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How many of us actually use the custom variations?

Do you use kustoms?

  • Yes. Exclusively. I only use my character the way I tailored them.

  • Nope. Tournament Variations only. They're not tourney legal so I don't even bother.

  • Bit of both. I have my Tournament main, but I have my kustoms too.


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Plop

Noob
There's been a lot of talk about Kustoms recently. Mainly whether or not they should be allowed in tournaments/ranked and whether or not they would breathe new life into the game or not etc. I think it's got the community pretty split down the middle.

When tournament variations were announced i was a little bit disappointed but, being an online player, figured it wasn't the end of the world since I don't go to tournaments or anything. I figured there'd still be "kustom move threads" on here for each character and people would still play around with the custom moves and post what they found, but noone's really doing that (although, Brady's Ice Puddle videos have been pretty cool). That's a shame, i think. That said though, when the game launched i tried to stick to using the tournament variations, just to stay on the same page as everyone else really.
After a while though, I realised I didn't really have to. I think (especially now a year in, when the game's gotten a bit stale) there's more fun to be had playing around with different moves n shit. I don't play KL anymore because most of the rewards are shit (the last thing I need is more wrongly coloured ninja skins plaguing my game. Absolute pet HATE...anyway, i digress).

I find some characters already have the moves I'd like already there in one variation, some have the right moves, but spread out across several variations and some don't even have them in any variations. So for me, I like Beserker Baraka how he is, for Kabal I want Hook Grab, Low Hook Grab and Gas (which he has normally, but spread throughout all his variations, and for Shang I want launching corpses, damage buff spell thing and the swap spell (which aren't in any variations). I would consider these versions of these 3 characters my mains and tend to stick to these. They haven't always been, but I've had a lot of fun over the last year playing around with different loadouts and seeing what I like and what I don't.

But yeah, I'm curious about the rest of you anyway. How do you approach the kustoms? If you do use them, what loadouts do you use?

Tell us about them!


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Demon_0

RIP Akira Toriyama
I play more casual matches because as soon as I play Kombat League I regret it. That means more custom variations play for me.
 

Second Saint

A man with too many names.
I don't play with them, but I've labbed D'vorah kustoms. There are two viable combinations, imo. Strep + Deadly Swarm + Parasite because Strep applies a deadly swarm bug for each projectile, meaning you can get 3-4 on with one throw combo and be right in their face with a 330 damage throw KB and +13. The setups you already use in Buzzed lead to ridiculous damage after and you can absolutely delete health bars.

The other is Strep+Widow's Kiss. The teleport allows you to get unbreakable strep setups that still do 240, and because of the timing are wholly unique to this kustom. While also having the utility and extra launching potential of teleport in general.
 
I'm still adamant that Night Wolf's Ancestral Gift (V2) variation should have had Moonfall instead of the teleport. That is by far my preferred way to play the character and I'm convinced Moonfall was meant to be paired with Tomahawk Swing. He doesn't even need the teleport.

Custom Shang is also my preferred way to play the character (Ermac, Corpse Explosion, Reptile). I play mostly tournament variations but I really wanted customs to be the real deal in this game.
I think also the perception of "well I could learn how to play with these moves, but then it's not the 'real' way to play" is super discouraging and separating the two worlds makes this a real issue.
 

Zviko

Noob
Tournament only for me as I only play ranked. I don't even know what custom abilities some characters have, I've never checked. I do wish they make them legal for ranked though cause I'd like to try something new. Only between tournament variations there are moves I'd like to use in 1 variation.
 

xWildx

What a day. What a lovely day.
I go through phases. I’ll be all about them for like a week, then remember they mean nothing and go back to tournament.
 

Art Lean

Noob
I don’t play online, just TOT, as well as obviously story mode and local on the rare occasions. I play for fun and I design characters around moves I find easiest to perform and string together in small combos, as well as obviously ones that can be augmented to pure devastation.

My default Sindel I created absolutely annihilates pretty much any AI on the TOT thanks to the moves and augment mix, as well as a D’Vorah who can tear any boss to shreds with her fatal blow.

In fact, weaponising these characters as AI killers with move sets and augments has become a little fun game for me in itself, working out how to turn them into a custom tank!
 

Plop

Noob
I don't play with them, but I've labbed D'vorah kustoms. There are two viable combinations, imo. Strep + Deadly Swarm + Parasite because Strep applies a deadly swarm bug for each projectile, meaning you can get 3-4 on with one throw combo and be right in their face with a 330 damage throw KB and +13. The setups you already use in Buzzed lead to ridiculous damage after and you can absolutely delete health bars.

