Professor Oak
Are you a boy or girl?
So, I play quite a few people from this forum in Mortal Kombat 11. Im doing my best to improve and many members have given me great advice and Ive definitely gotten beter. Some players ask me for advice, and I wanted to make this post for the general forum goer.
Mortal Kombat 11's poking system is whack as fuck. Full stop. It has encouraged newer players to play in a disgusting way that gets them blown up 10 times out of 9 by anyone with experience. Let me start with some vocabulary for the not yet initiated:
Pokes: These are your single hit crouching attacks. All accessible by inputting down+a face button.
D1: This is your crouching jab. There is only one character who can extend their crouching Jab, Jax, ye still D1s will not combo from a special cancel in any situation outside of a juggle. This attack is universally a mid.
D3: Crouching Low Kick. The name implies and certainly means that this kick comes from crouch position, and in every case but Geras, and Frost, it is a low. Like d1, this will not combo outside of a juggle.
These moves have similar uses that usually boil down to stopping your opponents momentum, and beginning your own. Ill get more into specifics here shortly, but there is another poke that has unique uses.
D4: This poke typically reaches the farthest, grants the most advantage, but is typically the slowest. Think of it as your tool to tell the player "Stop, I dont know you, get away." It will also not grant a combo, but it does hit low.
Now I know, "Look Pokemon guy, we know this, what gives?" Glad you asked, audience that Im imagining and voicing.
In NRS titles, this system is paramount. Think of each fight as divided into turns, player A can maintain offense until they have committed to an option that leaves them vulnerable, thus ending their turn allowing Player B to take their offensive turn. To better understand when we or our opponent are vulnerable, we refer to the frame data. To keep this in the realm of pokes we will focus only on such attacks.
Commonly, D1s and D3s will be in the range of 6-9 frames of startup. They are among the fastest attacks in the game, yet they lead to the lowest amount of damage alone and as we said before, are special cancellable but do not combo. Now the important info Id like to get into. Hit and block advantage. For this, we will use Geras, a very strong character with a great d1. Geras' d1 is 6 frames startup, -4 frames block advantage, and 13 frames of hit advantage.
We should all be familiar with Jacquis f31 feint pressure. Understanding that her feint from this string has -2 block advantage, we can see that Geras' d1 would interrupt another f3. Subtracting these frames from Jacquis f3, making it 11 frames, d1 at 6 frames easily enforces Geras' turn. Now, Jacqui, going for a second f3 will be hit, leaving Geras at +13. This naturally opens up many possibilities to get damage. The goal of establishing your turn should be to get as much damage as possible. Now, you, as Geras, have 13 frames of advantage to work with. You can go into a blockstring, throw, the world is yours. The opponent will still have the option to block, so the last thing you want to do, is another d1. You will be at -4, making your awesome d1 now 10 frames, being slower than jacquis f3, youre forced back into block pressure and have not gained a health advantage. Lets say youre new, you didnt know, or youre some sort of massochist, and you did d1 during that hit advantage, and maybe youre used to wifi or fighting ai or youre just a tad dense, you mashed a third d1, now youre kountered for a full combo.
In short, pokes are to obtain your offensive turn, they are not your turn. Refer to your in game frame data for situations you can poke out of.
Now, that being said, you can also poke when you should be negative enough to end your turn, we refer to this as stealing your turn, or disrespecting. Keeping with the same data we will continue to use Geras and Jacqui.Usually, this will come down to a risk or a read of the opponents habits. Say Jacqui cancelled f31 and blocked, rather than going for a second f3. You may think hope is lost, back in this pressure. Well, possibly not! Lets say the Jacqui player has a tendency to stagger a standing jab(S1) and you read she will after your blocked d1, then let that baby rip one more time. In Mortal Kombat 11, most pokes will go under(Low profile) high attacks. Your d1 would also hit if the character who blocked the initial d1 didnt have or didnt use a mid faster than 11 frames. There are also some exceptions due to hitbox/Hurtbox issues.
Basically, you should almost never poke twice in a row. Almost.
