This thread is dedicated to the discussion of who makes a good partner for Elena, and vice versa.
Elena definitely is a strong point character with great mix up and decent pressure. My problem is finding a decent backup character who follows up on Elena’s strengths and compliments the Kenyan princess.
What’re other Elena players thoughts?
After taking some time, I think I’m going to try out Elena/Hugo for now, mainly to deal with hit confirming on crouchers. If I can get them standing, great! That’s an easy 350+ meterless damage for me. If they’re crouching however, the most I can do is spin scythe… right?
I actually considered Spin Scythe kind of useless for a while, but then realized how it keeps them grounded, so I testing it out with Hugo leads to… not amazingly high result (about 412 doing cr.mp xx Spin scythe, TC, cr.mp xx lp clap, cr.mp xx lk lariat, cr.lp xx lp clap, backbreaker) But it’s respectable damage for someone who thinks they can avoid big damage from Elena just by crouching.
Depending on how Elena and other characters change in the upcoming patch, this is also subject to change.
im going to be using Rufus/Elena for now with Rufus on point. ill let you know of any tech i come up with but for now i like the mix that they both bring.
I was using elena/dudley in this versino but when 2013 comes out I gonna switch to Paul/Elena.
Paul on point because he won’t really need meter in the new version. Both his combos and neutral game won’t require meter because of the buff to his regular sways, raze, and shredder kicks. Unlike in this version, in 2013…ex raze won’t be necessary to extend combos and ex shredder won’t be necessary for anti-airs. So you have a character thats not dependent on meter with good combos that hits hard.
Because of this I believe paul will be a great meter builder. He will build the meter that elena can use for mixups with ex lynx tail and ex mallet smash.
Also since paul’s main problem is with zoning characters, and that hasn’t seemed to change much in the new version…elena can act as the anti-zoner in matches with zoners.
With the buff to her slide and ex rhino horn I think elena will be a nightmare for zoning characters. Especially since rhino horn is her charge move. This means you can sit back and charge to ex and if your opponent throws a fireball they will eat a good chunk of damage. Even if you miss the timing to punish the fireball and they block ex rhino horn you are still completely safe and can proceed to apply pressure.
Also since elena’s damage is nothing special having paul there will make up for that.
I think this team will be very very good in 2013.
I’ve been doing Elena/Jack-X for a little while cause Elena’s quick, long reaching pokes combined with Jack’s damage was really useful. Lately, I’ve been really seeing the problems with Jack uh… pressure? When I need to switch in Elena and he takes the reigns, he’s just too freaking slow and more and more, the damage he gives isn’t worth the worry of “Can I punish this or that?” so for 2013, I’m thinking of switching to either Elena/Lili or Elena/Paul, but will probably experiment with a bunch of the characters.
And I think Elena’s damage is pretty decent all things considered. If I can get 300+ damage off a crouching opponent, then I’m doing pretty good I’d say.
I run Elena/Law. Elena helps Law’s AA situation & Law brings the damage, i’ll be switching my team order soon though. I’ll be running Law/Elena in v.2013 as Law will have better AA options, is a great meter builder & has better options against heavy rushdown IMO (Elena’s quite fragile as we know). He also doesn’t really need Meter which saves it for Elena and we all know how scary Elena is with meter. Another point is Elena has a lot more combo finishing options than Law, putting her on anchor makes starting new combo’s much easier.
I’m using Elena/Asuka with the former being on point. I feel Elena is decent without meter to get mix-ups and sweep punishes which leads me to finally use her to start a combo when catching my opponent off guard with Mallet Mash.
The sole reason why I chose Asuka is because she’s one of the few characters capable of giving Elena THEE value of a team generated reset:
Elena: HCB.mp, cr.mp xx [EX]RDP.kkk xx [Tag cancel], Asuka: EX-CADC, cr.hp(<<-- Counter Hit causes Crumple), j.hp(<<–causes Reset) st.hk xx DP.k, j.hk, st.jk xx HCB.k, cr.hk
All that totals up to nearly 800 dmg for three bars of meter, and I just found out that it’s even possible to perform the same reset with Elena’s RDP.hk to spare a bar for probably the same amount of damage, but it’s like trying to perform a one-frame link since I gotta charge and dash at the exact moment before Elena’s last kick sweep connects. The fourth sweep HAS to whiff in order for the reset to work. Asuka’s cr.HP is getting faster start up and there’s a note saying st.HP is getting the Crumple treatment. That’s superb news to me cause I truly believe resets are powerful enough to guarantee you the round.
Used to do the same with Cammy but because she feels so different compared to AE and the nerfs coming in, I dropped her for good.
I used to only know like one or two tag combos that netted me 420+ dmg, but now I’ve been toying around with a dozen variations involving one meter. With the fact that both of them are getting major buffs, it’s official. I think I’ll post up a video of my Elena/Asuka combos to show but all in all, as a rushdown player, they’re wonderful. Elena with great AA’s and Asuka’s strings, I ain’t gonna come out the lab for at least a month.
Gonna give Elena another shot. Im going to use Dudley, King, Elena and hwoarang. Find a team A and a team B out of that pool of characters.
So I haven’t decided on a 2nd partner yet, but here’s a very general question: is Elena better 1st or 2nd?
Elena doesn’t need meter to be solid, so she works well up front.
