Even at mid-screen?
Midscreen it’s only really good if you’re already in, it’s not so much a get in tool, but anytime you connect a grounded normal on block cancelling into Cent + Cold Star is really good, L M or H based on their position, i usually go L if they’re completely grounded, H if they’re at chicken block height, M if they’re Normal jump height or a little lower. But L can be really good for situations where they’re off the ground too, because you can get the crossup to hit at random points. Like if they’re in absolute guard from the cold star, then you cross under them and they land which removes the absolute guard, i get a lot of hits like that.
You can use it as a get in tool at midscreen if you kara-cancel cr.M into it, but it’s kind of a gambit and a little unsafe some of the time.
that’s just it though, it’s not really runaway/zoning per se. The focus is on space control and denying options. Zoning and runaway also work on this principle but they tend to do so with the purpose of continuing to do so until the opponent is defeated. Nova zoning isn’t about chipping them to death with pulses and javelins, but using them to put him into a spot where he can apply pressure and/or punish an opponent’s mistakes. I don’t put up 5 pulses in a row expecting to confirm off it; I put up 5 pulses so that when it’s time to put up the 6th pulse I slide instead and hit them for it. This approach can work in tandem with other aspects of using his mixup/rushdown game; you can see a bit of it in Yipes play at Youmacon. Controls space, then presses his advantage when he can do it safely. I personally find this to be a more sensible approach than a stronger emphasis on combating pushguards and continually trying to apply pressure. Not to say that doesn’t have its merits or isn’t effective/necessary in given instances. However, playing a Frank team stresses the importance of risk management; if Nova dies, things just got real bad real quick. The thing is though I think that notion applies to the game in general; some of the best characters in the game (Zero, Vergil, Morrigan, etc) are great because they’re low risk in the sense that even when they commit to something they have strong fallback options (Buster, Spiral Swords, Unfly, EX Seismo, etc) to save them. I feel Nova can be played with a similar mentality, and think it can be quite effective in many instances.
As for #2, that’s a combination of playstyle and matchup. Some characters you’re going to want to press an advantage post setup; characters like Dante and Vergil are the most obvious examples. They beat you in the neutral game and their reversal options are weak; if you back off it could very well kill you. Some characters backing off is a more obvious choice (Haggar, Hulk, etc), and then there’s a bunch of middleground. Do what you think will be most effective against the opponent; denying space or applying pressure.
I don’t think any character should be focused in just one aspect of play when they have other powerful options available. He’s a jack of all trades kinda character, but playing him just one way isn’t a good idea. You need to play Nova differently per matchup and use his strengths to his advantage. Concentrating on just one aspect of his gameplay doesn’t work.
I agree though that most people don’t abuse pulse, let alone confirm off of it. Nova’s strength lies in his option to take different approaches to different matchups. He doesn’t have to always rushdown, but he shouldn’t always be zoning. The Trish matchup for example is all about zoning. You can’t rush her down without putting yourself at a huge risk, but you can surprisingly outzone her…
You gotta be careful with the range you put a pulse though, she can slide under your pulses and punish you during it’s ridiculously long startup.
It all really depends on your assists too. If I play Weasel Shot, I’ll get outzoned by a large portion of the cast. If I play Plasma Beam, I can sit back and outzone most and really take control of the neutral. However, you can’t outzone everyone and Nova’s Grav Pulse H has 26 frames of startup just like energy javelin. You can be punished for putting it out very easily if you aren’t careful. You can’t just play Nova one way. You need to adjust to who you’re fighting. All of Nova’s tools should be being used.
Nova’s rushdown is absolutely ridiculous and if you’re not taking advantage of it, you’re doing yourself a disservice. Log Trap is one of the absolutely best assists for rushing down with Nova since it’s so easily confirmed out of his Cent Rushes. Shopping Cart unfortunately isn’t. Log trap is also good for his zoning.
TLDR; Play the matchup. Don’t just rushdown, but don’t just zone either…
You can confirm Cent Rush with Cold Star. It doesn’t confirm as well as Arrows or the standard projectiles, but I’m sure it confirms like Weasel Shot! Cart sucks for that purpose, but maybe you can Rocket Punch M confirm with Shopping Cart? That’s another really awesome tool people should using. Rocket Punch M + assist is pretty great at closing the gap.
I always forget to mention that! Karacanceling cr.M into Cent Rush + assist is the standard. You’ll close much more distance and it all combos anyway.
Reset 2 is hella good, that’s my go to reset on my team with nova/task/doom missiles. it does insane amount of damage.
