What are the difference between first and second relaunch assists?
I have a few questions about some teams I’ve been thinking of running. X23 is only one of my alts so I’m not entirely up to speed on all the tech. Can I reliably guarantee a dirt nap on incoming without an assist like jam session or is it nessesary? Has anyone been running any TAC infinite based x23 teams? I’ve also been wondering should X23 be a point character based on her strong mixups and damage or a support character with dirt nap setups and alpha counters?
Anyways, I’ve been thinking doing some sort of x23/magneto team. The first is an x23/wesker/magneto team. After your first launch, if you do gunshot, charged neck slice, HS, j.H, TAC then it TACs to magneto on anchor instead of wesker since he’s still on cooldown. Because of the relaunch, this is a very good corner carry and magneto’s infinite is pretty easy. Then you get 5 bars which should get two guaranteed kills if you really can guarantee a dirt nap without a lockdown assist. Does a team like this actually work or am I theory monstering too much?
I was also thinking about running magneto or some other point first that can hard tag into x23 mid combo so she can attempt the TAC back to magneto for his infinite. Alioune does something similar with morrigan and magneto so magneto can land the hit and do the infinite in the same combo. Has anyone tried anything like this?
I just did 2 or 3 posts about running those kinds of teams for MrCam if you would like to read those.
In theory, you can learn the timing to do a perfectly meaty j.S on incoming so that you wouldn’t need an assist. Practically, that’s not gonna happen reliably and risking 3 meters and a character is probably going to lose you the match if you get throw or hit out of it. You either want to go with JS or IM’s RB for the tightest setups.
Most of the X23 mains here run infinite based teams. They’re practical and probably the only way X23 is going to be relevant in the end-game.
X23 can run point or support, in an ideal team you mix it up based on the matchup. I run IM/X23/RR against super heavy rushdown (as alpha counter bait) and SJ lame out characters/heavies (for the matchup). Pretty much everyone else, I’ll run X23 point. Her alpha counter is amazing so there’s no reason not to abuse it.
Teams like that work fine. If you’re going that route though, I recommend running X23 2nd with OTG or CS (if your point can manage it) and TACing past her to an infinite character, though. Mags(hypergrav)/X23(CS/OTG)/IM(RB) is my vote for best theory team atm.
I haven’t, and I feel like 1 TAC is a bit much on its own, I wouldn’t want to have to win 2 gambles when you can set up a team to only need one. Just seems sub-optimal to me.
As far as the relaunch assists, the deal with the first and second just had to do with whether or not the assist will work at super high HSD. First relaunch assists don’t usually have to worry about your opponent teching out of them since you’re using them earlier on in a combo. For the 2nd relaunce, to get them to not tech out you have to get either the spinning knockdown from Charged NS, a wall bounce, or a ground bounce then you go into a late SxxTK CS HxxTA L > OTGxxSuper. If you are doing less optimal combos, you can just do the normal S sj.HxxCS HxxTA L instead of having to TK it, but if you’re trying to do TODs you’ll need to do the TK options.
On a clean hit, having a second relaunch is an extra 75~100k damage and .3~.4 meter gain so I think it’s worth it. It also lets you pick up off an air throw and use the 2nd assist to extend, or get a hit with either assist and extend with the other.
Oh, and just to add to the list, Nemesis’s clothesline rocket assist is the most damaging second relaunch assist in the game if you time it to connect the rocket. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m almost positive about that one.
The future of this game, not just this character, is X23/Vergil/Doom. I kinda feel like if you wanna be competitive, this is the team you should be playing.
Ehh…I disagree with that. There’s no reason to have X23 on point if you’re not putting her with optimal assists. You would probably do better playing Vergil/X23/Doom with that team.
I think I’ll try playing X23 doom ammy. Missiles seems like it’s great to get X23 in from fullscreen and for guaranteed level 3 super. Also for the TAC infinite and the mixup you get from his team super with ammy.
