When beginning to form a team in a versus game, you have to ask yourself what the goal of that team is. Do you want a team designed to rush the enemy and force them to make mistakes? A team based on keep-away and frustrating your opponent while whittling down their health? Maybe you want a team that excels at neither, but can handle either situation marginally well.
It really boils down to what you feel like your best play style is. Some people know immediately what they’d like to do, or what they’re best at while others kind of struggle to grasp it.
Unfortunately, I can’t tell you what your play style is, but I do know some important things to consider for each team type and maybe that will help your decision.
Rushdown:
Rushdown, it’s like an American past-time. Probably the most common play style here in the states (at least on the East Coast,) pretty much does exactly what the name implies. Apply pressure until your opponent cracks, then hurt them bad with combos and resets.
Due to the nature of rushdown play, it’s also probably the most prone to making mistakes. When things get fast and hectic, it’s easy to drop a combo or mistime a reset. If you’re a player who is pretty prone to dropping combos and has limited executional skills, this may not be for you.
Things to consider for rushdown teams:
- Character speed and (air) mobility – Slow, immobile characters can’t really rush, can they?
- Normals – You need quick, highly prioritized normals to effectively rush down.
- High BnB combo damage – A lot of rushdown damage comes from Bread and Butter combos.
- Meter building potential.
- Cover-fire assists such as Sentinel Force or low-hitting assists like Wesker’s Samurai Edge.
- Damaging DHC potential – It’s not imperative, but should be considered.
- Damage opportunities from throws.
Examples of Rushdown oriented characters: Magneto, Zero, Wolverine, Wesker.
Zoning/Keep-away:
Oh, keep-away. If only people would learn to stop hating it and instead embrace the fact that it’s actually a really smart form of play.
As the name implies, teams of this style will focus on zoning out other players or keeping them away. Often this is done with projectiles or good defensive normals (Amaterasu’s rosary stance C attack.) Because effectively keeping people away often frustrates them, be prepared to get called ‘lame’ or ‘cheesy.’ It’s unfortunate that so many people react like this, but what can you do?
The executional barrier for this style is usually less than that of rushdown, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t work on your execution. This is great for people who have learned to appreciate the fine art of frustration and how drastically it affects the other player. Not recommended for those who can’t take harsh criticism and certainly not for those who crack under pressure. Keep-away players MUST be able to defend properly when they need to.
Things to consider when building a keep-away team:
- Good projectiles – Without good projectiles, this becomes impossible.
- Mobility – Having mobile characters is just as important here as it is for rushdown, because you have to be able to get away effectively when you need to.
- Hypers – Having fast, full screen supers is extremely helpful for damage and punishes.
- Air specials – Characters that have specials that leave them suspended in the air are great.
- Being able to cover a lot of space – Things like Doom’s Photon Shot or Taskmaster’s Parabolic Arrows help shut down enemy advancement.
- Assists that help you cover awkward angles – Think Doom’s Hidden Missiles or Dante’s Jam Session.
- Assists that scream “GET OFF ME!” – Tron’s Gustaff Fire, Haggar’s Lariat, Morrigan’s Shadow Blade. These help when the enemy manages to get in.
- Assists that have high durability points to help against counter-fire – Doom’s Plasma Beam or Magneto’s Electro-Magnetic Disruptor.
Examples of good keep-away characters: Dr. Doom, Dormammu, Arthur, M.O.D.O.K.
Versatility:
Versatility isn’t so much a playstyle archetype as it is a mish-mash of the two former styles. You can achieve team versatility by mixing rushdown and zoning characters, or you can find characters that can handle most situations pretty well. Because of this, I like to call them utility teams.
This is actually my preferred team type, because I like being able to switch things up on the fly.
Pros: Utility teams can handle most situations moderately well. You can apply pressure better than a keep-away team and can zone better than a rushdown team. With these two options readily available to you, you kind of possess the ability to confuse your opponents.
Cons: Versatile teams can’t out-rush or out-zone teams designed for it, and if you try to play their game, you’ll get crushed. Sometimes a utility team can fail to zone out a rush down team, because that’s not it’s main focus. Sometimes the opposite happens and you find yourself zoned out and unable to get in.
Versatile characters tend to have many options available to them in the form of mobility, projectiles, supers and good normals. Unfortunately, many of these characters suffer from having really, really low health and in most cases get out-shined by other characters in respective styles. (Example: Sentinel can’t rush down as well as Wolverine, but he can keep pressure and still retain strong keep-away potential.)
Examples of versatile characters: Amaterasu, Phoenix, Sentinel, Dante.
My team:
Here’s a little insight to how I started tackling the team building process. I’ll list reasons why I chose each character on my team. Hopefully this helps some people think through the process.
Again, I prefer a versatile playstyle, so I chose characters that I feel pretty well make up a utility team.
Zero
- Quick character with a few very useful mobility options. (Command dash, air dashes.)
- Highly prioritized normals that are very safe on block. (Jump C, Stand L, Stand Forward+C)
- Two projectiles, one of which being one of the best in the game. (Buster Shot)
- High combo damage with a little bit of meter usage. (I can do about 800,000 with one meter)
- High meter building potential. (Long combos)
- Sougenmu super allows him to DHC quickly into other characters (and provides an assist bonus)
- One of the best level 3 supers in the game. (Beats basically anything on reaction.)
- Very rushdown oriented with moderate keep-away potential thanks to Buster Shot and level 3.
Amaterasu
- Small, fast character with a very good 3-way air dash.
- Reflector stance normals are almost impossible to beat, Glaive and Rosary stance normals have a lot of range.
- Many safe normals and specials.
- Cold Star is an incredible projectile, as it can cover 3 angles and can combo into super.
- Cold Star assist provides Zero with a great mix-up tool and combo extender.
- Okami Shuffle is easily one of the best supers in the game.
- Both Okami Shuffle and Mist allow safe DHCs.
- Has a decent counter for physical attacks and projectiles in Reflector stance.
- Can tackle basically any situation with surprising effectiveness.
Doctor Doom
- Solid air mobility (8-way air dash.)
- Multiple projectiles, all of which are quite useful for controlling space.
- High combo damage.
- Very strong in X-factor.
- Supers like Sphere Flame and Photon Array cover a ton of space and allow for safe DHCs.
- Level 3 is strong and one of the fastest supers in the game.
- Molecular Shield/Plasma Beam assists greatly helps Zero. Both in keep-away and rushdown.
- Aforementioned assists allow Zero to OTG to continue combos.
- Overall strong focus on keep-away and invaluable assists.
As you can see, I tailored my team to have top-notch synergy. I have a character that plays rushdown with the best of them, a character that can handle any situation and a character that greatly increases my keep-away potential. All of my assists benefit the other two characters, all of my characters can DHC into one another – Not only for damage, but also to safely get characters in. With intelligent use of assists, all of my characters become versatile.
Unfortunately, my team suffers from having two very low health characters, but that’s not so bad considering what I get from the team in return.
Ending Thoughts:
I hope that everyone can benefit a little bit from seeing a bit of my team building process, and perhaps understand what they want out of a team a little more. Obviously this is only the first ‘Chapter’ in the team building articles, so there is more to come and maybe that will help more.
Remember to check soon for another section of the series.
SAV Mega Crash 