FinalBoss_FGC
Day -4MONTHS Dual Jin main
I WAS USING SO MANY GIFS, I HAD TO MAKE LINKS VS IMAGES WHICH IS SUPER UPSETTING CUZ MOST OF THE TIME SPENT ON THIS DAMN THING WAS MAKING GIFS
If you are looking at this thread, odds are that you have fallen in love with Takeda.
Many of you believe Kung Jin is pretty blan and basic...or, more commonly, a Green Arrow mirror.
Well, you are partially right...they did get the idea of enhanced arrows from Green Arrow but to say he is a mirror is ridiculous.
Anyways, without further ado:
THE "STOP SLEEPING ON KUNG JIN" ANALYSIS
What we will cover:
Movement
Normals
Universal Specials
Variations
---------------------------------------------------------------------
MOVEMENT
Kung Jin seems to move pretty decently. We couldn't get a good look at his walk speed but his dash up is pretty quick and doesn't require much cool-down. He does have a relatively floaty jump that I'm not a big fan of so you won't be seen jumping too often with him (seen below)...maybe a little more floaty than the average but not completely useless given the decent speed of his divekick and Ancestral's aerial arrows.
NORMALS
Kung Jin has some of the best normals in the game that we've seen thus far. Only being out reached by Takeda but being faster than most of the rest of the cast, Kung Jin's spacing is going to be troublesome for many characters. His anti-air options may have reach close to Aquaman's Trident (but not exactly...that shit's cray) which is enough to make him a problem when getting in. He can punish you at any range that any other character can and then some. To show off some of his range, look at the gifs below:
UNIVERSAL SPECIALS
Firstly, we are going to look at his flip kick.
As you can see: the start-up is kind of slow, the flip is decent speed and it will be severely punishable on whiff and possibly on block (dependent on how much stun on block it will be). Meter burning it gives it an armor (not sure how much, probably just one hit) to make it a decent wake-up option if they aren't expecting it. I can not imagine people just spamming this. I see this as more of a combo ender in a corner for hard knockdown, combo ender mid screen to Oki with close angled air arrows or MB Wake-Up in certain situations. You can just see it coming pretty easily and block and punish the hell out of it. It does end super low tho, a high option to punish is going to be out of the question.
Next, we look at the normal arrows
Basically Green Arrow's animation but without the low option unless you are using Ancestral. Has an anti-air option that has the same animation just at an angle. You are not able to hold down a button to make the opponent guess if you'll go low or jump for overhead, but KJ's Ancestral variation has a way around that. Green Arrow only delivered 1% of damage and KJ seems to deliver around 3-5% which will make Ancestral even harder to deal with. For the cost of a meter, you get two hits which will be good for armored moves and plus it deals between 6-10% damage.
Continuing on with his Universal moves, we look at his Flying Kick
http://i.imgur.com/DE7RS59.gif
A mixture between Liu Kang's Flying Kick and Dick's Flying Grayson, this gives KJ a special that creates space for zoning. Quick start-up and covers pretty decent range, this could crush some characters' run-in game if you do it on reaction. It also has pretty decent height and may can be used as an AA, we didn't really see. Gives pretty decent knock back to get a free enchant arrow in Ancestral or to fireball in Bojutsu into pressure. If used during combos, the opponent gets hit with the act of jabbing the bow staff into the ground. I think this is one of the things that Green Arrow was missing to be a top 10 character. That along with normal reach and combo damage. When KJ connects tho, he stays in the air for a second so this will be punishable...not as bad as Flip Kick...but still can be. In Shaolin variation, it becomes a definite AA as it goes in an upward angle vs straight forward...on wiff, it can be dropped into an overhead.
Lastly, KJ's divekick
Kung Jin's divekick is really respectable. Despite the whiff cooldown, it's pretty interesting on hit. Finishing up with an overhead smack that bounces the opponent up, he has great combo opportunity without having to meter burn. While, this won't be as spammable as Bird Lao in MK9, it can still give you a pressure option. For Ancestral it will still give an option to get in for stun arrow combo enders...so Green Arrow with a reliable way to get in. It seems like it can combine with the Fireball to create interesting pressure options.
