Lol, I almost forgot she has a command grab that she can combo off from.
There’s no guarantee we’ll get a patch, and if we are going to get one, it won’t be for a while. Silent Kill allows X-23 to compete with the annoying top tiers, so I say X-23 players should abuse it.
Does anyone know the secret to doing that Magneto combo where he does an air combo and air dash down S and tags in Doom and Doom continues the combo? I’m trying to do something similar with X23 but they always stand up before the standing M comes out.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aa7wRN-ea-0 Found a video if it
X23 has consistent back ground throw conversions with certain assists in the corner (which is where 90 percent of your reset/oki attempts are anyways). She has consistent f. jump throws at normal height and SJ height in the corner (for TAC resets).
Even if you don’t get a full damage you still get great oki/mixup off midscreen throws and even without throws she gets great frame traps/mixups and decent fuzzies.
I hate this whole ‘buff my character’ game.
She already has Thor TODs with double relaunches, she builds 2 meters on optimal combos, she has retarded mixup ability, she has the ability to double dirt nap and win matches instantly (you guys realize we’re losing infinites if they patch and that was an absolute godsend for X23.)
New patch with infinites gone means the only reasonably viable double dirtnap teams are gonna be built around Harmonizer (do any of you guys really want to play X23/Morrigan/Dante? I tried it, it’s not that fun) and that’s gonna be boring as fuck.
As far as the magneto hard tags, take a look at this, I’m pretty sure it gives you what you’re looking for.
I’m gonna concede the points that you made Merkyl, for 3 reasons:
Silent Kill is the most devastating level 3 in the game and TAC infinites help X-23 a ton in getting it quickly, which makes her lethal. Besides, I don’t even think this game’s likely to get a patch anyway.
Her not being able to convert easily from everything is something that should ideally be applied to mostly the entire cast. I despise the way conversions work in the game, but I’ve got no choice but to accept it.
I still believe general X-23 play hasn’t been optimised yet, neither in team composition nor in playstyle.
Besides, my issues with the game come from its mechanics.
If everyone had all the same conversion options it would be a game of nothing but Wolvies and Dooms.
Also, I forgot to mention it in my post, but X23 has ground throw conversions when paired with a handful of assists, so if that’s something you feel you need to mesh with your playstyle the options are out there, don’t waste a buff on something we have available already. In general, find a slow assist like Missiles, balloon bomb, EoA, Tasky Up Arrows, etc and do a tick throw and call them before the throw, then dash in and take your full combo. IIRC (and I might have it reversed), when she does a forward ground throw, the opponents still has a hitbox while they’re in the air after the throw animation so assists can stop them from having to be OTG’d, while on the back throw, they don’t have one until after they hit the ground (I want to say balloon bomb was wierd in that it could OTG because of the weird way the hitbox pops up on the last frame or something, but it’s been forever since I looked into it so don’t put too much stock into it.)
To everyone here, what’s missing from her optimized game plan in your opinion?
The only thing I can see being done to make her ‘better’ is using her less, honestly. Building a team around something like Mags(hypergrav)/X23(CS)/IM(RB) or (if DapVip would play his team endgame-centric) something like Dante(JS)/X23(OTG)/IM(UB) where you have a super competent point character handle the neutral game > TAC handoff and just have X23 as the match ender.
As far as talking about her neutral game backed with assists, I’m not sure what else there is to look at. With Luis Loops and double relaunches, I don’t really think there’s much reason to look into her combo options much harder.
I don’t think it exists, but if someone could find a way to gain back a meter after a dirt nap on strider/akuma/RR, I haven’t found that, and it’s pretty rare, but I think we need it for the few matchups where it applies.
I think I’m going to make it a point to do a short vid/write-up on specific combos to use post dirt nap based on character health since we don’t have that written down somewhere and I have a good idea in my head, but have never actually sat down and verified 100%.
We had that breakdown of XF1 + 1~2 assists > kill and gain 2 meters way back (was that vanilla that someone wrote that for?) that was always on the backlog to be updated, so I might go through and solidify that so we have that again.
