Picks Storms, runs infinite... Oh fuck this is deep, this is so competitive it's unreal.
Your a funny man Dev.
-Consider that Storm wasn't even considered top tier up until 2-3 years into the games life.
-Consider that Storm's dominance in the air is threatened by Sentinel who has the best tools in the air, save for the fact that Storm can fly higher.
-Consider that infinites aren't even the best sources of damage in the game (if you play rush down, then you go for resets. For Storm however, you want to be combo into super to DHC into Sentinel's plasma ball).
-Consider that high damage and one touch kills are perfectly fine in a 3v3 tag team game that has a slippery slope by design and a person down to 1 man needs to be able to comeback against a team of 3.
-Consider that team composition is so much more important than individual characters.
-Consider that changing even the assist can change the whole dynamic of a team.
-Consider that the MvC2 scene was, for the most part of 10 years, an arms race where players where doing their best to develop new teams and tech and counter whatever new teams and tech their rivals found.
-Consider that the high risk nature of Marvel, where one mistake can cost you a character (or more) is exactly what makes it competitive and appealing to players. It's just like high-stakes all in poker. Both players need to commit fully and play at their best at all times lest they get blown up and lose. To be competitive at Marvel is to be competitive under loads of pressure and it's this challenge that draws people to it.
In these notes above, you can see the two pillars of competitive MvC2 - first is the deep sandbox in the game that allows players to continually develop tech (folks were finding out new things up until last year), second in the high stakes nature that appeals to competitive players (for more on this, read
this article).
Now, if I may be allowed to steer this back on topic, these are lessons that TN (and any other fighting game dev) can learn. At the end of the day, balance is less important than having a truly interesting sandbox that allows players to continually develop tech. Tournament history has already shown that it's not the most balanced fighters that keep getting played at tournaments, but rather it's the ones where the viable characters have proven to be "interesting." (for more on this, read
this article) Indeed, many of the long time tournament favorites are games that many a scrub would deem "broken."
The other point is something that hits even closer to home, what with the recent reversion to 300 life in the Japanese demo kiosks. Risk is an important factor in making a game competitive. The lower the risk there is from someone making a mistake, the less meaning each individual action in the game has. With higher risk (lower life) each individual action has more meaning, more importance simply because doing one action wrong could cost you the entire match. What does this mean for DOA5U then. Well it depends on the overall damage output with the new systems. My worry however is that the hold/stun system might nullify some of this since it allows people to escape the consequences of their actions.