Pretty basic, but nonetheless it’s always cool to see foreign X-23 play.
I had to tweet @aldenthecreep about the whole ‘x-23 does no damage.’ Lol. I hate trying to have conversations with people like that.
I love how she’s constantly shat on and idolized at random intervals. I swear, the Marvel community is completely bipolar about X-23.
X-23 tournament players in general should start applying the stuff that’s here to their game more haha.
The guy who’s talking about X-23…which team does he use?
Just checked. X-23, Nova, Doom with Beam.
Then the guy can definitely hit 1.mil with a little more execution(Crescent Scythe Loops.)
EDIT: Dunno if people remember, but I made a Vanilla X-23 thread on another site(neoempire.com) and I took information from there to here. I’m in the process of updating it for UMVC3 standards, and I’m currently reworking the mobility and midrange section. I’d really appreciate if you guys take a look at it for me please. Feel free to correct/disagree with anything
Here’s what I’ve done so far.
Mobility options
Dashing: X-23 has a very quick ground dash. If you can wavedash, that’s even better, because now you have more control over your dashes, can halt and block when you need to, and are able to get across the ground more rapidly. Forwards wavedashing with X-23 is really handy, in fact, wavedashing is really handy in general, so if you don’t use it/don’t know how to wavedash, definitely get it down. Combining your wavedashes with assist calls is a strong tactic to get in on your opponent and half-way through your dashes, you can Mirage Feint as your assist comes out for a ground cross-up. Backwards wavedashing is great to quickly gain some breathing room. Weave in and out of the opponent’s range using a combination of back and forth wavedashing and call assists whenever appropriate.
Neck Slice: Neck Slice is good because it moves X-23 forward and has a large attack hitbox, so it’s decent as a midrange tool as well. If you throw out a non-charged Neck Slice that’s spaced incorrectly, X-23 can be punished on the ground with a throw and if the opponent air blocks an incorrectly spaced non-charged Neck Slice, they can punish with a full combo. If the opponent spaces themselves outside of Neck Slice range, they can punish it on whiff. Also, Neck Slice doesn’t have any invincibility, so she can’t use it to blow through attacks or projectiles. However, Neck Slice makes X-23 step backwards before charging forward, which can make the opponent’s attacks whiff so it’s possible to use it as a sort of counter poke.
X-23 can charge it up for more advantage and distance, but this leaves you open. So, the best way to make this move safe would be to cover it with an assist. Neck Slice is best combined with assists anyway. Normally, you wouldn’t get much reward for landing a non-charged Neck Slice since you can’t combo off it on hit, and on block, it’s -1, but with an assist hitting simultaneously, like, say Akuma’s Tatsu, you can combo off the hitstun from the assist and Neck Slice combined into a full combo, and on block, you’re at the advantage due to the assist locking them down.
Talon Attack: Talon Attack pretty much turns X-23 into a flying attack box and not much is gonna stuff her out. They also give you various angles to attack from aerially and leave X-23 at a high advantage when blocked and if they connect, you get a free combo.
Talon Attack Light can be used like a traditional divekick to help yourself get in. Talon Attack Medium makes you fly across the air horizontally, which is great for getting in and can be used to escape the corner at times. And Talon H sends you upwards at a 45 degree angle, which is useful for getting at people in the air, as well as escaping corners in some situations, as well as running away. Like said before, all versions can be tiger knee’d, so they can be done close to the ground.
Talon Attacks also don’t have invincibility, despite their active hitboxes, and also, you can’t block whilst performing them, leaving you vulnerable to projectiles and other stuff. Again, best to cover with assists, if possible, especially M Talon.
Mirage Feint Medium: Mirage M makes X-23 hop a large distance. Mirage Feint M also warps behind people for a left-right mix-up. Really important you use assists for Mirage Feint M because it’s very unsafe up without assists. Mirage Feint M doesn’t have invincilibity either, so no passing through attacks and projectiles but you can hold Mirage Feint to make X-23 hitbox very low and you can completely duck under some projectiles that way(like Magneto’s L and M Disruptor.)
Walljump: X-23’s walljump is great for escaping corners as well as chasing after people who air tech forwards to try and leave the corner and air grabbing them. As long as there’s a wall, X-23 can perform a walljump, the wall doesn’t have to be specifically in the corner, it can be anywhere on the screen. A handy mobility tool for avoiding things on the ground as well.
**Pokes and attacking from mid-range. **
X-23’s main pokes are st/cr.M, due to their range and speed. Though slow and risky versus chars with strong normals, at range, st.H is also a decent poke. The key to using these pokes is to cancel them into either Mirage Feint Cancel them(indepth section below), or buffer them into Mirage Feint L.