She’s also REALLY good at hit-confirming ino cross rushes…another plus for 1st.
So, I decided to pick up Paul as my anchor partner. This guy. THIS GUY…
[media=youtube]dFKylgGk73I[/media]
He does really good damage and is easy to combo into and out of. My main problem is getting breaking open people with him, so I need to go through Phoenix School of Hard Knocks causee too often do I do Mountain Raze into a unsafe situation
After falling in love with her all over again, I think I’ll keep her on my team this time around thanks to the mucho buffs on her. I think Xiaoyu has potential to be the anchor for her. Elena has the range that Xiaoyu desperately lacks and they both have ways to tag into each other for wakeup games with Xiao’s now being incredibly scary. In fact, since both are apparently not that meter heavy, I could use the meter for just defensive purposes and cross combos.
Trying out Elena/Dudley right now. They can get some nasty combos together with Machinegun Blow tags.<div><br></div><div>Plus dat Afro costume.</div>
Yea. I can imagine Dudley being a very good partner for Elena. I’ve thought about the pair up myself on occasion.<br>
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<div class=“QuoteAuthor”><a href="/profile/30666/Jamp">Jamp</a> said:</div>
<div class=“QuoteText”>Trying out Elena/Dudley right now. They can get some nasty combos together with Machinegun Blow tags.<div><br></div><div>Plus dat Afro costume.</div></div>
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I play that team also! It’s pretty sick and a lot of fun. One thing I like about the team is that the corner carry is awesome thanks to Elena’s Rhino Horn combos combined with Machinegun Blow combos from Dudley. Also, Elena is good as a point for Dudley IMO. She has a good neutral game and helps Dudley get in.
I play the generic Elena Christy right now. Team kinda sucks. Lol. They both ahve decent switch combos into 400 ish damage for no meter. But they both are zoning footsie based characters with shitty reversal options. So when I get knocked down I lose alot, But with more time maybe I can make it work. (this wouldn’t be a main team im just learning characters)<br>
I’ve been playing Elena/Dudley - I try to switch to other teams, but I always end up going back to this one.<br><br>Switching from Elena to Dudley while dealing good damage is pretty easy, but I was having a having a little difficulty going from Dudley to Elena since I’m not as comfortable with him, so I decided to work on that today.<br>[details=Spoiler]<br>Dudley into Elena tag combo: 1 meter, anywhere, 452, works on crouching and standing opponents<br>Target Combo 7 (st.Mk, st.HK, st.HP), cr.MP xx H Machine Gun Blow xx Tag Cancel, L Mallet smash, cr.MP xx M Rhino Horn, cr.MP xx M Rhino Horm, H Scratch Wheel<br><br>For Target Combo 7 to connect and link into cr.MP, you have to be right in the opponents face. Omitting the Target Combo 7 at the beginning will yeild 432, but have much better range.<br><br>Replacing the Target Combo 7 with cr.LK will produce 390, but will give you an option to open up opponents who are blocking high.<br><br>Replace the pre-tag Dudley part with fwd+HK, st.HK, cr.MP xx H Machine Gun blow to do 421 and open up low blocking opponents.<br><br>Dudley into Elena tag combo: 1 meter, corner, 457, works on crouching and standing opponents<br>Target Combo 7 (st.Mk, st.HK, st.HP), cr.MP xx H Machine Gun Blow xx Tag Cancel, L Mallet smash, cr.MP xx M Rhino Horn, Target Combo 4 (st.MK xx cr.HP), cr.MP xx H Scratch Wheel<br><br>5 more damage for a corner only combo. Whether that’s worth it… Eh…[/details]<br><br>I recognize that I know nothing, so I’m sure there’s probably better ways to do more or equal amounts of damage. This is just want I got so far.<br><br>I find that Machine Gun Blow is a great tag cancel attack not just because they’re getting hit constantly while Elena comes in, but also because it’s makes the opponent stand up even if they were crouching, and I’ve yet to find a good combo for Elena that works on crouching opponents without blowing another meter.<br>
In the middle of updating my Elena Guide with 2013 changes and I’m beginning to think that characters with lock down moves like Dudley and Ken are definitely valuable for Elena to get the most out of her combos. It’s even better if the character has a force stand hit that combos into their lock down move, like Ken’s cr.HP xx HK Tatsu, tag cancel to Elena, St.HP > St.HK, cr.MP xx MK.Rhino horn, and so on.<div><br></div><div>Will experiment and include a section on it in the guide, but thought I should share that now.</div>
I am trying out the team of Elena/Nina and this team has a ton of synergy and high damage combos. Although you may not be able to get as high damage as tag canceling off a Dudley or Ken, Nina’s 2 or 3 force stand moves cause a good amount of damage with Elena (412 is the most I got with no jump in). Plus because the ivory cutter from Nina causes a hard knockdown you can safely tag back in Elena in case you don’t want to burn meter after a raw tag. They compliment each other well imo plus deal out a good amount of damage w/o jumping and with just one bar (4 or 5 combos over 450 with 482 so far being the largest I found so far). Nina is a great partner for Elena to me
Tried Elena X Kazuya yesterday. Seems OP. 
The team tends to shut down most characters’ mid-range games. However, I fought against a Dhalsim x Chun-Li, and that was a hard fight. I went 1-2 on that guy. <br>