CrazyFingers
The Power of Lame Compels You
So since I believe I am the literal only Bojutsu on TYM (other than possibly @Vigilante24 who I believe plays him.) I figured I'd go over a little primer on how the character works in the current meta, what his strengths/weaknesses are, some B&B's and of course, some tips on gameplay. So let's start with the juicy stuff. The stuff you probably clicked on this for. The combos!
Midscreen Meterless
B14 xx BF4, run, 34, Instant Divekick, run, 34 xx DB3 (30%)
F24 xx BF4, run, 34, Instant Divekick, run, 34 xx DB3 (30%)
111 xx BF4, run, 34, Instant Divekick, run, 34 xx DB3 (33%)
34 xx BF4, run, 34, Instant Divekick, run, 34 xx DB3 (32%)
B214 xx BF4, run, 34, Instant Divekick, run, 34 xx DB3 (33%)
22 xx BF4, run, 34, Instant Divekick, run, 34, xx DB3 (29%)
Divekick, NJP, run, 34 xx DB3 (27%)
NJP, run, 34, Instant Divekick, run, 34 xx DB3 (32%)
Midscreen 1 Bar
+3 on Block 50/50 Combos
B14 xx EX BF4, run, 34, Instant Divekick, run, 34 xx DB3 (36%)
F24 xx EX BF4, run, 34, Instant Divekick, run, 34 xx DB3 (36%)
High Damage Combos
B14 xx EX DB3, run, 34, Instant Divekick, run, 34 xx DB3 (37%)
F24 xx EX DB3, run, 34, Instant Divekick, run, 34 xx DB3 (37%)
B214 xx EX DB3, run, 34, Instant Divekick, run, 34 xx DB3 (40%)
34 xx EX DB3, run, 34, Instant Divekick, run, 34 xx DB3 (39%)
111 xx EX DB3, run, 34, Instant Divekick, run, 34 xx DB3 (39%)
221 xx EX DB3, run, 34, Instant Divekick, run, 34 xx DB3 (40%)
Meterless Corner
B214 xx BF4, NJP, S4 xx DB1, Instant Divekick, 34 xx DB3 (35%)
B14 xx BF4, NJP, S4 xx DB1, Instant Divekick, 34 xx DB3 (32%)
F24 xx BF4, NJP, S4 xx DB1, Instant Divekick, 34 xx DB3 (32%)
111 xx BF4, NJP, S4 xx DB1, Instant Divekick, 34 xx DB3 (35%)
34 xx BF4, NJP, S4 xx DB1, Instant Divekick, 34 xx DB3 (34%)
One Bar Corner
+3 on Block 50/50 Combos
B14 xx EX BF4, NJP, S4 xx DB1, Instant Divekick, 34 xx DB3 (38%)
F24 xx EX BF4, NJP, S4 xx DB1, Instant Divekick, 34 xx DB3 (38%)
High Damage Combos
B214 xx EX DB3, NJP, S4 xx DB1, Instant Divekick, 34 xx DB3 (41%)
111 xx EX DB3, NJP, S4 xx DB1, Instant Divekick, 34 xx DB3 (41%)
221 xx EX DB3, NJP, S4 xx DB1, Instant Divekick, 34 xx DB3 (42%)
34 xx EX DB3, NJP, S4 xx DB1, Instant Divekick, 34 xx DB3 (40%)
These are fairly easy and quite effective. There are more complex combos but these are the ones that I use for my matches and they do just fine. So now that we have the juicy bits down, let's talk about the character's Pros and Cons
PROS
META PLACEMENT
Kung Jin in current state of the game is still quite strong. Shaolin has his insane amount of safety. Ancestral has his good zoning and vortex. But what of Bojutsu? The sort of, forgotten one of the three. Some have said "all he had was armor, the character is trash now" or that the slowdown of his overhead has hurt him just as much if not more than the armored launcher changes. And while all of this HAS hurt the character, he is not dead, he's quite alive and well actually. Bojutsu is an enigma when it comes to the entirety of MKX. He is possibly the most simple character in the game's entire history, as a lot of the early dirt and broken things he had was found within the first month of the game's lifespan. He withstood damage nerfs for the most part, while keeping the general gameplan of "Mix em dead" quite alive. However as of late, that mix has been hit, but isn't gone by any means. Bojutsu in short, is a heavy mixup character with the great neutral game of Kung Jin as a whole. He is HEAVILY based upon the sort of momentum strategy that top tiers in the past, and present, have been so famous for (Demo Sonya, Alien in any iteration, etc etc) however, he does this with a certain amount of risk. He is a high risk/high reward sort of character and as long as the opponent is blocking, there is always an opportunity to mix them up. The unpredictability of this causes the character to win sometimes when winning didn't look like an option. All in all, he is fair but strong. Next we will go on to the final part of this little primer, the tips.
