There is one reason to pair Tony up with Nova. It’s the same reason you’d want to pair him up with Spencer. Oh, and if you put all three of ‘em on the same team, it’s just–it’s that opening. All three of ‘em just fallin’ out the sky, landin’ in the same pose. It’s just over. And if you got their colors matchin’ too. You’ve just won the match. That intimidation factor. Don’t nobody know about that.
Yeah my Ammy is pretty bad otherwise I would definitely do that. My Dante is decent but I’ve been told Dante anchor is pretty horrible compared to alot of others. How true is that? I’ve seen some Dante anchors do really well or really horribly so I take it its a 50/50 kinda deal?
Ammy’s one of the hardest characters to play (among those that are relevant). If you’re gonna play her, you have to start somewhere; mine is still pretty bad after about 9 months.
Dante anchor is acceptable, you just have to be patient with popping X-Factor. Specifically, you have to have a hit and then use it, because if you activate it while not in a combo or to avoid an attack or chip damage, pretty much anyone can just run away from you. If you manage to kill a character with XF, you can keep the momentum going. Otherwise he’s pretty bad on anchor, but who isn’t aside from a handful of the cast?
I’ll give both a shot but I’ll probably learn more towards Dante. I already have a decent handle on him compared to Ammy(I haven’t played her since Vanilla and all I did was fraudulent H spam) so it should be pretty easy to adjust. I take it Jam Session is the most preferable assist?
There are other options besides Ammy and Dante to round out a Nova/Frank shell. Just have to be a wee bit more creative and not immediately flock towards the top tier ;).
But hey, they’re top tier for a reason 
Haha this is true. I’ve always loved Dante ever since Vanilla but never really put much time or effort into perfecting my execution with him and learning the combos. Now might be the time. Until I get good with him I’ll probably stick to Hawkeye anchor or Doom anchor though. I do rather enjoy arrows flying all over the screen and my opponents flustered look when they realize they can’t do anything 
The thing with having Dante anchor with the Frank team is that though Jam Session is amazing for Frank. It’s OKAY for Nova. Same with Shopping Cart. You’ll benefit so much more by having some sort of a projectile assist to help Nova get the hit. As far as Hawkeye anchor, I’m pretty sure Hawkeye is one of the absolute worst partners for Frank. There’s like no way to help lvl him with Hawkeye.
Try out Arthur. :3
Nova/Arthur/Frank is sooooooooo fun! You can DHC from Super Nova to King’s Armor, then hard tag Frank to get levels. The ultimate power-up combo, plus it gives an amazing assist for both Nova and especially Frank.
Hsien-Ko works this way too, and that assist is arguably more broken for Frank when powered up. Also, Nova is not necessary for either set up, you can DHC from Survival Techniques -> King’s Armor or Rimoukon and still get the hard tag.
Strange is another good partner. His only level-up bonus for Frank is the use of Eye of Agamatto in combos, which tacks on a lot of extra points. While it’s not as good as Bolts, still a good lockdown assist for Nova. Plus you have that FOF combo that doesn’t require Spencer anymore!
The thing with Frank teams IMO are that they should be optimized for getting the hit, leveling Frank as easy as possible, and making him as broken as he can be.
Sure FOF loops would be cool, but they’re unnecessary. You should getting Frank leveled and fucking their day up.
Nova/Arthur/Frank is super legit. However, I’ll still play it Nova/Frank/Arthur just so I can TAC to Frank if need be. I play it from time to time fucking around. Daggers are also IMO one of Nova’s S+ Assists. They’re seriously fucking amazing for him. Nova/Frank/RR is also not bad. Like Zansam said, unfortunately, there is no perfect anchor for Nova/Frank. RR and Arthur provide everything you would need in a Frank team, but they aren’t exactly great characters by themselves.
The other thing that people don’t factor in is that shopping cart is fantastic for RR and not too shabby for Arthur either. Ammy doesn’t have much use for it and it’s ok for Dante. Whereas it’s a great get-off me for Arthur and Raccoon can use it for keepaway, mixups, unblockables, corner oki, you name it.
Nova is by far the least interesting part of this video, but I made a new combo video! Anyway, it’s Nemesis/Nova/Strange, mostly Nemesis stuff, and though there’s not much Nova swag in here, this video has a few uses of Nova’s assist to extend for Nemesis, as well as a rawtag combo after Nem’s command throw for decent midscreen damage.
Really? I got some decent use out of it when I was playing Ammy/Frank. She’s excellent with fast horizontal assists that keep the opponent standing since her hit-confirms aren’t so hot. Plus it sets up instant overheads pretty easily.
Duke: awesome video, excellent music choice.
duke youve made me proud!
unfortunately now if make a vid itll just be a clone of yours haha!
but seriously good shit!!!
Hello fellow Novas, been having a bit of a character crisis so I was hoping to get some help here.
Mostly it comes down to how important/necessary is Spencer to optimize a Nova team.