Mirage Feint Cancelling allows X-23 to brake/cancel her normals, shortening the recovery of X-23’s normals greatly on hit, block or whiff. You can use Feint Cancelling as easy mode hitconfirms; if they hit, go into a combo, if they get blocked, keep feint cancelling, you’re 9-11+ on block, if it whiffs, you’re safe.
Mirage Feint L can be a decent substitute for Feint Cancelling, leaves you positive on block(not as much as Feint Cancelling does) and makes X-23 advance forward slightly. You can hitconfirm off pokes buffered into Feint L in a similar fashion, but it’s not as easy to do.
Talon Attack L is a divekick with a strong hitbox, so you can also use it to attack from mid-range. Since it’s a jumping attack, it can also leap over normals that are low to the ground. It’s a good idea to practise doing divekicks from lower heights/tiger-kneeing them, so they come out faster, are less obvious to avoid and you’ll get the proper frame advantage on block from doing them low(jumping attacks’ frame data changes depending on how high you connect with them due to landing frames and whatnot.)
Non-charged Neck Slice: like mentioned before, can be a decent poke and covers a good amount of ground, helping X-23 get in. Has a decent horizontal hitbox, best combined with assists for safety.
Falling Claw(D+H): Not so much as a poke, but as a general neutral counter to things like unassisted tri-jump empty lows and people dashing in with crouching normals to start a combo. You can perform Falling Claw by doing DF+H or DB+H, which doubles up as an air throw option select.
Mirage Feint Cancelling(MFC for short): This is one of X-23’s greatest strengths. Like mentioned above, X-23 can cancel Mirage Feints with S when they’re held. But, you can apply MFC to X-23’s normals and special cancel them with it. By doing this, you shorten the recovery of your normals greatly, on block, hit or whiff and return yourself to a neutral position.
So, for example, let’s take X-23’s standing H and apply MFCing to it. You can near enough rapid fire it and do it over and over again if it gets blocked. Due to the shortened recovery, the lag on the move on whiff is removed because you recover instantly, so it can’t be whiff-punished. On hit, it launches, but since you’ve cancelled the recovery, you can easily hitconfirm off it with more follow-ups than you’d normally be able to without the MFC. On block, due to the shortened recovery, the move leaves you at +11 on block. So, you now have a poke you can throw out there that’s safe and if it connects, you can easily hitconfirm off it into a combo.
If you’re fast enough, it’s also possible to Mirage Feint Cancel st.H before it even hits the opponent. This is more useful in strings than from neutral.
Here are some examples of MFC poke strings.
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st.H>qcb+L~S. See the MFC example above.
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M(hit), H>qcb+L~S. This blockstring is completely tight. If guarded, the opponent must Advancing Guard, otherwise they’ll be locked in blockstun forever. X-23’s best string up-close. You also have the option of cancelling st.H before it hits the opponent.
And you create custom variations of MFC strings.
Ryuga asked why aren’t X23 players using MFCs enough:
First, we must look at the Pad vs Stick argument. When it comes down to execution, which one is it easier to do on? I do not play on a stick, but I also do not hold down “S” to achieve MFCs. One of the things beginner X23 players have been noted to have issues with is holding down “S” the entire match as seen not very practical. Instead, what I do is the MF command *plus *“S” to still achieve MFCs. However, you must simultaneously push these two buttons at the same time because if you are even slighty off X23 will perform the MF without cancel (which can be dangerous because random MFs will come out and you can be punished). From what I observed, those on stick prefer to use the holding “S” method because the buttons on stick are larger and more spaced.
I press two buttons simultaneous and I don’t really find it messes up often, so I have no idea. I’m on the other side of the spectrum. I use MFCs all the damn time, but because I always MFC I never connect any longer ground strings, I usually just do LMHMHS on the ground, kinda keeping my damage low.
Anyone have a good ground combo for X-23 that starts with LMHMH? Because it’s so safe, I’d rather not give up my hitconfirming technique for a bit of extra damage.
I think you can follow LMHxxMHxx with a j.M, 2HxxCS LxxTA L land MS > whatever. IIRC, if you’re fast enough on your confirm you can do 1 MHxx j.M, 2HxxCS LxxTA L land MHxx j.M, 2HxxCS LxxTA L land s.MS > etc.
Even just doing this as a pressure string is really strong since you can get crossups with the TA L. Throw in assist and it can get really ambiguous at times.
