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Question Is scorpion REALLY that low tier?

Saint

Noob
i totally agree. eating hellfires at the beginning of a match isnt too big a deal. and i do agree that it a liability.... but it is still very useful. best used at full screen and maybe once or twice up close lol
That move is pretty bs if you think about it, for all the risk involved using hellfire it should do more damage or grant you at least some frame advantage
 

HGTV Soapboxfan

"Always a Pleasure"
i totally agree. eating hellfires at the beginning of a match isnt too big a deal. and i do agree that it a liability.... but it is still very useful. best used at full screen and maybe once or twice up close lol
Yeah at full screen it is awesome because spear is a really good aa at that range it obviously isn't as risky.
 
his pokes are shitty, his normals are shitty, his armor is shitty, he doesnt have anything significant that is safe, his anti airs are pretty shitty too, d1 is pretty good for anti crossup but then you have characters like kenshi kung lao liu kang jax kabal sektor johnny cage who have anti crossup that beat jumpkicks as well and d1 doesnt.
his wakeup is pretty shit, hellfire is really matchup specific. if you dont do anyting stupid and just walk up to scorpion he is going to be in trouble, granted the fact you dont play a shitty character yourself.
 

GrandMasterson

The Netherrealm beckons
his anti airs are pretty shitty too
They most certainly are not

Standing 2 is 12 frames, but it has an enormous active hitbox range. Also, if you win a forward jump punch trade, you can dash forward with standing 3, teleport, 1 1 1 vortex shenanigans.

And if someone is trying to cross you up with jump kicks all day, NJP their ass.
 
They most certainly are not

Standing 2 is 12 frames, but it has an enormous active hitbox range. Also, if you win a forward jump punch trade, you can dash forward with standing 3, teleport, 1 1 1 vortex shenanigans.

And if someone is trying to cross you up with jump kicks all day, NJP their ass.
12 frames? kung lao has spin, cage has 8 frame standing 1 and b3 which crazy hitbox beating jumpkicks, smoke has 9 frame standing 2 beating jumpkicks as well, sonya sektor has 6 frame and 7 frame anti air, jax has 8 frame standing 1 and gothca grab, liu kang ahs 8 frame standing 2.

njp is available for anyone and is anti cross up on read, not on reaction. so it still sucks

scorpion antir air is average at best.
 

GrandMasterson

The Netherrealm beckons
12 frames? kung lao has spin, cage has 8 frame standing 1 and b3 which crazy hitbox beating jumpkicks, smoke has 9 frame standing 2 beating jumpkicks as well, sonya sektor has 6 frame and 7 frame anti air, jax has 8 frame standing 1 and gothca grab, liu kang ahs 8 frame standing 2.

njp is available for anyone and is anti cross up on read, not on reaction. so it still sucks

scorpion antir air is average at best.
You also have to look at what those other characters get from their AA. They all get combos and perhaps they have faster normals, but Scorpion can get a 30%+ combo AND a vortex setup on all of his AA options.

Yeah, everyone can NJP but does everyone else get 40% + vortex setup off a NJP? Scorpion does. It does NOT suck.

Don't forget his airthrow which isn't used nearly as much as it should be
 

Scoot Magee

But I didn't want to dash
You also have to look at what those other characters get from their AA. They all get combos and perhaps they have faster normals, but Scorpion can get a 30%+ combo AND a vortex setup on all of his AA options.

Yeah, everyone can NJP but does everyone else get 40% + vortex setup off a NJP? Scorpion does. It does NOT suck.

Don't forget his airthrow which isn't used nearly as much as it should be
The thing is most of the characters that give scorpion a hard time don't really have to jump at him. If anything in matches against characters like cage and sonya he has to AA with spear from far to mid range if they decide to try to jump a hellfire. Characters like kabal, kitana and ect. don't even really need to risk jumping in against scorpion because hellfire isn't a threat. Once they get into footsie range they pretty much dominate scorpion. In kabals case all he has to do is get close. All this is besides the fact that his AA's are pretty slow compared to other characters. His down 1 is quick which is great for crossups and such but jump kick blows it up along with all his other AA's.

Even if his AA's were better scorpion wouldn't be any higher on the tier list. What he needs is at least 1 good footsie move and more range on his 33 so he can make fast punishes on moves with a lot of pushback. A d4 with some advantage would be nice too and a safe B2.
 

