

Wesker: Not Overpowered.

an editorial/commentary/theory fighting by Renegade.

Hi everyone, I’m Renegade, and I was a cheap [guy] that played Wesker/Tron/Phoenix in vanilla Marvel. I have some thoughts on the first UmvC3 major and the salty tears being shed. I’m getting some deja vu from 9 months ago… when everyone complained about one OP character that was on every team at a Philly major…

That led to a kneejerk nerf (or a pre-kneejerk) of a character that wouldn’t have ended up top tier in his original state.

Yes, I’m talking about Sentinel. And now I’ll talk about Wesker.

We all saw the stream this weekend. We saw all the trenchcoats, lurking in the back waiting to go all red and stupid on everyone.

Even Justin Wong and Chris G used the power of Dark Wesker to eek out previously unwinnable matches.

Wesker’s unstoppable, right? Totally number 1 with a Samurai Edge bullet?

I’m here to tell you NO.

I’m just going to throw this out there:

Wesker was nerfed from normal MvC3.

I’m sure everyone will gasp and point to the 7 of 8 Weskers in the NEC top 8 as well as the 23 of 28 teams w/ Wesker in the top 16 and claim that is evidence to the contrary.

“Dem Shades!”

“Dat Dark Wesker!”

“Pick him or lose!”

Let’s first look at some facts and try to explain Wesker’s current status in UMvC3 as well as what happened at NEC. Let’s bring up the changelist, shall we?

First, let’s look at Wesker’s buffs from Vanilla marvel.

+ The sunglasses mechanic.

“Free X-Factor!” some people cry.

Yes, the 15% with his shades off does equal among the lowest of the XF1 damage boosts (Felicia and Firebrand…), but it’s not really that much when you consider that Chris gets 40% at level 1 and many characters get over 80% at level 3. Plus, X-factors primary benefit is still the cap on minimum damage and not the damage boost itself. Removing the sunglasses does not change how Wesker’s combos scale. The major difference is that w/o sunglasses, Wesker can now kill 800k characters with an optimized combo and 1 meter.

Secondly, it’s not exactly free, though. Wesker either needs to spend a meter on Phantom Dance or get beat up to lose his glasses.

If Wesker is spending a meter to take off his shades, that’s the same 1 meter cost that Wolverine can do Beserker Charge, Hsien-Ko gets armor, Zero gets Sougennmu, Arthur gets armor, Ryu gets Denjin, etc etc. Plenty of other characters get just as much or more from one meter, albeit the temporary is based on a timer and not when they tag out.

When Wesker uses Phantom Dance at the end of a combo, he’s basically forgoing his great mixup game for a 15% damage/speed boost from then on. Considering it’s impossible to kill most characters w/ a 1 meter Phantom Dance combo, this is a key point, and a risk.

The other method is doing it raw and risking getting stuffed and/or punished. Yes, it can cross up, I’m aware, but it’s still a risk overall. The super will land Wesker wherever he initiated it with a pretty hefty frame disadvantage. Full screen easy punishes are limited to beam supers (or team supers w/ beams in the back), but countering in certain assists (Strider) or Xfactor guard canceling almost makes it a sure punish.

The other way the sunglasses come off is through damage. Any character can kill another character in two clean hit combos. WIth 2-3 meters, any character can hit 1 million and kill Wesker. When the shades come off through damage and you’re actually still alive: bonus! But don’t rely on it. When you get beat up, you get all that red life that you risk losing by keeping Wesker on point.

The safest method by far is to DHC into Wesker from a combo and starting him glasses off. Phantom Dance isn’t a huge damage DHC, but it hits most of the screen and is mashable. If you’re using two meters to DHC from a healthy character and it doesn’t kill a character outright or lead to a death, that’s a risk you’re taking.

Other Buffs.

+Mashable Phantom Dance

Seeing how Phantom Dance’s damage was so pathetic as to be a waste of meter in Vanilla MvC3, this is a significant buff to this super. It’s still not preferable to Wesker’s corner mixup game, so I still see it’s main use as either to guarantee a kill or in a Happy birthday situation. The mashed damage buff seems very significant, however.

+Cancelable Cobra Strike into Teleport

Aside from allowing some spiffy looking new combos, the main use for this is to guarantee screen positioning in combos. Sure, it makes an unsafe move safer, but no one’s gonna toss out random Cobra Strikes as opposed to Crouch M’s, and no one had trouble hit confirming w/ Wesker. Next.

System changes that benefit Wesker

+Lower Meter gain overall– Wesker doesn’t need meter to be effective. His combos still do good damage and build good meter w/o using meter, and he still gets great mixups afterward. He’s a battery in the truest sense of the word. On the flip side, Many characters will need meter to kill Wesker. Net buff.

+Greater Hit Stun deterioration- Wesker’s combos are few hard hits, and involve hard knockdowns, OTGs, and wall bounces, not really affected.