One thing with MFC I think people aren’t doing enough is adding cr. moves into the blockstring. If you have then crouching on your strings you can get the free dashover 2H crossup on block. Plus I see a lot of people that just do MFC MFC MFC MFC and not actually throwing in any mixup attempts.
I’ve never really understood why people hold down S for MFCing until your explanation. I play on a Dual Shock pad. and similarly, after H>qcb+H, I simply use my thumb to press L+S together, and that gives me the cancel. Don’t know what the button arrangements on a stick are like either, but I’m assuming H and S are together?
So I think it goes back to players not using MFCs frequently being simply a matter of execution really.
Despite my initial post on MFCs, I don’t think any version of Mirage Feint gives you more or less advantage than another. I should correct that.
Just check the MFC combos in the first page, they’re good. Although if I were you, I’d start getting used to LMHxxH (or just MHxxH, I hate X-23’s Ls), will make the combos easier and more damaging in the long run.
I’ll have to agree with this. They’re somewhat my problems too, and I’ve been aware. X-23 has so many frametrap options through MFC it isn’t even funny (needs clever use or her Ls, and MFCing different normals to completely mess people’s timings). The 2H mixup ends up being one of the weakest options against someone who’s aware. Which sucks, because it’s what I go for 80% of the time.
MFCing crouching moves is a bit harder for me for some reason. It’s something I’ve been practicing, but in matches I end up not applying enough. They’re better for frametraps, too, I feel. It’s like it’s easier to make people flinch with them.
- Oooh! Stealing that. My confirm is pretty quick, but I’m gonna stick with the two MH’s most of the time. Thanks, Merkyll. EDIT: And yeah, Moonless, I should get the hang of using MH MFC H as well, but my fingers can be dumb at times. I’ll work on it.
- Low attacks I find muss up my execution with MFC, I do them occasionally, but I find 80% standing moves make them stupid at actually blocking low attacks later in the match. I find that I am missing many opportunities to put in mixups, yet I find scrubby ways to still open them up. I usually MH MFC MH MFC MH mirage M and Ammy, or occasionally that with a Mirage light. Simple crossup and a fakeout of such. Also, I like throwing in the occasional charged neck slice, which a lot of guys will sit there and take, on account of no one wants to attack through frequent MFCs. The ones with quicker reflexes are more fun, because they move just in time to get hit by it, instead of just blocking.
YOU CAN PRESS BUTTON + S TO MIRAGE FAINT?!?!?!? holy dang the only reason i never pressured with mirage faints was because i always tried to plink the S and it was always hard for how i hold the controller. time to hit the lab and work on an overhaul to my pressure.
Yup lol, you can just press button+S. And now it all makes sense why people don’t use MFCs regularly, some of you guys go about performing it the hard way!
Frame traps with X23’s L pokes are generally useful against people looking to advance guard X23 out, you should be able to 50/50 someone if followed up with a Talon Dive but you might want to be careful with some characters so that you are not diving into invincible special/supers on startup. Like Moonless said, she gains a lot of Frame Traps through MFCs but it’s probably more or less the fact that X23 has a lot of punishable moves when not protected by assist/technology.
Most of the people that have given up on X23 seem to be flocking to Viper. Probably with good reasoning.
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What punishable moves are you talking about? Without MFC, st.H is -3, cr.H is -2, neither of which end in throwable range.
Frame trap with cr.L, jump Talon Dive is technically unsafe, but not reactable… whiffed divekicks are obviously unsafe… I’ve always thought X-23’s non-MFC pressure is safe, but just easy to get out of.
X23’s non-MFC pressure is only valuable with an assist like drones, beams, and whatnot. Seriously, her normals just aren’t cutting it against Mags/Zero/etc. they can put you into some nasty situations if you are just throwing out ABCs with no other means in covering yourself. I’ve abused st.H enough to know that I don’t like the move in general outside MFCs, even her S is laggy as hell. Maybe it’s just me seeing how her normals have been bothering me lately.
^
Exactly.
You can not MFC/Mirage Feint L your normals on block, and be at -2 or -3…or you can MFC/Mirage Feint L your normals and be at a massive advantage on block, push against advancing guard, have much tighter blockstrings, have way more versatility, net more damage at hitconfirming from medium range and massively cut down the lagginess of her normals like st.H.
Hrm, all this talk intrigues me. Anyone have a link or access to X-23’s frame data? I’m kinda going on punishability just from testing things in training mode with my brother on P2.
“left at disadvantage” is not the same as “punishable” though, which is what you said =P.
Frame data can be found in the bradygames strategy guide, pretty much nowhere else. There’s an app on the itunes app store with some outdated vanilla frame data as well - not really worth it anymore, since it’s $0.99.