Last thing I was to spend some time with is setting up a really good incoming guard break/blockstring OS into assist lockdown > corner fuzzy/IOH/low/throw pressure off of OTG > snap enders (100% consistent timing) since I find myself using them way more now than I used to rather than dealing with wake up supers or tech roll + assist mashing (go check out SumBrownKid’s wolvie/Akuma setups to get an idea of what I mean.)
Lets get some more things added to this list so us tech-heads can get some ideas rather than wasting 3 weeks whining about what X23 ‘needs’.
I’ve been looking for a way to catch characters as they land. I’ve been getting murdered by footdives, magneto j.H, spencer j.S and more. I think I’ve found something decent. I have been going behind characters and charging slice moves. The first time I did it, my friend was out prioritizing me with dormamu jumping like an asshole. I got behind him and started charging a decapitating slice. When he was about to land I let it go and it caught. I did that a couple of times till he started to continuously jump. I tried the ankle slicer and it worked. It got to the point where he had to change up his movement. At that point I could jump, grab and ground him much easier than before.
I took this online and found that crossing under morrigan into decapitating slice also has a better success rate than just trying to catch her with a quick normal.
I only just started working on this but I think I just fell onto some decent anti air tech. Let me know if you guys have tried this out already and what do you think about it? If you haven’t tried it yet, please try it before you shoot it down because it is surprisingly effective.
Tell me what you think, tactic or gimmick or just stupid…
No, I mean, in general, it’s too easy to convert hits in this game due to silly sized hitboxes, various moves that cause high degrees of hitstun, various falling/bounce/knockdown states, OTGs a-plenty and option-selecting said normals with silly-sized hitboxes and various properties into throws that also lead into full combos. The chars that don’t have quite as much braindead options for conversion tend to suffer for it. What makes it even worse is the fact that the damage in this game is high and there are mechanics like XF on top. I can tolerate each of these issues by themselves, but combined together, they tick me well off. One of my major gripes with the game, but oh well, that’s life.
Fair point.
Lol, I had an entire list of things ready, but then I realised it’s not as much as I thought. In terms of optimisation, it’s small, basic things IMO. X-23 players need to start making their blockstrings safer, end strings with MFCs or Mirage Feint L, preferably MFCs because it’s easier to convert from. Don’t end with S. Don’t just stop at cr.H or cr.M. Negative at best, punishable at worst. MFC those normals if you can. People right now tend to advancing guard X-23, but if they didn’t, they’d be able to punish. MFCing and Mirage Feint L will leave you at +advantage and leads into more pressure and blockstrings when blocked. Always make sure X-23’s strings leave you at an advantage so you can continue on the offence safely.
Convert into full Mirage Feint Loops off MFC’d normals when they connect to make sure they hit, especially off st.H. When you’re dashing in with a st/cr.M, go into st.H>MFC and convert off it into a Mirage Feint loop. See example below.
X-23 players don’t need to use that combo that’s just an example, just make sure it’s something better than st/cr.MHS. Something like this combo: M(hit), H>qcb+L~S, H>qcb+L~S, H>qcb+H, j.MMH, j.MMHS>Talon Attack L, M(1hit)HS> j.MMH>D+H>Crescent Scythe H>Talon Attack L, land, (full charge) Ankle Slice M.
The combo gives you plenty of time to hitconfirm from any of the 3 MFC’d Hs into a full combo.
Learingn to poke with X-23 from afar and convert off those pokes with MFCs is also important IMO.
Another thing is movement. Wave/plink dash backwards and forwards, and stay moving. Combine it with assists, don’t just stay static or jump until X-23 has an assist available, make the opponent have to work to catch you and get them flustered. The high-end tournament players are generally good at using their movement. If you’ve got a strong beam assist, Mirage Feint M>Talon M will get you in from pretty much full-screen and if the opponent blocks the projectile assist on the ground, X-23 gets to attack with a jump-in after Talon M, which sets her up for fuzzies if the opponent blocks them. Walljumps are great obviously, but they’re not the only way to get in safely.
If players manage to do all of that effectively, that’s a good amount of the work done, I’m not even joking. The other thing would be to abuse TAC infinites WAY more, a good amount of us X-23 players are being extremely courteous in not completely blowing people’s team’s up with it.
