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Question - Hat Trick How viable is hat trick Kung Lao?

D7X

D7X

EMPEROR | D7X
I really want to play him but can't find a decent combo BNB guide. Is he worth doing? (He's the only KL var. I'm interested in)
 
Aqueous_Echo

Aqueous_Echo

Kombatant
He was the only variation i liked, and only one i really co-mained, for a very long time.

However, with the current meta and changes to the game and Lao specifically... Hat trick suffered from too many universal Lao nerfs and the hat trap has its hitbox issues where it even whiffs crouching/crouch blocking opponents even if u MB call back. Which is wasted bar, youre negative when youre supposed to be plus, and lost your turn.

Hat trick is an awesome idea but man hes just went the Whole life cycle without being helped or hurt and with all other characters and variations getting help... Hat trick is just forgotten about in these updates for some reason.
 
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llabslb

llabslb

R1D1_998
He's pretty honest imo. He's pretty unreliable because his mids (callbacks) have whiffing issues. Other than that, not top bad.
 
biggabarr

biggabarr

chilling
Don’t waste your time, he is high risk low reward, doesn’t allow for mistakes and he is unreliable when it comes to his strings, his normal are the worst and has no mix up potential. The idea behind hat tricks is good but its garbage getting it to work, with a little attention shown to him by NRS he could get better. you see his specials were made to compliment his normals, however they kept nerfing his specials and made no changes to his normals other than nerfing them also, so that sorter made him no good, so PLS NRS fix Kung Lao issues. His teleport issues, his no overhead no spin without hat, his constant whiffing on almost all the cast, his damage across all variation compare to character that have mad 50/50 and still do more damage than him, Pls fix tempest hat spin so it doesn’t get low profile or have character sliding under it as it is (mid), Pls pls allow buz saw bf2 to have a + hit advantage Pls help kung lao NRS PLS, PLS PLS ….
 
The_Tile

The_Tile

Your hole is mine!
He still has very strong corner pressure, but as people have said he's suffered from so many universal Lao nerfs and general game play changes without getting anything to compensate.

Is he viable? Yes. Is there really any reason to use him? Not really.
 
ienjoywinning

ienjoywinning

Warrior
Well I wouldn't call him viable but he is usable , he has so many issues relating to hat call backs whiffing and also the latest Lao nerfs and general universal changes hurt him bad. He is still cool and fun to play with though.
 
Eddy Wang

Eddy Wang

Skarlet scientist
Don't trust anyone that tells you Hat Trick is viable, i wouldn't recommend this variation to anyone that wants to play competitively on his current state.

  • 112124 can be forced to whiff the last hit because it hits high, some characters can stand and crouch in between the string and make the last hit whiff and punish it.
  • The hitbox of his hands are very short on this string as result your last hit doesn't connect so when you try to cancel into HCB it won't happen.
  • Hat Trick has no plus hat trap, any string you cancel into hat trap is minus, as result your pressure game its gimmicky as fuck, the opponent can do pretty much whatever they want to once you blockstring into hat trap, it requires exact reads on your opponents actions to maintain your pressure if they're 5 frames slower than you.
  • The only reliable trap hat trick had was hatarang into hat trap before the hat respawns, it wasn't exactly plus but the distance was good to fake going ins and allowed some room to work with, NRS stealth nerfed that.
  • The only reliable move you have is finish your blockstrings into ex hat call back because its plus enough on block to maintain some pressure, which is what keeps hat trick some wins these days.
  • But then again, it whiffs on most of the cast crouching, crouch blocking, and breathing hitboxes anyway so no, its not 100% reliable
  • any blockstring into HCB is launch punishable by Kung Lao and any other character with a 7f reversal, you can't use your most needed tool on mirrors, you're fucked.
  • Hatarang has a 10f gap on its way back, if you get hit after using your meter, the hitbox of your returning hat is disabled and the hat just ghost through your opponent, thank you NRS that stealth nerf wasn't needed just as the first one, i just used a bar.
  • Sometimes hatarang will only connect on first hit, the second one will get blocked for random reasons, its not 100% consistent after you use a bar.
If you think about it, this should be enough to discourage you to play, then again these are not the end of his problems get ready to be disappointed.

  • The general gameplay has a issue that if launchers hit someone crouching it will launch the characters on a very different height than standing, hat trick has launchers that hit characters crouching and standing, but the juggle height is different from both, you end up not having a consistent filler and in many cases you don't have a filler at all to do damage when you make right reads, because your opponent barely leaves the ground besides being your turn, this is the tip of the "Boneshaper" that killed hat trick and made many of us abandon him as a competitive variation.
Then it comes the other things
  • Above hat trap is probably the most useless move in history of fighting games second to Leona's boomerang, its placed on a spot with no use, doesn't hit anyone with that trajectory and placement, cannot extend combo strings if HCB.
  • Away hat trap could have been the ultimate wonder of MKX, but lao cannot extend combos when the hat is behind him, as result all tp characters are a bad MU by default, since he can't spin or extend combos for a spin because hat is behind him
  • Cannot combo into ex tp mb throw from a string
  • His default costume has less reach than his MK3 one on some moves.
But then again who am i to explain this right? i'm just a fly in the pro MK world, if you want a better explanation why you should or shouldn't play Hat Trick you better ask Scar he is the best hat trick the world has ever seen, maybe if he posted all these a few months back , hat trick would end up getting the fixes he needs, but no he beated sonic fox at esl back then making the rest of us obsolete by showing the world how to properly use underused variations.

Shootouts to the entire Hat Trick community who was there and grinded this variation along with me, it was a crazy ride, we know the feels of getting our requests ignored, and not even a message in response was given to ease our souls MKXL arrived to mostly everyone, didn't arrived for Hat Trick, we feel the same as the PC community or even worse, since our variation is worse than it was before the XL update.
 
Saltea Moonspell

Saltea Moonspell

"Mind Over Matter" I dont mind, and X dont matter
I've been playing HT since January. Some like Eddy Wong since the start. As much as I love HT he is not viable. Its unfortunete he's been wasted by NRS. Here, take a look at this round, i've lost to this dude 8-20 by the end of the set.
Good luck if You pick him up!
 
Eddy Wang

Eddy Wang

Skarlet scientist
ROG Moonspell said:
I've been playing HT since January. Some like Eddy Wong since the start. As much as I love HT he is not viable. Its unfortunete he's been wasted by NRS. Here, take a look at this round, i've lost to this dude 8-20 by the end of the set.
Good luck if You pick him up!
Click to expand...
A Hat and a dream.
 
WakeUp DP

WakeUp DP

GT MK OshTekk.
Lao is mid tier all across variations. After MKXL patch everyone dropped him.

He has major issues, even tempest lao isn't tournament viable anymore.
 
GAV

GAV

Resolution through knowledge and resolve.
He's very fun to fight against, but I've yet to run into one that could hold up against my Sun God. The hat tricks look cool, but they are hard to use effectively.
 
Tweedy

Tweedy

Champion
Hat Trick does good damage, so a player like Scar could take it and win. That doesn't mean the variation is good. It's quite trash indeed friends.
 
Saltea Moonspell

Saltea Moonspell

"Mind Over Matter" I dont mind, and X dont matter
D7X said:
Tempest is still mid tier, eh?
Scar did a great job with Hat Trick this ESL season against Aliens.
Click to expand...
Dude,
That's not the point. You can do well against 3/4 of the cast. The problem is that from design point of view he is not complete. You clearly don't know HT well enough. And to make it crystal clear, no body here is downplaying.
 
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