GAMEPLAY TIPS
The following is going to be some do's and do not's of the character. It may take awhile to get used to these but work at it and you will be pretty formidable.
THE DO'S
Bojutsu, as mentioned before, is always putting some form of risk into his gameplan. While he can make everything safer, it's always at a cost (this cost being meter) but even then sometimes meter won't even make you safe. So Bojutsu is one of the few characters that I will actively tell you to play like a freaking madman. Not stupid mind you. You are going to want to do something I like to call "Calculated Madness." A PERFECT example of this calculated madness is Acidic Alien. Specifically, SonicFox's Acidic Alien. You will be trying to read where your opponent has been blocking, what your opponent has been doing, while also remaining completely unpredictable yourself. This is a character that will make your opponent possibly constantly yell "Why would you do that?!" or "What a maniac!" this is good. This means you are doing your job. Since Bojutsu is INHERENTLY unsafe, you have to tap into that. Whenever an opponent gets hit by a random fairly unsafe thing, it hits their morale. This character doesn't just hit the enemy character, it hits their confidence. This is that momentum I was speaking of before. The ability to make your opponent feel like every option is the wrong option. NOW! Don't go around playing this character like a dumbass and come to me crying "CrazyFingers! I did what you said and it didn't work you scrub!" because if you do, imma blow you up because I GUARANTEE what you did was abused one thing too much and became predictable. You are not playing YOLO Roll Mileena, you are playing Calculated Madman Bojutsu. These are very different. I will give you some ideas of how to stay unpredictable, and crazy things you should be doing (and when you should be doing them)
UNPREDICTABILITY
This is something that not only takes decent amount of practice, but just a lot of time and experience to get down perfectly (I don't have this down perfectly even but you should still be making an effort to be applying this whenever you can) So something that you may not have noticed if you are playing a stupidly safe character that doesn't care about this particular topic is the blocking habits of people blocking strings with no mixups attached. You ever notice when you're doing say B122 on Jason or perhaps a 111 string on an assortment of characters that sometimes people switch between crouch blocking and stand blocking when there isn't even any low or overhead mixed in there? This is a habit that every player has (if they don't, your job just became quite easy) and this is something you MUST pay attention to. Let me propose a situation involving Bojutsu himself.
You have the opponent knocked down and you decide to meaty with B214. The first time you do this you see the opponent blocks high, low, low on the corresponding buttons (High on B2, low on 1, low on 4) using this information you can make a prediction that perhaps they will block the same way next time. So, instead of doing B214, you do B2 xx DB4. This throws an overhead where a mid was before and where the opponent is possibly blocking low. This is a constant thing you must keep track of. Where people are blocking in certain places. After you enforce these mixups throughout your strings, it makes your staggers stronger and it makes you near unpredictable for your opponent. Try not to repeat options too often as the opponent will most likely begin to catch on. Keep it fresh to avoid becoming stale.
Another way to help your unpredictability is to keep in mind what the opponent does not only while blocking, but in response to certain things you do. For example if you run up to someone, what do they do and when do they do it? Do they wakeup with a normal or perhaps they mash an armored move? Let's say for example they do an armored move with a decent amount of recovery that would whiff if you were to jump every time you run in on them on knockdown. The next time you run in on knockdown, you can jump and divekick them. So now next time they are expecting a divekick and are simply waiting to punish it, but you won't divekick, you'll just close the gap and start your pressure. It's simple reads like this that puts Bojutsu higher than he really should be. This character requires a solid player behind him to really make him shine.
THE DO NOT'S
So here is what you most certainly should NOT do as Bojutsu. This will be less of an in depth breakdown and more of a list of "Bruh don't do that." if you do it and it works, that doesn't mean it was correct. Remember that.
@Amplified$hotz
@CoRzus (Do you think this is about accurate?)