RiBBz22

TYM's Confirmed Prophet/Time-Traveler
Scorpion has some major problems. A good number of his match ups SUCK. This is me talking so some people will disagree but his match ups worse than 4-6 are...
Katana- (Slips actually agrees with me on this one) She owns the screen. Her spacing options compared to Scorpion's are far more advanced. She has better rush down and zoning than him. Also it feels pretty dumb when you instant air fanned out of teleport. The unbreakable damage makes the vortex that much more risky when you trying to make a comeback.
Johnny Cage- Scorpion simply has no viable way to keep Cage off of him. Unless you are really on point your going to find your self next to Johnny Cage again and again. The vortex and enhanced spear are the only things keeping this from being a 1-9.
KABAL- I am not going to go into this one.
Cyrax- This matchup is DUMB. Scorpion's risk based game is turned way out of his favor with unbreakable resets even if you get breaker you might die. Not to mention the animations for spear, hellfire and takedown will have you eating bombs since they take so long and takedown will have you rolling onto a bomb after successfully landed. Basically instead of eating 40-50% damage you die after one mistake.
Sonya- D4 makes Scorpion's life a pain. She is like Kitana, but instead of being a better you she is like Johnny Cage. Sonya just kills you faster. She gets on you and gets free mixups all day and pressure not to mention ex-cartwheel and her instant air dive kick.
Possible other 3-7s include Smoke, Liu Kang, Kung Lao, and Jax.
Scorpion is a fish we need to admit it. The vortex does not save him at the highest level of play. He is slow and has no pokes plus all his options which get him damage are unsafe.
He does have decent matchups vs Kenshi and Freddy other characters would kill to have decent numbers for those two. He is the perfect pocket character. Just don't expect to main him Scorpion sucks too much for that.
Kabal Scorpion is not worse than 6-4. Scorpion's hellfire tracks dash and anything other than a perfect IAGB can get caught by spear for a full combo. Scorpions specials are enough to make a Kabal player uncomfortable and play a lot different than they normally would in another MU (not many other characters can do this in the entire game). Kabal probably has to jump forward more against Scorpion than any other character in the game and Scorp players need to be using that to their advantage.

With that being said, Scorpion has to guess right a lot in this MU to win because he obviously can't rely on his crap normals and his crap pokes... + his armored moves have issues. 6-4 ya, but not 7-3
 

RiBBz22

TYM's Confirmed Prophet/Time-Traveler
The thing is most of the characters that give scorpion a hard time don't really have to jump at him. If anything in matches against characters like cage and sonya he has to AA with spear from far to mid range if they decide to try to jump a hellfire. Characters like kabal, kitana and ect. don't even really need to risk jumping in against scorpion because hellfire isn't a threat. Once they get into footsie range they pretty much dominate scorpion. In kabals case all he has to do is get close. All this is besides the fact that his AA's are pretty slow compared to other characters. His down 1 is quick which is great for crossups and such but jump kick blows it up along with all his other AA's.

Even if his AA's were better scorpion wouldn't be any higher on the tier list. What he needs is at least 1 good footsie move and more range on his 33 so he can make fast punishes on moves with a lot of pushback. A d4 with some advantage would be nice too and a safe B2.
How is hellfire not a threat against Kabal? It will stuff dash from outside of jump distance. If you are forced to play footsies with Kabal yes you are screwed because Scorpion loses badly there. I agree with your statement in Kitana's case however because of her insane air-mobility and the properties of her projectile.
 

Scoot Magee

But I didn't want to dash
How is hellfire not a threat against Kabal? It will stuff dash from outside of jump distance. If you are forced to play footsies with Kabal yes you are screwed because Scorpion loses badly there. I agree with your statement in Kitana's case however because of her insane air-mobility and the properties of her projectile.
Correct me if I'm wrong but it only takes 1 safe armored dash cancel for kanal to get into footsie range on scorpion.
 

RiBBz22

TYM's Confirmed Prophet/Time-Traveler
Correct me if I'm wrong but it only takes 1 safe armored dash cancel for kanal to get into footsie range on scorpion.
I believe that hellfire tracks and stuffs a normal armored dash. In that case you should be throwing out hellfire at the point where Kabal would have to move far enough where he will be caught by it if he tries to dash cancel.

If he is close enough, maybe he can cancel it to get into footsie range (not 100% sure either), but until he footsies his way in, you aren't locked into his pressure system. Depending on the distance between them Kabal should still have options to respect/avoid.
 

187x

Noob
Kabal and Scorp is 6-4 at most. kabal can't Iagb or he will eat a spear or maybe a tele into a combo.. i face good kabals all the time and the MU is 6-4 at most. In the other hand Sonya Scorp is 7-3. Scorpion can't touch Sonya. Low hitbox characters abuse this yellow biitchh
 
Scorpion is one of those characters that truly is unique in this game.

It's like he has an equally good/bad chance against anyone in the game. If he lands one spear, it's void time. His whole game revolves on the ability to land a spear successfully.
I don't agree.

he's not just vortex/spear.

I really hate that generalization of him.

It's a great tool to have. But because of the coinflip aspect. People are sometimes far too willing to gamble every single time.


And it's not just spear... if you're playing the vortex game.

you can commit to F4, 2,1+2, B2, Spear(raw), D1 anti air, air-air kick>teleport, Nuetral Jump punch, hit confirm 1, and more.

All of these lead into vortex. you're gonna make the guy start off playing scorpion completely wrong if you generalize him like that.
 

GrandMasterson

The Netherrealm beckons
The thing is most of the characters that give scorpion a hard time don't really have to jump at him. If anything in matches against characters like cage and sonya he has to AA with spear from far to mid range if they decide to try to jump a hellfire. Characters like kabal, kitana and ect. don't even really need to risk jumping in against scorpion because hellfire isn't a threat. Once they get into footsie range they pretty much dominate scorpion. In kabals case all he has to do is get close. All this is besides the fact that his AA's are pretty slow compared to other characters. His down 1 is quick which is great for crossups and such but jump kick blows it up along with all his other AA's.

