X23/IM/RR is online friendly, totally blows people out of the water as long as you have a decent connection. Just play people on your friends list lol, I have surprised many people about how good that team actually is. I have a message with somebody saying how that team has solved all of X23 weaknesses lmao.
I do agree Jam Session is garbage for her in ultimate, but that doesn’t mean it’s useless. It’s still a top 5 assist in the game in my book, gives her sure dirt nap, and controls major portions of the screen where X23 isn’t amazing at. So as long as you play to its strengths, you can certainly turn this liability into a major player just as some type of Kubo knockoff.
hey guys I’ve been a long time fan of x23 both in this game and even the comics! So i’ve really wanted to get into using her and building a team around her. I wanna know what assists to look for her I feel like wesker’s gunshot is required and helps extend her combos so much more but I could be wrong after all that’s why I’m in this fourm I’ve been trying x23/wesker/iron man (with the beam assist) and so far that’s been alright except iron man is a little lacking when he’s alone and I like using iron man’s assist for wesker also so that’s why he’s in anchor but someone tell me what I should be looking for in an x23 team thanks.
IMO, it sucks how she needs assists for so many things. I understand this is a team game, that assists are there for a reason, etc. But to make her into a higher tier character, I feel X-23 needs to be capable of doing more of those things Dougiie listed on her own. Generally, speaking, more of the commonly played characters/higher tiered characters can.
Take for example X-23’s lvl 3. Yes, it’s good, but she needs an assist to guarantee it connects. The optimal one to use is Dante, but his use isn’t as effective for other aspects of her game. Comparing this to another set-up situation game plan like Firebrand with tenderizer, sure tenderizer doesn’t get much use outside these setups. But Firebrand solo can combo off throws, has good neutral, long combos, etc.
I guess what I’m saying is X-23 has to pick and choose more so than other higher tiered characters. She may not necessarily need additional buffs, but giving her more tools allows her to not have to sacrifice B for A (for example).
JS is definitely not optimal for X23. RB is a much better everything for her.
I’m going to not post my usual stuff to avoid being a broken record but I think she’s fine. Loss of infinite will hurt her more than any buff is going to help.
I have the opposite opinion, I believe Jam Session is necessary as a deterrent for those hanging out at SJ-height. It comes out faster, pairs up with other characters on your team better and Dante works better on anchor. I think it’s worth scrapping extension damage for it and run TACs. Even if you can’t double Silent Kill to run through their whole team, you’ll destroy 2 chars, guaranteed and put the hurt out on the 3rd one, though that depends on how much health they’ve got.
Merkyl will never agree with me on this haha he’s an RR player for life. THOUGH, if Rage Trigger caused a knockdown state after it lifted the opponent up in the air to allow more flexibility im terms of DHCing, I would put RR in the 2nd slot instantly.
This basically just comes down what I was saying. Sometimes to play x23 with certain assists, you have to be willing to sacrifice things to satisfy what YOU WANT out of the team…everyone’s play style is different. Some people might be better off running JS because they know how they play or what they want to get out of their x23 team. It is the EXACT same way how the Nova players here don’t really agree with or like Nova Spencer because grapple assist isnt to beneficial outside of extending combos…yet, there are Nova Spencer players that run trains through people. It’s all personal preference.
I’ve been playing with Rocks more and more lately, and I feel like they’re a really strong assist for her against other rushdown characters. I’d almost say if you’re playing X-23/Doom and your opponent picks Wolverine then Rocks are an absolute MUST because it completely tilts the match in your favor. I used them against YTwoJay at Evo and did WAY better than I should’ve just based on that alone. I wouldn’t use them full time because they won’t do anything to stop keepaway characters or characters who stick to the sky, but against Wolverine, Wesker, Spencer, Viper, etc it’s really useful. I think it would probably be good against Nova too, but I haven’t had a chance to test that.
If you’re playing against someone that tries to lame out as SJ height, you just hard tag to IM and win the MU for free. I don’t understand why people feel like she has to have tools against every MU.
Trish, Doom, Plink/Runaway Mags, lame FB (I feel like rushdown FB might win because of bon voyage), etc. all lose to IM. If they’re trying to drop on you, you RB (and if you’re smart and have Log with you, get a full combo) of they’re trying to sit and chuck plasma you just jump and UB them (if Mags players start using the air EMD Dash tech then it might change some things, but if they’re just doing the 45 degree spam they can’t deal with IM at all). Full screen wars against IM lose to c.H+LogxxUB or just UB L + Log against the stuff like EMD L. IM’s SJ height conversions are really solid/practical and lead into 750k with log extensions and 1 meter.