Marvelo, something’s got to give here. We’ve gone back and forth on this more than once and it’s more or less the same thing. You (presumably, feel free to correct me) feel that Grav Pulse H can be too much of a liability given counter options and its startup, and that I don’t give Nova’s pressure/mixup game enough credit. I on the other hand feel you’re focusing too much on that and are missing the big picture on the idea I’m trying to emphasize. We should either try to elaborate with mindfulness in hopes of trying to see each other’s perspective, or just chalk it up to agree to disagree and walk from it (preferably with mutual respect in either situation).
The point I was making was that concentrating on just one aspect to Nova’s game isn’t the right idea. Nova can zone and rushdown well, but IMO shouldn’t be one sided. I feel that there’s an optimal playstyle depending on who you’re fighting matchupwise. You can create a team that enhances a certain playstyle. Enhancing Nova’s zoning for example, but at the end of the day I don’t think that’s Nova’s greatest strength. Nova’s greatest strength is his priority and his ability to stay in. We can agree to disagree here, with all respect, but that’s my opinion. That’s pretty much all I was saying. Correct me if I still don’t understand your point haha.
They can raw tag to get out of it. But if you think they’re gonna do it, block high. Punish hard.
I agree with the brunt of those sentiments. There’s certainly matchups I have no interest in rushing (Haggar, Hulk) and others trying to zone is a bad idea (Sparda brothers). And most team builds/assists out there allow utility for both keeping space and applying pressure though they may lean towards one or another.
That all said, I think people strongly lean towards playing Nova as a rushdown/pressure as a whole. There’s merits to this; some assists out there give all the time in the world to mixup, he has a fast overhead, can combo off ground throws and he has fantastic buttons. I struggle to focus on those elements; when I think of rushing down an opponent I think of button mashers with faster normals, snapbacks, push guarding then getting punished crossover counters, x factor guard cancels and invincible reversals when I have none. Call me a pessimist.
Rather the element of Nova I focus on is his ability to deny options and then punish people with their limited choices. Gravimetric Pulse H is extremely unique; it’s one of two moves in the game that once applied, just stays there (the other being eye of Agamotto which isn’t nearly as good). When placed close to an opponent, their options are limited; most normals involve moving forward and getting hit by it, if they use projectiles to pierce it I can punish, and likewise with most assist calls. So what do they typically do? Retreat. Cool; I can call Frank or Raccoon from behind the safety of the pulse, move forward, and put up another one. It’s the same tug of war mentality you should ideally be applying to something like street fighter; the best part is people yield space in marvel far more easily because they don’t bother to think about it. Granted, you don’t always need to keep pushing. sometimes the assist will hit, or they’ll make bad decisions during the process that you can capitalize on. If not, keep on pushing. Once you have them in the corner, you’re golden; your pressure/mixup when they’re locked down in the corner is that much stronger and if they try to jump to get away you have the best air throw in the game.
I’m not saying this is the only way to play Nova. I won’t even say it’s the best way (though I think the argument could be made given the current state of the game). What I will say with confidence though is most people play this game with the rushdown mentality and it’s an effective method to neutralize their rush and punish them for it. Some matchups you still want to rush. Some matchups you’d rather get space. But there’s a big wide middleground of matchups with several choices. The most obvious example to me is wolverine. Say you’re free to act, he’s about 1 dash distance away and just got forced to block your plasma beam assist. Almost every Nova player I’ve seen in situations like this in tournaments do the same thing; they rush. They go for their overheads, their tic throws, etc and try to kill him. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, but rather it’s a typical decision with various risk/rewards. If you open him up he’s probably dead, but on the other hand if he manages to survive the pressure you’ll eventually be put back into a neutral-esque situation at close range (aka a situation where wolverine thrives). Rather, if I have a wolverine locked down by an assist and I’m somewhat close I want to use the assist’s blockstun to put up a pulse. He has no projectiles to get through it, no invincible reversal, and pretty much the entire threat of his rushdown comes from the ground, which I’ve now denied him. I’ve traded my initial advantage for a more sustained one. Now I can focus on reacting to his decisions, or merely wait for another assist to apply pressure again or sustain my advantage/deny his options.
If I had to sum it up in one word, it’d probably be attrition. But not in terms of chip damage or stray hits, but rather grinding out spacing and option denial until I finally get my clean hit. I feel there’s no other character who can really do this the way Nova can, and it’s an aspect of him that’s severely undervalued. More importantly specifically to the nature of my team, it’s safer; if I lose buckethead before Power of the Frank, I lose. But on the other side, if I grind out that first touch, I almost always win.