X-23 Magneto Dante is the best optimized team for her you have two strong horizontal and vertical assist not only that but once you tac from x23 into mag you bust off the easy tac and then you have 5 bars for dirt nap and with jam session they can’t get out. even if you lose x23 mag dante is really solid good tac and resets with jam
Why put X23 on point though if she’s not really a threat? Optimized point X23 don’t have to rely on TACs to be threatening. If your whole gameplan for X23 to be a threat is dirtnaps (which X23/Mags(EMD)/Dante(JS) doesn’t even have optimal double dirt nap options with, btw) you might as well put her 2nd and TAC around her.
Just play Dante/X23/Mags, you’ll have a better neutral game with EMD + Teleport mixups and Dante plays a much better full screen game than X23 and has better matchups in general. TAC through to Mags and you get the same end result. Or run Mags/X23/IM and have 2 characters that can infinite in case you get snapped, Mags has some of the best neutral in the game plus you get hi/low unblockables, great lockdown/resets with RB, Mags doesn’t really care about failed TACs and has some of the best TAC fakes in the game.
My current x23 team is almost that with x23/vergil/arthur. It’s alright but it’s not that good which is why I’ve been thinking of figuring out a new team to use her on lately.
Disagree with this as well.
Like Merkyl mentioned, X23 is not cheap enough on point when she doesn’t have the most optimal assist she can use. I wouldn’t run that team with Laura in front because there’s little reason to do that over Morrigan or Zero, characters who can virtually create for themselves better than X23 can. Vergil has always been looked upon as being uniquely better with X23 behind him in this case.
No, no, and no.
Optimal team composition means that we are using Laura’s complete assets as a character than heavily relying on Dirt Nap to win our games. Although Mags and Dante are two top tier characters in their own right, they do not give Laura the tools she needs to truly reach her potential as a groundbreaking character.
Yeah, if we’re talking optimizing Laura strictly as a character I think it all comes down to a combination of Log Trap, Bolts of Balthakk, Cold Star, Dark Hole, and Repulsor Blast. Those five assists when paired correctly (One lockdown, one neutral) give her everything she needs to be as powerful as she can be on point. There are other assists that maybe offer better combo extensions, easier Dirt Naps, or maybe deal with certain matchups better; but they’ll all lack at least one thing while combining those five properly should give you everything.
Point of clariication, i would say vergil and x23 can be switched depending on matchup. The reason I think x23/Vergil/doom is the future is also because I think infinites are the future, and Dirt nap is x23’s greatest asset.
Don’t get me wrong, I think she’s a great character, even without dirt nap. But if we’re talking about endgame, pure competitiveness, full optimization, dirt nap is the reason to play the character - if dirt nap isn’t part of your gameplan, you honestly might as well play Spencer.
We keep talking about optimal assists, and whatnot, but the fact of the matter is this: if you have a midscreen infinite TAC, all your assist needs to do for you is help land a hit, or combo off a throw - not resets, not even combo extension, really (although rapid slash actually works alright for combos).
Yeah, it’s ugly, and TACs are still kind of stupid, but that’s the direction the game is going right now. I’ll agree that other chars can help you accomplish this (iron man, raccoon, whatever), but as characters, they’re just not as good as Vergil/Doom
(I’m gonna preface this with the fact that I did even worse than DapVip at ReSe and I’m just using him as a practical example. I think I dropped 2 of my dirt naps out of maybe 20+ throughout casuals. My tourney matches were just awful, though…)
Lets talk about competitiveness for a second, though. I was up at ReSe the weekend before last along with DapVip. He doesn’t run his team for infinites or dirt nap guarantees with his team and out of the 4 or 5 dirt nap attempts I saw him go for he only hit 1 of them and on almost every match he missed it, he lost the match usually due to lack of resources (2 or 3 of these were tourney matches). Assuming you’re running missiles (which then isn’t really ideal for Vergil since he has no strong neutral assist for his teleport game) and if there was a way to consistently and reliably use those for dirt nap guarantees I would say doom was the ideal character instead of Iron Man, but I haven’t found a way to guarantee that missiles will hit meaty on incoming 100% of the time. This goes double if you’re running doom beam.