What incentive do they have to stop laming when you’re hitting them with JS, which doesn’t do much damage, doesn’t convert into anything worthwhile, requires you to be in their shooting zone to call the assist in the first place, gives them their air actions back, and lets them call assists from SJ height if they couldn’t before for some reason?
I don’t understand that argument at all.
JS is great for people like Wolvie who have the braindead conversions from SJ height, but X23 gets practically nothing worthwhile from it that other assists don’t do better in neutral or RB doesn’t do better in almost every other situation: Better/longer lockdown with fewer hits that won’t kill damage on hit and gives better damage conversions, broken blockstring, longer incoming hitstun, AA protection that leads into solid damage, full damage relaunch that gives you the option to keep them in the corner or switch them to midscreen.
The only argument that you can make for JS is that it’s faster and it doesn’t have recovery, but if you’re calling it out outside of a blockstring you can still stuff him on reaction. IM is safer to call from further away since it’s a huge hitbox and is completely safe to call during blockstrings for mixups. Once you’re on the other side of them the recovery doesn’t matter and it’s easy enough to protect him with another blockstring or bait out a counterhit with a poke.
I agree that it’s all personal preference, but there ARE teams out there that give X23 everything she needs and still have great synergy. The whole worn out ‘she needs 3~5 assists to give her everything she needs’ isn’t true and mainly stemmed from people that weren’t willing to learn how to use assists other than Beams and JS after vanilla.
I get what you’re saying Merkyl. She doesn’t have to deal with every situation. But if we’re talking about balancing the game, then comparing her to the higher tiers, she should get some buffs. Yes, the higher tiers will fall a bit, but IMO they’ll still be ridiculous. For X-23 to advance (especially when you admit that she’ll be hurt by removing infinites), she should theoretically get buffs. In truth, it doesn’t matter if more people play her, because I still will (even though I suck compared to most and never enter tournies due to school). But I’d like to see her get more attention. With the way she is now, she’s not as efficient and consistent as other characters.
I guess the biggest issue is what’s the bar for balancing. Which character should Capcom use as a theoretical standard to achieve for balance? Obviously not all characters can be set to that level, but you get what I’m saying. Then, where is X-23 in relation to that certain level of fairness?
Edit: I just get annoyed seeing a pretty good amount of the tournament-played cast doing things that X-23 can’t do. Easy air conversions with dive kick, pipe, and/or jumping S causing hard knockdown. Solo comboing level 3’s. Ridiculous hit boxes. Conversions off air throws. Good DHC combos. Looking at this list, I noticed Wolverine fills most of them. I both laugh and cry inside.
We get that Dante may not be the most optimized for x23 and that you’re really passionate about x23 and all that, but at the end of the day, not everyone wants to play like you and that is what it comes down to. I would bet damn near any amount of money if you asked players “Would you rather play Dante or Iron Man” people will say Dante. Iron Man may offer more but having that character on a team is a liability. Even the GOOD IRON MAN PLAYERS feel crippled having him on their team and that is just the reality of it all.
The reason I believe Jam Session is not ultimately disregarded as an assist is because of its general properties. It’s another one of those ‘one of the kind’ assist in marvel that may not do much for X23 but creates an incredibly strong fundamental approach to the game. It’s one of the 3 assist in the game that guarantees Laura a dirt nap, huge points considering how most teams specifically run a strong dirt nap engine nowdays. It brings characters down from the sky, just enough time for Laura to plan her next mixup or frame trap. It lockdowns big for its level of speed, and etc.
Characters like MODOK that have a unique flying pattern are kept in check with Jam Session, giving something that players need to think about changes the playing field drastically. That’s why I said as long as you play to its strengths, you can turn all its liabilities into assets. XF2 Laura + Cornered Jam Session is as derpy as gets in marvel if you aren’t Sentinel or Morrigan with 3 bars.
Other characters get a great deal from it too, same way IM gets his screen control with log.
The only reason I don’t like JS is because if it hits, I don’t get a knockdown and my opponent can now call assists while I’m still on cooldown. It kinda defeats its own purpose… This will usually happen to me against a mag/akuma combo…
The little bit I ran with JS outside of vanilla I was incredibly disappointed with it. There is just nothing optimal about it anymore for X23’s specific case.
