lately Wesker is becoming the weak link in my team (funny i know), idk why but i feel like i cant do anything with this dude and i cant seem to utilize akuma assist properly with him.
any setups/tricks you guys are using with him? i guess im still used to doom plasma backing me up and it doesnt seem like i can use akuma the same way =/
For the short stint that I was using this team I mainly used Akuma assist with Wesker by doing the same shit I do with Doom’s beam. Do regular jump forward, L teleport call assist. If it crosses up and hits them you get a free s.L juggle to whatever. I do the same shit with Doom beam except since that has slow start up I call beam first then jump forward. Other than that I just ran around dashing in with c.L and randomly threw in akuma assist during block strings due to its fast start up and try to fish bad attempts to advance guard or counter attack. Once you get about a bit further than s.H range away you can call akuma assist, shoot gun and cancel to L teleport also.
If you feel the same way I do about Wesker is that he’s really awkward to use without a nice coverage assist. He can definitely still fight without an assist but the higher level the game gets to competitively the less powerful Wesker will be without a good ranged assist unless he’s in XF. His teleports are extremely punishable if not backed by an assist and once people learn to just sit and crouch on the ground against a meterless Wesker his ways to approach without being predictable are limited. Luckily his gun allows you to play a lame game but you can’t win the match with a very small hit box projectile unless they have like no health and no XF. It’s a good projectile assist like Doom beam that allows him to safely close the gap after teleporting or doing gun to teleport. Using gun to teleport without an assist is death against anyone who stays on the ground and waits for the teleport.
I’m still sportin this team but now I always put Wesker on point with X-23 and Akuma as backup. He’s just better than Laura is on point… it is an easy peasy air exchange to X-23 any time you want to DHC trick. supposedly the chances on breaking that thing are 1 in 3… my ass. Me and my buddies were abusing it yesterday… we got maybe 5 breaks out of 200 total exchanges.
Next version of the team I’m going to try is Wesker/X-23/Dormammu. That gives you an awesome Dirt Nap setup and assist to use on tagging in chars, and Dorm is probably a better anchor than Akuma. Akuma is really, really good at holding things down if you already have a life lead, but if you don’t it can be a bitch to start a comeback. Dorm, on the other hand… solo unblockables, retarded damage, the best anti-air in the game, some pretty ridiculous tri jump stuff, and he can is just as good as Akuma at playing lame.
I know how you mean eternal blaze. It was difficult for me as well when I made the shift from plasma beam to tatsu. I couldn’t just mindlessly spam my assist to close space. I actually had to think and plan my approach because unlike plasma beam, tatsu is only godly from ranges 0 - 2. Luckily for Wesker, he has the advantage of being able to cover his own approach with gun shots and teleports so that he can get in prefect range to fire off a tatsu and start his shenanigans.
Things I didn’t like about plasma beam were: slowish start up, hard to consistently land combos after non hitconfirmed beams, didn’t keep the opponent in blockstun long enough to mount a heavy mix up game and… Doom has failed me too many times as an anchor lol. Akuma’s tatsu grant Wesker instant offense when he’s in range. Tatsu comes out so fast that combined with a teleport, the opponent can’t even react to to the crossover. If they manage to block it, the three hits of tatsu will force them into an overhead (with h port), low or command grab mix up as soon as theyre free of blockstun. It’s also an easy combo from any random tatsu hit. You’ve got daaays to run up and c.M into full combo, or even forward gun shot from full screen after a successful tatsu hit into combo. I use it to run away if I can fin a gap in their offense and port backwards, instant blockstring pressure from close range and great at extending combos. It’s also one of the best crossover counters in the game. Invincible m tatsu tag Into full combo! Saved me many times.
Using akuma assist takes more patience, precision and caution to use when compared to plasma beam, but with X23 and Wesker, the advantage far outweigh the added effort. They have both have great mobility to get in the prefect range for tatsu, and once they’re in, they can do some monstrous things with it. Especially x23!
