is a bit long-winded (and to some experts, not detailed enough), but I find the team mechanics in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 very fascinating. This is old news to anyone into Marvel vs. Capcom 2, but I thought it was worth sharing to anyone like me who is just getting into it. Though I have a main team of Wolverine/Morrigan/Sentinel, I’m still constantly experimenting with character combinations to see what else works. If you’re playing Marvel vs. Capcom 3, who is your team and why?
In Third Person 
My team I have three of them. Team blade is Zero, Dante, and Deadpool, its easy to combo with them then do considerable damage to opponents once they are in a air combo, Team Combo is Zero, Ryu, and Trish. I use this team to counterattack apponets and mind screw with them usually sending them in the air and using hyper combo on them after a 3 hit combo. Team Online is Zero,Arther, and Hisen-ko. this team is able to stop sentital, phionex, and wolverine users. All of them I use the simple command because it feels eaiser for me…and I rather get someone in my own combo that I created myself then use normal mode and have everyone know what I’m going to do.
Thank you for the comment!
I’m glad you’re enjoying the game and experimenting with your roster, even if you have Zero on all three teams 🙂
actually i myself find that im at an impass cuz idk who how to arrange my team using synergy my charecters that i use are…
wolverine
chun-li
ryu
crimson viper
hulk
trish
and x23-she my best charecter period but yeah if u could throw out some team ideas it would help
Thanks for the comment jesterngj! I love playing theory fighter, so I’ll gladly take you up on this “challenge”.
Here’s what I’m thinking so far:
1. Chun-Li (Lightning Legs Assist)
Hulk (Gamma Wave Assist)
X-23 (Ankle Slice Assist)
Use Chun-Li as your first character is great for building up meter. If you have the big combos, she can build meter really fast if you can rush in. Against zoning characters, you can use Hulk’s Gamma Wave assist to nullify most projectiles as you rush in. You can also use X-23’s Ankle Slice assist to hit your opponents OTG to continue a combo after you knock them to the ground. Off the top of my head, I’m pretty sure you could string together a full magic series combo into a full DHC if you use the right hyper combos for each character.
I’m not sure if you know this, if you kill off a character with X-23, then activate Silent Kill, you can pretty much kill the next character to appear on screen with an unblockable combo. As the new person drops in, connect with Silent Kill, then OTG with the Ankle Slice and combo that into Rage Trigger. Even without X-Factor, that’s pretty much a guaranteed kill. The catch is, you need four meters to do this, which means she’s likely better off at the back end of this team.
2. Wolverine (Bezerker Barrage Assist)
Chun (Lighting Legs Assist)
Hulk (Gamma Wave Assist)
Wolverine is the point person on my team. I like him as the first person up because he can do great damage on his own, doesn’t have a hard time setting up combos, and he doesn’t need to use a lot of meter. Use Hulk’s Gamma Wave assist to nullify opponent’s projectiles and use Chun-Li’s Lighting Legs assist to extend your combos or to set up cross-over mix-ups if you time the legs assist and a Berzerker Slash at the same time. Off the top of my head, I’m pretty sure you could string together a full magic series combo into a full DHC if you use the right hyper combos for each character.
Chun-Li or Hulk’s position on this team I think can be a matter of preference. Both characters can work well as the last character on your team with level 3 X-Factor. It’s just a matter of who you think works best for you as your closer.
I haven’t used Trish too much, so I can’t really comment on her. As for Ryu/Viper…they both have their strengths, but they both tend to need a lot of meter to be effective in my opinion (Viper especially). To maximize their effectiveness on any team, try pairing them with characters that either don’t need much meter or can help you build meter quickly. Maybe even a character like Amaterasu or Morrigan would work here, as they both have meter-building assists.
thankyou soo much this was very helpful like u dont even know lol so yeah imma take those ideas and just experiment from there thanks now i have something to go on
I am new to this game and, overall, the whole fighting game genre. I’m more used to just mashing buttons and hoping for special moves, while this game really brings strategy and team play into effect, which I really enjoy. So, as a beginner, what are some good teams to get started with? like, teams that would give me a basic feel for the game?
Hi Deva! Thank you for the comment!
When I was starting out, I found that the easiest characters to learn with were the ones that had basic “Magic Series” combos. These were the characters whose regular combos were L, M, H, S, Jump, L, M H, S (either knock them to the ground or tag in a partner). For some characters, they require a specific sequence in order to knock someone in the air or knock them on the ground, and to this day I’m still trying to figure out the quirks. But for starters, only having to worry about that one sequence helped me greatly.
With that said, a few good starter characters that have a standard “Magic Series” include:
Hulk: Does great damage from simple combos and has hyper armor on his normal moves. His assists are great, too.
Wolverine: Very fast character that does good damage off of relatively easy combos.
X-23: Maybe a bit harder to learn than Wolverine, but she’s even faster and arguably more fun.
Taskmaster: Great damage output and relatively easy to learn.
Zero: Easy to string together huge combos.
Dante: Pretty much any motion you do triggers a special move. You don’t have to learn all 40 of his specials, but to start, you can probably just memorize 3 you like and go from there.
Wah! i just played this game for the first time today! my ultimate team right now is Viewtiful joe : speed -easy combo – catchy and annoying moves! Tron : my favourite girl in capcom ( I’m a fan of the megaman legend series) Tron is my get-away girl she has attack range and can do a whole lot of damage and send people off-guard (more like off their feet to be exact) and lastly Arthur : something about Arthur really caught my affections, his sword combos are extreamly hard to avoid dur to his size and tricky to attack characters in the game like the time stoping dog (fox?) would be an easy prey to him. I always put Viewtiful joe first, his speed is essential (especially if you are fighting people like wolverin or spiderman) Joe should nearly always remain off-ground while Arthur bombard the ground with his assist and lastly tron will get busy calling the King servbot to smash the enemy ( a level 3 super grab by her ) can also get them even if they block! so there you go! ps. i really want to use Felicia! she’s my favourite character too but i can’t seem to fit her anywhere in anyteam! i can’t understand why -_-‘ anyway, peace out! i like your review and i agree that this game can fully be enjoy only if you understand the team system!
Thank you for the comment Vava!
I’m glad that you’ve found a team that you enjoy after only one day of playing the game. However, I highly recommend experimenting with the rest of the cast, too! It’s a lot of fun to explore all of the options and combinations of characters in the game. You never know what will work best for you in the long run.