The biggest issue is that it falls under the ‘x23 needs a lot of gaps filled in her gameplan.’ JS only somewhat fills 3 (I’m willing to say 3 and a half: throw, dirt nap, sub-par fast neutral, and vertical coverage that I don’t think she should worry about in the first place.) That leaves way more than your 3rd character is going to be able to fill and in the end leaves you with a sub-optimal team. Doubly so with the fact that Dante pretty much needs a beam or Vajra to be a real threat and none of those options are optimal for X23, which just exacerbates the whole issue. What you end up with is a team that either has to make sacrifices in neutral or something like Dapvip’s team where it’s a solid Dante team at the risk of having a very suboptimal X23 team if you don’t get the first kill/TAC or you end up with something like Meep’s team where you have a really solid assist for your point, but X23 is mostly a wasted slot outside of XF2 and it makes more sense to replace X23 with someone that makes your higher tier point character even better.
Dante/X23(OTG)/(Neutral Dante Assist, usually beam) teams are risky. You get an assist to help Dantes be a threat and X23 gives him easy throw conversions/resets/incomings but you’re banking on getting the first kill with dante in a meter neutral/+ fashion (usually hard to do without resets which have the normal risks) and getting Dante behind X23 with the neutral assist dead (really the only reliable way X23 will be able to kill and gain 2+ bars without double relaunches is XF2.) There’s so much that has to happen for this to be a solid threat that I don’t think it’s viably consistent.
X23/Dante/Assist or X23/Assist (non-infinite)/Dante has pretty much the same issues. X23 already doesn’t get anything major from JS, and the only 3 good hori assists that give you post dirt nap pickup and any kind of relaunch are Bolts, Rapid Slash, and Log Trap. Log is going to waste Dante’s wall bounce which majorly affects his damage so that pretty much just leaves Bolts and Rapid Slash. Rapid Slashing being the better option, bolts being passable, but you don’t have the XF 1 threat like you would have with a double relaunch team. You don’t have great assists to help with HBDs so you’re limited to the lower side of the health ranges when it comes to that. The issue with X23 May Cry and the Dante/Strange or Strange/Dante options is that none of those characters are really optimized to be great batteries except for Dante who you have to have in the back or you run into the issues from the above paragraph.
X23/Practical Infinite/JS doesn’t really have a pairing that optimizes hardly anything for her. Since the only real reason to have JS is for dirt nap guarantees, I think it’s reasonable to argue this team build.
Mags/Dante : Requires EMD for Dante to not be a liability. Requires HG for double dirt nap/X23 combo synergy which kills Dante’s neutral and takes away Mag’s THC extensions. Bad DHCs in general. You could probably make Mags(HG)/X23(OTG/CS)/Dante(JS) work, but if someone snaps in or kills dante on assist the synergy crumbles. If you have good enough Mags mobility to make JS work as your only assist then you’re probably good enough to make RB work which is a better X23 team and gives CS/throw > hard tag options more threatening, otherwise you’d be better off switching X23 out for some other high tier option.
IM/Dante: Same issue. Need Beam for dante, but you have no combo relaunches and no amazing DHC to make up for the lack of damage. RB probably has some dante synergy going for it, but then Dante has to play without his beam+teleport team and doesn’t really have a great hi/lo game outside of DT. Plus, having JS and RB on the same team is probably stupid. See notes above on Dapvip’s team.
Doom/Dante: Dante can get a little use from missiles, which would be the optimal option for X23 combos/neutral throw game, but you can’t double dirt nap with missiles (unless someone can find a way to use Missiles as a 100% dirt nap guarantee) and negates the whole reason to have an infinite character. Beam has the same issues as everyone else, decent for X23 neutral but scales the mess out of combos and has really lousy extensions with no throw or dirt nap option. Rocks will pick up after dirt nap, but I’m not sure if Dante can get much use out of them and X23 wouldn’t have any good extensions or a fast neutral assist with any range.
Nova/Dante: Seems like a bad idea in general since Nova really needs something to lock them down on the ground to be super threatening. Only really worthwhile assist is Cent Rush, which is good for X23 combos and not terrible for netural, but Dante doesn’t get a whole lot if he has to play.
Sent/Dante: Same issue, choose neutral/decent combo extension drones or RP for double dirt nap option which gives great X23 extension but offers practically nothing for Dante.
Storm/Dante: Generally bad all around. Storm has no worthwhile assists to fill any of X23s gaps.
