Other Strider teams (cl0ck, S/D/Commando) are better for Strider.
Other Sentinel teams (Santhrax, Scrub) are better for Sentinel, and the Strider replacements on those teams are vastly better than a Doom-less Strider (this is coming from a person that views Strider with Doom as potentially the most dominating character in the game).
This team just weakens them both. And if one of the main thrusts behind it is “if people try to play you as if you’re using a different team, you can do well,” it’s fatally flawed from jump.
My honest opinion of this team is that anyone familiar with fighting against S/D/Commando would rip this team to shreds.
spider dan does have some valid points. I’ve noticed that the longer I’ve ran ssc, the weaker it started doing vs individuals who learned to adapt.
@ the end of the day, its really about maintaining effectiveness. How well can you stay effective with a given team and if adjustments happen, if your team can properly readjust to it. I’m still trying to figure out how people are working strider\mando w\o sentinel. Thats a HORRIBLE duo imo, especially for strider. Now if its ssc vs a duo, that position for strider is very dominating.
i don’t wanna get off topic, but do you think s/d/AAA in general >> SScap? this is excluding cykes of course. i mean like ken, cammy, etc, since more or less any AAA can fit the role that commando plays in strider/doom/cap.
I’ve been playing Strider/Sent/Commando a bunch, I still consider it mildly experimental but I’ve beaten some quite decent players in both Fairfield and Portland now with it, but I’m not ready to try it against the like of, say, Tinh.
I’ll spare the essay and just summarize. Against Magneto, it takes some re-thinking to play Strider as a hit-and-run character instead of a trap-and-chip character, but once you get there, I think this team is a nightmare for Mags. If you conserve the meter and just let the animals, drones, and Commando control space, and then activate if and when Magneto gets around, there’s almost nothing they can do. Against Storm/Sent/AAA… yeah, I’m a little leery of this fight with Strider/Sent/Commando. However, “I’m a little leery of this fight” is still a hell of a lot better than I’ll say for Strider/Doom/anything, where my description of the matchup is more like “this fight is a f***ing grease fire”, particularly if that AAA is Cyclops. Against Sentinel in general, you have to attack more and try to generate hits; it’s tricky, but there are places you can generate offense and zone here with these two assists. Against Cable… I’m not sure what changes. You have less chip power and more space control horizontally and vertically, and if you don’t fall behind or get shot, you ought to be all right.
EDIT: Ironically, though, Magneto/Doom sort of creates a mild problem for the team if Mags can ever manage to get close without having to face orbs.
This would apply at least as well to S/D/Commando (honestly, better, since Doom assist is better for Strider even outside of orb traps).
I don’t follow.
S/D/C Strider vs. Santhrax Storm has all the same tricks as S/S/C Strider, plus a much better orb trap when needed, and the benefit of Doom assist vs. her Commando assist.
S/D/C Strider vs. Santhrax Sentinel is an overwhelming advantage for Strider; S/S/C Strider vs. Santhrax Sentinel is much less favorable, and a lot riskier.
Strider on point vs. Matrix is unfavorable in both; the degree of difference between S/D/C Strider and S/S/C Strider is negligible, IMO.
If there is an argument to made in favor of S/S/C, it is certainly not with Strider on point. Like I said before, that team is better categorized as a Sentinel team that has Strider on it, in which case you should be comparing it to Santhrax/Scrub/Watts, not S/D/Commando or cl0ck.
I disagree here. I feel drones will shut out Magneto’s rushdown patterns more effectively than Doom will. Not to mention that a storm typhoon assist can neutralize Doom if I plan on using him at the proper distance in a keepaway/hit and run game. This is essentially why I would prefer S/S/D over S/D/C vs. an MSP.
mando prevents run away angles all day forcing the opponent to constantly deal with strider. If you take mando away from the picture, strider is exponentially less effective because now he can’t stop run away and he can’t trap because lack of doom.
When Strider is on point, the only situation in which drones are superior to rocks (i.e. Magneto at mid/close range) are situations in which Commando is effectively superior to both, so I don’t consider that to be relevant.
At longer ranges (2/3rd screen or more), birds+rocks vs. Magneto effectively forces a Storm call; at that point, it’s simply a matter of how you want to punish it. Drones do not last long enough (or have the correct angle) to provide the same effect.
I also find drones more superior when magneto is coming from the air.
Doom forcing a storm call is really irrelevant to me considering Drones will totally neutralize a Storm call regardless of when she’s called. Drones will actually come out instantly which means if Magneto countercalls on reaction, Storm will get punished. Furthermore, Drones not lasting long enough just means I can call commando earlier if Magneto has avoided the angle at which I utilized them. And even he avoids them, i’ve got more than enough time options to reposition myself to reestablish the match back at square one at full screen.