Ive been running Nova/Spencer for a while, but while I don’t hate Spencer I don’t really like him either, he is really good and, most importantly for me, I feel he helps Nova like no other character can but I would simply prefer not to use him if I felt Nova didn’t need him.
Lately however with the new tech, or at least new for me, like the double Nova hyper in one combo it’s got me to reconsider how necessary he actually is.
So what I’m looking for are some informed opinions on some variants I’m considering, particularly interested in knowing how they stack up against the Nova/Spencer shell.
For starters I should say I like Strange, Frank, Sentinel and Ammy even less than Spencer though, so with that out of the way the shells I’ve been considering are:
Nova/Taskmaster
Nova/Iron Man
Nova/Akuma
Nova/Doom
Nova/Dante
Other than those there are a few others I like and use, or at least tried to at some point, but either didn’t work that well with Nova or just didn’t work for me (Wesker, Vergil, Viper, Zero, Morrigan, Chris, Trish, Magneto, Dormammu)
Having read the OP I know at least Doom/Dante are considered good shells, likewise I know Iron Man is generally considered subpar, I like him and have fun using him though, so I’m trying to find him a spot. Mostly I’m looking for the opinions of those more knowledgeable/experienced than me on whether one of those shells can prove better, or at least as good, as Nova/Spencer. As a final note I’ve been running Doom anchor and before that I used to run anchor Tasky.
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<div class=“QuoteAuthor”><a href="/profile/84516/Ewig">Ewig</a> said:</div>
<div class=“QuoteText”>Hello fellow Novas, been having a bit of a character crisis so I was hoping to get some help here.<br>
Mostly it comes down to how important/necessary is Spencer to optimize a Nova team.<br>
Ive been running Nova/Spencer for a while, but while I don’t hate Spencer I don’t really like him either, he is really good and, most importantly for me, I feel he helps Nova like no other character can but I would simply prefer not to use him if I felt Nova didn’t need him.</div>
</blockquote>
Spencer is NOT necessary to run a Nova team, nor is he really optimal. It’s a shame that the pairing has become so popular. It’s not a shell you can add any character to and have a solid team, which in my opinion what a good shell should be. Instead, the pairing requires that you have a neutral assist in the back because Nova and Spencer both lack one. And with that, you sacrifice an assist for a TOD combo. It’s your call, but I think it’s incredibly overrated. (Spencer being my least favorite character in the game is probably giving me some bias here lol) I’d say that Nova/Ammy, Nova/Strange, Nova/Doom, and Nova/Task are all better pairs than Nova/Spencer.
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<div class=“QuoteAuthor”><a href="/profile/84516/Ewig">Ewig</a> said:</div></blockquote><div style=“font-weight: normal; font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal;”><br></div><div style=“font-weight: normal; font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal;”>I’m going to make some sort of a list here at work since I’m always bored.</div><div style=“font-weight: normal; font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal;”><br></div><div style=“font-weight: normal; font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal;”>Nova/Spencer is very good. You kill off of ANY hit. 3 good mixups and you just won. It’s very very good. However, like every team. It has it’s weaknesses. You’re sacrificing a neutral assist for that Slant Shot. </div><div style=“font-weight: normal; font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal;”><br></div><div style=“font-weight: normal; font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal;”>Let’s look at some of the assists with the characters you mentioned and see what roles they play. You mentioned Nova/Dante, Nova/Doom, and Nova/Taskmaster. You can check the first page for a thread on these characters and what they provide.</div><div style=“font-weight: normal; font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal;”><br></div><div style=“font-weight: normal;”><b style=“font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal;”>Plasma Beam: </b><font face=“Arial, Verdana” size=“2”><span style=“line-height: normal;”>Full Screen assist with 8 frames low durability. Scales your combo, but having Doom 2nd gives you access to Doom TAC’s which are retarded good. Confirm-able after his Cent Rush L and M. Nova will no longer be zoned. You can go ham with plasma beam. If you have access to another assist (IE: Cold Star) then Nova becomes a pretty tough force to deal with. It doesn’t pin you down that long to establish multiple mixups. That’s it weakness.</span></font></div><div style=“font-weight: normal;”><span style=“font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: small; line-height: normal;”><br></span></div><div style=“font-weight: normal;”><span style=“font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: small; line-height: normal;”><b>Weasel Shot:</b> Mid Screen assist with weak durability. Doesn’t scale your combo much, but it suffers in not being a full screen assist. Keep’s the opponent standing so it’s easy to confirm from. Pins them down longer than most assists. Confirm-able after his Cent Rush L and M. They block a weasel shot they’re going to have to guess. So once you get in, it’s very scary to get tagged by it. It also doesn’t push them back while it hits them which means it’s very easy to do cross up j.L overheads with. </span><span style=“font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: small; line-height: normal;”>Dante also pops way behind Nova making it very frustrating for characters trying to hit him.