Tech - Balanced Punishing Dragon's Fire flying kick

First of all, sorry if this is known!

As you might know, Dragon's fire is an awful matchup for Balanced Kenshi, 7-3 or worse, for many reasons. One of those reasons is that he has a fullscreen move that, when blocked, leaves him at 0 or even plus if he spends meter after, and then the armor breaking pressure party starts and ggs. The kick CAN'T even be parried, which basically sucks. This, combined with his low fireballs, makes Kenshi lose everywhere on the screen.

The only way I knew to stop the flying kick was push (almost a read, and fails for ex flying kick) or just armor on reaction, but none of those were good. The video shows a tactic to punish this kick, meterless, with Balanced. It can be done on reaction, but it has to be a good reaction , specially if the kick doesn't come out from fullscreen, but closer.

Hope it helps all the Balanced players with the guts to pick Kenshi vs Liu Kang xD Maybe there are other ways to get the punish, discuss!
(I labelled this as a Balanced thread, but the other Kenshi variations can do other versions of the punish)


@Pig Of The Hut @DarksydeDash@Immortal @MrProfDrPepper @Yoaks @Kenshi @Jack Burton @Lokheit @Shaikhuzzaman @SaltShaker @ando1184 @DET_BLAKEANATOR
@boba_buster @Diego de Souza Costa

Smh poor Liu Kang.

Haha fuck you liu kang

So it seems on reaction you do the rising sword move?

Good shit, I'll keep this in mind if I'm ever insane enough to try this match up lol for the most part i use balanced against kitana, sub zero, reptile, and acidic alien though since I feel those are pretty decent match ups for kenshi

MrProfDrPepper said:

Good shit, I'll keep this in mind if I'm ever insane enough to try this match up lol for the most part i use balanced against kitana, sub zero, reptile, and acidic alien though since I feel those are pretty decent match ups for kenshi

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While Kenshi isn't a bad choice at all for Sub-Zero, you also play Lasher right? Why not just use him?

Dankster Morgan said:

While Kenshi isn't a bad choice at all for Sub-Zero, you also play Lasher right? Why not just use him?

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Because you can punish my whip flurry from max range every time using slide. And my low slash into whip flurry of a HUGE part of my tool set. Spacing it out and zoning people so they can't get in, it isn't a terrible match up for lasher, hero it isn't even that bad, it is just that balanced is a better choice for that match up than lasher is

MrProfDrPepper said:

Because you can punish my whip flurry from max range every time using slide. And my low slash into whip flurry of a HUGE part of my tool set. Spacing it out and zoning people so they can't get in, it isn't a terrible match up for lasher, hero it isn't even that bad, it is just that balanced is a better choice for that match up than lasher is

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Lasher beats Grandmaster 7-3 imo but this isn't the place for that. I can PM you if you want my opinions on it.

Dankster Morgan said:

Lasher beats Grandmaster 7-3 imo but this isn't the place for that. I can PM you if you want my opinions on it.

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I'm very curious about that. Yeah feel free to pm me about that since I actually have a lot of trouble with the GM match up with lasher

MrProfDrPepper said:

I'm very curious about that. Yeah feel free to pm me about that since I actually have a lot of trouble with the GM match up with lasher

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d+f 1 is the answer to your problem Does teh sub cancel into ice cone d+f1 is he hiding behind his clone d+f 1 did he corner you on wake up with his clone d+f 1

Awesome, this seems very useful. Do you think this will work vs other forward advancing moves? I'm glad to see kenshi can play this game like a street fighter character

Edit: also, I beefed up the combo a little bit. If you do d1, run cancel 22, rising karma, run cancel 43 tele furry you're looking at 30%

Edit 2: after further testing, this also works against KJ flying kick, LK's other variations flying kick, kitana's square wave (gotta d1 her at her max range though otherwise she's still armored), raiden's flying man (it trades or his favor, not worth the risk IMO), takedas spin kick, and kanoball and airball (only when not instant).

Speaking of Sub Zero, Kenshi got a weak point. If I slide, Subby can pass through Kenshi's ghosts. And he has a slow recover, which makes him vulnerable against Subby's Iceballs.

ILuvFightGames said:

So it seems on reaction you do the rising sword move?

