Ugh. Nevermind.
No one’s ever started an actual combo with j.:h: j.:s: against a standing opponent. Tricks that increase damage output but which will never come up are unmeaningful, and I quite dislike seeing people include them in their combos…
Lol, I don’t care about practicality when doing combo vids. You can easily start it with just j.:s: and you’ll only lose like 12k damage overall.
So I finally found a team for Spencer in Ultimate and after playing him more im realizing just how much faster his zip-line is because its making drop my corner carry combos. Does anybody have any replacements I could steal?
I like the reliability of this combo, because I feel that there’s too many assist reliant BnB’s being posted, when Spencer will spend most of his time anchoring. Or atleast, he should be. That said I’m having a hard time getting the final TK’d H grapple sequence to Maneuvers.I’m doing it as low to the ground as possible, and that constantly results in the hitstun wearing off before the final standing H grapple connects. Is there a sweet spot on the TK H grapple height?
Also, blow me up if this has been posted, but I haven’t seen it surprisingly. Important stuff here, 1m+ no assist combos, and high damage corner carries, the shit that matters when it’s all up to him as anchor:
[media=youtube]g6herLgcGus[/media]
I cannot fathom why you would want to play Spencer on anchor and yet still care about that. Yeah, he’s good in X-Factor. Out of it, though? Wow can I ever imagine not having an assist to help me out playing as him. He’s just too good when an assist is covering him, lol. And Lancer is so THC friendly it hurts. There’s also the fact that, lots of times DHCs or TACs happen and your order gets all switched up, and if you can know combos that make you better when that happens then that’s a lot better than not knowing them! My point character is Amaterasu, but I still find Amaterasu extenders useful because it’s quite often I end up DHCing to Spencer, and while I’m forced into a Spencer/Ammy/Task formation those Ammy extenders are the most wonderful thing. It’s free damage over what I’d be doing without an assist in the corner, and allows me to corner press from full screen without sacrificing damage over most people’s assistless corner combos. I defy you to argue against the utility of that. It certainly comes up enough to be worthwhile. There’s more to the character than what one top tournament player does with him.
Spencer is a shit anchor. Always has been. Maybe he’s a little better now, but it’s easily his worst spot on a team.
not sure how you could even say that
Because I play him?
Look, I know what you’re thinking and Combofiend is a great player, but his team order is really not the best. He gets wins because he’s the better player, not because Spencer is particularly good in that spot. Watch his vids. Again and again, people lose to stuff that’s not even remotely safe, but he makes it work.
Do you see anyone else using Spencer like that with one iota of success?
Yeah, I didn’t think so.
You also say this like he isn’t literally the only spencer player that regularly attends majors, and as a counterpoint to you’re extremely redundant argument, do you see anybody using Spencer on point or second slot with even remotely comparable success?
Additionally I think “I can’t make spencer work as an anchor” and “spencer is a shit anchor and should never be played that way” are two completely different and unrelated things. Especially since theres a requirement that you be having consistent and successful performance using him in a different manner.
Dude, you don’t even know who I’ve played and who I’ve beaten with Spencer on point. But keep thinking Spencer is awesome as an anchor, I’m sure you’ll be making a name for yourself in no time at all.
Do you live on the west coast? Because, if you do, I’ll be happy to money match you.
Do you live on the east coast? Because, if you do, I’ll probably be at NEC, where I’ll be happy to money match you.
Clearly a mature and educated response, feel free to explain why I’m wrong. Its funny because you even explained what makes Spencer a strong anchor, in a game where execution and character knowledge were of a much higher level, Spencer becomes much weaker as an anchor. But the REALITY of the CURRENT state of the game is that Spencer functions as a very strong finisher, albeit primarily due to lack of character knowledge.
And you conveniently ignored this 
The best part about the stupid assumption you make is that I play Spencer on point
I live in FL, NEC is still too far out for me to say whether I can make the date or not, but I’ll be sure to PM you when I find out, or if I end up in the socal area anytime in the nearish future.
So, allow me to make a statement here~
Combofiend doesn’t generally win matches on the strength of anchor Spencer. When it happens people get mad hype about it and misrepresent that the strength of his team is more reliant on She-Hulk than anything else, and Spencer is there because Slant Shot assist is great for his team. Spencer can work in anchor but it is nooot his best spot, though it does work for Combofiend’s team. Granted, I am not Combofiend, and I haven’t seen as much success as him. But I think I am also generally considered to be a competent player, and Combofiend has even shouted me out in the past.