On the other hand, if Magneto countercalls Storm successfully while I’m spamming animals + rocks, that’s at least a good 3 seconds where magneto has initiative. If I was on the ground, the best case scenario means I’m forced into blockstun as he dashes in and punish doom. Worst case scenario is me getting hit by the typhoon in mid bird recovery leading to a double snap out. Though if I managed to get my feet off the ground by jumping over the typhoon while Doom is getting hit, I got options of regaining control of the match.
Kai basically says it there. The drones are better for defending against Magneto in just about any situation whatsoever. Unless you’re already getting both characters hit by Psylocke by the time you hit the assist button, it is next to impossible to double snap Sentinel or keep the drones from being a factor, whereas Doom gets stopped by all sorts of things and has a significant delay before it’s a factor at anything but point blank range. Magneto’s only going to get stopped out of the air by Doom all that often if he’s a scrub, whereas Sentinel is about as good of a non-AAA for it as you get.
And bear in mind, I play Strider/Doom/Commando too, I’m pretty easily better with that than I ever have been with Cl0ck’s team, so I’ve got a decent perspective on how subbing one for the other compares. If Strider is playing just wonderfully, it’s true, you’d rather have Doom. However, Sentinel is better both for helping him regain control once it’s lost, and is better as a Plan B if Strider dies. I still think Strider/Doom/Commando is Strider’s favorite team for just having him personally on point, it’s what happens when Strider’s gone that’s the problem. Strider/Sentinel/Commando lets him keep Commando (who contributes just as much to the other team as Doom does) while having a more powerful backup plan for the team once Strider’s gone, at the cost of some of his chip damage and close range control. My own personal jury’s mildly out still as to whether that’s an improvement, but I think the greater depth of having Sentinel on the team is worth it. The question is whether that’s better than optimizing a Strider/Doom team further… and Storm/Sent/Cyclops at this point has me very leery of putting too many eggs in that basket.
Drones work vs. air Magneto, but only in response; if you use drones to force a jump, they are then unavailable as a response to it. The location/duration of rocks(+birds) essentially removes any Magneto attack angle but drop-straight-down-from-above, whereas airdashing to avoid birds will almost necessarily avoid drones too.
The major difference between the two, IMO, is that vs. fullscreen birds+rocks, Mags needs to call Storm and follow it in, whereas vs. fullscreen birds+drones, it’s a lot easier to get in normally and leverage Psylocke.
As far as countercalling goes, typhoon assist is not particularly hard to react to; birds+rocks is strong enough vs. Mags that the trap itself is essentially Storm bait. It’s not like calling doom and teleporting (while at fullscreen) is exactly a high-risk proposal in the first place, so if you establish a birds+rocks cycle, you can essentially take free shots teleporting over his head when he gets an assist opening.
My goal is less about assist trading and more about trying to put Mags in a position where he’s forced to call assist to get in. Drone assist is a Storm deterrent, not a Magneto deterrent. And by the time Commando is usable, Mags is already in your face (with Psy available, since he didn’t need to use Storm) doing his silly Magneto tricks. Which is bad.
…punch teleport is not listed as an option here?
If Magneto countercalls Storm to birds+rocks, you have plenty of time to teleport and punish her (usually opening up a juicy opportunity for high/low on Mag+Storm into potential double snap).
Strider/Doom, by itself, is a formidable match against any team in the game.
Strider/Commando is laughably feeble in comparison.
The only reason Commando appears to bring so much to the table is because Doom assist is lurking. Without Doom, virtually all of the functions that Commando serves for Strider would be performed even better by Cyclops; if you don’t have to worry about opponents running away from a non-existent orb trap, then why pick an assist designed to stop it?
S/S/C is really a Sentinel/Commando team with Strider on it, and should be compared to other Sentinel teams as such.
it also gets owned by a well timed higher angle tri jump that has about 2/3rds screen reach. Against drones, Magneto is going to have to stay in the air longer if he jumps on reaction, which is more than enough for me to reposition myself to maintain the advantage. If he dashes over drones, I know exactly when he’s coming down. I could beat him out with a launcher or with birds or even drop a bomb in his face.
Here’s where another followup option comes into play if Magneto sj then dashes forward over drones. I could just as easily teleport over to the other side and cover sentinel with tigers.