Not related to anything in particular: even though you and others champion RR’s Pendulum (Log Trap) Merkyl, I don’t like that assist at all, to be quite frank. I don’t like its speed, I think it’s too slow, not making it that suitable for Mirage Feint cross-ups, though I like it better when I’m using it in conjunction with Talon L rather than wall jumps. And I don’t like the fact that it doesn’t fully reach full screen, making you rely on walljumps to give it the extra bump in distance that it needs.
People don’t like Jam Session around these parts much because X-23’s terrible at scoring damage from it, can’t be used as an extender and doesn’t hit confirm well off it from SJ-height outside of the corner. However, it comes out quick, making it more suitable for Mirage Feint cross-ups, reaches all the way to the top vertically, which puts an end to chars like MODOK hanging out at SJ-height and pins down. Jam Session is also an assist more characters make better use of than Pendulum, allowing for more flexible team making, and Dante is a better character overall than RR. The ONE and ONLY thing that forces me to consider Pendulum is the fact that it’s an an extra extender that doubles up as a decent projectile assist, which makes it pair up nicely with Repulsor Blast since you can double extend with the assists (though I’d much rather use Jam Session than Pendulum for a character like Ironman). Otherwise, I wouldn’t touch it at all.
I was the one who came up with the list of XF combos for chars with 830K health and beyond, but the site I posted on them got shut down until further notice and the combos I posted on here might have also been removed due to the forum changes. I’ll try looking for them, but AFAIK, I couldn’t come up with a combo to kill those characters and give me 3 bars in exchange, especially not from Silent Kill. I don’t think that’s even possible, but I’ll see what I can do…
I also want to say perhaps we should look into ways of making Decaptitating Slice guaranteed, that doesn’t involve a guard break on incoming.
I like the speed on Log because it gives you a mixup attempt that they have to respect, then you get the mixup from the log itself, then you have enough time to blockstring into a 2nd assist if you want. Plus the fact that it’s a bit slower means it works great for air based mixups and it’s swoop hits where X23 ends her wall jump arc.
It’s one of those things where they just get trained to not press buttons because that shit will get you HBDs all day if they’re not respecting it. Then after that they start respecting, they just let you wall jump in for free thinking there’s a log coming or waste their assists trying to preemptively snipe the assist call just because you wall jump. There’s a lot of implied pressure that you get when you have log (on top of the direct pressure you get against people that don’t know how the assist works.)
Plus it’s a bit better than decent as far as projectiles go, 10 durability goes pretty far in this game.
I don’t really understand how people can say that SJ is good for stopping people at SJ height. If you hit them with it they get free assist calls that you can’t see after the tech and their air options back. If X23 could convert off the JS hit I could understand it, but it’s not like it forces them back to the ground or anything.
As far as IM + JS, it’s is absolutely nowhere near as strong as IM + Log. Log really rounds out IM and makes him viable. JS is great at keeping people out, but IM already handles that on his own. Log lets him pick up off the hits you get keeping people out.
I don’t think X23 can build 3 meters in a single XF combo in Ult. 2 should be plenty to XF super early in a match, kill 2 characters, switch to IM and play super defensively against their runback character and alpha counter back to X23 once they get too desperate for the kill. That sounds fun to me.
Whoops, I dunno why I said 3 meters after Silent Killing RR/Strider/Akuma lol, I meant 1. It might be possible actually, you can double relaunch in XF1 after a very short combo and that could give you the bar that you need for the metre (I need to stop swapping around British-English and American-English spelling).
Yeah, It’s less about being able to hit them as much as it about being able to hit them without killing them too quickly. Even without XF I haven’t been able to find a combo that doesn’t kill them before you get the meter back. 
