Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3/Game Mechanics/Assist Actions

Cross-Over Assists

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 Ultimate 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.

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.

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, 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.

The amount you can beat up on an Assist character is not infinite. 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 -- 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.

Cross-Over Attacks

Hold one of your Assist Buttons to tag out your Point Character and bring in the Assist Character represented by that Assist Button.

Tagging In and Out

This is the most basic and fundamental method for tagging your characters in and out of combat. However, it is probably also the most dangerous method.

Again, Assist Character 1 is tied to the Assist 1 Button and Assist Character 2 is tied to the Assist 2 Button. Hold the respective button to have your Point Character tag out and your Assist Character tag in. When coming into the screen, the Assist Character will come in from the side at about jump height and travel very quickly about half way across the screen diagonally down. Up until they land, they are actually attacking the whole way down. However, once they land, they perform a quick taunt before they are fully active. It's this taunt that makes Cross-Over Attacks so dangerous: if the opponent blocks the Cross-Over Attack or if the Cross-Over Attack whiffs, they are very vulnerable to attack and tagging in your character can mean taking a huge amount of damage.

Strategy Corner

Many times the reason a player may desperately swap out character is because they really want to save the life of another character who is about to die or because they want to have their Assist maintain a power up such as Arthur's Gold Armor or Zero's Sougenmu. So if you block a Cross-Over Attack, your first instinct may be to just land the biggest combo you can think of. But sometimes you may really want to consider another option:

Combo into a Snap Back and bring back the character who just left. If the opponent was desperate enough to try a Cross-Over Attack, they really wanted that character out of there. So ruin all of their plans by bring them back. Thus, their power up can wear off, making them waste a Level of Hyper Meter. Or all the red life the character built up in battle will instantly be lost. And if they were close to death, well, now you can finish them off. Leaving them alive to regenerate all their Red Health can easily come back and bite you. Don't give them that chance. Sometimes it's not about just trying to do the most damage at the time possible.

However if you manage to get the Cross-Over Attack to connect, the hit will pop the enemy into the air with a Soft Knock-Down. Normally, after hitting the opponent, the little taunt you perform will cause you not to be able to combo the falling opponent. However, if your Cross-Over Attack hits at the tip of its attack right before your new Point Character lands or if you hit the opponent high enough out of the air, you can actually get some hits off on the falling opponent before they hit the ground and go for a big combo afterwards. So while there are huge risks involved in performing a Cross-Over Attack, sometimes it can lead to a decent amount of damage.

Also, it is worth noting that Cross-Over Attacks hit high: they must be blocked while standing! If the opponent is crouch blocking, Cross-Over Attacks will hit them so sometimes you can get away with Cross-Over Attacks by pulling them out in unexpected situations. The ensuing attack from the Cross-Over Attack is very quick, so it's not easy to react to random Cross-Over Attacks when done in odd places.

Holding the Button

Because you have to hold the Assist Button down for a brief period of time, it can make trying to swap characters out in the heat of the moment very awkward. Fortunately, Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 tries to makeup for this by buffering the Cross-Over Assist code. If the game detects that you have been holding the Assist Button down for a period of time, as long as you keep holding the button down, it will perform the Cross-Over Assist at the first possible moment available. For example, if you have a Point Character who has only pixels of life left and your opponent activates a Hyper Combo and you want to swap characters so the Point Character escapes and the Assist Character comes in and takes the damage instead, you can hold the Assist Button down during the Hyper Combo activation freeze and, as soon as the Hyper Combo starts, you'll swap characters out immediately.

Cross-Over Counters

While in Block Stun, press the controller to Toward and then press the Assist Button that corresponds to the Assist Character you want to jump in and perform their Cross-Over Counter. A Cross-Over Counter costs one Level of Hyper Meter to perform.

Counter Intuitive

Again, the Assist 1 Button will call Assist Character 1 to perform their Cross-Over Counter and the Assist 2 Button will call Assist Character 2 to perform their Cross-Over Counter. The move that is performed is directly tied to the Assist Type that was chosen. Whatever their Cross-Over Assist action is, that's what they will perform when they jump in as a Cross-Over Counter. And yes, that means if your Assist was Morrigan with the Dark Harmonizer, performing a Cross-Over Counter will have Morrigan jump in and give Hyper Meter to herself, leaving herself extremely open to just about any attack you can think of.

Again, because the character jumping in is performing their Cross-Over Assist action, what was said about Cross-Over Assists applies to most Cross-Over Counters: they come out slowly and they have very little invulnerability. Proper use of Cross-Over Counters to actually hit the opponent in the middle of their move is very difficult. Usually, the only way to get it to connect is to counter a Normal Move the very instant the opponent chains it into another Normal Move so that the second Normal Move whiffs and you come in and hit them. But even then they can cancel the whiffing Normal Move into Hyper Combo and beat up your Cross-Over Counter.

