If you TK the CS H you can cancel into the TA at any point so if you manage to land the hit, you can maybe cancel fast enough to get the combo. That way you have the safety/added mobility of the CS H but the combo potential when you manage to get the hit.
Good point about TKing the Crescent Scythe.
So X-23 players, the very few that’re left anyway lol, what MUs do you find a pain in the backside?
Aside from the ones that were talked about, I think Spencer and Taskmaster are ones I need to work on, and Modok too.
Taskmaster, I know some general stuff, like punishing his Web Swing if they use it during a string. If a raw Web Swing’s spaced correctly from a distance, it might not punishable? If they want to make Shield Skills safer, they cancel it into Sting Master. Possible punish if you advancing guard and make Sting Master whiff, then (dash up)throw, but usually, you’re too far back. Also feel like I should just play patient vs him and let him come to me, or inch slowly and call a projectile assist whenever necessary to get up in his face. His zoning’s problematic, but it’s better than eating some random sword normal into death, don’t feel confident in X-23’s ability to contend with his normals at all. Might be able to duck under Horizontal Shots with Mirage Feint+L(hold) or D+H to lower your hitbox, depending on its projectile height(you can do this against several other projectiles.)
Can’t get predictable with air attacks like Talon and d+H due to his counter specials and hyper. Though, you could probably throw off his timing by using d+H, then cancelling it into Talon Dive for a delay, but if he reads it, you get punished. Could probably AA with one of his normals for more damage.
When he goes on the offensive, most Taskmasters seem to stagger cr.Ls to snuff out advancing guard attempts, or throw. He can’t rapid fire it though, and there’s a big enough gap for a throw attempt should he try to stagger his cr.L and that’ll nab him.
And that’s all I’ve got for him.
This is just personal bias, but I cannot stand fighting good Dooms or good Ammys. Doom is pretty much always in the air, and a lot of stuff X-23 has just cannot combo at that height, it feels. I can get under him easily enough, but those feet…grr. I mean, if he’s at super jump height, he’s not going to see where exactly I am when he lands, so some creative dashing can put me in a good situation, but good Dooms are watching where the opponent is, or locking them with projectiles, and occasionally that foot dive will cross up or keep me in place for mixups, and it seems like it’s a guessing game that is not in my favor. My current plan is to either already have Dooms hurting on incoming (and with X-23, that is very possible), or to bait a plasma beam, invincible super, then DHC to someone who’s more equipped for the match-up (mine is Hawkeye, who I find great against Doom).
And I feel Ammy is very much in the same category as Taskmaster, in that I feel my normals just can’t match hers, and those counters make it hard for me to simply Talon Attack or dive in with obvious stuff, for the sake of setting up a mixup. Again, ranged attacks + mirage/inching in work as a method of getting close, but just Ammy vs. X-23, it seems like it’s a contest of who has the best mixups, and though we’re both scary in that department, Ammy has the better chance of starting said mixups. My experience is against Ammys I’m either trying to get in or blocking, but never really putting them in block as much. As for advanced guard punishing, the disk is what I know, and I can say that punishing the disk with advancing guard is a pain. Ammy’s forward H series can be cancelled into the paper special in reaction to an advancing guard, and that makes it tough to get back in. In addition, Ammy has a few jump cancellable moves and instant overheads, so I don’t want to be near her for long. It might just be because all the Ammys I’ve fought online have been amazing players, and I’m the only Ammy player among my friends offline, so I never get to fight other Ammys often. Regardless, it’s a tough matchup for me, especially as X-23.
In a lot of cases like this, at least when they stay on the ground enough, I wait for an opportunity to hit with the command grab, then combo into a better position for future mixups. Just getting that initial hit proves the problem.
For Doom, if you’re lucky, you might be able to snipe him out of the air with this: [media=youtube]5GrnHHNvtSk[/media]
But then you could just as easily eat a footdive lol, and like you said, he might be covering himself up with random projectiles. The easiest option would be just to slap him up with Jam Session or some other AA assist if you have it. Assistless, I tend to hit H Crescent Scythe, which has a better chance of standing up to Footdive. You won’t get much damage from it though. But so many Dooms are really bad with the char, and just hammer away on Footdive, so when they eat like a million Crescent Scythes and finally stop doing it, you can bring them down and get your ground offence working.
Ammy, I’m sorry, I’ve got no clue about her, my whole plan is basically to get her before she gets me lol. Put her in a bad situation/mix-up and hit her with a hard combo if I score a hit. I find her irritating too. In terms of normal range, I prefer to stay mid-range with st.M, but that’s about it. When she’s up close, I can’t mess with her normals either, which is why I prefer mid-range. That’s for Disc mode anyway, but Glaive’s a different story.
As I said before, some of her worst matchups are against characters with fast attacks with stupidly huge hitboxes. MvC3 series is seriously making me hate DMC because of the twins.