It’s not enough in this game to just TAC infinite to 5 meters and go for raw dirt naps, and even more so, it’s not enough to not have an assists to pick up after the dirt nap since you won’t be able to build the extra meter for a double dirt nap on 70% of the cast if you have to pop XF to relaunch. If you’re trying to make your team competitive you need to limit the game down to a single weighted gamble and guarantee double dirt naps as much as possible. Saying you’re gonna be a badass and always hit someone with a perfectly meaty j.S and never get XF thrown or have shit not go your way isn’t realistic in a tournament setting. Expecting to win a tourney when every single match is based around 3 gambles that blow almost all of your resources is not a good plan.
The ideal team for X23 1 infinite character, 1 dirt nap guarantee, 1 post throw/dirt nap pick up. Playing against some of the better talent in GA recently has made me think that point X23 won’t really be super viable later on in the game. Stuff is getting a bit too wacky and we’re falling behind the curve on tech. After FR, I’m gonna be looking into stuff like Viper/X23/IM or Mags/X23/IM because as much as I hate to say it, I think that’s the only way we’ll be able to have an X23 team in the end game. Put a stupidly strong point character in front to handle the gamble portion, then just use X23 to do all the heavy lifting with double dirt naps.
This post made me think about something, though…maximum derp… Vergil/X23/IM. Start of match > rapid slash > swords > hi/low unblockable with X23 (or derpy extension into lunar phase on hit) > TAC immediately to IM. They only get to play if they have an invincible alpha counter, blow XF, or guess right.
I mean no offense by this whatsoever - but if you can’t land dirt nap without a guaranteed assist, you really need to practice more. Yes, it’s possible to get xf thrown out a meaty, but far from easy - with different timings on sj. Falling claw, they still have to block the correct direction while x23 is invisible, as well as hit xf with perfect timing (which is also a guess - the block bubble is not reactable).
When you can land raw dirt naps, you don’t have to limit your assist options for anything more than neutral and relaunch - the team I’m thinking of is doom plasma beam and Vergil RS
For what it’s worth, I got 9th at the last Texas barfights, running x23/doom/deadpool, and I literally hit dirt nap at least two times per match.
As for x23’s viability on point, it’s kinda funny you’d say that - I’ve been playing Texas’s talent a lot recently, and they’ve all told me they now think x23 is a great character =p
Sorry I won’t make it to FR, but TX is well represented. Try to get some games with Team AB if you can
Derp Vergil opener: or they could throw you or hit you out of RS… Or pushblock the swords when they see the assist… or get on top of your from start of round…
I got 9th at KiT, which was TN, AL, and GA players and X23 IS a great character. I still don’t think she’s gonna be enough at the end game to compete with other top tier points options (not having consistent overheads on the whole cast even with fuzzy guard and no ground throw game is a huge blow to her as a character). I don’t think I’m ever going to drop my X23/IM/RR team since I think it’s the best 3 way synergy teams for her on point with a guaranteed dirt nap but I’m still gonna have a top tier point character labbed up as a counter pick.
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As far as dirt naps go…**
I was the one arguing FOR unassisted dirtnap for the longest time. I’m pretty comfortable saying they’re not reliable enough for consistent tournament play against smart players that know where the weaknesses in the setups are. Using stuff that you know has weaknesses only because someone doesn’t know how to punish it is stupid and will lose you matches eventually. Wandles has been running the X23/IM(RB) pairing since day 1 and I was convinced that it was a waste of a character slot and it wasn’t necc. to run a dirt nap guarantee for a year+. I whole-heartedly feel I was wrong after being able to see us consistently play the same people side by side and the success rates we both had.
