NP. That’s how this thread works. The dialog is appreciated, regardless when it’s put up. I have never got her to (DP)throw them after the second air(kick)throw. They fall right through her outstretched hands.
good thread. What do you guys think of spiral/cable/mag-a?
I know it’s not nearly as good as Sent-g assist (no solid trap, but mag-a comes out nearly instantly) , but cable/mag-a is pretty damn good for lockdowns, and in some cases, solo mag is better than having a solo sentinel. Mag-a pretty much works well with spiral’s jumping trap (rather than the dashing one). Mag-a is also good so that Spiral can ‘instant punish’ an assist on the screen… sent-g takes too long and you’d have to know their assist is coming out.
I’ve been trying this team out at CF… my Mag isn’t solid enough, though, to really be able to judge well.
Duc, any thoughts?
It doesn’t seem Mags works good with Spiral under any circumstance. If the assist doesn’t help Spiral lock down the opponent, her efforts are wasted. You would have to have Cable on beam to make any since of that team, but that screws Cable.
So:
- Spiral on point, Mags doesn’t allow her to activate knives safely. Cable doesn’t cover her reliably.
- Mags on point, Spiral assist is too slow for Mags rushdown. Cable on AA isn’t too bad for Mags to use, but their are better AAs for mags.
- Cable on point. Cable has no solid AA to run interference for him.
This team has little or no chemistry.
One ov the ONLY ways I’d ever team Spiral with Magnus is in MSS <Mag/Storm/Spiral-Y->…if you’re going to put those two together then I’d much rather play Spiral in rushdown fashion rather than trapping games…the team AK mentioned lacks team dynamic and has several holes in it…as far as I can see…
Point taken on Spiral can’t activate knives safely. Only way is if Cable-b hits, then spiral gets knives, so it’s not as solid in that regard. In exchange, she gets ‘instant punish’ with mag-a.
Hmm, I find Mag point with spiral-a to be good enough (similar to sent-g assist and storm-a… the circle of knives stay on the screen long enough that it lets Mag narrow in). About Cable needing AA when he has mag-a behind him, I have to disagree.
Block and call mag-a on incoming sj. attack, pushblock = free hit plus resetting Cable’s zoning. This works just like Sent using mag-a behind him as AAA (it’s stupid, but it works)… I’m sure you guys know what I mean since team ROW can use this.
I’ve actually been holding up okay with this team at CF, partially because I find Cable/Mag-a to be pretty damn good at a lot of things, partially because spiral/mag-a isn’t half bad (though definitely not as solid as sent-g).
Duc, any thoughts?
Spiral/Mag is a zoning duo over a trap duo IMO.
Mag assist alone cannot set up anything resembling an extended trap rotation.
Best bets are jump knife, call mag + knife, knife +land, jump + knife, summon knives, repeat.
Or, use it in ground reps as if it were Sent drones. Neither is repeatable more than 2-3 times and they come no where near as tight as Sent drone reps.
Magneto gains the most from this pairing as he can do ridiculous things with stun from two sets of knives assist onscreen.
Who’s to say this can’t work out though with the right third character though. Top players are top players bc they innovate where others x-copy. Spiral’s haven’t leveled up in several years, people need to step up.
eczangief: I think I might just like Cable/Mag-A combo too much, and I always thought it would be cool to have a different assist besides Sent-g for Spiral. IM-a, Sabretooth projectile, and Storm-a come to mind, but most of those suck with Cable on point.
Spiral/Cable/Sent really is a sick team that has amazing chemistry. It’s a shame it’s hard to find another Spiral team that is effective besides using spiral/sent-g.
I’ll have to check out the 2 calls of spiral knives, though. I never thought of doing that, but I suppose that would work like sonson assist. Good stuff.
Yeah, don’t get me wrong, I play the duo too. I respect anyone’s ability to throw down hot garbage with any team period. Theres a lot of variables to sort through before anything is thrown out.
Funny thing about trap teams though is that they are stubborn. Unlike MSS, MSP, SSCC, and now the Hotness that is M/IM/S etc etc etc; they have a very specific team order that has to remain constant to stay effective, and a very very specific role that the point character must play in order for the rest of the team to produce results at end-game.
Spiral doesn’t have obvious tools to press the advantage in a situation where the clock is at ~30-40, so If you haven’t done your job before then, she’s not hackin it. That’s where Sent/Cable comes in.
A really good IM could possibly fill the Sent or Cable slot which could be interesting. Doom is an interesting option, but he alone won’t give you any real endgame pressure.
I really like the solution Deth offered up, and I remember laughin about the ‘other’ MSS myself awhile back. I play that on Knife assist though.
I’m kinda suprised why you would want mag- a for assist punishing - it doesn’t really do that much damage and you can do alot more damage (i.e combo her sword super) and cover more angles with drones. Plus you can always go for double snaps if going after assists is your thing.
If you actually want a spiral team where you can counter call and punish go with spiral/sent/commando - but I get the feeling your magneto and cable would be better than your sent.
