Yeah, but if dorm is 2nd, you get non-TAC meter positive 1.2mil and access to his TACs. You get access to RT > Stalking flare > Hard tag dirt nap. Wesker is such a lousy DHC.
Both of them work on anchor and if you ever want to switch it back, you can always just Stalking Flare > Phantom Dance and you get glasses off and free pressure. Personally, I don’t think it’s any question.
What mixups do you guys usually go for off of a successful lockdown? I run Cold Star and outside of the deep j.m fuzzy setups I don’t really have a lot of tricks when people end up blocking it.
I def agree Wesker DHC stinks 
SF>Phantom Dance for the shades buff still has an opportunity cost, however. You are sacrificing the heavy meter load for Dorm’s XF3 at means to get Wesker in safely with shades off. This is not to say I disagree with having Dorm at 2nd, because ideally it sounds perfectly logical.
Can the H feint mixup smaller characters like rocket or arthur? I played a really good anchor rocket last night at casuals (this game is sooo much better offline, reacting to stuff and all). I also played a nice Jill player last night, what tools does Laura have against her?
I feel like Laura is more mobile than jill in what is essentially a mobililty fight. Just don’t sit in teleport mixup range, respect the invincible DP and gun super (be super careful with your assist calls and air TA/CS movement) and you should be fine. I’m pretty sure Laura’s normals beat out Jill’s too. Hard to say many specifics because I don’t run into the matchup too often but there’s never been a case where I felt like it was a matchup issue (though it’s rough when you’re learning the matchup at first just because she has an interesting toolset.)
Yup. First time i fought a really good Jill i didnt respect the DP and i was free. After a couple of rounds i adapted and played the patience game and it worked a lot better. Whatever you do though, do not let Jill start her game because a good Jill will start dancing around you once they have you locked down with say Cold Star.
Yeah, it’s so sexy once a Jill gets you in her mixup game. Luckily, X23 gets to avoid all that if she wants, lol. (Totally jelly of her teleport UF mixup tho…we should have that…not her… >.>)
End game perfect execution who do you think wins? X23 or Jill?
In a matchup between the 2 of them, I still feel good about X23. As far as being more terrifying, I think Jill is scarier, overall, but as long as you let her have the ground and you fight her from normal jump height, you should be fine. All of her mixup is in a very specific range and as long as you respect that you shouldn’t have to deal with it so that just means you have to watch for DPs and gun supers. In a 1 on 1 match, I think Jill has a slight leg up since her gun super > XF is pretty strong and a great reactionary tool. That just means most of the game is about baiting out moves rather than bulldogging her. You def. have to have an assist that you can call off screen consistently, too.
Jill is a little too ground based in a game that has a whole lot of sj height nonsense (even moreso than X23), but she has much better assist punishes than X23 and much stronger mixup game in lockdown. Personally, I feel like her mixup game is a slightly easier to react to, it just has more options.
Is Nova a bad matchup for Laura? Couldn’t get in on a guy using him backed with missles. I gotta work on opening people up in general but opponents in the air backed by missles are a pretty bad match for X, no?
Forward air throws. Nova’s love their dolphin kicks (respect it when you have to, punish it every other time). Past that, just out-maneuver him and don’t get locked down. He doesn’t really have a hi/lo game unless you let him (and even then, we all know those silly nova’s are just gonna go for the fast dash down overhead…hardly any of them actually do a low hit on those.)
Past that, almost everything he does feels unsafe and I don’t feel like it’s a hard thing to punish him 9 times out of 10. Haven’t looked into the matchup super closely since it’s never really been a huge issue, sorry. 
Ah, that’s cool, I just really suck then. (I do)
Actually I do think Nova is a bad matchup for x23 and even more so with missiles.
There is next to nothing x23 can do against H pulse + Javelin + Missiles.
Play extremely patiently and try to react to a possible hole in the projectiles while being mindful of Nova’s options to switch to offense using missiles as cover.
Saying Nova has a bad hi/low game because bad players dont go for the low doesnt make it so obviously. Next to the overhead he has plenty of other stuff to be wary of such as multiple highs in quick succession, throws, lows and when out of the corner, crossups.
Energy Javelin makes x23 aerial movement very risky and staying on the ground makes it hard to avoid missile lockdown. If a Nova is being predictable with his j.H then yes you can anti-air it but it can still be tricky due to nova’s acceleration on his airdash and due to possible lingering projectiles being on screen.
Best bet is to try and punish unsafe airdashes by moves that move you forward such as slices or TA L/M. If you can read a clean WXP or command grab then that keeps you safe from missiles as well.
God I hate missiles so much.
Personally, I just use late dash back wall jumps avoids missiles (and the times you have to eat a missile make sure you’re not grounded and be ready to tech a throw), and a Nova can waste time with javelin spam, but that’s not really a threat since it’s so easy to just avoid all of that. Sucks if you’re on a life deficit, but you should have some kind of character backing x23 with a projectile and you can always get the free alpha counter or dhc or hard tag if you’re feeling ballsy.
I treat the box dash like Spencer’s full screen zip, you can either dash forward air throw or grab them out of the startup of the kick, whichever you’re feeling good about (depending on the player, if they’re good at teching grab them out of the kick, if they’re not good at teching grab them earlier since it’s safer.) And you go for the forward air throw which disregards any lingering projectiles.