A few notes on my x23 play so far:
I’ve been playing this team for quite some time now and it’s still hella solid! I thought that when my local competition figured out how to keep me out that id have some major issues. That hasn’t been the case though. I’ve had play against trish + task, deadpool + sent drones, Arthur + doom missiles, modok + missiles, dorm + missiles and none of them have been able to consistently give me trouble. X23 just has so many options to weave in through the cracks. When I do make it in, it’s usually gg unless I mess up or space myself wrongly. Besides the human error, x23 is extremely safe she’s in your face and she can just keep mounting pressure until you cave. I’ve been using c.M alot more than s.M because my opponents like to jump around and stay off the ground where x-23 just dominates. c.M catches their prejump frames and catches them low as opposed to s.M where they can chicken block it. Her ground game is craazy strong. Once i get my opponents into defence, there’s just so much BS they have to deal with. ive been abusing Command grab + tatsu setups lately and it’s been working like a charm. Its such a fast setup! Its basically a free grab everytime unless they’re stupid enough to press buttons, then it’s a free tatsu combo. The Wesker unblockable setup is hella slow but still great if your forcing your opponent into defence. I’ve been breaking up my blockstrings into MFC’d instance j d.H dives to counter attack their poke if they predict a m feint crossover attempt. Instant dives are a great tool at stopping cl spam. I’ve also been ending my combos with a normal ankle slice to mix up my reset attempts. I found that after an otg ankle slice, u can wait a fraction of a second until they start to roll, then input tatsu assist. the tatsu should follow their roll and you should have enough time to l or m feint and attempt a crossover. It’s been working great for me. Even the command grab + tatsu setup works great here, and when you get them mega defensive, you can go for Wesker assist unblockables.
The most important thing that I’ve learnt about X is that you have to be swithed on at all times! You can’t afford to go around spamming shit like wolvie, you can’t zone and suddenly turn on the pressure switch like mags and, with this particular team, you can’t go around mashing a1 and a2 to fill the screen and mindlessly approach. You have to watch every part of the screen with your mind constantly assessing the situation and using X23’s precision mobility tools to find that perfect angle to intercept and destroy. Once she’s in, I believe she has every tool to deal with any defensive situation and land that 1 hit. If you can’t crack them open at point blank range with x23, you’re doin somethin wrong. Only negative thing about this team is that dirt nap setups on incoming characters arent guaranteed. Neither Wesker or akumas assists keep the opponent locked in blockstun as they’re falling into the battlefield. This makes me sad :-(. But I still manage to pull it of. It just takes more work lol. Tatsu blockstring lockdown into dirtnap is dirty though!
Well, still havin fun rockin the team. Still extremely solid. I only wish I could show you guys a few of my matches so you can check out a bit of my gameplan. I’ll see if I can make it happen.
Is fully charged neckslice on block into lvl 3 guaranteed?
on block you may think you have ridiculous frame advantage with full charged neck slicer, but you don’t. it is never better than neutral… only on hit does it have tons of advantage on it. neck slice -> dirt nap is not guaranteed… you can get mashed out
i use X-23/sent/haggar. I’ll try this though… i’ve found it hard not having sent or haggar in my teams because the haggar assist and sentinel’s come back potential is just too much to let go.
do want variety teams though…
I’m not a fan of the low hitting assists such as wesker. when i think of it, i’d rather have X-23 on her AA assist just incase i need to use wesker. Wouldn’t dante serve a much more universal assist for X-23 though? since you have protection against aggressive rushers such as wolverine and also control against air combat?
Ok, I finally got around with this team, what I like about it is that you OTG the Samurai Edge and make use of the tatsu all in one combo. I can get around 700k dmg alone with just one meter by using both assist (akuma tatsu can’t OTG so you’ll need to low charged ankle slice into it), if the timing is right you can Weapon X Prime the tatsu and set up DHC glitch. My only problem is that I can’t play Wesker very well, so if X23 dies I’m usually depended on Akuma far too much than I would like. This team is very deadly, though. I was looking in making a team without Sentinel on it, and I like what this team has to offer.
I think I’m going to run X-23/Dante/Akuma
Assists: Ankle Slice/ Jam Session/ Tatsu
Although I like Wesker I feel better running him as a point character on a different team, and I can still DHC glitch into Dante, I also love the Jam Session into dirtnap when someone is tagging in into another free combo by fully charged ankle slice into Akuma assist. Jam Session also helps control air space since X-23 has a pretty decent air game with her talon dives, but with characters like wesker,trish,magneto,phoenix,dorm and others controlling their air movement is a must.
I know the team lacks health but I think if played properly its just as deadly as the Wesker format.
What do you guys think?
I also think that team could be quite the phx killer, dirt napping an incoming phx is soooo good, plus akuma seems to do well against her.
But, it’s like you say, health issues on that team are glaring. You’ll have to play with near flawless reaction because one good combo on either X23 or Akuma could mean big trouble. Also, the synergy between Dante/Akuma isn’t as good as Wesker/Akuma. Wesker seems to provide stability, health, things you otherwise lack in going with Dante.