Trish/Dante: Trish needs a little more horizontal coverage/lockdown so she prefers WS over JS, Only really viable assist for this team is Low Voltage which isn’t optimal for Dante since you can’t abuse it the same way you can beams. LV does offer a true double dirt nap engine, though no great extensions otherwise. Trish(LV)/X23(OTG)/Dante(JS) was the latest team I played around with and is probably the highest you can get on tier without completely sacrificing neutral for double dirt nap. The other team orders let you TAC into trish for the double dirt nap, but fall short in neutral. This means the optimal way to play this team is based around RH unblockables to get your first kill, then let X23 XF2 cleanup. (If you’re going to do that, then you may as well just go with Zero/X23/Dante, but then zero is good enough that it would be better to replace X23 with Vergil or someone else that optimizes him since it makes more sense to build around him instead.)
As far as the complaint that other characters get braindead conversion at SJ height/etc. It’s always a tradeoff. Wolvie doesn’t have anywhere near the air mobility that X23 does, Doom does have anywhere near the ground mobility (and has to rely on either dashing or blocking, but not really both at the same time), Haggar is one of the easiest characters in the game to lame out (he has to earn that pipe). X23 has amazing evasion and one of the few true reliable unblockable moves that aren’t reliant on assists that don’t have use in neutral/combos and kills 2+ characters absolutely free. Plus she has full conversions off forward air throws so I’m not sure why that was one of your points.
I don’t expect people to, but based on her current tech levels there are optimal teams that cover your assumed list. Just because you don’t like what that entails doesn’t negate that fact. The main issue circulates around the fact that most hori assists don’t give X23 anything outside of neutral, with exception to Log (which handles everything X23 wants and then some), Bolts (throw pickup, post dirtnap pickup, decent first extender), and rapid slash (sub par first extender, throw, post dirt nap). I guarantee you that as soon as we learn more about the engine or find new tech for her I will immediately alter my views to take that into account.
Same with IM and IM players. I’ve only met 1 or 2 that agree that he should be played as a defensive tank rather than a solo XF3 comeback character. I think the way I play him is infinitely closer to optimal than just saying he’s an assist character and disregarding his actual strengths or trying to play him as molasses Magneto or crappy Nova. And the bottom line there is that IM is as much a character specialist’s character as X23 is. People aren’t playing him unless they enjoy him and think he has strengths. The guys that play him and still talk about how terrible he is are idiots and just want to feel better about themselves/OS a lose by saying they play low tier characters.
That all said, when you start bolding stuff like you have in your write-up that just isn’t true (and I did the full on breakdown/response on why the IM/RR shell solves your list and I fully believe there are other teams that do for people willing to look into untested synergy) and posting it everywhere, someone that doesn’t know X23 is going to see it and assume it’s fact. That’s why you still have people honestly arguing that X23 can’t be played in end-game Marvel and that she’s a bad character. I still have to argue the practicality of her TODs and double dirt naps.
TL;DR: X23 is most threatening in neutral by herself when she has double relaunch assists. She’s most threatening overall when she has a true double dirt nap team. The only practical team I’ve seen with both of these that doesn’t sacrifice neutral is X23/IM/RR. (Hulk(OTG)/X23(OTG)/IM(RB) is a close second, but it has issues with hard zoning which is why I don’t think it’s 100% optimal.) JS teams automatically mean you’re sacrificing double relaunches, damage, and meter gain and the infinite pairings to cover that are never fully optimized.
Nova/ Dante is actually fine speaking from a Dante point of view not optimal but there’s a reason yipes played it in early vanilla. Speaking from a nova point of view it’s pretty good. To see what I mean just watch Marvelo footage
I mean we can sit here and list all the theories and whatnot, but if Meep can make it out of pools with Zero/23/Jam then it’s certainly not as depended on the team itself than the person using it. Sure, he could of replace another character there and go full HAM, but he made a decision and went with what he felt worked best at the time. Although he said it himself that he doesn’t like the concept of the team, he did mention it was more or less because of his lighting loops at the time being inconsistent.
Of course, we theoretically assume that Dante is placed at anchor every time which creates two scenerios: he gets snapped in and dies or he gets caught in a HBD and dies. If none of these things happen then Dante solidifies the anchor position with extreme versatility, counters more than likely removed, and possibly XF3 for comeback. He’s even more optimal coming in with meter for Devil Trigger, so Dante more than has the necessary tools to function by himself and doesn’t need Strider or Doom if played diligently well. Devil Trigger gives him his own ‘beam’ which is more than preferred given its trajectory, chip, and lockdown. In X23’s case, if she is using the meter for dirt naps the correct way then there’s a very good chance a character will die. If the character is important to the teams composition, then this liability becomes huge because the player doesn’t play his best stuff.