At the same time, though, saying Nova is a bad matchup because of missiles isn’t really saying nova is a bad matchup. It’s just saying that missiles are a pain in the ass. Way too easy to not get hit by them as X23 in the first place, IMO.
I just feel like Nova is one of the most predictable characters in the game and the only thing to be wary of is his throw game. (and that’s not even nova specific, that’s anyone that can get a decent combo off throws.) And it’s not just bad players that don’t got for the lows, most of the top novas don’t go for the lows during lockdown (on normal blockstrings, just block low, be wary of tick grabs and react to his slow ass overhead, then punish him. What extended pressure strings does he even have?)
shrug I’m def. not saying I’ve played top Novas and they’re all a bit joke, hur hur. But I haven’t played a nova online or offline yet that worried me when I had X23 on the screen and when I do lose that matchup, it’s because I put myself somewhere I shouldn’t have and got grabbed.
You are right, missiles is a problem in itself, and should not really be considered when talking about the Nova matchup.
Nova’s offense isnt necessarily what poses the biggest problem for x23. Once the Nova wises up and starts hiding behind pulse and starts chucking javelins… It is stupidly hard to actually get through that cleanly. Any stray hit from either pulse or javelin or anything else for that matter, and x23 should die.
Edit. And when I say missiles is a problem, I mean that in an overall gameplay/game design kind of way, not necessarily always for x23. Imho.
Nova is at an advantage against X-23 in nearly every range. At long range, air dash forward and the usual j.H is more than enough to not let X-23 wall jump around or dash on the ground. And since Nova can cancel his air dash whenever, he can just react if X-23 tries to intercept (and sometimes even grab her out of normals if she throws an early j.L or j.M). Mid range, his slide is a bit problematic, especially considering that X-23’s s.H whiffs past point-blank range if he’s crouching. Any low move can be countered with an IAD j.H. Same goes for close range, but then Nova can just go for high-low-throw mixups with j.L/forward+H/slide, etc. Since his air-dash j.H is particularly hard to avoid, this situation becomes common.
Technically, s.H counters IADs and TK L Talons beat slides, but I still feel she’s at a disadvantage, as if there’s way more risk in these options than against other characters. I think things would be much more easy to manage if his j.H wasn’t so damn large or his air dash wasn’t so damn long.
His javelin and pulse aren’t so bad by themselves, though. They’re definitely more annoying with assists. I tend to dodge missiles with a dash back canceled to a jump back.
I’ve been perfected quite a few times by a local Nova/Frank/Ammy player. Because it isn’t bad enough that it’s a one-combo-victory team, it’s also an incredibly hard matchup for X-23 and most assists.
Nova beats most pure rushdown characters with an applicable assist pretty cleanly. Now that the game is more projectile heavy and invincible assists are gone…it’s harder for projectileless rushdown characters to get in and stay in. Missiles is a problem if you don’t have a character that can emit projectiles heavily or teleport. If you do it’s pretty manageable. People still aren’t using snapbacks or launching into TAC’s when missiles are coming down on them during combos.
It’s always good to have a pocket Dante or Coon or somebody who has a lot of options for getting around the assist and possible projectile spams. If you have to use X-23 in those matchups you wanna have XF2 with an assist ready so you can just go super HAM and land a hit somehow before things get too flooded.
In general most of the upper cast has projectiles or teleports to either use with missiles or help them fight missiles. If your point character doesn’t have either you have to have another character back you up against them or your only other choice is to land a hit within the first 5 seconds of the match ala Wolverine.
“All X-23s should have a pocket Rocket ready for when they can’t get on top of grown ass men.”
-DJ 2013
Thank god we don’t have no Nova locals here, but we do have some happy drones/HM callers though. Dark Hole doesn’t do much, but Tony’s swag beam gives them something to reconsider.
I’ve been working with opening the round stuff and found H CS>RB>Talon L to be very efficient. Nets a free feint combo which you can use for reset goodies or ToD XF1 (pairing good DHC). Tony is so effin good for her (:
I die a little bit everytime you say IM and beam in the same sentence. I always lie to myself and say you’re just talking when he’s on point, but don’t think you are. tear
I think it’s a team synergy issue since dark hole and RB are pretty much the exact same assist (except that RB does everything dorm does + dirt naps.)
I do fH+LogxxCS HxxTA H (will use L or M on whiff depending on match specifics) as my opener. Converts into a full combo on hit and gets you out of point blank range on whiff. I think having the throw OS helps and I assume RB would pick it up on hit, too.
Iron Man’s beam is the better assist.
Yeah, sure, RB wil give you a relaunch, and guarantee an easy Dirt Nap, but when the opponent really knows the matchup, how are you gonna land a hit? Your walljump is gonna get thrown. Your wavedash is gonna get stopped short. Your divekick is gonna get whiff punished. Your NS is gonna get chicken blocked. Every single time you try to escape with an H-Talon, you’ll suddenly find yourself in a literally unseeable 50-50 mixup.
You know what makes every single one of those safe, and then adds a mixup on top of them?
“UNIBEAM!”
(also Plasma Beam)
(also, Xfactor)
(also, playing online).