+/- Anywhere throw tech– Wesker can tech air throw punishes of his H teleport, but since his air throw is so vital to his game, this is a wash.

Ok. now to the nerfs. There’s not a whole bunch, but listen closely.

– Decreased float time on Samurai Edge.

This is beyond huge. Nearly equivalent to Zero Hard knockdown on Buster shot, Wesker anti air gun->teleport forward->combo was crazy effective and made him a threat full screen. Listen to Viscant’s interview on WakeUp SRK to hear his thoughts on this ramifications. The gist was this: Wesker needs projectile assists more than ever to be able to be a full screen threat. Did he need to lose this? Yes. It was beyond dumb. But at full screen he is now merely annoying instead of threatening.

It drastically affects Wesker’s matchups where his gun dominated such as Sentinel, Tron, Haggar, and Thor. It also helped tremendously against tri dash characters, but those aren’t as big a deal now.

-Rhino charge sucks.

Seriously, this is for gimmick DHC’s now and that’s it. What’s the point of a counter super that can be stuffed? Exactly. This was a super that you were really glad you had when you needed it, I even won an EVO match b/c of it. Now it’s just as useless as his normal counters, just costs a meter and announces to the world you’re doing it in a game where almost any move can be canceled any time.

-100k health nerf to 1 million.

This may seem token, but it’s a heck of a lot easier to do 1 million damage in one combo than 1.1 million.

-Nerfed X-Factor damage from 33/66/99 to 30/50/70

Even Dark Wesker w/ his glasses off doesn’t hurt as much as Vanilla XF3 Wesker did(not that it matters, it’s still one touch kill… but hey)

-Nerfs to 3 of Wesker’s Favorite Assists.

– Akuma hit stun is less

-Haggar hard knockdown and full invincibility gone

-Tron invincibility gone

-Removed DHC glitch

-while Wesker didn’t have the most damaging post DHC glitch combos, it was usually enough to kill, and was one of the few that allowed you to build meter during his section. Something like Magneto ROM->Wesker was a net gain of 1-2 meters and a dead character. It needed to be removed, but Wesker was certainly one of the “DHC glitch all stars”. This is huge come back to the pack for his overall damage output.





Ok, so Renegade, you make it sound like Wesker sucks. That’s BS. Why so much saturation at NEC?

Ok, here we go. Let’s assume these statements are true.

1. The best players like to win money.

2. The best players usually play the best characters, or make them that way.

3. More experience w/ a character > little experience.

It’s also a fact that most of the top Vanilla MvC3 players played top tier characters. Most had at least one top 5 (PHX, Dante, Mag, Wolv, Wesk), and some represented the next 5/6 (Zero, Ammy, Dorm, Task, Storm/Viper).

Of the top 8 at EVO, six players had two of those top five characters on their team. Only Combofiend did not have any, but we all know he’s just Combo.

So those top 5 got nerfed, but Wesker got hit the lightest of the top 5. (Wolverine may be making a case too)

Because of that, and since it’s a new game and people like to try new things, people bailed en masse on almost every character in the vanilla top 10 except Wesker and Dormammu!

Let’s take a look at the scorecard!

So, a lot of players are trying new stuff, but Wesker players are standing pat… ADV WESKER.

Many of the top EC players already used Wesker in Vanilla (jago, CJ, justin, noel, Chris G) … ADV WESKER

Wesker’s hard counters got nerfed to hell (PHX, MAG) or nerfed just enough to have people not play them as much for some stupid reason (Ammy, Zero)… ADV WESKER

Meter gain was nerfed, so extending combos becomes critically important for any team… Hardly any assists are worth wasting a character slot on. ADV WESKER OTG ASSIST

It’s a new game and the first major, and people are dropping the soap everywhere. ADV WESKER EASY MODE COMBOS.

Tron/Haggar assists are gone, and there’s no Dark Phoenix so there’s nothing to stop XF3 Wesker from going nuts… ADV DARK WESKER.

Most of the new characters have peanuts for health… ADV WESKER.

People are bandwagon riding fools, and would rather x-copy something easy than innovate… ADV WESKER

So there you have it. The super magical combination of factors that led to the new world order of Wesker over NEC weekend.

So wait, do I think Wesker is or will be top tier? Way too early to tell, but yeah, probably. He’s effective on almost any team in any slot and has the best OTG assist in the game. We’ll be seeing A LOT of Mr Albert. I agree with Viscant that he was on the way down in Vanilla due to his worsening matches with the top 7 characters. But a lot of those characters got toned down and leveled the playing field. If he’s in that top tier, he’ll probably share it with a bunch of effective characters such as Doom, Zero, Dorm, Task, and even Hawkeye. Many more characters will be viable in tourneys, and I believe counter teaming may come back in vogue.