I switched up my team FOR GOOD this time to Dante Jam Session, X23 Ankle Slice, Doom Plasma Beam. As much as i liked the capabilities of Akuma and the assist and everything and how he could legitimately fight Phoenix on point…I just…couldn’t get myself to like the character. The more I played Akuma the more I realized I just wasn’t having any fun playing him and he was surprisingly easy to lame out if he had to fight on point. It got to the point where despite the fact that Wesker + Akuma with X23 could do some really cheap DHC glitch based combos…I ended up messing around with Doom again and training mode and was just like “WOW this is so much more fun than Akuma” and just dropped Akuma like hot garbage. I’m the type of player that has to play a character out of genuine fun and if the character is boring for me I just can’t go for them no matter how good they are. I also started to miss how good Doom’s beam was for clearing paths for X23’s offense.
I started to realize that basing my game around the DHC glitch was forcing me to play in a way where I was not actually learning the nuances of the game. I was just playing to kill people off as fast as possible because I figured the best way to kill people off in a game of death touches is to just have shit that death touches all the time. Well that’s just generally easy enough to do with XF1 Wolverine now so I had to look at other approaches.
I genuinely liked playing Wesker but it got to the point where I was just shit tired of even Wesker having problems dealing with Wolverine’s offense. Wolverine gets too much for too little and when the DHC glitch goes away I realized I would need a character that would allow me to make X23’s level 3 as cheap as possible to keep her as competitive as possible. Therefore I ended up ditching Wesker also and realized the character I needed was Dante. He fits my play style even better than Wesker does because he’s another character that just has a million things you can do and I’m the type of player that is always coming up with new shit in my head for open ended characters like Dante. I realized I had to make my entire team a team that fit my play style and Dante/X23/Doom would finally do it in a perfect way where the characters all compliment each other without relying on DHC glitch. Yet the nice thing about the team is that it’s still very capable of the DHC glitch just incase. The two teams I thought about using before the game came out were Dante/X23/Viper or Dante/Viper/Doom because I knew they would fit my play style the most and it ended up the team I really clicked with was just the characters I ended up liking and not some MVC2 style perfect go to team like I had originally feared.
The great thing about Dante also is he’s the type of character that can only get hit IF YOU SCREW UP. The opponent can barely force you to get hit as Dante because you have something for everything. Dante is the king of mid range and is great at converting sword normals from half the screen into full damage combos. If they get too close you got hammer which with an assist helps shut down most of what Wolverine has to offer which is huge in this game right now. Dante can deal with any matchup or situation and I’ve had more success with Dante than I’ve ever had with Wesker and its not like Wesker isn’t a good character either. It’s just Dante is THAT good.
Trust me the last thing you need to worry about in this stupid ass game is health. Phoenix has no health but she rapes the game. You gotta just have cheap shit and be good at avoiding the other player’s cheap shit. That’s the game. It’s getting to a point where a 3/5 match format is looking to be the only way to find out who’s truly the better player in a matchup. 2/3 anything can happen between anybody in this game. Just too much shit that could happen too fast and the culprit of that is most of the low health characters being that cheap any way.
Now with your team specifically I would say the best route is to put Dante first. Dante is just a better character than X23 period. For like plenty of reasons. Doesn’t mean X23 is not good and Dante actually compliments her really well. It’s just, when you look at the big picture people are putting their big guns first like Wolverines and Zeros and Magnetos and overall while I think X23 can legit fight Magneto at least without an assist there’s too much cheap shit that could happen where you dont want your cheapest shit out there first. I place my team in a way where people have to deal with the cheapest character on my team first and that’s Dante. Dante can deal with the most matchups the best and I’ve yet to run into a matchup yet (including Wolverine) where I was like “WTF do I do”. There’s always something you can do with Dante in every matchup. He’s that good. The only thing I still have legit trouble with is teams with gimmicky characters like She Hulk or Skrull plus Haggar assist but that’s something I’ll learn to get around eventually I’m sure.
Unfortunately as solid as X23 in this game in order to stay consistent you have to have a character that has multiple ways to protect themselves from being hit. X23 without an assist has very little to protect herself from being hit. Her hit boxes just aren’t big or cheap enough like Wolverine’s and she doesn’t get a special move that’s invincible in the middle and safely crosses up with assist. With that I would suggest having Dante first so you can give Dante an unblockable setup with X23’s ankle slice assist and have Akuma backing up just about anything Dante is doing if he moves into a closer range. Dante has a pretty decent zone game even without an extra projectile assist and occasionally Akuma’s tatsu assist can get you through a projectile or beam with perfect timing. If you really need to up your zone game with Dante you can just turn on Devil Trigger any way and get access to the best beam in the game.