</span><span style=“font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: small; line-height: normal;”> It’s really great, but without an assist to help with zoning. It’s weakness will become very apparent. Get around that and you have one of the best incoming assists in the game. Throw a javelin, call Dante, superjump up in the air and ADD j.H. It’s a legit left right 50/50 and provides an additional mixup once they’re blocking weasel shot. </span></div><div style=“font-weight: normal;”><span style=“font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: small; line-height: normal;”><br></span></div><div style=“font-weight: normal;”><font face=“Arial, Verdana” size=“2”><b style=“line-height: normal;”>Task H Arrows: </b><span style=“line-height: normal;”>Full Screen assist with amazing durability. Each arrow has 3 points of durability. Doesn’t scale your combo much. Comes out very slow which is really good for Nova since Nova’s normals are pretty slow. Confirm-able after his Cent Rush L and M. One of Nova’s absolute best assists. Call arrows and wavedash behind them. See what your opponent does. If he tries to jump away you can go for an air-throw. If he doesn’t he’s forced to block the arrows and you get a mixup. Pretty damn great.</span></font></div><div style=“font-weight: normal;”><font face=“Arial, Verdana” size=“2”><span style=“line-height: normal;”><br></span></font></div><div style=“font-weight: normal;”><font face=“Arial, Verdana” size=“2”><span style=“line-height: normal;”><b>Bolts: </b>Another amazing assist for Nova. Each bolt has 8 low durability which means that not only does each bolt beat most projectiles in the game, but he shoots 2 of them. Makes your left right game very dangerous with bolts flying everywhere. Confirm-able after his Cent Rush L/M/H, and Rocket Punches. It does however have a glaring weakness. It doesn’t hit crouching opponents and completely whiffs on the smaller characters. Zero for example can just hold forward and completely avoid the bolts. It also is VERY easy to happy birthday Dr. Strange. He pops out in front of you and doesn’t completely recover till some frames after his last bolt. Meaning he’s vulnerable for a LONG time. Lots of pros, but a lot of cons.</span></font></div><div style=“font-weight: normal;”><b style=“font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: small; line-height: normal;”><br></b></div><div style=“font-weight: normal;”><b style=“font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: small; line-height: normal;”>Unibeam: </b><span style=“font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: small; line-height: normal;”>One of the best assists in the game in general. Full Screen 8 frames of low durability making it very difficult to beat. Similar to Plasma Beam. Pins you down long enough to mixups, keeps you standing, and is easy to confirm from. Confirm-able off Cent Rushes L/M. Scales the combo from a clean hit, but if you have access to Ironman TAC’s it doesn’t matter. It’s a shame Iron Man isn’t that good. His assist is godlike for Nova. Something like a Nova/Spencer/Ironman team might be viable though. Since Spencer/Ironman is a very good shell because of team super. Raw tagging Iron Man after any crumple is probably godlike too since Ironman does amazing damage.</span></div><div style=“font-weight: normal;”><font face=“Arial, Verdana” size=“2”><span style=“line-height: normal;”><br></span></font></div><div><font face=“Arial, Verdana” size=“2”><span style=“line-height: normal;”><b>Tatsu: </b>Pretty amazing for Nova. Close range lockdown. Confirms off of Cent Rushes L/M. Doesn’t scale your combo too much. Goes through projectiles. It’s pretty decent. You’ll still be recommended in using a projectile though.</span></font></div>
<div><font size=“2” face=“Arial”>That being said:</font></div><div><font size=“2” face=“Arial”><br></font></div><div><div><div><font size=“2” face=“Arial”>Spencer is pretty optimal if you can find the perfect anchor you enjoy playing. If you decide on not playing Spencer you’re going to need to make sure the character you have 2nd has either a really strong DHC or a TAC infinite. Also, having a character that you can raw tag after airthrows is pretty amazing. Killing off throws while being meter positive is ridiculous.</font></div><div><font size=“2” face=“Arial”><br></font></div><div><font size=“2” face=“Arial”>Nova/Akuma is decent since Tatsu is a lockdown assist close range. However, if you don’t already have a projectile assist, I’d recommend getting one. Akuma with Nova assist is pretty godlike though. Call Nova + jump Tatsu, is a free unblockable. </font></div><div><font size=“2” face=“Arial”><br></font></div><div><font size=“2” face=“Arial”>If you’re already playing Nova/Spencer/Doom. That’s a decent team. If you really don’t like Spencer. You can work on Nova/Taskmaster/Doom. Another awesome team. </font></div></div></div><div><br></div>
<span style=“background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250); line-height: normal;”><font face=“Arial, Verdana” size=“2”>"</font></span><span style=“font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 18px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);”>Call Nova + jump Tatsu, is a free unblockable."</span><div style=“font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal;”><span style=“color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);”><br></span></div><div style=“font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal;”><span style=“color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Arial; font-size: small; line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);”>Huh? that’s two highs? In fact i don’t think you even have to block Tatsu high.</span></div>
Keep them still with Tatsu, dash up if necessary and cr.L while Nova hits? I think that’s what he means.