Biting is always welcome. I wouldn’t share my tech if I didn’t want people to use it.
On X23 + Slant shot, There’s some 2 year old tech from a guy named JacobPlayingVidz that didn’t get as much looking into as it deserved. Here’s a vid and a copypasta from like 2 years back.
[details=Spoiler]Alright heres some notations for the vid cuz the quality is pretty bad.
Standard loop for high health characters: s.M(1 hit) H qcb.H MH qcf. L s.M(1 hit) H qcb.H MH dp.L qcf.L s.M(2hits)+spencer H
For lower health characters(about 900k and under) you want to use a different loop to make sure you build up the level 3 off of one reset. This loop does less damage but builds more meter than the loop for high health characters: s.M(1 hit) H qcb.H MMH j.MMHS j.MMHS qcf.L s.M(2 hits)+spencer H
If you land a talon youll want to switch up the loop for hitstun decay: after the H qcb.H MH qcf.L s.M(1 hit) H qcb.H MMdown+H qcf.L s.M(2 hits)+spencer H
After the last H you have these options(there might be more so just experiment)
cross up low: qcb.M(delay) c.M
cross up high: qcb.M(right away) qcb.H S qcf.L
cross up command grab: qcb.M(right away) qcf.H
cross up instant overhead: qcb.M(right away) dash j.M down+H qcf.L this is character specific but works on most tall characters, works even if theyre crouch blocking but the timing will be tight
cross up talon: qcb.M(delay) qcf.L the timing on this one will take a little getting used to
front low: qcb.L(delay) c.M
front high: qcb.H(delay) S qcf.L
front command grab: qcb.L qcf.H
front instant overhead: qcb.L j.M down+H qcf.L this one is more reliable than the cross up ioh and is slightly easier to time
front talon: qcb.M(delay) qcf.L this must be done faster than the crossup talon to hit from the front side
All of these options lead to another set of ground loops and can be turned into another reset situation. They also lead to a corner to corner bnb.
Instead of canceling the H into a mirage, cancel into qcf.L(charge) dash HS sj.MMdown+H dp.H qcf.L dante+qcf.M(charge), assist hits, tk H crescent into qcf.H talon. [/details]
The only thing I would add is that instead of doing MF M for the crossups, I’m pretty sure you can either do MF L > dash under or MFC > dash under to get a faster mixup after the fact.
As far as the team itself, I would personally run X23/Spencer(Slant)/IM(UB) if I was running that style of team (I’ve honestly considered making it my B-team for shits n’ giggles). If you haven’t seen him already, go and find some matches by Danke (or Denial Danke is what he plays by more recently) Spencer/IM style is just too stupid to not run. I assume that you can do combo > slant shot > neck slicer > launch > TAC to get to IM’s infinite, which should then get you to double dirt naps (using slant shot to hit meaty on incoming to guarantee the dirt nap, though I don’t know how practical that really is since I haven’t looked at in the lab, personally).
The main issue with doom is that you won’t typically get 5 meters off the infinite and he doesn’t get anything super amazing off slant shot in neutral, either. IM is more work than Doom, but Unibeam is the best beam in the game and for spencer, the THC is worth the sacrifice IMO.
For X23, Slant shot isn’t amazing in neutral but as an incoming and mixup tool is really strong, I don’t know what the DHCs look like, but I have no doubt that you can get the full spencer double DHC nonsense with him in back, plus always having the ridiculous snap incoming options to fall back on as well. My one beef with this early on is that you had to run the reset super early on in the combo (something like 200k or so) since then with the CS > TA combos coming out, you can probably stretch that to about 300k+ with maybe a 600k meterless followup (~800k with 1 meter), so if that’s the case, that’s 90% of the cast dead off one reset, probably meter positive.
If you’re just going for Max damage with spencer, you might be able to squeeze out an easier s.HxxMF HxxCS LxxTA L after the grapple on characters that are normally difficult to get a 3rd rep on without special timing/spacing.
I’ll actually take a look in the lab because I made myself curious about optimizing slant shot combos and let you know if I have anything else to add.
I don’t really know much about the doom/spencer pairing since you don’t see many people out there that play them at a high level (and it’s almost always in the other order when you do see it.) I know you can do a basic extension late combo with it and there’s probably some dirty stuff you can do with the fH pressure + slant shot with dash overs, but again, I’ve never been a huge fan of doom and I only really know about him on the matchup side of things.
Edit for Lab followup:
So I went into the lab and looked at X23/Spencer(slant shot)/IM last night. Overall, pretty good results.
You can TAC past Spencer(Slant) super easily with combo > s.M+slant shot s.HxxCharged Neck Slicer (slight delay so you hit them grounded), s.HS, sj.HxxTAC.
With the new optimized combos, I can get about 400~450 before the reset and ~600 meterless after the reset with both assists (~800 for 1 meter) which means you can kill anyone off one reset for 1 meter and 80% of the cast for no meter.
s.H+slant shot xx CS M xx TA L, land, s.LMH, etc. combos, and should be a pretty solid start of match option. You have to go with a s.L after the TA to combo, though.
It is possible to dash under the restand rather than using MF M for faster crossups and you can probably even work out a combo where it will force a reset in the middle of a string rather than have to delay it or hit the reset meaty. (pair that with an MF and beam and you probably have something pretty amazing.)
On hulk (and I assume other big bodies) you can do combo into sj.TA L, land, AS + late slant shot and relaunch, doesn’t work in the corner or anywhere on normal sized characters, though.
I will say that using slant shot for your dirt nap guarantee is gonna take a lot of practice. The plus side, though, is that X23’s hard tag after a corner TAC infinite is almost perfect spacing to call spencer and have the angle/spacing right, so you’ll only have to worry about timing it properly.
full combo > OTG > snap > dash back > MF M + slant shot times itself well and seems like it would be super gross. It’s one of those setups that will crossup or not based on a few frames difference in timing and leads into an optimized combo. Abuse the mess out of that.