Like I said, there’s so many different ways to look at it. Class Real mentioned something about buffing her low tier friends, which I am also inclined to believe is where she gets her best synergy from. If TAC infinites go, then it would be a blow to the lab monsters and X23 in general, but I believe the barrel has all but dried up for X23 tech. Even if more tech is discovered, the question(s) still remains: How groundbreaking is it? How practical? Justin was a TAC infinite away from possibly winning Evo–he drops the infinite and goes on to lose the match. I won’t sit here and talk about how execution is important, because if you are playing X23 then you should already have an idea. But, it’s not so much HER execution as to other characters that get really easy confirms in this game and simplistic ABC combos which can be frustrating to deal with. I think that’s Ryuga’s biggest perk about this game, although X23 can open you up it’s just not in the same ways Zero and Magneto can right now. So players ask themselves why are they playing X23 when they can play Zero, who I think has the same health and even derper normals in specific neutral. Right now, ask any player in the scene and they will tell you there is 0 reason to play Laura over Zero, other than character loyalty lol.
I truly believe if X23 had a practical self TAC infinite, she would be Top 5 in the game easy. Without XF2, she relies on team composition too heavily which seemingly hurts the team in the long run because characters she works best with need the same attention. I believe there is more to the character than dirt nap, but the meta has shifted to where we need to have a strong dirt nap engine to even justify Laura’s place on a team. X23 has waaaay too many tools in her arsenal for that way of thinking–Dirt Nap should be utilized as an asset, not a necessity. Even if Zero and Morrigan (her worst matchups imo) get nerfed, a patch can only help X23 excel at this rate. The game is slowly becoming MvC2 where there is a general consensus on who is top tier and who is just ‘okay’ lol. Marvel won’t be fun if it’s just the same 5 damn characters on the screen all the time, that was the whole point to MvC3 so that other characters can get in on the action and remain competitive.
So, to the question of what is missing from her optimized game IMO are more air utilities. This is what separates her from the braindead Wolverine who can divekick you to the ground, a single buster shot into a lighting loop, soul labyrinths both in the air and the ground, we have the tech for converting the air stuff but it’s generally not dependable. This is because X23 the character is not designed to be a air fighter, she is grounded threat with way better tools on the ground than at SJ height.
Why does she have to handle every situation? Just put her with someone to handle that side of the matchup. IM dominates most of the SJ lameout matchups, Mags is the go-to air point character, be a real wierdo and play point doom for those MUs. All of them can be solid options for
As far as her option CS H xx TA M dHxxCS H is a really solid option for air to air hits. Does ~350k and there aren’t many characters than can beat CS H in the air.
Marvel is hardly at MVC2 status, you still see a ton of characters do really well that aren’t the top tier 5. Just because there were a few characters that got dominant options doesn’t mean it should be the norm, they should get rolled back a bit rather than buffing every character that’s not vergil. Guilty Gear is the game where everyone is practically at the top tier and it’s just not as fun because it’s all about pressing as many buttons as possible because 90% of your buttons are brokenly retarded. We don’t want this game to become Ultimate Vergil 3, too.
This game is and should be about getting 3 characters that accents each others strengths and cover each others weakness. Not 1 character that’s super broken and the 2 shmucks that are there for scenery. X23’s ground and neutral jump range game is fantastic, she should be able to dominate the sky too.
Morrigan gets neutral dominance with projectiles but she can’t control SJ height any better than X23 and has to rely on TACs if she wants to kill most of the time. At best she can hit you with a set of missiles or a SF or 2. She’s not staircasing people down from SJ height.
Vergil has to have meter and XF to be a threat and he doesn’t get to play unless he touches the ground and that can be really hard/near impossible at times.
There isn’t that 1 character in marvel that is foolproof and has no bad matchups, they all have strengths and weaknesses. Dirt Nap has to be balanced somehow when it’s possible to kill someone with 5 meters and win the match, she can’t get that and the ability to convert into TODs from anywhere on the screen. It would be gamebreaking.
I agree that there are a lot more characters that can fight what’s arguably top tier in this game right now than MvC2, but from what I’m seeing tourney after tourney is that in most instances if you are not picking top tier or have some undiscovered tech then you aren’t making it outta pools. There wouldn’t be a discussion of a patch right now if everything was balanced, but that itself lays the problem because Marvel was never one to be a balanced game in the first place. Marvel is all about exploiting the cheapest shit possible whether it be infinites, unblockables, and the works. To be frank (and now that I’ve given it some more thought), I don’t think it’s fair to compare the game to MvC2. It took MvC2 ten years to develop its engine today and people didn’t have the technology to discover ROMs, infinites, and other stuff all within a 6 month time frame.