@Anyone else who wants to learn this character! Happy stick beating! (I know what you're thinking you dirty birds)
Midscreen Meterless
B14 xx BF4, run, 34, Instant Divekick, run, 34 xx DB3 (30%)
F24 xx BF4, run, 34, Instant Divekick, run, 34 xx DB3 (30%)
111 xx BF4, run, 34, Instant Divekick, run, 34 xx DB3 (33%)
34 xx BF4, run, 34, Instant Divekick, run, 34 xx DB3 (32%)
B214 xx BF4, run, 34, Instant Divekick, run, 34 xx DB3 (33%)
22 xx BF4, run, 34, Instant Divekick, run, 34, xx DB3 (29%)
Divekick, NJP, run, 34 xx DB3 (27%)
NJP, run, 34, Instant Divekick, run, 34 xx DB3 (32%)
Midscreen 1 Bar
+3 on Block 50/50 Combos
B14 xx EX BF4, run, 34, Instant Divekick, run, 34 xx DB3 (36%)
F24 xx EX BF4, run, 34, Instant Divekick, run, 34 xx DB3 (36%)
High Damage Combos
B14 xx EX DB3, run, 34, Instant Divekick, run, 34 xx DB3 (37%)
F24 xx EX DB3, run, 34, Instant Divekick, run, 34 xx DB3 (37%)
B214 xx EX DB3, run, 34, Instant Divekick, run, 34 xx DB3 (40%)
34 xx EX DB3, run, 34, Instant Divekick, run, 34 xx DB3 (39%)
111 xx EX DB3, run, 34, Instant Divekick, run, 34 xx DB3 (39%)
221 xx EX DB3, run, 34, Instant Divekick, run, 34 xx DB3 (40%)
Meterless Corner
B214 xx BF4, NJP, S4 xx DB1, Instant Divekick, 34 xx DB3 (35%)
B14 xx BF4, NJP, S4 xx DB1, Instant Divekick, 34 xx DB3 (32%)
F24 xx BF4, NJP, S4 xx DB1, Instant Divekick, 34 xx DB3 (32%)
111 xx BF4, NJP, S4 xx DB1, Instant Divekick, 34 xx DB3 (35%)
34 xx BF4, NJP, S4 xx DB1, Instant Divekick, 34 xx DB3 (34%)
One Bar Corner
+3 on Block 50/50 Combos
B14 xx EX BF4, NJP, S4 xx DB1, Instant Divekick, 34 xx DB3 (38%)
F24 xx EX BF4, NJP, S4 xx DB1, Instant Divekick, 34 xx DB3 (38%)
High Damage Combos
B214 xx EX DB3, NJP, S4 xx DB1, Instant Divekick, 34 xx DB3 (41%)
111 xx EX DB3, NJP, S4 xx DB1, Instant Divekick, 34 xx DB3 (41%)
221 xx EX DB3, NJP, S4 xx DB1, Instant Divekick, 34 xx DB3 (42%)
34 xx EX DB3, NJP, S4 xx DB1, Instant Divekick, 34 xx DB3 (40%)
These are fairly easy and quite effective. There are more complex combos but these are the ones that I use for my matches and they do just fine. So now that we have the juicy bits down, let's talk about the character's Pros and Cons
PROS
- Good Pokes
- Great Jump In
- Decent Damage
- High Mobility
- Possibly the best NJP in the game
- Air Control
- Corner Carry
- Mixup Potential
- Generally Unsafe
- Slow Overhead Starter
- Mediocre Zoning
- Multiple Gaps
- Fastest Punishing Normal has a Short Range
META PLACEMENT
Kung Jin in current state of the game is still quite strong. Shaolin has his insane amount of safety. Ancestral has his good zoning and vortex. But what of Bojutsu? The sort of, forgotten one of the three. Some have said "all he had was armor, the character is trash now" or that the slowdown of his overhead has hurt him just as much if not more than the armored launcher changes. And while all of this HAS hurt the character, he is not dead, he's quite alive and well actually. Bojutsu is an enigma when it comes to the entirety of MKX. He is possibly the most simple character in the game's entire history, as a lot of the early dirt and broken things he had was found within the first month of the game's lifespan. He withstood damage nerfs for the most part, while keeping the general gameplan of "Mix em dead" quite alive. However as of late, that mix has been hit, but isn't gone by any means. Bojutsu in short, is a heavy mixup character with the great neutral game of Kung Jin as a whole. He is HEAVILY based upon the sort of momentum strategy that top tiers in the past, and present, have been so famous for (Demo Sonya, Alien in any iteration, etc etc) however, he does this with a certain amount of risk. He is a high risk/high reward sort of character and as long as the opponent is blocking, there is always an opportunity to mix them up. The unpredictability of this causes the character to win sometimes when winning didn't look like an option. All in all, he is fair but strong. Next we will go on to the final part of this little primer, the tips.