However, X-23 has an attack that’s very hard to beat as well, her L TA. Sometimes you have got to abuse it. Jump out of their typical poke range and go back down with the TA. Things get more complicated with people who know what’s coming and dodge the attack or use a counter move. To defeat that, you really need a horizontal projectile or something similar to catch them. Call it out, super jump and quickly go back down with the TA, making the two hit about at the same time, preventing them from dashing on the ground, covering X-23 if the TA whiffs and stuffing physical attack counters.
It still sucks when the enemy is in the air and covers himself (curse that motherfucker Dante and his no recovery projectile and protective, safe j.S), since you can only really pressure them on the ground. Keeping them in the ground isn’t so bad, but bringing them down is a problem if they have a Helm Splitter, dive kick or foot dive.
Speaking of foot dive, Doom’s j.S is borderline unblockable for me. There were times I was right next to him and Doom still managed to cross X-23 up THROUGH her. However, he is free if he’s on the ground. On point blank, his defense sucks shit against X-23’s frame trap and instant d+H game. So what it takes is a bit of patience to get close to him and keeping him on the ground somehow (again, horizontal assists are great for this). And let’s face it. X-23’s mobility completely destroys his zoning. A single walljump gets her across the screen sooner than a plasma beam finishes, photon shots are slow, meaning X-23 can advance before blocking, and the gun doesn’t cover the ground space X-23 takes when dashing.
Also, don’t forget Crossover Counter. If you DON’T want to fight Doom with X-23, you can switch during a plasma beam and depending on the assist, even punish it.
Speaking of L TA, I’m actually working on using that more through TKing it low to the ground during neutral, Cammy-style. You’d think I’d be doing this from time ago, but no lol, should be viable I guess?
It’s good, but sometimes getting up to a certain height might be important for spacing purposes, making sure the enemy whiffs their stuff and X-23 travels the distance she needs.
Although I always loved the idea of TKing TA over and over on the corner for perpetual, almost uninterrupted blockstun. Just never did it.
Just for shits n’ giggles. If you can catch someone with a j.M on incoming you can actually [j.MMHS,land]x3 into TA L combo>etc. meter gain on it is pretty decent and it’s pretty trollish if you land it during a match.
I need to learn this combo, I see. Looks like some tough stuff after the QCF Medium, but gimme a little bit and I’ll figure it out.
The problem is when Doom throws out a footdive, he has options before (chance of random crossup, baiting me to jump and try to hit him) and after (those dashes, goddamn). My assists with X-23 are in my signature, I got Nemesis’ clothesline rocket, and Hawkeye’s arrows, so I don’t have much vertical coverage. Bad dooms even my Nemesis can handle, but good ones are annoying to deal with using my team, with the exception of switching to Hawkeye. He’ll have to land sometime, and if he’s a bad doom, he’s getting hit by a mixup, hopefully. That’s my plan right now, and I’m not sure if I can change that all too soon.
For Ammy, it may just be my team is built so it needs to respect the Dog. Still, she’s got so many tools, and her medium attacks seem to always out-prioritize quite a few normals. And Disc is all I know, because I only play Glaive on my Ammy as a followup for counters, and unblockables from time to time with quick work assist. I just can’t fight her, despite knowing her.
And I thought of another matchup I absolutely hate, but this one’s pretty specific. Spencer with Plasma Beam assist. Spencer himself, though I don’t know him too well, isn’t really a problem, but with plasma, and if the guy knows what he’s doing, it sucks.
That’s pretty impressive. I’ve always had a problem converting any decent air hits into a combo during SJ. Gives me a lot of hope.
The only hard part is learning the timing of the j.M after the TA M and it’s always the same so if you learn it once you’re set. TA M is actually a really great combo tool in general and does a ton of damage. Doing it midscreen though is a bit trickier, though. You have to make sure you’re hitting the character high in the chest to make sure they get pushed by it rather than you passing through.
Yeah, back in vanilla I had one or two combos that used TA M. But I was lazy between games, forgot all my stuff…had to learn it again, and forgot some stuff for good (I’ll miss you, MODOK). I love this combo, gotta start using it, lemme just ask, is the timing of the TA M different than in vanilla, what with the massively different hitstun and all? Also, I can’t see some of the buttons pressed there, probly just my silly eyes, but do you hit the ground and get a rejump after the TA M, or do you use dive kicks?
Ammy I find ísn’t a MU problem per se, it’s just general stuff like her hitbox/hurtboxes that get me.
Problem matchups are definitely Zero and Doom, Spencer I can see but then again a lot of that comes from him just having an abundance of tools overall. Taskmaster I feel isn’t too good for her either because of his ability to shut down both her air game with shield skills and her ground game with superior pokes and his damage output and ease of conversion. Vergil is bad as well mostly because of the threat of helmet breaker when trying to approach and getting around his god normals.
Spencer’s irritating when backed up with an assist during his ziplines, I don’t think there’s much that can be done about it, aside from staying in the air, depending on the assist he’s got. His overhead’s throw punishable(might be able to cancel it into something to throw off your punishment.)
Zero’s currently the worst MU for me, but I’m wondering if you can interrupt Buster cancelled offence(probably not.)
Think people in this thread or another thread were talking about Storm as a partner before, but I’ll get into her right now for a bit since I’m strongly considering putting her in my team.