VARIATIONS
Ancestral
Ancestral has a few things similar to Green Arrow but with better reach with normals and better options for specials. Ancestral gives you air arrows with a straight arrow and 2 angled options - one 45 degrees and one around 20 degrees...you also get a low option for arrows so you can probably Instant-Air Arrows or low option. So when zoning an opponent who is primarily rush down, you can spam IA Arrows at an angle for run-in, straight for them attempting to jump over the angled arrows, standing straight, standing and shoot diagonally up for anti-air into combo, or go low and the combinations of all of these will be really hard for some characters to deal with. The different enhancements all have different timers, opposed to what it sounded like. Fire has 6 seconds, Meter Drain has 4 seconds, and Stun looks to be one use. This means you can get CRAZY chip damage from Fire, that's 6 seconds that you can just spam arrows and they have to play it REALLY well to not get hit. I can imagine for full screen zoning, you will see plenty of fire arrows because they knock down on hit. So keeping people out and ending matches can be done pretty easily with Ancestral variation. While Green Arrow was nearly always a "freeze arrow" character, the amount of meter drain in Ancestral is ridiculous and the amount of damage fire arrows do is ridiculous. You're looking at a whole meter depleted after 3 hits. Can you imagine a corner combo that hits a meter drain jump arrow and a meter drain standing arrow? That can take away meter burn wake-ups that have armor. Now imagine hitting both of those and then ending with the flip kick for hard knockdown? Now there will be no wake-up at all and they just lost almost a whole bar. Additionally, one of the jump arrows go at a very narrow angle...(seen below)
Where the opponent finishes sliding on the ground off of the Flip Kick (go to top) is where that narrow angle air arrow lands while the flying kick (a few places above) knocks the opponent back to where the larger angle arrow lands. So if you can enchant arrow mid-combo (surely) and end in either a flip kick or flying kick, you can jump and shoot that arrow and the opponent HAS to commit to blocking it or do a wake-up move that will whiff unless the range is the most ridiculous shit ever. And with a stun arrow, we'll have a reset but we aren't sure how good of a low option KJ has. But regardless, getting a stun arrow will result in a heavier hitting combo than Green Arrow had because GA was about freezing the opponent, stringing a combo that can get them out and enough time to load another arrow. So Green Arrow was never really about hitting hard but that is one thing KJ can do, the load arrows (from start to crouch) is faster than GA's load arrows...(seen below)
So there's plenty to love about Ancestral variation that will give the opponent headaches. KJ looks to be the best zoning character in the game thus far because of all the damage he can do along with all the angles he can hit you from.
BOJUTSU (idk why these started putting self-generated spoilers after the image link...whatever)
While Ancestral is all about the arrows, next we will look at the very interesting and polar opposite - Bojutsu. First thing to note is that all of the variation specific specials in Bojutsu have a juggle property to begin or end a combo, here is all of them and a description of each:
Bojutsu has great options that will check opponents at a far range and probably out damage a lot of rushers. If you can train yourself to use the low sweep to react to some of the shit, the opponent will have plenty of issues doing much of anything against you since the reach is so ridiculous. KJ has the normals that can reach to continue combos if, say, you hit the MB sweep at it's furthest range. If you play your spacing well, Bojutsu will be one of the better rush-down variations in the game.
SHAOLIN
The Shaolin variation changes Kung Jin's normals. In addition to the far reaching bow staff, he also uses a Chakram that hits pretty hard and maintains the average reach for the game...so you aren't really losing a whole lot by using this variation. While basically having a slightly different moveset, he also has Chakram-specific specials:
Kung Jin's Shaolin Variation also changes his Flying Kick into more of an anti-air
OVERALL ASSESSMENT
Kung Jin is fast, has plenty of range with his normals, good zoning options, and good damage. He seems to be the most well-rounded character revealed thus far (As of 3.22.15). His Ancestral is about zoning but he still has normals that pop-up and a divekick that can punish people who also try to zone, his Bojutsu hits hard and showcases the range best but still has the universal arrows and fireball, and his Shaolin variation is centralized around using the Chakram to put yourself at plus frames or to zone with it's speed. Each of these have variations have options to make him decent at the other (Ancestral has good pressure options, Bojutsu has good zoning options, and Shaolin is balanced between both). It's, honestly, hard for me to decide which of these is the best just by this 7 minute video but I, honestly, think any of these can be relevant in competitive play.
I hope I helped shed some light on how dominant Kung Jin is based off his normals, specials, and variations. Let me know if there is anything I may have missed.
If you are looking at this thread, odds are that you have fallen in love with Takeda.
Many of you believe Kung Jin is pretty blan and basic...or, more commonly, a Green Arrow mirror.
Well, you are partially right...they did get the idea of enhanced arrows from Green Arrow but to say he is a mirror is ridiculous.
Anyways, without further ado:
THE "STOP SLEEPING ON KUNG JIN" ANALYSIS
What we will cover:
Movement
Normals
Universal Specials
Variations
Ancestral
Bojutsu
Shaolin
Overall AssessmentBojutsu
Shaolin
---------------------------------------------------------------------
MOVEMENT
Kung Jin seems to move pretty decently. We couldn't get a good look at his walk speed but his dash up is pretty quick and doesn't require much cool-down. He does have a relatively floaty jump that I'm not a big fan of so you won't be seen jumping too often with him (seen below)...maybe a little more floaty than the average but not completely useless given the decent speed of his divekick and Ancestral's aerial arrows.