Alright, so I’m really not used to having a character with a rapid fire standing :l:. I see how great it is as an anti-air, but never use it. So now I’m trying to apply it more to my game.
What are some general come in moves that Nova’s :l: beat out? I assume most tri-dash approaches, what about moves in particular? Does it beat out Wolvie Dive Kicks? Doom j 
's?
So no Nova in top 16 at NCR 
What’s up with that?
No top-notch Nova players. Infrit running a team he didn’t know how to play 100%.
IMO there are only a handful of Novae capable of getting top 8: Moons, Marvelo (as both have proven), Nemo, and Infrit on a good day and/or if he learns his new team.
Been playing with Nova/Task/Spencer for a little while and he’s quickly become my favorite character on the team. I can do the fly/unfly combos from anywhere on the screen now but I’m having trouble with the S relaunch after the loop shown in dougie’s video at 0:13
Usually instead of relaunching with S and doing the air rocket punch, I’d just do (after fly/unfly j.H’s) s.H + call spencer assist, rocket punch H, javelin, cent rush M, cent rush H, super.
While this does decent damage with DHC to Task up arrows, I’d be much more of a threat with the relaunch extension. This is kind of embarassing but I can’t seem to relaunch with raw S at all. I’m guessing it’s a timing thing: I do s.M, s.H, S, (fast as possible) j.H xx fly, (fast as possible) j.H, slight delay, unfly H, (target flips out before S).
Any tips will be appreciated.
Combofiend? He was pretty awesome the last time I saw him, but I haven’t seen him play in forever. If I recall he was still running Nemoteam, with She-Hulk point when he’s feeling silly.
He’s not allowed to compete now that he works for Capcom, so he’s sadly irrelevant.
Oh, that sucks. Dang.
What about Insayne(sp?) or Dragongod? I havent watched battle circuit since it was big two so I havent kept up, but I understand they both have good Novas too?
Their Novas are good, but Insayne’s is pretty standard and Dragongod is a nut, if you go to major there are too many players that can deal with standard stuff and nutty stuff for them to break Top 8s IMO. Nova is a character that you really have to maximise to break the upper echelons, Moons, Marv and Nemo all do that in different ways but they’re the best Novas by a stretch at the moment IMO.
They’re both good, and actually Insaynne could definitely make top 8 at a major because he’s very clean and has an effective gameplan. That said at a big major, especially on the West coast, I feel like people would be way too used to his team for him to break through.
edit: OH MY GOD
@abegen21
Breaking news:
Nemo will go to Evo2013.
Nova’s st.L is pretty godlike. If your j.H ever hits an opponent in normal jump height you can st.L them if they’re hitting buttons on the way down. Furthermore it’s also a mixup. At any time that your opponent blocks a j.H, you can mix it up with a airthrow or st.L. It’s a 50/50 but only if they pushblock. It beats anything that’s slower 5 frames. So if they’re at the right height, you should always try to get them to respect your st.L. Just be careful on whiffs.
I think we all have the capability to be top tier Novas! As far as my opinion goes, I agree that Moons, Nemo, and myself are probably the best. We all tend to play Nova differently. Moons is obviously ridiculous. He plays Nova completely different than most and has the best movement out of any of us. Nemo is also very good, but his incoming is very weak. Eye of Agamotto + raw tag Nova is pretty ass. But he plays very smart. So that works out. Dragongod is a nut, but he’s just a good player. Nova’s one of those characters, like Wolverine, where you can kind of play him nutty and get away with it since his design kinda enables you to play like that. I try to play a combination of nuttiness + patience. Insaynne is also very good since he’s just a good player. I’d like to see him abusing more Cent Rushes, but he’s very clean and the innovator a lot of useful tech. He can easily top 8 at a major I think. Sometimes you just have bad luck. Also, I forgot his name, but he’s a Canadian player? He plays Nova/Spencer/Hawkeye I think. He’s pretty good too.
All of us have the potential to make top 8 with proper dedication, matchup knowledge, and practice. I’m telling you, if I can make top 8, anyone can.
EDIT: I forgot Infrit. He’s also very very good. He honestly just has had team issues. When you constantly switch teams, you can’t really evolve your team like most have over time. Or at least a shell. I pretty much innovated Nova/Strider. Same with Moonz, and using Cold Star. He has that shit on deck. Infrit, needs to stick with something and evolve his team. He’s one of the Nova primes for sure. He just needs to evolve.