Speaking of X23, that means she’s either getting the work done on point or more than likely coming in on a reliable 50/50 setup. Everyone knows that you aren’t getting the most optimal approach from JS. It scales unfavorably, creates really tight conversion strings, and the works (not doing this again). When we look at our X23 teams, we can immediately pinpoint a problem or something that just doesn’t seem as satisfying then most of the other optimal teams in the game right now. Just by having X23 on our team, we constantly feel the need to tweak stuff and experiment (I’m not even a lab monster and I’ve spent more time in the lab with this character more than any character I have ever explored in my life). That’s just the case with X23 right now, especially if you get blown up in a tourney.
Most X23 teams will not be 100% optimal, it’s not easy placing an X23 on a team the same way Wolverine or somebody else can be placed. But we can improvise:
Frank/Dante: Braindead mixup (X23+Cart), air assurance, ridiculously easy access to LV4-5 Frank. Gives Laura a completely tools set of neutral tools for frame traps to luis loops. Dante can use cart and the team can function in any order. Frank up to LV3 can convert any touch off JS into a combo, even in the air. On paper it looks like too much work, not entirely impractical though, serves as a poor man’s traditional X23/Dante/Beam character but with a lot more poise.
Dorm/Dante: Practically works in order. Dorm really appreciates an assist like JS and Dark Hole (while not Dante’s assist of choice) can still be serviceable. X23 now has a reliable relaunch that doesn’t hitstun like crazy and Dorm’s DHCs make up the dmg scaling. Everyone seems to cover the others weakness well (Dorm loves when people air stallers, Dante loves to build meter, Laura gets to do what she wants with better characters on deck). Minus the TAC infinites (because Dorm and Dantes is impractical), I like the foundation core of what this pairing can bring to the table.
Trish/Dante: The only issue I can see with this is that Dante doesn’t get a whole lot from X23/Trish’s assist. You have infinites, a sure dirt nap, a divekick, a lame play style, traps, frametraps, why can’t this succeed after all of that? Sure, JS hurts Trish’s already pathetic dmg but again if we play to the strengths then theoretically speaking this team should succeed on its own. If we are nailing our Trish infinites then dmg is not a problem, and she can go in all 4 directions which means 2 characters are not playing. Killing 2 characters free is still pretty big in this game, very-very big. I’m the biggest criticizer on these forums about how low voltage is bad for X23, BUT that doesn’t mean X23 can’t use it. Lots of things have to go well, but this isn’t something like X23/Haggar/Chunli
Zero/Dante: Proven tandem that I won’t go too much into. Playing for dirt nap more specifically but still a team that focus the art of not letting people play.
Rocter Raccoon/Dante: I think the ONLY reason we aren’t seeing this much now is because X23/IM/RR do it so much better. Tons of options, but again there goes the problem. Dante enjoys spitfire a lot more than log, while X23 enjoys log a lot more than spitfire.
Sentinel/Dante - I disagree that this pairing cannot work. I think it can, you already have a Sentinel retarded air normals and can convert most crap JS has to offer. You have Sentinel infinite but everyone knows it’s coming so that opens your options more. Dante gets drones, but X23 doesn’t have reliable relaunches so her only optimal dmg are luis loops. Of course, drones opens up her reset game so life can’t be all that bad (see Tatsu vids)
TL DR: Most of the teams I think Jam Session works well with don’t necessarily fulfill the double dirt nap endgame, but can still be utilized on the playing field so long as characters don’t get to play.
lol. I feel like we’re saying the same thing, you’re just willing to put X23 on a suboptimal team. I don’t think X23 should be on point without at least one assist that can handle happy birthdays and there’s just not a lot of good options for that outside of log. So that instant counts out characters that get damage from wall bounces for me.
I totally agree that X23/dorm/Dante is probably one of the best non infinite options, dark hole doesn’t do a while kit for for Dante tho and 1 too many meter this on the team Imo.
If X23 had a good way to level up Frank without burning a ton of meter I would she with Frank/Dante. Frank’s too much of a liability for me. Just too many hoops to jump through for that team to do well. Resets for X23 or getting a hit with level 1 Frank and no double dirt nap option. It’s another situation where you’d be better off playing someone that can level Frank for free and just run train with him.
And I don’t mean that sub optimal is bad or anything, just that you have to work harder than you would otherwise and I’ve had way too much of that at this point.
I’ve been trying x23/wesker/iron man (with the beam assist) and so far that’s been alright except iron man is a little lacking when he’s alone and I like using iron man’s assist for wesker also so that’s why he’s in anchor but someone tell me what I should be looking for in an x23 team thanks.