Strategy Corner

What this means is, essentially, Cross-Over Counters are almost useless being used as an actual counter. One of the other most common uses for a Cross-Over Counter actually turns out to be saving the life of a character that is about to be chipped to death without using your X-Factor. Right before they die from Chip Damage, if you perform a Cross-Over Counter to a character who has full health or enough health to take the Hyper Combo and still be able to fight effectively, you may want to do that so the character who was about to die can start regenerating health as an Assist Character so they can live to fight another day.

Powering Up Your Counters

However, there is one really good advantage of Cross-Over Counters: they are performing the Assist action as the Point Character, which now means they have a lot more freedom... namely that they are in a Special Move Attack State. That means, as with any normal Special Move, you can cancel the Special Move into a Hyper Combo at almost any point.

So if your Assist action allows you to cancel the Special Move the very first frame it starts, this pretty much allows you to counter any move with a Hyper Combo! A great example of this is choosing Deadpool's Gamma Assist, Trigger Happy. This move can be canceled into a Hyper Combo the very instant he starts the move so what you can actually do to opponents is, while they are performing a Chain Combo on you, perform a Cross-Over Counter into Deadpool's Gamma Assist and, before the Trigger Happy even does anything, cancel that into the 4th Wall Crisis, which is a Level 3 Hyper Combo that counters attacks! So the opponent performing their Chain Combo will end up getting countered by a Level 3 Hyper Combo!

You don't even need Counter Hyper Combos to pull off these tricks. Many Hyper Combos just hit fast enough that they will outright beat the opponent's attacks. And other Level 3's that have a lot of invincibility will definitely beat up the opponent's moves very effectively. Experiment with your team and see what you can come up with.

Invincible Cross-Over Counters

Some Cross-Over Counters have invincibility all the way through start-up and into their first attacking frame. These can be used to smack the opponent off of you even without canceling into a hyper (though they are still punishable if your opponent has time to block the attack, naturally).
The rule of thumb seems to be that if it looks like a Shoryuken-style anti-air, then it's invincible through start-up when used as a Crossover Counter even if that attack doesn't normally have invincibility when used in other circumstances.
There are no counters that are invincible all the way through startup, active, and recovery frames.

Furthermore, while most Cross-Over Counters are vulnerable before their attacking frames begin, all of them have at least a little invincibility when they initially jump onscreen. You can cancel this mid-air jump-in with an invincible aerial hyper combo (if your character has one) to make for a reasonably safe entry and counterattack.

Snap Backs

To perform a Snap Back, perform a {{#motion: qcf}} motion with either of the two Assist Buttons. If you use the Assist 1 Button and strike the opponent with your Snap Back, you will bring in their Assist Character 1. If you use the Assist 2 Button and strike the opponent with your Snap Back, you will bring in their Assist Character 2. Snap Backs cost one Level of Hyper Meter to perform.

The Uses of Snap Backs

Landing a Snap Back will tag out your opponent's Point Character to bring in the Assist Character of your choice (depending on the button you used). Snap Backs are considered Special Moves so that you can easily combo into them from Normal Attacks. Once you've snapped out the opponent's Point Character, their new character will jump into the fray with the same behavior as if the Point Character was K.O.'ed.

Snap Backs are particularly useful for two reasons: 1) If the particular match up you are playing is bad, say you are a rushdown character and are having a troublesome time getting in on a keepaway character, Snap Backs allow you to try and bring in someone you have an easier time fighting. 2) Snap Backs do mimic K.O.'ing a character, so when the Assist Character jumps into the battle, they lose all their Red Health! So if you've beat up an Assist Character very badly so they have 90% Red Health and your opponent is smart enough to not call them out anymore to let them heal, snap that character in when you land a combo and watch all 90% of their Red Health go away!

If your opponent calls in Assist Character 2 and you perform a Double Snap Back and try snapping in Assists Character 1, what will actually happen is that, while you are comboing Assist Character 2, Assist Character 1 will jump into the screen as the new Point Character! So in order to actually get the 4 free seconds of comboing the Assist, you'll actually have to know which Assist the opponent called and make sure you snap that Assist in. So if your opponent called in Assist Character 2, make sure you perform the Snap Back with the Assist 2 Button. That will allow you the freedom to beat up on the Assist until they become invincible. }}

Below is a video on using SnapBacks against assists, courtesy of TenStars. Although this was recorded in Marvel vs Capcom 3, it is still relavent in Ultimate.

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