MadPropz101
"I still got it...but not much of it"
If you main Kotal Kahn and you don't play War God, you're probably gimping yourself.
I can understand where you're coming from partly, but I don't agree with your statement at all, at least with Sun God. I don't have any experience with Blood God yet, but I will talk about things that Blood God can get through the moves Sun and Blood God share.I read a lot of posts in here with crazy setups and reasons why BG and SG might be viable someday
So I want KK community to give up on them and just focus on War God for the sake of everyone, so that KK sees more crazy setups and more tournament play.
The two things that determine character sucess in FG are ability to force a reaction and ability to punish
1) Ability to force a reaction is a lot of things.
- You character has a good/safe mixup? This means your opponent just cannot allow you to get close and will be throwing things out.
- Does your character has that + on block normal that you can spam over and over again (see pre-patch Kano) until your opponent finally decides to try something
- Do you have a zoning move or far reaching normal that pushes your opponent back, so that he has to take some kind of risk to approach?
- Maybe you have nothing but a string that builds a lot of meter and leaves you safe to try again? Well your opponent definitely doesnt want to block it too often does he?
- Do you have a powerful armor move that keeps your opponent at check all the time, afraid to throw moves out?
Basically do you have ANY means of annoying your opponent?
2) Ability to punish is not just block punishment. Its an ablity to profit from a good read. You want to be able to extract damage from correct guesses and you want that damage to grow with the amount of effort it took to make that read (if you had to take a high risk, reward must be also high). If you block a mixup - you gotta punish. If you read a poke - you want to profit from it too. Did you just backdash to let that swing fly by? Get them before they can block. Do you see them jumping? Please teach them that ground is a far safer place to be. There should be a conditions which set your damage going. You will try to reach those and your opponent will try to work around them.
Combination of those is what also creates a comeback factor, that would allow you to take a couple of bad reads/mistakes and still come up on top in the end, making good reads later on.
How does Blood and Sun god fair in these aspects?
1) SG and BG doesnt have good mixup. In fact BG has NO mixup at all, while SG has mixup that has obnoxiously bad RR and completely unreliable and risky block pressure (as you can only throw-cancel from pokes and thus every poke becomes a gamble), his zoning is a joke (well you can buff your sundisks into 30% projectiles but it will still be a god damn shitty 30% projectile) his pokes are decent but do not convert to anything, b/c KK totally fails at...
2) punishment. SG and BG just DO NOT profit from reads. Where WG can take a hard read and counterpoke with b14 (and hitconfirm it into and overhead starter) and take that 35%+ your best bet is 2-3% or throw into non-existant pressure and wakeups. Where WG has a strong armor that is also a deterrent against hard to AA jumps and crossups SG and BG has ... mace parry? the worst parry in the game probably?
Their only hope is an extremely setup-heavy situations which must be achieved first to work, but no tools to achieve them are provided, eliminating any means for comeback to these variations.
Thanks for letting me know. Which armor moves beat it consistently? It sounds like 2,1, air throw wouldn't be good either if that's the case.@LeeVanDam Kotal's 212 can be backdashed and armored between the 1 and the second 2. Just so you know.
Any of them IIRC. As long as the armor has two hits of armor.Thanks for letting me know. Which armor moves beat it consistently? It sounds like 2,1, air throw wouldn't be good either if that's the case.
Im guilty of downplaying sungod and bloodgod, i know,...but damn this was a great post you made. Good stuff man.I can understand where you're coming from partly, but I don't agree with your statement at all, at least with Sun God. I don't have any experience with Blood God yet, but I will talk about things that Blood God can get through the moves Sun and Blood God share.
1. A strike/command grab mix-up is always a good mix-up because the command grab has to be evaded. With a character who has an anti-air juggle starter (EX Anti-Air), a way to make the command throw eat counter pokes by giving it armor, and many ways to catch backdashing Sun God has plenty of other options besides the tick throw itself. Besides, cancelling the throw on block can still be jumped out of so you're better not using that too often and just doing a traditional tick set up.
2. Block pressure is better from normals for Kotal Kahn to begin with. Take the string 2,1,2. If you hit someone with d+1, they can't neutral duck the string and have to stand to block the overhead at the end. It's only -1 on block, so EVERY variation of Kotal Kahn gets to d+1 again with their only option being to try and armor out or d+1 you back. Trying anything else risks them being 1 frame off and eating 1,1,4, air throw which is safe on hit or block. That's a lot of block pressure (and a lot of meter!). War God can armor through their d+1 for a launcher, Sun and Blood God can normal parry and punish with 1,1,4 juggles. Sun God can also armor through with SGC. Blood God with the right totem deals 10% block damage from that sequence alone (and if you parry the d+1, which is reasonable with the totem out... they have to break the combo or they're probably dead). This kind of block pressure is what makes people sit and take the command grab after blocking or getting hit with d+1 without having to cancel.