One of the points of Strider backed with Sentinel Commando is to turn the table on magneto and now force him to call assists on you, allowing you to countercall, not the other way around. If he is usually in your face forcing you to mash commando while you’re trying to block his rushdown, that means i’ve fucked up the gameplan pretty badly. It’s not just limited to keepaway with drones and the zoo. Mixing up jumps with drones also works better than rocks against psylocke. Drones will be on screen at all times and can be pretty much called at will. Rocks can get cleaned up by psylocke or typhoons.
most magneto’s i know are probably going to dash in the second their storm is called, making a double snap opportunity for me rare. But in this case, to me, teleporting has never been an option here unless I happened to be doing it early on ahead of time for a animal—>animal—>teleport mixup just before storm launches the typhoon. If I’m in the middle of whoring birds with doom and I see storm, i may have to wait for the recovery of the last bird i tossed then teleport on reaction at which point I may get hit by the typhoon if i try to teleport. Way not worth it. I’m gonna jump my ass out of there if i get the chance in that situation, reposition myself, and either cover doom with birds or jump into magneto’s face since I know he can’t call psy.
But yeah, I honestly don’t know if I could teleport on reaction to a typhoon in mid animal whoring
Edit: just played around with teleporting on reaction to storm’s typhoons on emulator. Although it was on half speed , it looks like it’s doable for me at back to back full screen as long as storm doesn’t come out when i in mid recovery. I’ll have to play with that a little more in real time to see how well I can do it in matches on joystick
How is he going to have to stay in the air longer against drones than against rocks?
In any case, I don’t particularly mind Mag SJing and trying to weave past birds+rocks, because ultimately, any time I think he’s going to be successful, I can just cancel bird into orbs and get a free orb cycle on him (which is still S/D/C’s main threat). Most of the tactics S/D/C uses are ways to kill time/build meter/annoy opponent while waiting for orb trap openings; they are the appetizers to the main course of orbs+rocks. For S/S/C, the appetizers are the main course (as far as Strider is concerned, anyway).
It’s true that rocks are more vulnerable from the front, but they also stop his offense (or, more to the point, remove the danger of it) for a longer period of time when called at his back.
I kind of mentioned this before, but here’s what this boils down to, as I see it. Mag can either:
push Storm button, wait for Storm, and follow typhoon in
push Storm button and immediately dash in, knowing that the following typhoon will shortly stop anything Strider was doing
The second option has a somewhat significant problem in that by randomly teleporting over Mag’s head at fullscreen, he’s unable to dash out of the way and Storm drops in just in time for a high-low attempt into double snap.
I really don’t think MSP Magneto (or MSP in general) is a good example to pick against S/D/C, as I think that’s probably one of the best examples of a team that S/D/C is created to fight.
Magneto needs to stay in the air longer against Drones because against Rocks, he just needs to fly in and kick Doom in the face to nullify the rocks.
But don’t get me wrong, I still love using S/D/C against MSP. Hell, I’d use Strider/almost anyone/Commando against MSP. I just think Mag/Psy is one of those teams that Strider/Commando can put a serious hurting on.
i kinda agree with spider-dan that putting commando in the mix would shift the focus more to sent because of fast fly. plus using orbs with this team seems less effective to me. just having doom in there to back strider up seems to do more for me. you might have to chase people down a few times to trap them, but it’s worth it because whether they’re blocking or getting hit by an orb trap the still take loads of damage. before i was a sent/cable/commando player for the longest, but now i started playing strider/sent/doom…playing with sent/strider/commando feels weird cause strider, in my opinion, can’t quite contribute like he can when u play him with doom…
Shifting some of the focus to Sentinel is the point of the team. It’s all about the team chemistry and reducing the amount of work that Strider has to do in order to win a game.
With any Strider/Doom/AAA team, Strider realistically has to do upwards of 90% of the work. Against a truly good opponent, you cannot really expect any combination of Doom/AAA to accomplish much more than either holding a lead against a fundamentally broken opponent, or maybe getting safe tagged in off of blocked orb rings so they can fill the meter back up for Strider to come in and finish the job. Either way, there are only two realistic outcomes that this team produces:
a. Strider wrecks your opponent’s whole team with minimal help from his teammates.
b. You lose.
There are basically two of these teams that merit discussion: Strider/Doom/Commando and Strider/Doom/Cyclops. The Commando team is optimized such that Strider pretty much has to do everything; Doom can sort of get by with Commando but he’s usually going to get wiped out by a skilled opponent if he has to fight for very long with it at all. Cyclops is a more effective band-aid against this situation. Doom probably doesn’t have an AAA he likes better than Cyclops, and there probably aren’t too many assists Cyclops likes better than Doom, either. Ultimately this gives you a somewhat deeper team that gives you two other halfway high tier, although not optimal, characters where as long as Strider does reasonably well, you might be all right, and where if Strider can at least trade himself for about two opposing characters, that’s probably enough to win the game. However, regardless, Strider still has to do the vast majority of the work, and if he doesn’t more or less wreck the opponent’s team, you’re probably going to lose the game regardless of whether it’s Commando or Cyclops behind Doom for the rest of the team.