Yes, Spencer’s a competent anchor when you can save x-factor to make random ziplines give advantage and kill people off of any random thing. Out of X-Factor, he has nothing beyond footsies. Which he’s not bad at, by any means, but there are better, and it’s not enough to make him a strong anchor since he doesn’t have any actual means to approach an opponent that has a life lead and is wary of Lancer. It’s honestly worse now than it was before because faster zipline means doing a diagonal zipline into high/low mixup requires significantly tighter spacing to the point where the opponent can just walk out of it if not cornered (and how the hell did they managed to corner themselves against anchor Spencer?).
Meanwhile, Spencer actually has good approaches if paired with some assists, and Lancer being overall fast means most any THC will be totally safe on block and probably comboable from most distances. Given what assists can do for his combos, I just don’t see how you can ignore all that and say “Yeah, Spencer’s totally best as an Anchor, for realsies.” Not that I’m saying Duck Strong is wielding particularly strong arguments, mind. But it’s always been my feeling that Spencer, in the general case, works best in the second slot, so that his excellent assists can be of use to one member but he still gets a strong assist to help him out, as well as in the worst case scenario metergain from the first character dying to fund lancers and THCs to randomly blow people up. Although I get more note for my Amaterasu play, my Spencer has seen me quite well, and that’s the way I play him.
But really, we shouldn’t be having this argument in the combo thread.
(Speaking of which, I’ll be working on a new combo thread tomorrow, like I said I would.)
:eek: <3 for working on a new thread!
There seems to be this weird misconception here that I’m making the statement that Spencer is an anchor only character and doesn’t work any other way, not by what you’ve said, this points primarily toward DuckStrong, which I never even meant to imply.
I was responding to the fact that he called Spencer a shitty anchor, which just isn’t the case. He isn’t the type of anchor you can just throw on any team due to the nature of his assists, and there is an issue of teambuilding around it but thats largely unrelated in this context.
This is completely valid, but the same can be said of… every team that doesn’t feature Phoenix. An anchor is just that, an anchor. Combofiends team is a strong example of excellent team building and there isn’t really more to it than that.
Like I mentioned earlier, theres a big difference between what can or should happen on paper and what actually happens when people play the game. A lot of the unsafe overhead, air grapple, etc. antics that people ( and combofiend in particular, since he somehow became a giant gushing fountain of anecdotal evidence ) get away with are simply due to the fact that a lot of people are unaware of how or if a lot of things are punishable. On a regular basis I see people get away with things and I’m screaming in my head that it shouldn’t happen, but it does. A lot. A lot a lot, and this isn’t likely to change for quite some time due to lack of exposure.
Anyhow I’m done with the subject and derailing the thread, if anybody has anything else to say or add feel free to PM me.
Hm, if there’s a new combo thread ; would these be of contribute? (Been maining Spencer since Vanilla, just now appreciating his new changes.
2ABC A+D~5ABC D. sj. BBCD ~ Death from above (land) xx Bionic Maneuver 2369C. Zipline down Armor Piercer xx Bionic Maneuver [2 Bars] [780k]
2ABC A+D~5ABC xx Wire punch ~ Death from Above (land) xx Bionic Maneuver 2369C. Zipline Down Armor Piercer xx Bionic Maneuver [2 Bars] [776k]
Level 3 X-Factor (on Jumping opponents, probably Sentinel and tall opponents as well.)
J. Forward BCD J. Forward BCD 5ABCD. sj. BBC ~ Death from above (land) xx Bionic Maneuver [1 Bar] [1.4 Mil]
I’d personally consider those lackluster combos. I don’t say that to be offensive whatsoever, please let me explain my reasoning:
1 Spencer get a lot of damage off incorporating Wire Grapple Hs into his combos since they’re unscaled. While your goal shouldn’t necessarily be “add as many unscaled grapples as possible” (though some people have done that successfully and made very high damaging combos) incorporating at least 1 or 2 is often a way to pump out solid high damaging combos
2 Combos are like a maximization problem in math. I have X tools, in what configuration can I use them to make the best possible output (or an output that serves other needs, such as safe THCing, resets, etc). Bionic Bomber for example can be used earlier in a combo and be linked to Standing Medium, but later they flip out. Any wire grapple >> reel in punch can always be cancelled into bionic maneuvers because it can be cancelled and does a fixed amount of hitstun. Things like that.
