Marvel vs Capcom 3/Systems/Assist Actions: Crossover Assists

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Summary

If you are in a Grounded State or Jumping State, pressing either Assist Button will perform a Cross-Over Assist so long as you are not in the middle of a Special Move or Hyper Combo or are in Hit or Block Stun.

With a Little Help From My Friends

At the risk of stating the obvious, the Assist 1 Button calls your Assist Character 1 and the Assist 2 Button calls Assist Character 2. Once you press the button, the respective Assist Character will jump into the screen, perform their action, and then do a quick taunt-like animation before they leave.

Cross-Over Assists is one of the key factors in learning how to properly play Marvel Vs. Capcom 3. If you don't understand the ins and outs of using Cross-Over Assists, or ignore using them heavily in your gameplan, you can expect to not succeed at high levels of play. So definitely take the time to really learn how to use your Assists effectively.

Strategy Corner

Learning how to properly incorporate Cross-Over Assists into your gameplan is pretty much the make it or break it factor in learning Marvel Vs. Capcom 3. It's very easy to play the game at first and not use Cross-Over Assists much, but as soon as you play against an opponent who has learned how to utilize them properly, you will die a quick death.

And it's not an easy thing to learn: Assists definitely take a very different mindset than one that most Fighting Game fans are used to. Most people will approach Assists, initially, as "extra moves" that you can use here and there. But that really is not the way you should think of them because it affects the timing you use them with.

Most Assists do not attack very quickly at all, so there is a great deal of start up time with Assists. So using them as moves, thinking you can call them whenever you need them, will cause your Assists to jump into moves and take a ton of damage almost every time. You'll notice a lot of MvC2 veterans know how to time their Assists properly to aid in their attacks.

This isn't something that is easily taught but is learned a lot more from experience. Once you start playing the game more and more, you'll figure out the proper timing of calling Assists and will get into the proper habit of covering your Assists and having your Assists cover you. Calling them out without a real gameplan or practiced timing will not produce good results, so definitely take the time in Training Mode to try out sequences of using Assists in the middle of your Chain Combos or learning exactly how to time them so they come out at the most effective times.


Punishing Assists

However, Assist Characters can be struck. Not only can they be hit, but they also take extra damage! All attacks do 150% damage on Assists, so if an Assist is called and eats the full brunt of a Hyper Combo, for example, they can almost be instantly K.O.'ed on the spot depending on the Hyper Combo. And because Assists take a while to jump into the screen and, in Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, have very limited invincibility, it's very easy to accidentally call them into an opponent's rushdown or Hyper Combo and eat a huge ton of damage. In MvC2, many Assists had amazing invincibility, such as Cammy's Cannon Spike or Captain Commando's Captain Corridor. In Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, almost no Assist has those levels of invincibility, not even moves that look like they should have invincibility, like Ryu's Shoryuken Assist.

Assists, however, have very little delay compared to MvC2. When they finish their move and perform their taunt-like animation, they are actually invincible the instant they start their taunt animation. In MvC2, it was very easy to hit an Assist during that taunt animation, but now it's not possible. So Assists are safer afterwards but less safe beforehand.

Assist Limits

Assists come with a few limitations. For one, after performing a Cross-Over Assist, you can no longer perform another Cross-Over Assist for a brief period of time. When your Assist is available for use again, you'll see "Assist OK!" appear on their life bar. The Assist Character you did not use will be available for use earlier than the other Assist Character. So for example, if you use Assist Character 1, you'll see "Assist OK!" show up on Assist Character 2's life bar before you see it show up on Assist Character 1's life bar. So as soon as you see the "Assist OK!" message show up, you are allowed to call that Assist. This prevents you from spamming your Assists repeatedly and creating infinite lockdowns.

The other limitation is that, if your Assist is on the screen when a combo begins or during a combo, they can no longer be called again at all until the combo ends! Even after the time has passed where you are allowed to call an Assist again, you cannot call the Assist Character via Cross-Over Assist until your combo finishes. However, and this is a change from MvC2, you can actually call the other Assist Character in a combo! So technically, any combo can contain both of your Assist Characters once, but never more than once.

Comboing an Assist

When it comes to comboing an Assist character, they are generally susceptible to any combo that would normally work on a Point Character. There are a few exceptions, however. For example, many counters do not work on Assist Characters. Amaterasu's Solar Flare counter, which causes her to perform a throw on the opponent when the counter triggers, will not work against Assist Characters. Throws in general do not work on Assists Characters. And almost all Level 3 Hyper Combos will only hit Assist Characters once and then stop as the game cannot go into the long Level 3 animation against an Assist Character. Only Level 3's such as Zero's Genmu Zero, which are just hits and do not go into animations, can fully connect on Assists.

As soon as you start hitting an Assist, if they recover while standing on the ground, they will become invincible instantly and will escape the fray. However, any move that pops the Assist into the air becomes an automatic Hard Knock-Down on Assists. Even moves that have a Soft Knock-Down property causes the Assists to hit the ground for a short period of time. During that time, they can be hit by an OTG move. You can repeatedly bounce them off the floor and continue to juggle them... as long as your opponent lets you keep beating up on their teammate without trying to save them... which means they probably won't let you. Of course, if you happen to be comboing both of them at the same time, however, they can't do anything about it.

All forms of Hit Stun Deterioration do not affect Assists. So many times, if you mange to catch the Point Character and their Assist in one combo, as you are performing your combo the Point Character may eventually recover in the middle of your combo but the combo will still keep on working on the Assist Character. Of course, by this point, you'll have to shift your focus from beating up on the Assist to fighting the recovered Point Character again.

Also, in MvC2, there was the possibility of infinites that could be performed on an Assist Character if the Point Character was snapped out via a Snap Back or if they were K.O.'ed while the Assist Character was being hit on screen. This is no longer possible. You are free to actually beat up on the Assist for a period of time, but if the game detects that there are no Point Characters in the game (because the Assist is the character that is supposed to become the new Point Character), invincibility for the Assist Character kicks into effect and out of nowhere your moves will no longer register on the Assist Character. They will get up, leave the screen, and return as the Point Character. However, you actually have some time before the invincibility kicks in: about 4 seconds. During that time, they are free to be comboed by just about anything, but it's relatively easy to drop the combo because, as soon as they touch the ground, you can only hit them with OTG moves. Characters like Doctor Doom and Felicia do not have problems continually beating up on Assists because they have easily accessible OTG moves, but other characters like Captain America won't be able to do anything because they have no OTG moves on their own. But for those 4 seconds, you can beat up the Assist any way you see fit so take advantage of it while you can: any damage they incur will be Red Health and, since they are slated to jump into combat, they'll lose all of it!

Nobody Does It Alone

In this section, most of what was talked about was the negative aspect of Assists -- their limitations, that they take more damage than normal, that they lost invincibility compared to MvC2 -- and it definitely all sounds like doom and gloom, but that's just an indication of how potent Cross-Over Assists can be if utilized properly. Without all of the downsides to Cross-Over Assists, they could easily be overpowered.