Sentinel/Strider/Doom is more or less designed to be a better band-aid to this problem. Sentinel is possibly the best all-around character in the game, who needs the least amount of help from his assists, and has very little need to use the meter to be effective. Doom is of somewhat modest help to him, but all in all there’s not a lot of room to dispute that he’s probably the perfect character to try to at least lighten the load on Strider a little and fill the meter so that Strider doesn’t have to do so himself. The flip side of this is, if an opponent manages to get above low altitude, your team temporarily has largely lost control of the position in this game. It’s all about keep control near the ground, and trying to keep your opponent there as much as you can. However, if you can keep control of the pace of the game and Strider stays on the offensive, it’s about as deep of a team as you’re going to get out of anything that has Strider as one character and Doom as another. If you assume that Strider must have Doom, this is at worst one of the two best teams you’re going to want to use.
The comparative weaknesses of the team are two-fold as opposed to Strider/Doom/AAA. The first one is, Strider has to work harder to lock people down. If they get up in the air once you’ve activated orbs, there’s basically nothing you can do to save any production out of that meter at all other than upwards torpedo and hope the rings bring them down. Unless you activated orbs primarily to get yourself out of a jam with someone in your face, that’s largely a wasted meter and you’re left more or less having to wait for them to come down, especially if it’s Storm with Sentinel behind her, in which case the rewards of going up after them pale compared to the risks. The other weakness is, if you do in fact get an opponent who breaks your positional control and gets on the offensive, probably your best answer is to activate orbs once they’ve committed to the attack. Sentinel is good, Doom is good, but ultimately neither of them is fast, so it takes time for them to assert control again. The only other thing you have that really replaces an AAA to resume control is the orbs.
The other weakness of the team is basically the same one as Strider/Doom/AAA: if Strider doesn’t wreck the opposing team, you are probably going to lose the game. Sentinel is better at reducing this load, and if you must have Doom in back, he’s probably the best character for doing this in there. However, it only reduces the load, it doesn’t eliminate it. If Strider dies without accomplishing a whole lot, you almost certainly have lost the game, especially if you got him on point with a DHC from Sentinel to Strider and you’re now left with Doom on point… especially if your opponent is now Sentinel, and if your opponent is Sentinel/Cyclops, you’re utterly hosed. This is why I postulated earlier that Storm/Sentinel/Cyclops is such a horrible matchup for any Strider/Doom team. A good Storm is never really that far out of control, she can run away from Strider’s traps indefinitely, and if Strider screws up once, you’re left with something/Doom or Doom/something against Sentinel/Cyclops on point, and regardless of what that “something” is, that is a nightmare regardless of whether Doom’s in front or in back unless you’re just way, way better than your opponent. (Makes me wish my own Storm wasn’t so runaway-only.)
Ultimately, Strider/Sentinel/Commando is intended as a cure for “Strider has to do almost everything.” Yes, Strider has to actually fight and land hits to do damage with this team, or at least play good enough defense against someone like Magneto that he’ll kill himself trying to get to you. You don’t have the luxury with this team of chipping and maintaining control and largely not caring whether you ever land a hit. However, if you’re up against a good opponent, you probably need to land hits anyway in order to win, because even Strider can’t realistically do enough chip damage to win a game without ever generating any hits. This team basically maximizes damage you get out of hits, lets you have both horizontal and vertical control, and – this is the big part – if Strider doesn’t kill your entire opponent’s team by himself, the game is not over. If your Strider and Sentinel are just going nuts, it’s true, you’d probably rather have Doom than Commando as the third character. The point of Strider/Sent/Commando is, your Strider isn’t always going to go nuts, and having Commando for Sentinel gives you a far more effective Plan B. It requires you to mentally adjust to the idea that Strider won’t win the game by himself any more most likely, yes… but at the same time, he doesn’t have to win the game by himself, either.
YMMV. I’m not completely married to this team, and I’m not entirely sure whether I like it better than a Doom team any more, either… I’m mainly just presenting the arguments about what the weaknesses of Strider/Doom are that Strider/Sent/Commando can theoretically address. The main mindset that has to be escaped is that Strider must have Doom in order to win. He’s got a lot of tools besides chip damage that he can work with. You have to be better with him to use them, but he’s got them.