NORMALS
Kung Jin has some of the best normals in the game that we've seen thus far. Only being out reached by Takeda but being faster than most of the rest of the cast, Kung Jin's spacing is going to be troublesome for many characters. His anti-air options may have reach close to Aquaman's Trident (but not exactly...that shit's cray) which is enough to make him a problem when getting in. He can punish you at any range that any other character can and then some. To show off some of his range, look at the gifs below:
His jump normals cover a LOT of area.
http://i.imgur.com/RXQt6gT.gif
^ that confirms into this low that is much like Aquaman's low but with more range
http://i.imgur.com/OVXSPTT.gif
Then this combo shows off some moves that have ridiculous range, as well (Check out that overhead looking hit!):
http://i.imgur.com/vFzC2Gb.gif
Compare these to Takeda's range...While Takeda's range for his normals are slightly better the start-up frames for ALL of these normals are really slow compared to Kung Jin's:
http://i.imgur.com/PzPQi3J.gif
http://i.imgur.com/RXQt6gT.gif
^ that confirms into this low that is much like Aquaman's low but with more range
http://i.imgur.com/OVXSPTT.gif
Then this combo shows off some moves that have ridiculous range, as well (Check out that overhead looking hit!):
http://i.imgur.com/vFzC2Gb.gif
Compare these to Takeda's range...While Takeda's range for his normals are slightly better the start-up frames for ALL of these normals are really slow compared to Kung Jin's:
http://i.imgur.com/PzPQi3J.gif
UNIVERSAL SPECIALS
Firstly, we are going to look at his flip kick.
As you can see: the start-up is kind of slow, the flip is decent speed and it will be severely punishable on whiff and possibly on block (dependent on how much stun on block it will be). Meter burning it gives it an armor (not sure how much, probably just one hit) to make it a decent wake-up option if they aren't expecting it. I can not imagine people just spamming this. I see this as more of a combo ender in a corner for hard knockdown, combo ender mid screen to Oki with close angled air arrows or MB Wake-Up in certain situations. You can just see it coming pretty easily and block and punish the hell out of it. It does end super low tho, a high option to punish is going to be out of the question.
Next, we look at the normal arrows
A look at KJ and GA releasing arrows, pretty much the same speed
Basically Green Arrow's animation but without the low option unless you are using Ancestral. Has an anti-air option that has the same animation just at an angle. You are not able to hold down a button to make the opponent guess if you'll go low or jump for overhead, but KJ's Ancestral variation has a way around that. Green Arrow only delivered 1% of damage and KJ seems to deliver around 3-5% which will make Ancestral even harder to deal with. For the cost of a meter, you get two hits which will be good for armored moves and plus it deals between 6-10% damage.
Continuing on with his Universal moves, we look at his Flying Kick
http://i.imgur.com/DE7RS59.gif
A mixture between Liu Kang's Flying Kick and Dick's Flying Grayson, this gives KJ a special that creates space for zoning. Quick start-up and covers pretty decent range, this could crush some characters' run-in game if you do it on reaction. It also has pretty decent height and may can be used as an AA, we didn't really see. Gives pretty decent knock back to get a free enchant arrow in Ancestral or to fireball in Bojutsu into pressure. If used during combos, the opponent gets hit with the act of jabbing the bow staff into the ground. I think this is one of the things that Green Arrow was missing to be a top 10 character. That along with normal reach and combo damage. When KJ connects tho, he stays in the air for a second so this will be punishable...not as bad as Flip Kick...but still can be. In Shaolin variation, it becomes a definite AA as it goes in an upward angle vs straight forward...on wiff, it can be dropped into an overhead.
Lastly, KJ's divekick
KJ's divekick vs KL's divekick
They seem to be around the same speed and go at the same angle. KJ has recoil once he hits the ground while KL just kinda catches his balance.
They seem to be around the same speed and go at the same angle. KJ has recoil once he hits the ground while KL just kinda catches his balance.
Kung Jin's divekick is really respectable. Despite the whiff cooldown, it's pretty interesting on hit. Finishing up with an overhead smack that bounces the opponent up, he has great combo opportunity without having to meter burn. While, this won't be as spammable as Bird Lao in MK9, it can still give you a pressure option. For Ancestral it will still give an option to get in for stun arrow combo enders...so Green Arrow with a reliable way to get in. It seems like it can combine with the Fireball to create interesting pressure options.