GAMEPLAY TIPS
The following is going to be some do's and do not's of the character. It may take awhile to get used to these but work at it and you will be pretty formidable.
THE DO'S
Bojutsu, as mentioned before, is always putting some form of risk into his gameplan. While he can make everything safer, it's always at a cost (this cost being meter) but even then sometimes meter won't even make you safe. So Bojutsu is one of the few characters that I will actively tell you to play like a freaking madman. Not stupid mind you. You are going to want to do something I like to call "Calculated Madness." A PERFECT example of this calculated madness is Acidic Alien. Specifically, SonicFox's Acidic Alien. You will be trying to read where your opponent has been blocking, what your opponent has been doing, while also remaining completely unpredictable yourself. This is a character that will make your opponent possibly constantly yell "Why would you do that?!" or "What a maniac!" this is good. This means you are doing your job. Since Bojutsu is INHERENTLY unsafe, you have to tap into that. Whenever an opponent gets hit by a random fairly unsafe thing, it hits their morale. This character doesn't just hit the enemy character, it hits their confidence. This is that momentum I was speaking of before. The ability to make your opponent feel like every option is the wrong option. NOW! Don't go around playing this character like a dumbass and come to me crying "CrazyFingers! I did what you said and it didn't work you scrub!" because if you do, imma blow you up because I GUARANTEE what you did was abused one thing too much and became predictable. You are not playing YOLO Roll Mileena, you are playing Calculated Madman Bojutsu. These are very different. I will give you some ideas of how to stay unpredictable, and crazy things you should be doing (and when you should be doing them)
UNPREDICTABILITY
This is something that not only takes decent amount of practice, but just a lot of time and experience to get down perfectly (I don't have this down perfectly even but you should still be making an effort to be applying this whenever you can) So something that you may not have noticed if you are playing a stupidly safe character that doesn't care about this particular topic is the blocking habits of people blocking strings with no mixups attached. You ever notice when you're doing say B122 on Jason or perhaps a 111 string on an assortment of characters that sometimes people switch between crouch blocking and stand blocking when there isn't even any low or overhead mixed in there? This is a habit that every player has (if they don't, your job just became quite easy) and this is something you MUST pay attention to. Let me propose a situation involving Bojutsu himself.
You have the opponent knocked down and you decide to meaty with B214. The first time you do this you see the opponent blocks high, low, low on the corresponding buttons (High on B2, low on 1, low on 4) using this information you can make a prediction that perhaps they will block the same way next time. So, instead of doing B214, you do B2 xx DB4. This throws an overhead where a mid was before and where the opponent is possibly blocking low. This is a constant thing you must keep track of. Where people are blocking in certain places. After you enforce these mixups throughout your strings, it makes your staggers stronger and it makes you near unpredictable for your opponent. Try not to repeat options too often as the opponent will most likely begin to catch on. Keep it fresh to avoid becoming stale.
Another way to help your unpredictability is to keep in mind what the opponent does not only while blocking, but in response to certain things you do. For example if you run up to someone, what do they do and when do they do it? Do they wakeup with a normal or perhaps they mash an armored move? Let's say for example they do an armored move with a decent amount of recovery that would whiff if you were to jump every time you run in on them on knockdown. The next time you run in on knockdown, you can jump and divekick them. So now next time they are expecting a divekick and are simply waiting to punish it, but you won't divekick, you'll just close the gap and start your pressure. It's simple reads like this that puts Bojutsu higher than he really should be. This character requires a solid player behind him to really make him shine.
THE DO NOT'S
So here is what you most certainly should NOT do as Bojutsu. This will be less of an in depth breakdown and more of a list of "Bruh don't do that." if you do it and it works, that doesn't mean it was correct. Remember that.
- Do not YOLO Divekick more than once per round (match might even be better, this is a tool that you need to keep in mind to gain respect but if you do it more than once you instantly become predictable. However, doing twice when you feel really good about a read can be acceptable.
- Do not constantly mash your NJP (This is a tool that again, must be used with reads. If you keep mashing this button, you will get punished by someone who understands the weaknesses of doing this. NJP into NJP is something that works only sometimes and should be used sparingly)
- Do not mindlessly cancel. (HITCONFIRM. I cannot stress this enough. Practice this. Hitconfirm or you go from a high risk character to a never safe character)
@Amplified$hotz
@CoRzus (Do you think this is about accurate?)
@Anyone else who wants to learn this character! Happy stick beating! (I know what you're thinking you dirty birds)