Now that’s not to say that you couldn’t put X23 first. X23 first with jam session and tatsu assist backing her up could be really good if that’s the route you want to go. X23 with 2 assists and the ability to start the DHC glitch is a legit threat. It’s just I dont like the idea of putting Dante in danger early with his jam session assist that you will most likely need to get in with certain matchups. Tatsu assist just doesn’t always come out at the right time or angle to deal with stuff like Magneto or Zero plus Sent drones trying to keep you out. X23 with meter plus Tatsu assist coming in even if you lose Dante is still not terrible and once you get in you’ll be able to do what you want with the tatsu assist. Tatsu assist is also really good at setting up unblockable dirt nap setups on the ground once you get in with a block string. Especially if they have no XF to try to escape the unblockable.
Well eh…the more that I’m thinking about it putting X23 first can’t be terrible because you either use the DHC glitch to kill someone easy or you dont and then Dante + Akuma would still be better off than X23+Akuma. X23 really needs a projectile assist to really get in there safely against a force of 3 characters should you lose one early. Unlike Wolvie I just don’t think there’s a way for her to consistently get in against a team of say Mags/Sent/Dorm without a projectile assist of her own. You’ll just run into stuff all day and unfortunately you can really use Weapon X Prime to pass through anything unless they throw out a super first so you can do it safely on reaction. If X23 dies early Dante is guaranteed to come in with meter as long as he doesn’t also die to the post KO come in mix up. With meter if you gotta fight against a character that can spam shit plus assists you can turn on the devil trigger early and get that edge you need against their range game and their assists and then move into range to start tatsu assist pressure.
In general though dont worry about Dante’s health. He has just as many or more tools to deal with getting hit than Wesker himself. In this game having tools to deal with people approaching you is more important than how much damage you take when they approach you. As long as your character has hit boxes that are really tough to mount an offense on you wont get hit often regardless of health and that’s Dante in a nutshell. Just a big toolbox of ranged and closer offensive options and one of the few characters that has legitimate tools to get people off of him if they are starting to close the gap too quickly. Wesker is safe but Dante gives you the safeness of Wesker plus more damage output, meter build, better supers and more tools overall.
Yea youre right…maybe if I face a phoenix team I’ll be sure to run Dante, but if I’m just playing I’ll run the Wesker format.
Ryuga’s new utilizing XF1 video makes me want to get so much better with this team tho.
S/N…I really hope that that video NEVER hits front page…EVER. I like the fact that Laura isn’t used much in the meta-game. Hell the whole reason why wolverine is chosen over her is because he is so brain-dead damaging, not to mention he has more health…stupid derp character, doesnt he have the most Hyper Combo’s in the game? 3 level ones, and a level 3?..did he really need that speed up hyper?
They had to make sure Wolvie was good for the kids. Wolvie has always been good in every VS game except for MVC2 and I guess they just made sure he wasn’t ass this time. LOL.
I mean he’s always had the speed up hyper so if he didn’t have it people would complain. They made sure he had everything from all of his games so fans wouldn’t feel like they were trying to shit on Wolvie again. Fans get really picky about little shit like that and it’s obvious that they made this game about the exact opposite of SFIV where they made sure everybody has stupid good shit instead of making sure nobody is too good.
The main reason why Wolvie is and will stay better than X23 is that X23’s hit boxes dont convert to damage and generally aren’t as cheap as Wolverines. In this game your best protection against damage isn’t health, it’s hit boxes. Whichever characters can place the most retarded hit boxes on screen and convert those hit boxes to damage the easiest are the winners of Marvel 3. X23 has everything to be a high tier character in this game except cheap hit boxes. They’re decent but not cheap enough and she’s totally reliant on an assist to close the gap while Wolvie is only reliant on them for the mix up. He doesn’t need an assist to simply close the gap without running into stuff. You have to do a lot of compensating for everyone else’s cheap ass hit boxes to maintain an offensive with X23. Once you actually get inside you have more tools for opening people up than even Wolvie but until you get in that range you’re just a Wolvie that’s easier to zone.
Aggghhhh…man it sucks being The 2nd Best at what they do. Damn Marvel.