Also, b+3,2 is still only -3 on block so much of the cast can't do anything about your pressure besides d+1. You can armor/parry through it, armor/EX parry through their follow up after d+1 (including command grabs for the EX parry since it's only 2 frame start up). Sun God can armor through counter attacks after a blocked f+1,2 with EX SGC, which makes people scared... and makes them respect you so you have an easier time moving in. Blood God could EX parry, which is riskier but even more damaging with the follow up.
Also, from 2,1,2 on block not only is d+4 amazing because it barely hits them and gives you time to run back in... in the corner you can 2,1,2 again and they HAVE to block! For War God, it makes d+4 scary because you can lame out with this... and then overhead once you're bored for the corner combo. Sun God still has the command grab because they can't move out of the corner, can't tech the grab, and level 3 puts them back into the corner!! You can still 1,1,4 them if they are button happy and for every version of Kotal Kahn that's going to be almost 50%.
If you're having fun with ranges, just standing 4 into Anti Air Throw for meter on block. It's still safe and the boot covers a lot of distance.
3. Hard read from the same b+1,4 gets Blood and Sun God at least 22% with EX Sun Stone, so we're not handicapped badly there either. The the corner, you can b+1,2,2 and hit confirm SGC... or EX Sun Stone on block to get advantage. Again, they have to standing block the over head.
b+1,4, EX Sun Stone, d+1, 1,1,4, EX Anti Air grab, whatever you want to finish with. Sun God gets 50% from this with the level 3 grab, and you don't even have to try to hit confirm it because on block it's one of the hardest things to interrupt. If you trade and Sun Stone hits them, you still get the juggle. You can also do this from b+1,2,2 on hit confirm in case they're not completely in the corner yet.
4. Every version of Kotal Kahn profits from reads with high damage combos. War God may have more opportunities to armor through stuff, but Kotal Kahn is not lacking with normal starters like f+2... 1,1,4... f+3,4... any stuff into EX Sun Stone in corner... blah blah blah. Kotal Kahn fares extremely well with whiff punishing due to his very fast walk speed. With the block pressure I listed above, you can walk backwards out of their opponent's d+1 attempt and f+2 them for huge damage. Block punishment with 1,1,4 or f+2, or b+1,1,2 is great since it gives us access to almost every reasonable pushback range on block. Blood and Sun God are going to have to commit to the parry just like War God commits to the armored attacks, it's not like either are safe if the opponent isn't attacking. Parry > 1,1,4, air throw hurts for no meter. Even if we have to backdash after a hard to punish AA we blocked, we still have an option. EX Anti Air grab does great versus cross up attacks though, I normally have more issues with it trading on far jump kicks than anything else. You can always comeback with Kotal Kahn, because his damage can make him extremely momentum based. One combo along with good poking can make anyone fall apart if they aren't careful.
I think War God is an AMAZING variation. However we don't even emphasis fundamentals to know whether it's leaps or bounds above every other variation. The difference between a free launcher due to armor and a free combo from parry is small. NRS made the armor version unsafe, so you're at risk just like we are. There are some matchups where the reach and mid/low mix up makes everything much easier, but other matchups can be even or worse because range doesn't matter. I love Sun God, and I know that Sun God takes more work than War God to succeed sometimes, but I refuse for you to tell me to give it up just because you haven't sat down with him to truly figure things out.
Blood Offering and Sun Ray have their place, and we've already determined that you can safely use them after certain juggles and the normal throw. That alone makes them not useless, but you need to work with them properly.
I agree with you that we all need to work hard and improve Kotal Kahn's technology, and I really believe we need to start with good use of normals. It's only going to make every variation better if we all have solid fundamentals. It'll make War God scarier because you'll need less use of the great mid/low mix up you have.
so that i can spam my opponents with "YOU CAN'T MAX THE TASTE OF SUNNY D" whenever i winI don't understand why someone using sun god wouldn't use the command grab. Why did you pick this variation then?
Very well, I shall answer
This is one of the biggest concerns I have going forward. People definitely haven't learned to punish F2 or F1B2 consistently yet. When they do, ouch.when people are not punishing most of your moves. .
i like how you dont even mention damage reduction totem in the defense section. it should always be your default choice in the neutral.Blood God:
Offense- Overheads and lows are limited to combo strings/unique attacks, and while Kotal has both, the only time he could 50/50 the opponent would be on the first hit (B2 or F3). Since both are relatively slow attacks, especially B2, which gets stuffed by lows that look like they shouldn't connect, this 50/50 will often be avoided. Even if it hits, B2 doesn't lead to a combo, and while F3 does, this combo string is very limited for BG and SG, unless they give up a bar, which isn't ideal, due to the lost resource and because it moves the opponent away, when Kotal usually wants to be close. He also has a throw, which, as people have said, when buffed with the damage totem does more than SG's choke, but the totems aren't the best because, one, you have to find a time to set them, and, two, you can't refresh them whenever you want. This second is a BIG hindrance, as it means you're beholden to a set cool down, instead of the actual pace of the match. He of course has good punishes against back dashes and moves with long recoveries, but that's the same across variations, and if we're factoring in the totem, the same problem with it exists as said above. All in all, BG's offense is very poor, with few options.