Even if his AA's were better scorpion wouldn't be any higher on the tier list. What he needs is at least 1 good footsie move and more range on his 33 so he can make fast punishes on moves with a lot of pushback. A d4 with some advantage would be nice too and a safe B2.
I won't argue about his hard match ups. That shit sucks, but I think Cage and Sonya are the only 2 characters that reduce his AA to below average. I'm not saying Scorpion doesn't have somewhat of a more difficult time landing his AAs then some of the better characters, but I think what he gets off an AA when he does land one makes up for it. The only characters I can think of that really scare me more than Scorp when they AA me is Smoke, Cyrax, Cage, and Sonya. Am I forgetting anyone? Kabal as well I guess.

Also, what is Scorpion's best counter for cross over jump kicks? Does he even have one?

And I think his 3, 3 has great range already, it just needs to be much safer on block to pose a threat as a legitimate footsie tool.
 

Scoot Magee

But I didn't want to dash
Vs kabal is 7-3 imo. He has more mobility than johnny cage and just as good if not better pressure. Kabal doesn't have to gas blast scorpion, all it does is give Scorpion a chance to win.

Grandmasterson, your best bet is to block or read and NJP imo. Any normal aa is too risky. You can even forward dash if you think they will jump and be in range for b2 or f4.
 

STRYKIE

Are ya' ready for MK11 kids?!
RiBBz22 & Scoot Magee - I will say this, zone happy Kabals will make the Scorp matchup look better than it really is for Scorp, but I have played it with Kabals that play the matchup very honestly and hellfire keepaway works well regardless. It's similar to the Kabal/Human Smoke matchup in UMK3 imo, except H.Smoke had much better tools for escaping Kabal's pressure than pokes with no advantage and bipolar armor lol.

Ultimately I think it comes down to who can annoy each other into bigger mistakes, and Kabal isn't forced to make as many, so it's 6-4 in his favor.

I don't agree.

he's not just vortex/spear.

I really hate that generalization of him.

It's a great tool to have. But because of the coinflip aspect. People are sometimes far too willing to gamble every single time.


And it's not just spear... if you're playing the vortex game.

you can commit to F4, 2,1+2, B2, Spear(raw), D1 anti air, air-air kick>teleport, Nuetral Jump punch, hit confirm 1, and more.

All of these lead into vortex. you're gonna make the guy start off playing scorpion completely wrong if you generalize him like that.
It's ignorant to assume that the vortex is his only saving grace, although given my bizarrely high success rate with Scorpion's risks, I don't blame him for thinking like that :p
 

RiBBz22

TYM's Confirmed Prophet/Time-Traveler
RiBBz22 & Scoot Magee - I will say this, zone happy Kabals will make the Scorp matchup look better than it really is for Scorp, but I have played it with Kabals that play the matchup very honestly and hellfire keepaway works well regardless. It's similar to the Kabal/Human Smoke matchup in UMK3 imo, except H.Smoke had much better tools for escaping Kabal's pressure than pokes with no advantage and bipolar armor lol.

Ultimately I think it comes down to who can annoy each other into bigger mistakes, and Kabal isn't forced to make as many, so it's 6-4 in his favor.


It's ignorant to assume that the vortex is his only saving grace, although given my bizarrely high success rate with Scorpion's risks, I don't blame him for thinking like that :p
Ya, I def don't think it is even. I think it is 6-4 as well. Scorp has tools to deal with some of Kabal's BS, but by no means does that make things even.
 

Scoot Magee

But I didn't want to dash
I'm not going to go back on my 7-3. Kabal doesn't have to throw 1 fireball to beat scorpion. I'm pretty sure hellfire doesn't stop armor so kabal can get in for free and pressure. Even if hellfire did work he can eat 1 or 2 before he gets in and then game over. I think I have enough experience against reo's kabal to understand how the match is played.
 
I'm not going to go back on my 7-3. Kabal doesn't have to throw 1 fireball to beat scorpion. Hellfire doesn't stop armor so kabal can get in for free and pressure. Even if hellfire did work he can eat 1 or 2 before he gets in and then game over. I think I have enough experience against reo's kabal to understand how the match is played.
scorpion does pretty well against almost all kinds of zoning in the game, pressure is what fucks up scorpion bad, slow normals, bad pokes, inconsistent armor...
 

Scoot Magee

But I didn't want to dash
scorpion does pretty well against almost all kinds of zoning in the game, pressure is what fucks up scorpion bad, slow normals, bad pokes, inconsistent armor...
This is basically what I'm saying. If kabal zones he is only giving scorpion a chance to win. He has no reason to zone at all.
 

Scoot Magee

But I didn't want to dash
You can't really make his full vortex safe unless you made spear safe. He would be better with a safe on block b2 though because it could be used as a footsie tool but it would still be punishable on whiff. On top of that he would have a safe option to deal big damage in the vortex.