3 While the practical consideration isn’t always necessary for combos, if you’re looking to make something a bread and butter combo it certainly should be. Meter usage, assist calling, and even ease of execution (in my opinion) should be factored in when trying to make combos you’ll use in matches. For your two BnBs, you’re using 2 bars to do 780 and 760. There are only three characters in the game that’s going to kill; Phoenix, Strider and Rocket Raccoon. For any other character you just spent 2 bars just to cripple somebody. One of your primary goals should always to be kill if you have the resources to do it. A combo like that would be better if it were modified to pump out a bit more damage to increase the range of characters it can kill (getting to 850 is solid, especially with all the Vergils roaming around right now), or at least finding a good spot to attempt a reset in order to make two 400-500kish combos to kill instead of one big one.
@wmd221 The “misconception” stems from you disagreeing that anchor was his worst spot on a team. So yeah, in response to your generally abrasive and misinformed comments, I didn’t think you were alluding to putting Spencer in the second spot because everyone always thinks of Combofiend when talking about Spencer. Frankly I’m pretty damn sure you meant that Spencer as an anchor was best before your lame attempts at backpedaling, but let’s ignore that for now. And citing the fact that people have little knowledge of what his weaknesses really are is not a good argument for his strength in that position. Eventually people will catch on and he will be even less effective in that spot.
Enough ranting though, you’re right that I didn’t elaborate on why Spencer isn’t a great anchor point for point so here are my concerns:
[LIST]
[]Outside of X-factor, zipline approaches are unsafe without assists; even in X-factor they’re bit of a crap shoot. His normals are relatively slow to begin with, so to put himself in 0, -1 or -2 situations is not a good idea unless you’re banking on a random Bionic Lancer or Armor Piercer frame trap (which is admittedly a tiny bit better now).
[]He has real issues when dealing with runaway. You can try to catch people with a jumping grapple, or a grounded vertical/slanted grapple, but both options are generally unsafe and would require you to either cancel into Lancer (unsafe) or blow X-factor if you miss. Chasing someone down with ziplines is an iffy proposition as well because you can easily open yourself up to airthrows without an assist to cover you. They also go further in this game if they don’t hit anything so the risk is even bigger.
[]In a 1 on 1 situation, normals count for a lot and, unfortunately, Spencer’s are pretty average. He doesn’t have the reach (though his jumping h and s reach surprisingly high above him) or disjointed hitboxes of a sword wielder, nor does he have the speed (dash speed and attack speed) of someone like Amaterasu, X-23 or Wolverine.
[]His mixups are much weaker if he doesn’t have an assist to hold the opponent in place. Going for cr.:h: into overhead won’t catch a decent opponent and the overhead is throwable (and chicken blockable) before it connects and after it’s blocked(if you’re close enough). You need to set a precedent in order to land command grabs and it always helps to also have assists to hold them in place beforehand. Airthrows are good, but the followups can be a bit situational.
[]You’re losing out on a lot of damage potential without assists in your combos. As damaging as his combos are on his own, they get downright ridiculous with the proper assists. It’s not uncommon not to need any meter now.
[]Also, zipline approaches become far scarier with an assist to back you up.
[/LIST]
Don’t get me wrong, he does have some strong points, but they’re overshadowed by the bad imo.
The Good Stuff:
[LIST]
[]His damage is solid and he’s not nearly as reliant on assists to get solid damage anymore.
[]Bionic Lancer needs to be respected and it can give you the psychological edge in a fight. That said, many supers have more invincibility so your opponent can bait it and counter super to force you into blowing your X-factor, which is usually your best chance at forcing a real mixup. If your opponent isn’t down to his last guy, you basically just lost the fight, because he can run away for most of the X-factor without fear and even if you do manage to kill the middle character, the last guy only has to face an X-factorless Spencer, which is far less scary.