The other is Strep+Widow's Kiss. The teleport allows you to get unbreakable strep setups that still do 240, and because of the timing are wholly unique to this kustom. While also having the utility and extra launching potential of teleport in general.
I also like to use the flies with the streps. I like to use the flipping out overheads too though. It's easier to land the flipping out kb once the streps are out cos both the low and the overhead lead to damage and you're still kept safe. and the throw kb is there too obviously. It's lush
 
I use the tourney ones for my five daily matches in KL, but don't touch the ranked mode aside from that and spend all of my time in Kasuals with my own builds. It's much better and allows you to play with actual full characters where you don't just completely ignore various moves you can do because they're useless to you and they're replaced with things you'll actually incorporate into your game play,

After a year of doing that, I've yet to see these so called broken builds which put characters three tiers above the best tournament legal variations and somehow make the game unplayable or whatever it is that people are saying about them.
 

RoboCop

The future of law enforcement.
Administrator
Premium Supporter
I've got some kustoms put together, like Noob with Air Port, Launcher Port, and Ghost Ball. So basically Dark Sabbath with the shitty Sickle Port replaced with regular air teleport. I would 100% use that variation if it was legal for competitive, but it's not, so I don't.
 

Zviko

Noob
I've got some kustoms put together, like Noob with Air Port, Launcher Port, and Ghost Ball. So basically Dark Sabbath with the shitty Sickle Port replaced with regular air teleport. I would 100% use that variation if it was legal for competitive, but it's not, so I don't.
Does the air port become a launcher if you have them both equipped?
 

MuMuGuy

Noob
Custom Variations are a waste of time. After how badly Kollector’s War Quiot Toss (chakram) was nerfed, one can’t even use customs to prepare for potentially added tournament-legal Variations.
 

Plop

Noob
Custom Variations are a waste of time. After how badly Kollector’s War Quiot Toss (chakram) was nerfed, one can’t even use customs to prepare for potentially added tournament-legal Variations.
I'll agree with you there. Chakram was the only decent custom move he had and now it's pointless. Kollector's one of the characters that don't benefit from custom at all
 
For ToT and causual i use kustoms . They are fun and they let u play ur character how ever u want . Problem tho is that some moves are just better then others . Some characters like kano can make a lot of different customs and they all work , and some characters cant even get more then 1 (looking at raiden and shao). I would love for nrs to make customs legal but they would have to rework ,buff and nerf a lot of moves .
 

Plop

Noob
For ToT and causual i use kustoms . They are fun and they let u play ur character how ever u want . Problem tho is that some moves are just better then others . Some characters like kano can make a lot of different customs and they all work , and some characters cant even get more then 1 (looking at raiden and shao). I would love for nrs to make customs legal but they would have to rework ,buff and nerf a lot of moves .
Shao's one of the characters that already has his best moves in variations, but spread out. For Shao i use Annihilation, aerial hammer throw and switch around between shadow priest and low hammer. I don't think he's got anything left unused that's worth using. Tbh I think they scraped the bottom of the barrel to make v3
 
Shao's one of the characters that already has his best moves in variations, but spread out. For Shao i use Annihilation, aerial hammer throw and switch around between shadow priest and low hammer. I don't think he's got anything left unused that's worth using. Tbh I think they scraped the bottom of the barrel to make v3
I actualy think that the only good moves he has are his throwing hammer , anihilation and skewer . Shadow priest and ridicule are rly bad gimmicks , so is up hammer . They might work from time to time but more often than not they wont. That would prolly be the only variation i think would be any good . Dark priest can be swaped , maybe in one of those slots , but thats about it . As for raiden raijin and storm cell are only good things he has and even his electric current is worse then storm cell so ur left with half of v2 and half of v1 in one package. Rest of his kit is just unusable and sub par.
 
I generally stick with Tournament variation but play with customs allowed so I can practice against more varied opponents.

Occasionally I'll whip out a pretty stupid version of Kotal with his CG and damage totem for funsies.
 

Plop

Noob
I actualy think that the only good moves he has are his throwing hammer , anihilation and skewer . Shadow priest and ridicule are rly bad gimmicks , so is up hammer . They might work from time to time but more often than not they wont. That would prolly be the only variation i think would be any good . Dark priest can be swaped , maybe in one of those slots , but thats about it . As for raiden raijin and storm cell are only good things he has and even his electric current is worse then storm cell so ur left with half of v2 and half of v1 in one package. Rest of his kit is just unusable and sub par.
I do switch Kahn's regular hammer throw in and out too in place of shadow priest or ground shatter. I can never make my mind up with him.

As for Raiden though, I don't play him at all, but that hover looks pretty good?
 

Marlow

Premium Supporter
Premium Supporter
As for Raiden though, I don't play him at all, but that hover looks pretty good?
It looks badass. Functionally I'm not sure it does a whole lot, other than maybe some interesting pressure on wakeup.