Vial load assist?

[Kankato]

I've been looking at DHC options that open up with vial load assist, as well as wondering about combo potential with green vial throw assist. I run two zoners as my team shell (Robo / Parasoul) so I don't think it'd be impossible to load a vial while running my gameplan, but I'm wondering if the value gained by running vial load is worth sacrificing something like H Bypass. Here's a rundown of my initial thinking:

Pros:
+Mid-combo vials could theoretically improve the damage of my other characters.
+Vials can be loaded mid combo for safety
+Countervenom gives Val enormous momentum if I DHC her back in on hit
+I get new combo links with Val's vial assist that I would not otherwise have access to

Cons:
-No throw or H Bypass utility
-Val is completely vulnerable while loading a vial, which means my zoning team has a character literally standing there
-Loading vials mid combo locks me out of calling assist for the rest of the combo
-I would probably have to develop / optimize vial combos for my characters, something I don't know if I'm good enough to do.
-Countervenom DHC is -14 on block, so it's not a safe DHC.

Thoughts?

 

[Ikkisoad]

I like vial load assist, it is really interesting. But yeah, if you are trying to compare to HBypass it is really not worth it.
Loading Vial on neutral is a weak option, and then loading a Vial mid combo will maybe get you the unscaled damage on the next combo if you have Purple load, but then doing 2 combos with HBypass would just be better.

Green Vial is a really good projectile, but then again, having to load it on neutral or using your assist call just for the load doesn't make it threatening on neutral.

Orange vial could maybe be the stronger assist? But then for a zoning team I don't really see it working.

Edit: but in the end, do you have fun with it?
I say that cause I played Kanchou assist for the memes but it was so fun that I ended up maining it.

 

[Kankato]

Thank you for the reply!

When I was looking at the weaknesses on my team, I noticed commentators mentioning Robo's fairly low damage output. I was wondering if it would be worth the time to load a poison vial and use it as a link so Robo gets the poison damage. Poison only vanishes when the opponent hits Valentine, so if used mid-combo it's a free 1.3k DoT, even if Robo gets hit out of a reset or smth. It also opens up Countervenom DHC, which Dekillsage has mentioned smokes assists.

Unfortunately Sage's video mentioned Countervenom DHC being safe on block, which isn't true (it's +45 on block if you counter an assist though, which is absurdly good if expensive). This was part of what gravitated me towards the option, but playing with it is really fun. It's a niche use case as I'd need Val to DHC out, which means she's not winning, but I could see the value / fun in going for poison shenanigans with Robo & Parasoul.

Input lag poison loading might be a great way to really piss people off since zoning is so much worse when your character is underwater. It would theoretically help Parasoul's resets become truly unreactable, forcing my opponent to guess. This might have a lot more utility against better players, but I'm not good enough to make use of it. Also, personally, I don't think it's very fun to fight against. It's already dummy strong on mixups, but since you have to hit Val to remove the poison, you would need to do everything with lag on, including maybe going for a hit confirm. Idk how strong it is, but it definitely dumps salt onto your opponent.

I am largely ignorant of Green poison's utility on my characters.

With all that said, if you encourage the creativity I'll look into it. I think it's fun to play with, if risky, so I'll give it a swing for a bit and see what happens.

 

[Lex]

Bypass is definitely the "optimal" choice, it works as a better damage, zoning and conversion assist than Green Vial and maybe even better damage than poison.

If you want to go for a vial load assist, I don't think there's much competition between poison and the other two. Green doesn't usually allow for much better damage then solo routes and I don't think the neutral use is really worth the vial load. And for orange vial, you really want lvl 2 for it to be properly effective imo.

Edit: you sure Sage said that about DHC countervenom? It's definitely true for point countervenom but not really for DHC. Also, small correction but lag vial specifically needs you to hit Val with a super to get rid of it (even at lvl 1).