[]Bionic Lancer (and slanted grapple) is now even better at catching airdashes because of the inability to airblock when doing them. Tridashers need to keep this in mind. A blocked Lancer can also mean a free mixup if you cancel it into X-factor, but be aware that if your opponent is wise to this and pushblocks before you pop it, they can just jump back to avoid and high/low afterwards.
[]A lucky grapple from far away can mean a win.
[*]In X-factor he kills in one combo, but he’s hardly alone in this. Lancer xx X-factor should equal a kill always.
[/LIST]
That’s probably not exhaustive, so if anyone wants to add to this feel free. I’m always willing to soak up some new information, good or bad.
QUICK QUESTION: in Spencer’s bnb’s, he goes into an air combo, throws down with S, and picks them up with his OTG. But, the control inputs say that his otg is quartercircle, then up-right/left (depending on where you’re facing) and medium/hard. I always just use quartercircle+attack, what does this top right/left do?
I think you mentioned something about being abrasive but I couldn’t tell while I was busy wading my way through your attempts to talk shit because you can’t read anything objectively. So I’ll respond to this 1 last post, and then I’m done with this. I never meant to offend you, nor did I say anything I did as a personal attack against you, I said it objectively. My original statement was that in order to use “I play him” as some form of evidence to Spencer being a bad anchor, there has to be some sort of similar evidence to also similarly support “I play him” as evidence to him being a strong point or 2nd slot character, which is generally just a silly thing to even say to begin with, and I’m sure you can see that. Granted none of what you’ve said until this post even deserves a response.
In an anchor situation, especially against somebody who has assists available, why would you be approaching with a zipline to begin with when Spencer’s dash is as effective as it is, while his air zips when used properly shouldn’t be punishable. The only real danger to use Air zips is getting thrown which as long as you’re paying attention you should literally be able to tech 100% of the time. Also a quick edit because it is worth mentioning that he can wire zip out of his air grapples, still under the normal 3 action in the air limitation, which, against, when used properly, effectively eliminates 99% of the unsafe situations. You may, or may not, have already known this. Theres only a few characters who can punish this from far away like Hawkeye, Storm, Ammy, but these are situations where you shouldnt be fishing with air grapples other than to punish anyhow.
I’m not really sure how to respond to this, especially since its very character specific. I’m having trouble thinking of which runaway characters have the potential to deal significant damage while running away, while still being able to punish full / semi-full screen grapples. Most of the characters that can run away from Spencer effectively for a significant amount of time don’t actually deal meaningful damage while doing so.
His normals aren’t the best but they certainly aren’t the worst either, its nonsensical to compare normals in a vacuum as an argument, especially using examples like X-23 and Wolverine who aren’t strong anchors.
His mixups are weaker without assists, but so are everybody elses. Especially when you compare him to other common ( atleast more so now, than ever ) characters like Wesker and Doom that are actually just losing a lot of the mixups they have with things like assist teleport cross-ups, dash overs, etc. Spencers AA command grab especially become extremely powerful tools when used in the right situations due to most players general inhibition not to hit buttons against Spencer. They also turn into a solid amount of damage, which is another thing Spencer has over other characters. Spencer easily does 700-900k unassisted without xfactor, and there are very very few anchors capable of that kind of damage aside from Doom, its not really a strong supporting argument but being able to 1 touch characters like Ammy and Akuma isn’t really something to be ignored. Most of the things you’ve said here aren’t really weaknesses in Spencer as an anchor because they apply to any character playing without assists, frankly.
You said it yourself,
It is in fact a perfectly valid argument because thats the way the game is right now. I’ve had this discussion with Stark, I’m well aware that as time goes on and players have more exposure to the character / actually take the time to do research most of the shenanigans Spencer takes advantage of won’t work and he will just become less and less effective, but for the time being that just isn’t the case. I really hate drawing back to this but right now its the easiest way for me to explain, and I’m pretty sure everybody reading this thread has seen it, all the stupid stuff Combofiend gets away with in his matches. People not pushblocking the Lancer X-factor setup, people letting him magic series wire zip into continued magic series, almost nobody attempts to anti-air anything his air wire zips, etc. He shouldn’t get away with any of this. But he does. All the time. Against the best players in the world. Maybe none of it would work on me, you, other people reading these boards, or our practice partners. But it for damn sure works against nearly everybody else, stupid as it is.