X23 is a character that only synergies well with specific people. None of her supers are safe and just by having her on the team you are giving up a really good neutral assist for a subpar one. Alpha counter aside, Morridoom is very comfortable fighting X23 than say Zero w/Jam Session or Dorm w/meter build assist there is no question to that. She doesn’t need an answer for every situation, just the situations where you aren’t getting derped out and then you question why are you playing X23. Unfortunately, because of her small hitboxes and no projectiles this happens more times than needed for beginning X23 players. Simply put, it’s easier for opponents to hit you before you hit them or fall prey to their game.
She has to work too hard for getting a hit against good players, thankfully assist like Log exist but the Raccoon is low tier no way around it. But, being low tier doesn’t mean the player can’t win. RR has won a major before. We as players just have to step our games up put Laura on the map, unfortunately all the “pros” refuse to pick up Laura because she isn’t cheap enough to win consistently.
RR is hardly low tier. If you pair him with a lockdown like CS or beam he’s pretty freaking gross. He’s actually a really solid XF3 character, too.
X23 with Log doesn’t have a terrible time with Morridoom, but it is one of those situations where you have to be on the offensive and not let Morrigan get a chance to breath (same as with Wolvie who has proven multiple times now that he can be enough of a problem for even Chris G’s Morridoom.) Log will beat 2 SFs out and at closer ranges Morrigan has to respect the calls like everyone else.
Again though, there are characters that synergize well with X23 that can handle Morridoom rather well. There’s no reason why she has to be the one to deal with her specifically.
High tier: handles every situation.
Low tier: doesn’t handle every situation as well.
That’s what it boils down to. X23 and RR look great on paper, but they’re not as good as the high tier (if enough chars are just better, even the good characters are “low tier” lol).
Two things I want X23 to have: Vanilla hitsun on sj.L-Talon, and the ability to somehow combo off of ground throws. OTG uncharged ankle slice would be awesome, but more HKD time on throws is cool too.
bolded 1: Uhh… actually morrigan can convert from superjump height. Though, she cannot convert from slightly above superjump height(situations like: superjump + air dash up, or superjump and get hit by missiles first).
bolded 2: Zero? Magneto? Vergil?
Anyways, I would argue that x23 is bad but part of it has to do with the metagame and not her. She is an extremely picky teammate. I always feel like she needs 3 assists, meaning to use her properly you have to use the few assists that do two things for her. You know who Zero(an obscene character just with what he alone has) just happens to work the best with? Dante, Vergil, Doom, Magneto, and Strider. Meanwhile x23 is stuck hanging out with a bunch of bums like ironman and raccoon to make the most of her. It very hard to make a team that supports x23 properly, often requiring using other bad characters, all to use a redundant and subpar point that stands no chance against common points like zero or magneto.
I think a large part of X-23 lacking has not only good to do with the current team options, but the system mechanics simply not favouring her as much anymore.
Vanilla: Assists weren’t hit by the hitstun deterioration nerf and X-23 didn’t suffer as much from hitstun deterioration either. Meter gain and XF damage was also higher. She could extend off Jam Session, Tatsu and a good bunch of other assists. DHC glitch was around. TAC infinites were available in Vanilla as well. If we knew then what we know now, we’d probably be laughing ourselves silly.
Aside from TAC infinites, she no longer has any of those things, reducing her viability. Not so much the DHC glitch, but the hitstun deterioration nerfs. If you ignore the mechanics and look at the two versions of X-23 directly, I’d say UMVC3 X-23 is the better character and has more options. However, including the mechanics, I’d say X-23 was better off in Vanilla because the mechanics of Vanilla favoured her a lot more.
The overall combined mechanics of the MVC3 series (which are incredibly stupid, I might add) favour the high-top tiers. Which is why I said I can tolerate the tools of characters in general and certain mechanics by themselves, but combined, this game is a right mess. OSes, large hitboxes, mobility, assists, team flexibility, XF, TACs, high damage (for mostly little work), (easy) conversion and various other things, the high-top tiers generally take advantage of these the best, not mentioning their other tools either.