Storm’s Whirlwind’s not a bad projectile assist, good durability and though it pushes the opponent far back, it can actually be used to your advantage during Mirage Feint M, since X-23 warps as Whirlwind pushes the opponent along, pushing her right up close to them as opposed to other projectiles assists. Travels across the ground, so it gets rid of Flame Carpet and other similar things.
Storm’s HailStorm DHC’s brilliant. Instant start-up, great for punishing things. So handy to have when up against a team with Hidden Missiles. Though you’ll be spending two bars, I think it’s worth giving the opponent some caution. Really damaging too as a DHC combo ender too.
I prefer to put Storm in second for support, and if X-23 goes, Storm will most likely have meter ready, which she really thrives on(Storm’s bad at building meter too, even during her optimal combos.)
Oh and Mirage Feint Cancelling, my method of doing it is qcf+L+S(you can choose to hold both buttons as well for extra insurance.) For those who find MFCing tricky, hopefully that’ll help. 
Unrelated, but finally got down those mid-screen and corner Crescent Scythe Loops down in training mode from both sides, planning to make them BnBs ideally from solid conversions. Still prefer doing them from the left side though, but the right side’s good too. If my friends ever come round for sessions, I can’t wait to choke it up and drop them during matches lol.
I’m pretty sure the combo is:
sj.H,D+H, TA M, falling MS, land, jMHS, TA L land, MS, sj.MMH,D+HxxCS HxxTA L land OTG+charged NS S, sj. HxxCS HxxTA L land charged ASxxRage Trigger
Same combo for corner and midscreen. As far as I remember the timing is the same for the m follow-up off the TA M (I didn’t have to relearn it but there was a pretty big gap so I can’t say 100% that it’s the same). If you need to relearn it I would just use:
In the corner: s.MHxxMF H j.MHxxTA M falling j.MM land j.MMHSxxTA L s.MS sj.MMH,D+HxxCS HxxTA L land charged ASxxRage Trigger
You can also follow-up TA M at ground level with falling j.M,D+H into ground combo.
Quick Edit: For anyone that wants to mess around with other TA M combos there’s also the stair relaunch that uses it. [media=youtube]ClTR7xY5_gw[/media]
And this was one of the highest solo damage combos in vanilla and the basics still work if anyone is looking for some inspiration. [media=youtube]mWU_LVPYT-4[/media]
As far as making combos with it you can’t have any too many hits or any TA L’s before the TA M or it won’t work on the ground since hitstun won’t let you hit with the falling j.M (tho you can fit a TA L or some extra ground hits in before launching.)
It’s also possible to do a grounded TK CS H(cancelled on 1st or 2nd hit)xxTA M and continue the combo from there but I haven’t found any amazing combo options utilizing this yet.
If you want to use it in the air the trick is to have the ground portion of the combo keep them on the ground (for hitstun and height reasons). This makes sure you can do the fast sj.M,D+HxxTA M close enough to the ground to get the follow up ground combo without using an S (which does a hard knockdown at that point). On the hitstun, there’s def. a different counter for the ground portion and the air portion of the combo but it’s hard to say whether the ‘air portion’ includes any juggle state or just the portion following an S launcher.
On almost all of these combos I’m pretty sure you can add a DP L in there to squeeze out a little extra damage.
^
If that last combo works off an MFC starter, that’s gonna replace one of my BnBs lol. And it’s so sick that virtually all of X-23’s lengthier/strong combos wall-carry from anywhere on the screen.
Ok…HOLY CRAP. I was in the lab working on dash back otg plus assist (Jill relaunch) and I noticed that there seems to be a spot right inbetween where Ankle slicer hits 1 time or 2 where the second hit will lag just a bit and pop them higher. I was only able to do it once against Ryu in the corner, but I was able to hit a cr. L after the otg. Specifically I think I did a s sj.hxxCS HxxTA L back dash charge ankle slicer cr.L. I haven’t been able to manage it a second time but I think there may be a tight link where X-23 can self relaunch on some people.
hurries back to lab
Def. wasn’t seeing things. I was able to get it a 2nd time.
Haha, working on that Jill tech, are we?
Dno if this helps you in your quest for knowledge about AS, but try using Dorm assist after a air throw > AS in the corner (no backdash). The difference in timing is quite noticeable there.
That’s kind of amazing, but I don’t see a purpose for that unless you’re going to run a team with X-23 on second and someone impossible to comb with on anchor. She’s either got assist or X-factor, and X-factor X-23 can just improvise, really. Or infinites. I don’t see when that could be used, but that is pretty damn amazing.
Yeah, this happens randomly to me all the time - for some reason it happens on Dante for me, usually when I’m trying to setup an OTG into reset (with st.M, no less, not cr.L).
From what I’ve seen, you’re trying to get a two-hit OTG, but late in the active frames. Which means it’s pretty character specific and difficult to space… for that reason, I haven’t experimented with it much, since I just assumed it wasn’t practical.
Some of y’all have proven to be more resourceful than me, though, so have at it =P.