MvC3 - Need help with team (X, Doom, Sent)

[gaddeath]

WARNING, POSSIBLE TOO-LONG-DID-NOT-READ.

Hello, sorry for being quite noobish, I haven’t had the need to seek help until now. My current team in MvC3 is X-23 with Crescent Scythe assist, Doctor Doom with Hidden Missiles, and Sentinel with the drones (alpha assist). I know I’ll be asking a lot, so please bear with me. For an idea of my “skill” I’m currently, as of this writing, a 6th Lord with 66/67% win/loss ratio, about 155 wins and 70 losses (don’t exactly remember).

Question 1: Is my team “good”? Does my team go well together?
I have a feeling that my team doesn’t really go well together, I picked them because, well, I’m “good” with them and know some good combos and went through all of their missions, however, sometimes I feel like my character’s assists don’t really go well together; I’ll either use them to stop combos and supers (hidden missiles) or use them to start/cross-up into a combo (drones). I thought about using the beam assist with Doom because of it’s difficulty to block when you teleport to the opposite side, which X-23 cannot do, all she can do is medium/heavy Talon Attack.

I feel like X-23 is my Strider/Phoenix because she has like 800k health and I really hate seeing her go down so easily when it takes me 30+ hits to do at least 500k damage to another character; are my combos not well optimized for damage or do I need to keep practicing? Should I switch her out with someone similar, say, Wolverine, who has more health and damage?

Question 2: How can I optimize/buff X-23’s combos and attacks?
Here is my problem, I go into training and pull off sweet combos, then go into online and just forget about all of it and just do basic light-medium-heavy into your basic air combo, OTG with ankle slice into Rage Trigger for X-23 when I know I can do a 600k damage combo, and DHC it into Doom’s Sphere of Flame for 700+ damage. My current tactics for running away and getting around the stage involves me using medium or heavy Talon Attack into down Heavy for a possible overhead, is there a better way to travel? Also, what are some great cross-up techniques for X-23?

My few combos (sorry I don’t know the basic notation too well):
L, M, H, Mirage Feint H, air M, air M, air H, down H xx Talon Attack L, land (repeat once more), L, M, H, S, sj.M, air M, down H xx Talon Attack L, OTG Ankle Slice xx Rage Trigger.
Damage: 602K

Fully charged Neck Slice, L, M, H, Mirage Feint H, air M, air M, air H, land, j.M, air M, air H, air S, land, j.M, air, M, air M, air S xx Talon Attack L, land, L, M, H xx Rage Trigger.
So that should show you what I can do with X-23, should I learn better combos or should I trade her for someone else?

Question 3: How can I optimize/buff this Doctor Doom combo?
j.Foot Dive xx air dash down-forward, cr.L, cr.M, cr.H, Hard Kick, sj.M, Flight, air M, air M xx air dash forward (repeat about 2-4 times), air S, land, OTG H, S, sj.M, air M xx Photon Array.
Another way I would do it at the end, instead of the launcher to medium-medium, I would do OTG standing heavy, to molecular shield, cancel into Sphere of Flame if I’m in the corner.

(In corner) j.Foot Dive xx air dash down-forward, cr.L, cr.M, cr.H, S, sj.M, air M xx air dash forward, air M, air S, land OTG H, S, sj.M, air M xx air dash forward, air M xx Photon Array.
What are some other Doctor Doom BnB’s I could do?

Thank you in advance, sorry for the very long read, I just needed help in trying to reach 5th Lord!

[MTSL_Mantra]

Don’t get too discouraged about not landing combos online. Online the game is different than offline. Theres lag based on connection. If that’s not your issue in landing combos, then its just you panic once you land a hit and do your go to ABClaunchBBClaunchsuper day 0 chains. Practice your combos enough to do them in your sleep (not literally) and start playing against people and make it a point to use them once you open them up. The only way to get better at that is to actually do it.

x-23 is not a high damage character. She has those cross-over mixups though that make her powerful. If you want to watch a REALLY good X-23 player, go on the FADC website and look up Tatsu (Team Hori). He runs X-23, Deadpool, Sentinel. Crossup tricks with Sentinel drones into full combo, deadpool OTG assist, combo again, x-23 OTG assist into super. DHC into deadpool can kill, or he can do mixups. He gets a fair amount of perfects with this team, too. She’s absolutely a viable character. Also, she can start DHC glitch for both of the other characters on your team (Dr. Doom will work as long as you aren’t in the corner, Sentinel DHC trick will work anywhere). So if you learn that timing you can set that up for true touch of death combos.
Although I would say to switch her assist to the low hitting one. Doom missiles can OTG as well, but the low assist wouldn’t serve the purpose of OTG. With x-23 on the ankle slice assist you can set up unblockables for Doom and Sentinel, and both can obviously benefit from free damage.

For Dr. Doom, learn the Buktooth loop. I prefer it to the M&M combos (the first doom combo you posted is generally called M&M, air combo into fly with about ten thousand medium attacks). M&M is a very viable combo as well, and you can see people using one or the other depending on their needs. Buktooth I think opens up more damage, but M&M brings them much closer to the corner. Both can go into the corner combo variations where you knock them down with jumping special and OTG, and can combo into doom rocks -> sphere flame/doom time. As far as his assist, there’s nothing wrong with doom missiles, I use them myself. You could try to find a point in your combos where you can activate it and they will OTG, and run a combo similar to tatsus. It adds a bit more damage (which is nice to have for her), scores you a bit more free meter, etc. If you didn’t want to do that you could very well use plasma beam assist, although I personally don’t know how I feel about two assists that fill a horizontal space on the screen, and both serve the purpose of cross-over mixups with her command dash.

TL;DR
Question 1: You’re team works fine, theoretically. DHC trick potential, good DHC chains from x-23 into Doom sphere flame. If x-23 switches her assist to the ankle slicer, you can set up unblockables for Doom and sentinel and both of those characters do enough damage for that DHC to be almost touch of death as well (sentinel force -> x-23 super ->sphere flame or sentinel force -> sphere flame both could do really good damage).
Practice your combos more so you on’t have to worry about forgetting them in game.
Learn Doom’s other BnB loop combo, the Buktooth loop. You can find it in his character forum here on SRK. Learn when to use one or the other.
Consider Doom’s assist and what you need more, another assist for crossup mixups or a vertical controlling, get-off-me/combo-breaker assist.

Best of luck.

[gaddeath]

Thank you so much!

I learned the Buktooth loop on my own, kinda; I didn’t even know what it was called at the time or saw a tutorial on it, I just watched some random tournament matches and tried my best to recreate the combo and I can pull it off 90% of the time offline, but I’m still trying to adjust for online. For X-23 I learned the hard way to actually try mix-ups and not do my panic day 0 combos when I was sparring with a 4th Lord guy on Player Matches, it was hard because his Wolverine was all over the place and I kept falling for the Super Skrull overheads, but I learned how to pressure and rush down with X-23 a lot better than before and to use the Sentinel force assist and Mirage Feint M mix-up. For Doom, I still need some practice with triangle jumping rapidly but I’m sure that will work itself out with lots of practice. I think I’m doing the M&M combo wrong somewhere because the flight into air M isn’t working half the time and misses, is the timing strict or do I really have to use air M as soon as I launch with Hard Kick (it seems to work more often that way for me)? Now finally Sentinel, I need help just using him because I know some good flight combos but I have a hard time hit confirming them and I don’t know how I can close in on my opponent.

Thanks again in advance!