Defense- BG's only unique defense, compared to WG, is the parry, which, unfortunately, isn't very good. If the parry worked differently, perhaps it could be as consistently useful as WG's enhanced overhead sword or SG's enhanced choke, but as it is, the damage boost lasts too short a time to capitalize with much and often the attack can be avoided, blocked, or it will get stuffed by the next hit of the opponent's move/string. This means BG's defense is just as lacking as his offense, with his only options being things that both other variations have.
Overview- We all agree that BG can shell out massive damage (the combo videos exist to prove it!), but that's not going to matter if you can't get a hit or can't get the opponent off of you.
Obsidian totem is good, but it doesn't do anything but delay the inevitable. Blood god's offensive and defensive capability is barebone, making it so totems really don't provide the amount of depth they deserve. I'd take armor over the damage reduction, its more practical, more useful.i like how you dont even mention damage reduction totem in the defense section. it should always be your default choice in the neutral.
this, his obsidian totem is actually really useful in case you get punished, especially when there are a lot of characters who can match your damage or exceed it (D'vorah, Scorpion, etc)i like how you dont even mention damage reduction totem in the defense section. it should always be your default choice in the neutral.
i wouldn't, i'd prefer having them both in his kit but not simultaneously, as much of a wet dream that would beObsidian totem is good, but it doesn't do anything but delay the inevitable. Blood god's offensive and defensive capability is barebone, making it so totems really don't provide the amount of depth they deserve. I'd take armor over the damage reduction, its more practical, more useful.
Obsidian opens up a new layer of mindgames, especially in combination with sunbeam and chest cut. the opponent will have to open you up multiple times but better not get touched once himself. how is he gonna behave? this is where bg kotals game starts imo and you can make use of stuff like his unsafe normals and the parry. its pure mindfuckery.Obsidian totem is good, but it doesn't do anything but delay the inevitable. Blood god's offensive and defensive capability is barebone, making it so totems really don't provide the amount of depth they deserve. I'd take armor over the damage reduction, its more practical, more useful.
I don't agree. Anyone who knows the MU, should rush kotal kahn down immediately. Blood god can do nothing about it. In that scenario, its unlikely you will be able to summon obsidian totem. Even if you did it doesn't stop blood gods inability to deal with rush downs.Obsidian opens up a new layer of mindgames, especially in combination with sunbeam and chest cut. the opponent will have to open you up multiple times but better not get touched once himself. how is he gonna behave? this is where bg kotals game starts imo and you can make use of stuff like his unsafe normals and the parry. its pure mindfuckery.
Any if those would be OPI doubt NRS would introduce an armor totem on top of what he already has, but what if:
1) Crystal totem gave you armor for a bar.
2) Obsidian totem allowed you to take 45% less damage, instead of the standard 34%, for a bar.
3) Blood totem didn't disappear when you were hit, when enhanced with a bar.
IMO, just the first one would help him dramatically. Would all three be OP?
True, but it's still hella useful. I get the impression that Blood God was designed with the idea that parry is more effective than it actually is.I didn't mention obsidian totem for the reason others have said: it's not going to get anyone off of you, unlike armored moves..
i dont think his damage totem should give him armor; that'd be way too jarring considering he can already chip you really hard if he's got meter too. putting it on, say, blood totem or just making a fourth totem exclusively for armor would make more sense; for the former, because it would allow you to tank one hit and then lose your stored-up meter/health if you get hit again before the armor refresh.I doubt NRS would introduce an armor totem on top of what he already has, but what if:
1) Crystal totem gave you armor for a bar.
2) Obsidian totem allowed you to take 45% less damage, instead of the standard 34%, for a bar.
3) Blood totem didn't disappear when you were hit, when enhanced with a bar.
IMO, just the first one would help him dramatically. Would all three be OP?
I don't think it would help. The best way to look at blood gods problems is to just look at his baseline moveset. The following problem become apparent:I doubt NRS would introduce an armor totem on top of what he already has, but what if:
1) Crystal totem gave you armor for a bar.
2) Obsidian totem allowed you to take 45% less damage, instead of the standard 34%, for a bar.
3) Blood totem didn't disappear when you were hit, when enhanced with a bar.
IMO, just the first one would help him dramatically. Would all three be OP?