X-23 doesn’t take as much advantage of those things as the high-top tiers, but she does take strong advantage of the TAC mechanic due to her Level 3. She needs it to be on some degree of level footing with the current “meta”. One you slap Silent Kill on somebody, they can only sit back and watch as X-23 unblockables them for free and ruins their team. That’s what’s keeping X-23 in the game. Without that, she’s toast because she doesn’t take as much advantage of the general stupidity of this game compared to others.
I still think you could make a team with top tiers backing up X-23 if you solely focus on TAC infinites, the problem is, you won’t be able to cover every single little thing ( combo extension is a big one ).
Check my post a few up. She can combo off ground throws with certain assists (slow assist + tick throw midscreen or certain assists off corner back ground throws.)
If you think having throw options would make her stronger, put her with someone that gives her that option.
How is vergil falling like a rock on incoming not a weakness? You pretty much have to play him on point or always have a good way to DHC into him. His options on his way in are press a button or eat the mixups and guess right. (Personally, I try not to ever let him fall in without either a Dirt Nap or Mad Hopper unblockable waiting for him.) Outside of XF2+ he’s not even that hard to block, you just have to be willing to block and respect his normals.
Top tier is top tier. I’m not arguing that, but no character is perfect with no bad matchups (I would say zero and viper with meter come closest, but even they aren’t infallible.)
Not really. In general she meshes well with the infinite characters.
Mags - EMD (neutral) or HG (extension/mixup).
Doom - Missiles (neutral/extension/lockdown), Beam (neutral/crappy extension), rocks (neutral, post dirt nap pickup)
IM - UB (neutral/crappy extension), RB (lockdown, extension, dirt nap guarantee)
Nova - cent rush (neutral/oki unblockables/extension)
Sent - Drones (neutral/extension)
Really the only worthless TAC infinite character is Storm. All of her assists suck.
I think Mags(HG)/X23(CS)/IM(RB) would be an really solid X23 team. Mags gets throw hardtags, brainless corner carry, incoming with RB is dumb (if you have great mags movement it’s great in neutral), Mags can TAC through to IM, you can double dirt nap, X23 can double relaunch (probably best to do that off CS.) You don’t get a full screen neutral assist for X23, but chances are you’re just looking to XFC them anyways. I would play this if I didn’t want to play a point X23 team.
X-23 needs better than Repulsor to function if Magneto goes down IMO. I’d rather use Magneto/X-23/Sentinel.
Nova’s Rush isn’t good enough for neutral, IMO. I’d much rather have a projectile assist. Missiles, now that would work out in a team like X-23/Ironman (Unibeam)/Doom(Hidden Missiles). I feel that would be a good team.
What makes a good team is not placing so much emphasis on one character. That’s the issue that irks everybody usually playing X23, she drags down the team composition to the point where it’s all about her success and not so much others.
I believe Mags/X23/IM is a very practical and/or worthwhile team with interesting setups (see Joker’s matches with Mags/IM), but again–you can do so much more with Drones or Missiles backing up Mags. Mags isn’t optimized enough to where he gets silly conversions, the theory is that if Mags dies then Laura faces a 50/50 incoming AND she has to get a hit so she can corner carry kill 2 for 1 or the infinite Iron Man. I used to think IM was shaky anchor and his XF3 isn’t as powerful as some of the others, but his skillset is tremendously good if played well. I think it’s pretty much slept on, however, too many things/variables have to go well in order for that team to properly succeed. Seems like a crafty team that only looks good when things are going well, but when getting bodied the team’s weaknesses become exposed.
She has some synergy with the upper tiers, but again, it’s not as good as placing somebody else on the team and going full derp. That’s the issue with Meep’s Zero/X23/Dante, when people see X23 they know she is specifically there to XFC you and win the game just so long as Zero kills a character meter positive.
There’s no question Vanilla X23 is better than Ultimate. The consensus was that Ultimate brought some interesting attributes for her, but the changes really ripped her over and she lost tremendously good valuables in Jam Session (and Dante gave her a reliable DHC Trick, not too mention tier muscle).