Dont give up your chance to win. If your poke hits, know that you have the chance to make them hurt. If its blocked, know how to defend yourself. I may come back and add more to this, but I do also plan on writing up some tips on blocking/Getting hit by pokes. Hope this helps someone, cheers!
Mortal Kombat 11's poking system is whack as fuck. Full stop. It has encouraged newer players to play in a disgusting way that gets them blown up 10 times out of 9 by anyone with experience. Let me start with some vocabulary for the not yet initiated:
Pokes: These are your single hit crouching attacks. All accessible by inputting down+a face button.
D1: This is your crouching jab. There is only one character who can extend their crouching Jab, Jax, ye still D1s will not combo from a special cancel in any situation outside of a juggle. This attack is universally a mid.
D3: Crouching Low Kick. The name implies and certainly means that this kick comes from crouch position, and in every case but Geras, and Frost, it is a low. Like d1, this will not combo outside of a juggle.
These moves have similar uses that usually boil down to stopping your opponents momentum, and beginning your own. Ill get more into specifics here shortly, but there is another poke that has unique uses.
D4: This poke typically reaches the farthest, grants the most advantage, but is typically the slowest. Think of it as your tool to tell the player "Stop, I dont know you, get away." It will also not grant a combo, but it does hit low.
Now I know, "Look Pokemon guy, we know this, what gives?" Glad you asked, audience that Im imagining and voicing.
In NRS titles, this system is paramount. Think of each fight as divided into turns, player A can maintain offense until they have committed to an option that leaves them vulnerable, thus ending their turn allowing Player B to take their offensive turn. To better understand when we or our opponent are vulnerable, we refer to the frame data. To keep this in the realm of pokes we will focus only on such attacks.
Commonly, D1s and D3s will be in the range of 6-9 frames of startup. They are among the fastest attacks in the game, yet they lead to the lowest amount of damage alone and as we said before, are special cancellable but do not combo. Now the important info Id like to get into. Hit and block advantage. For this, we will use Geras, a very strong character with a great d1. Geras' d1 is 6 frames startup, -4 frames block advantage, and 13 frames of hit advantage.
We should all be familiar with Jacquis f31 feint pressure. Understanding that her feint from this string has -2 block advantage, we can see that Geras' d1 would interrupt another f3. Subtracting these frames from Jacquis f3, making it 11 frames, d1 at 6 frames easily enforces Geras' turn. Now, Jacqui, going for a second f3 will be hit, leaving Geras at +13. This naturally opens up many possibilities to get damage. The goal of establishing your turn should be to get as much damage as possible. Now, you, as Geras, have 13 frames of advantage to work with. You can go into a blockstring, throw, the world is yours. The opponent will still have the option to block, so the last thing you want to do, is another d1. You will be at -4, making your awesome d1 now 10 frames, being slower than jacquis f3, youre forced back into block pressure and have not gained a health advantage. Lets say youre new, you didnt know, or youre some sort of massochist, and you did d1 during that hit advantage, and maybe youre used to wifi or fighting ai or youre just a tad dense, you mashed a third d1, now youre kountered for a full combo.
In short, pokes are to obtain your offensive turn, they are not your turn. Refer to your in game frame data for situations you can poke out of.
Now, that being said, you can also poke when you should be negative enough to end your turn, we refer to this as stealing your turn, or disrespecting. Keeping with the same data we will continue to use Geras and Jacqui.Usually, this will come down to a risk or a read of the opponents habits. Say Jacqui cancelled f31 and blocked, rather than going for a second f3. You may think hope is lost, back in this pressure. Well, possibly not! Lets say the Jacqui player has a tendency to stagger a standing jab(S1) and you read she will after your blocked d1, then let that baby rip one more time. In Mortal Kombat 11, most pokes will go under(Low profile) high attacks. Your d1 would also hit if the character who blocked the initial d1 didnt have or didnt use a mid faster than 11 frames. There are also some exceptions due to hitbox/Hurtbox issues.
Basically, you should almost never poke twice in a row. Almost.
Dont give up your chance to win. If your poke hits, know that you have the chance to make them hurt. If its blocked, know how to defend yourself. I may come back and add more to this, but I do also plan on writing up some tips on blocking/Getting hit by pokes. Hope this helps someone, cheers!
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