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It's a simple d1 what stops the flying kick, as strange as it looks xD Then canceled into risking karma.

ando1184 said:

Awesome, this seems very useful. Do you think this will work vs other forward advancing moves? I'm glad to see kenshi can play this game like a street fighter character

Edit: also, I beefed up the combo a little bit. If you do d1, run cancel 22, rising karma, run cancel 43 tele furry you're looking at 30%

Edit 2: after further testing, this also works against KJ flying kick, LK's other variations flying kick, kitana's square wave (gotta d1 her at her max range though otherwise she's still armored), raiden's flying man (it trades or his favor, not worth the risk IMO), takedas spin kick, and kanoball and airball (only when not instant).

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Yeah, I imagined it would work vs other specials, but vs those I think regular punish is better, if can be done, as with Raiden's superman. But vs Liu I think this is pretty huge, because if you don't do this you have to hold the pressure and that scenario is simply death. We needed a better answer for the kick, even if it requires jedi reactions. But this is Kenshi's life xD

Nice extension of the combo! But be careful. Your version requires the use of stamina too early in the combo. I you don't have it, you might notice it late and drop your opportunity to get a combo. Also, after Kenshi breaks, if the Liu player chooses to do the kick, you can't do your version. Not even the one in the video, we should do a stamina free version like d1~rising karma, small walk f32~teleflurry, or similar.
d1~risingkarma is a movement you can get programmed to do and will never fail as starter for this.

But it's good to know the 30% version!

By the way, probably best 1 bar version would be d1, run cancel 22mb, 421~rising karma, run cancel 43 tele furry, 39%.

Don't want to be the one to burst your bubble or anything but this is known hehe. 99% of the cast can knock Kang out of the air on reaction with a poke. Good stuff though.

llabslb said:

Don't want to be the one to burst your bubble or anything but this is known hehe. 99% of the cast can knock Kang out of the air on reaction with a poke. Good stuff though.

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I thought it could be known, yeah. But when I talked about the Kang matchup with some Kenshi players I never heard about this option. So in case it helps somebody, here it is!

ismael4790 said:

I thought it could be known, yeah. But when I talked about the Kang matchup with some Kenshi players I never heard about this option. So in case it helps somebody, here it is!

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Yeah we've all been there when we try post some tech etc. Same old question comes to mind 'is this known or not' xD

llabslb said:

Yeah we've all been there when we try post some tech etc. Same old question comes to mind 'is this known or not' xD

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Regardless if it is old tech, there will always be those out there that aren't in the know. I myself never thought to explore this option even though, within matches I would sometimes d1 him out of it from 3/4 screen. It wasn't until this vid that it truly opened my eyes to this being something that should be implemented for that matchup. I encourage everyone to continuously release tech, new, old, it doesn't matter. It will always help somebody out there

ismael4790 said:

First of all, sorry if this is known!

As you might know, Dragon's fire is an awful matchup for Balanced Kenshi, 7-3 or worse, for many reasons. One of those reasons is that he has a fullscreen move that, when blocked, leaves him at 0 or even plus if he spends meter after, and then the armor breaking pressure party starts and ggs. The kick CAN'T even be parried, which basically sucks. This, combined with his low fireballs, makes Kenshi lose everywhere on the screen.

The only way I knew to stop the flying kick was push (almost a read, and fails for ex flying kick) or just armor on reaction, but none of those were good. The video shows a tactic to punish this kick, meterless, with Balanced. It can be done on reaction, but it has to be a good reaction , specially if the kick doesn't come out from fullscreen, but closer.

Hope it helps all the Balanced players with the guts to pick Kenshi vs Liu Kang xD Maybe there are other ways to get the punish, discuss!
(I labelled this as a Balanced thread, but the other Kenshi variations can do other versions of the punish)

@Pig Of The Hut @DarksydeDash@Immortal @MrProfDrPepper @Yoaks @Kenshi @Jack Burton @Lokheit @Shaikhuzzaman @SaltShaker @ando1184 @DET_BLAKEANATOR
@boba_buster @Diego de Souza Costa

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I like it

Dankster Morgan said:

While Kenshi isn't a bad choice at all for Sub-Zero, you also play Lasher right? Why not just use him?

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Sub Zero is a bad matchup for Kenshi because he gets to spam his + on block d4 all day.

E: Also I legit don't get why people think Balanced is a good matchup against Sub Zero.. it just isn't. Yea, he gets to punish unsafe clone cancels all day long, but so what? Bartitsu gets to punish that shit all day but that it's not even close to a good matchup for Bart. Balanced never gets to play his game.. SZ's counter zoning is too good, 1 whiffed TF and he gets to punish with a slide for free.
Possessed is a different story, but Balanced gets F U C K E D imo.