I guarantee you the hitspark is reactable since that’s all you have to watch for and the idea is to make it as meaty as possible which means they know when to expect it. If they have XF, any hitspark is an XF throw by someone that understands the matchup and even if a smart player can only get out of ~30% of the dirt nap attempts, that will cost you matches and lose you tournaments because a dropped dirt nap is close to a guaranteed lost match especially if X23 gets thrown after you popped XF to get a kill and 3 meters. That means the only reliable thing for people with XF is a raw S and if you’re not perfectly meaty you can still get thrown out of it or mashed out depending on how bad the circumstance was. I’m pretty sure the frames are the same as her j.L (3 active frames) which doesn’t leave much room for error in the best circumstances. Especially in situations outside of snap where you really only have the life bar swapping to go on and if you had to use a super to kill the last character it might not even be possible to hit meaty due to the startup on dirt nap.
If you’re landing more than 70% unassisted dirt naps (and that’s generous, I’m pretty sure the people around here can counter closer to 40~50% on naked setups) you need to play better people. At best, against a player than knows the match, it’s a weighted mixup on whether or not you’re going to do it raw or not (and they’ll know that you can’t hit them with anything other than raw S if they have XF, so they get to mash throw and hope for the best, or you then have to not make it meaty at all to bait it…it’s just too much to account for). I think the SJ are completely out, since you have to come down with a dH or TA which is all throw punishable with XF and the camera pan gives it away and the TK CS H, which I think you can reliably make perfectly meaty, has the glaring issue that it’s perfectly meaty so it has consistent timing and it became the most inconsistent dirt nap option. I think the only think you’ll be able to rely on eventually naked is a perfectly meaty Raw S and you won’t always have the option to do that based on the way the engine works on incoming characters.
If you think that X23 is going to be around at end game (which I do) you have to assume people will be forced to become familiar with dirt naps and how to get out of them and you might as well adapt now rather than having to change your game up later. You’re kidding yourself if you think they’re anywhere near airtight.
Seperate from all of this, there’s been some new tech from the RR forums that might help us set up an infinite with X23.
With RR on point, you can combo into the corner > hard knockdown > Bear trap > Boulder Trap > S (super early to avoid setting off the boulder trap) > sj.HxxTac Up/Down.
At that point, you can spike then down fast enough that the boulder trap will still be there and OTG right before you hit the ground. The theory is that characters with jump loops (supposedly someone was able to manage 1 rep with Felicia while still maintaining the TAC state) can use this when they don’t have ways to get them down to ground height normally.
I looked into it with X23 and I wasn’t able to find a timing where she sync’d up with the OTG and hitting the ground, but I was hoping one of us would be able to find the magic combination to make it work.
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Fun fact: Texas is bigger in both area and population than TN, AL, and GA combined.
Also we bodied GA in the curleh battle royale.
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I never said raw dirtnap setups are airtight, I just think they’re heavily weighted enough in x23’s favor that it’s worthwhile to open up the team configuration.
This is an un-labbed thought, but I’m thinking there may be other ways to guarantee a dirtnap without the usual assists. For example, doing the usual meaty j.m incoming + horizontal assist; if they xfc the j.m, you can cancel into throw. If they don’t they’ll fall into the assist, and you can dash in to activate dirt nap. (Although I guess if you’re gonna do a meaty j.M, you might as well do the meaty j.S (j.L frame data, right?))
There are also tons of ways to make a raw dirt nap more ambiguous; you can screw with the camera pan on a sj by cancelling d.H into CS or talon (before they come in), or you can just sj and react to their response. You can also just stay on the ground - if they’re looking for a hitspark that never comes, they just fall into you. No it’s not guaranteed, but still completely in your favor.
You’ve convinced me on one thing though, I’m gonna start practicing meaty j.S dirtnaps, lol. If you can do them while visible, there’s no reason we can’t do them while invisible.
Im learning to play umvc3 and I’ve been using X-23(ankle)/Storm(Whirlwind)/Wolvy(Berseker Barrage or Berseker Slash sometimes jeje)
No reason to run storm on a team like that unless you like the DHC. Flop X23 and Wolverine around so X23 gets XF3 and meter build for silent kill trap over Wolverine’s incoming. I think Wolverine can utilize Whirlwind better than 23 can on point.