Just the same, he’s probably not going to be #1 though and he has his counters. If you didn’t notice, not a whole lot of people had success or even tried running Wesker 1st in the order over NEC. Even Jago switched in Trish several times. In Vanilla, you saw Wesker OCV’s all over the place.

Why is that? Well, the start of a match is a neutral situation where both players have access to all their tools, and is not where Wesker likes to be now. Wesker likes being in your grill pressing his advantage. Round 1 start gives you just as equal chance to push him full screen as he does opening you up.

When you bring in Wesker 2nd or 3rd, odds are that great zoning point character or that annoying projectile assist are dead or hurting, and this lets him do his thing. Bringing him in last gives him XF3, and that’s where it’s still really stupid.

Well then, Sir Renegade, what does Wesker actually lose to?

He gets beat up by solid defensive fullscreen or superjump keepaway with projectile assists, and especially if he doesn’t have a projectile assist of his own (or something that can beat it like Strider’s Vajra).

Characters that don’t care about gun at all and have great ground normals (ammy zero) also give him a hard time. Rocket Raccoon could also be an issue for him.

Nemesis isn’t a cakewalk either. For Wesker is really just reduced to shooting him full screen, b/c who’s gonna risk teleporting smack into jump H and dying?

Really lame Dooms, Trishes, and Chris’s can effectively stall the match enough to lame Wesker out and if they’re backed by chipping assists or loads of meter, will win the battle of attrition. If Wesker doesn’t have a beam assist, even Captain America’s shield is a problem.

Taskmaster is also can be a problem for him. No gun->teleport combos allows Task to do normal jump arrows at full screen, and Task jump H will airthrow a C teleport and cross up an A teleport. Not to mention he hits like a ton of bricks.

And it’s not like he can punch through a sword… Dante and Vergil will still do fine.

Instant assist kill teams and setups (think bionic arm+Hail storm team super) should make decent Weskers think twice about teleporting assist calls in neutral positions.

Viscant mentioned having a hard time against MODOK, and that’s probably because that’s the character that can stay in Weskers least effective area of the screen (opposite side SJ height) the longest.

Also, PROTIP! (RIP Gamepro) pull a DJ Huoshen. If you think Wesker (specifically Dark Wesker) is the problem, SNAP THEM IN! You will get a mixup opportunity, prevent him from getting a higher level of Xfactor, and force those shades stay on. If your opponent is still adamant about him being last, they’re going to have use meter or risk a tag.

Gameplay wise, basic things you wanna look out for (against those herp derp weskers that no one wants to lose to) is to

1) try to stay out of the range where C teleport goes in front of you and A teleport would go behind you. Easier said than done, but hey.

2) Exploit matchups where your character can duck under his teleport cover assist (i.e. Ammy or Nova slide versus greyhound assist), and certainly punish any raw teleport attempts w/ a good low medium or an air throw.

3) The clues to block or avoid the teleport/assist crossup is in the assist. Watch for the “assist ok!” to be ready, listen for the “Crossover Assist!”, or try to spot them hopping into the screen.

4) When Wesker comes in last (despite your best efforts!), be aware the Xfactor Guard Cancel is coming. Stay out of point blank range when attacking (free command grab TYVM), and prepare to cancel into something that can beat his 3-5 frame low short( however much its sped up by XF3). Ideas are 2 frame snapbacks, invincible moves (Ryu’s DP, bionic arm), counters, jump cancel from normals, and of course your own X-factor.

5) When he’s dark Wesker, you’re gonna get clipped by crossup S, low A, the airthrow, or the command grab. He gets back his gun to teleport combos too. The only advice I got for this besides wasting time w/ safe supers or catch a bad teleport is to really pay attention how much they like to command grab. A lot of crappy weskers don’t use it enough or won’t kara it for extra range. That’ll determine whether you’re better off on the ground pushblocking or in the air tech throwing []. Being at super jump height is the safest for a limited time, but then you’re guaranteed to come down in a teleport mixup.

Let me also remind the audience that PR Rog basically won the tournament with just Wolverine. Wesker was just window dressing, and while Spencer’s wire grapple setups were nasty, he really ended up being fodder to feed wolverine XF2, meter for Beserker Charge, or both. The assists on the team don’t do much to help point Spencer. The telling moment was in the grand finals when Rog hard tagged out his 5%, no meter, no XF wolverine to sacrifice a 40% Wesker. Doing so got him that meter for Beserker Charge and he killed two characters.

Lastly… remember Sentinel in MvC3. Remember Zangief in SF4. Remember X-Blanka or Chun in Alpha 3. Team Watts in MvC2. When games are new or people are trying new things, first order optimal strategies rule the day. Simple, effective, and can’t mess it up. The “noob tube” of fighters.

These characters are never the top of the heap when the dust settles.

Don’t overreact. Don’t call for kneejerk nerfs. Have fun with a more balanced game. If not, you may be getting this Christmas card in the mail…

[This article represents the views of the author and may not represent the views of Shoryuken.com as a whole]