Playing spiral without sent is short changing spiral IMO
There’s alot to said for sticking to convention.
^^ I agree with that.
If anything, Mag/Spiral/Sent could be on some of that hot-sauce. Share’s a weakness with MSS though.
I play u all the time at CTF. im the one that plays duc(u actually inspired me to start playing that team). honestly, at best, spiral on that team is just an annoyance. When I play u, I usually eat a couple of knives and scemitars before I finally get to ur spiral and she’s done. Ur cable is what beats me.
Thanks for the input man. You should definitely stick with Spiral… it’s good to see you and anyone else play with her at CF. Your MSP is pretty good, too… and at least MSP games are a lot quicker than spiral or strider games lol.
Yea, I’d have to agree, having Mag-A weakens spirals game, but I think Mag-A beefs up cable’s game. Magneto as a last character vs. Sentinel as a last character is arguable.
I guess the lack of a solid ground trap is the real problem. Her jumping trap with mag-a isn’t too bad. I’ll keep experimenting with this team.
thanks. my problem is im so impatient no matter what team I play. Im working on that tho. btw how do u do the jumping trap?
I think what I do is once I have swords loaded, jump upforward, hit jab as fast as you can and towards the 3rd or 4th sword, hit assist at the same time and reload swords. Then immediately hold UF/up again. Pretty much you are holding UF or up the whole time except the reload sword motion. Jump trap has its plusses and minuses over the ground trap. It’s more random, but can be harder to jump out of (unlike the ground trap which can be normal jumped out of around the 2nd-3rd sword, depending on the distance Spiral is from your point char). After a while, it’ll just come to you since it’s repetitive and you won’t even really remember exactly how you do it-- took me a little time to remember how to explain it.
On another note, I made a short video clip on how Spiral can assist kill if you hit both their point and assist with Cable-b (same as CapCom-B, Cammy-A, Ken-a, etc.). Spiral sucks in terms of damage, so she needs every trick she can get, especially assist kills and snapback assist kills. IMO, that’s one of the main points of her game if you can’t trap or they know how to get out very well… maybe Duc can chime in on his thoughts.
[media=youtube]GYsWq77iSgg[/media]
Not too much Spiral talk on here. I finally relearned Spiral’s double air throw combo where she launches, does magic series, dp+p, toss up, then 3/4 circle +p so she does a qcf in the opposite direction to catch them again on the other side. It’s a pain in the ass to figure out if you forget the motion, so I thought I’d repost it here… also for myself in the future haha.
I just always do a DP motion the other way.
thanks. can u do air throw more than twice? i can never do it more than twice
i saw justin trying to do a fancy assist kill with spiral but he never got it out. i kno it involved circle knives or the knives that go up tho. im gonna ask him to play duc again
Most times I’ve tried more than 3 times in training and matches, the other guy falls through her arms the 3rd time around.
I have gotten it to come out and catch 3 times on one occasion that I distinctly remember, but I don’t know the conditions that lead to that. I may have done her fierce throw (f+fierce air throw) up, then dp+p up, then dp+p up again. Either that or the player may have attacked into her hands the 3rd time. I wouldn’t risk it.
Another good find that I see under-utilized is that if the other player blocks or gets hit by circle of swords, Spiral gets dp+p for free if she is right below them (which she usually is). This also works where someone gets hit to high up in the corner, say with cable-b or capcom-b assist, then you can do circle of knives as they come down (which is almost a guaranteed block unless they are storm and MAYBE they can fly out with Sentinel, but unlikely), then you get free dp+p after the blocked circle of swords since Spiral is right there.
So you can do something like this in corner: s. jab, s. strong, s. fierce+cable-b, activate swords as they are taken to the top corner by your cable-b, jump, circle of swords as they fall down, dp+p. I think the 2nd dp+p follow-up is hard to do, if not impossible, because Spiral is off of the screen at that height.
That can do a nice chunk of damage and it’s fairly easy to do once you get used to it. Same applies to Magneto or Storm that air dashes forward into your CoS-- you should be able to get free dp+p right after.
Playing at CF makes just about anyone want to give up Spiral haha. She has some seriously hard times against the Sentinels there, it’s ridiculous. You have to pray you get an assist snapback to kill Commando, but otherwise Sentinel has free reign to do almost whatever he wants since the damage risk is so disproportional–ugh.
spiral can also combo into HSF from Cos hitting someone just above nj height - just frame cancel.
Can do the same with guard breaking - j Cos,land, if they take the hit frame cancel to HSF.
Spiral can also do Hk throw 3 swords, dash d+Lk and commando, d+mk , throw swords so the 5th keeps them in the air, dash j Hk airthrow - bounce dash jab and commando, s.mp. - midscreen too.
Works with Cable AAA too - not as well.
Nice stuff. This is what I’m talking about-- we all gotta share whatever we find. That’s a good idea, using swords after her HK throw.
Actually she loses her swords after her HK airthrow - the 5th sword is so they don’t get sent into the air by commando - they just stay above the ground.
I just realised I typed HK throw 3 swords - its Hk, then throw 3 swords