Menu
By:
Filters
What's new

Question Is scorpion REALLY that low tier?

Impose

Impose

A Call For Blood
So yeah. Quite a few of you know my story by now

But incase you didn't know I'll explain. I'm new to Mk9 and MK in general, as in I've been playing for a little over a week new.

Been playing a bunch of different characters. Kenshi, Jax, Ermac, Sub, etc etc etc.

But today I started dinking around on Scorpion and holy hell (pun kind of intended) am I having the time of my life playing him. Dunno why, just like his setup.

Now I come to find he's pretty bad in terms of tiers, is it really THAT bad?
 
Impose

Impose

A Call For Blood
I realized that playing today that a lot of his moves are based on guessing what you think someone else is going to do and if you guess wrong it leaves him wideeee wide wide open.

I guess thats the main issue people have?
 
bloodsport

bloodsport

wat
yeah, he is. vortex is pretty much his only hope at a high level..

spear is punishable as a mofo, fire is punishable as a mofo, teleport is punishable as a mofo (apart from the just frame IAT, which is awesome as fuck). his d1 is okay but the rest of his pokes are shit.
 
Red Reaper

Red Reaper

The Hyrax Whisperer
Administrator
Scorpion is a bit risky (even without the 50/50's).

His main problem is the speed of his normals and the disadvantage on his pokes..
 
Lord Beef

Lord Beef

Death Metal and Trance
Impose said:
I realized that playing today that a lot of his moves are based on guessing what you think someone else is going to do and if you guess wrong it leaves him wideeee wide wide open.

I guess thats the main issue people have?
Click to expand...
He does not deal well with pressure...at all. He gets no frames from pokes so against a cage or kabal you poke out and are at best +1. he also hurts in the footsie game. He's all about set ups and conditioning..but on top of that you need your opponent to make some mistakes by guessing wrong in the 50/50. He's really hard to win with at the highest level, but still fun none the less
 
STRYKIE

STRYKIE

Are ya' ready for MK11 kids?!
Not necessarily, he's still one of the most effective punishers in the game, but in a game where there's other characters reap far bigger rewards for much less risk (if any, sometimes), on top of a community where their most credible experience against Scorpion is against some jabroni online who pokes out of pressure with D3, it's more a case of why bother.

But believe me, a lot of characters suffer from the same confinement.
 
Glass Sword

Glass Sword

Nobody
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.
 
D

Death

Warrior
Good luck fuzzy guarding scorpions B2 and F4 online lol

With that said, yeah he is low tier for sure
 
HGTV Soapboxfan

HGTV Soapboxfan

"Always a Pleasure"
Glass_Sword I hear from OZZYGUITAR that kabal isnt really that bad for scorpion, 4-6. I mean scorpion has good tools for dealing with the zoning, I guess the pressure is a bitch, but scorpion footsies actually wouldn't be that bad vs kabal like they are against kitana or sonya.
 
HGTV Soapboxfan

HGTV Soapboxfan

"Always a Pleasure"
But anyway, Scorpion is a low tier character, but one who actually has a little bit of a chance at the highest possible level due to the vorrtex. While it certainly doesn't make him good, he isn't screwed like csz or something at a tournament.
 
GamerBlake90

GamerBlake90

Blue Blurs for Life!
Just so you know, I relocated this thread to the Scorpion forum and attached a Question prefix.

And...Scorpion really doesn't have a position on the tier list, in my opinion. His success/failure rate comes down to one thing and one thing only:

Luck.
 
Illmatix

Illmatix

Remember, representing ermac is illmatic.
i love scorp..... he some of the best conversions in the game. plus his vortex can actually get pretty deep.
 
1

187x

Warrior
Scorpion sucks. if your not going to play his risky game then your pretty much not going to win. On what Glass_Sword
said he has some pretty bad match ups half the cast is a bad MU for him
 
GrandMasterson

GrandMasterson

The Netherrealm beckons
The problem with Scorpion is that a core design of MK9 is inherently against the design of his playstyle: Breakers.

Even if you do manage to miraculously guess right 100% of the time, your opponent is still going to have a breaker at least once a game, and more often 2 to 3 times. Breakers set both of you back to the neutral game, which is where Scorpion fails and is forced to start all over again. The irony is that Scorpion is reliant on breakers himself, because if he guesses wrong, then he's eating his opponent's best midscreen combo.

It all boils down to how good you are at being "random" with him. I can't tell you how many times I've been either midscreen or fullscreen with me and my opponent block dancing, and I just throw out a naked spear and it actually hits. To play Scorpion, you must be one with randomness. You must become a slot machine. He is low tier because that's a terrible strategy, but that is the way of the Scorpion.
 
EMPEROR_THEO

EMPEROR_THEO

I only use characters with wakeup scoops.
Scorpion doesn't deserve a static spot on the tier list. His play style is too gamechanging and wildcard-like that it could go either way. Though this definitely doesn't mean he has top 5 potential...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.