VARIATIONS
Ancestral
Ancestral has a few things similar to Green Arrow but with better reach with normals and better options for specials. Ancestral gives you air arrows with a straight arrow and 2 angled options - one 45 degrees and one around 20 degrees...you also get a low option for arrows so you can probably Instant-Air Arrows or low option. So when zoning an opponent who is primarily rush down, you can spam IA Arrows at an angle for run-in, straight for them attempting to jump over the angled arrows, standing straight, standing and shoot diagonally up for anti-air into combo, or go low and the combinations of all of these will be really hard for some characters to deal with. The different enhancements all have different timers, opposed to what it sounded like. Fire has 6 seconds, Meter Drain has 4 seconds, and Stun looks to be one use. This means you can get CRAZY chip damage from Fire, that's 6 seconds that you can just spam arrows and they have to play it REALLY well to not get hit. I can imagine for full screen zoning, you will see plenty of fire arrows because they knock down on hit. So keeping people out and ending matches can be done pretty easily with Ancestral variation. While Green Arrow was nearly always a "freeze arrow" character, the amount of meter drain in Ancestral is ridiculous and the amount of damage fire arrows do is ridiculous. You're looking at a whole meter depleted after 3 hits. Can you imagine a corner combo that hits a meter drain jump arrow and a meter drain standing arrow? That can take away meter burn wake-ups that have armor. Now imagine hitting both of those and then ending with the flip kick for hard knockdown? Now there will be no wake-up at all and they just lost almost a whole bar. Additionally, one of the jump arrows go at a very narrow angle...(seen below)
Where the opponent finishes sliding on the ground off of the Flip Kick (go to top) is where that narrow angle air arrow lands while the flying kick (a few places above) knocks the opponent back to where the larger angle arrow lands. So if you can enchant arrow mid-combo (surely) and end in either a flip kick or flying kick, you can jump and shoot that arrow and the opponent HAS to commit to blocking it or do a wake-up move that will whiff unless the range is the most ridiculous shit ever. And with a stun arrow, we'll have a reset but we aren't sure how good of a low option KJ has. But regardless, getting a stun arrow will result in a heavier hitting combo than Green Arrow had because GA was about freezing the opponent, stringing a combo that can get them out and enough time to load another arrow. So Green Arrow was never really about hitting hard but that is one thing KJ can do, the load arrows (from start to crouch) is faster than GA's load arrows...(seen below)
So there's plenty to love about Ancestral variation that will give the opponent headaches. KJ looks to be the best zoning character in the game thus far because of all the damage he can do along with all the angles he can hit you from.
BOJUTSU (idk why these started putting self-generated spoilers after the image link...whatever)
While Ancestral is all about the arrows, next we will look at the very interesting and polar opposite - Bojutsu. First thing to note is that all of the variation specific specials in Bojutsu have a juggle property to begin or end a combo, here is all of them and a description of each:
A slow moving mid or high hitting uppercutting pop up. Almost completely useless as a starter but will be a great anti-air or to continue combos. It makes the opponent hang in air for a short time and doesn't push the opponent too far away from KJ so you can ji attack~divekick for continued combo. You can see the Dragon Head end of the bow staff at it's max distance next to Kung Lao's elbow so it has just over the width of a body as range which is pretty dope
A fast, low hitting sweeping like move that hits twice...the 2nd hit is a knockdown. If meter burned, the 2nd hit is a (probably) mid hitting pop up. This is a much better combo starter than the previous one as it is much faster and shares the same pop up property but hits low. The range is pretty broken...the first swing has around the same reach as the previously shown move and the 2nd hit reaches about half a body's width further. It seems as if you can use this move on reaction or on read to stuff SEVERAL far reaching specials (possibly even with one hit armor because the two hit so quickly) and Takeda's whip normals as it is much faster than Takeda's far reaching normals. This will be a very good move at checking the opponent and make them want to keep distance. This combined with the previous upper-cutting like move, you can play your footsies as much as you want and there's only so much some characters can really do about it. Not to mention if they jump over your first sweep, you meterburn it for an anti-air. This is probably one of the better specials in the game. And it is broken as fuck.
A fast, probably mid hitting move that hits 3 times, ending in pop-up. If meter burned, the 3rd hit becomes an overhead pop-up. This is basically like the first special of this variation but with 2 hits before the last one. This will also be more to continue combos mid-screen as he moves forward as he spins. That being said, this move does carry pretty well and gives you a chance to combo continue off dive kick. The range is pretty similar to the previous, sweeping move. First swing reaches about the same as the upper cutting special, 2nd reaches about a body and a half in width, then the last swing has about the same reach as the first swing whilst the meter burn overhead seems to have around the same reach as the 2nd swing.
He also has a slow start-up, decently fast fireball. Best used to check jump-happy characters or divekickers. You can use the fireball to get in a little more freely as you can shoot fireball and run up to avoid cross-up. There may be a little comboing into it, but not very often as the start-up is so slow. Still a reasonably good utility to keep them from jumping in, if the first special or his far reaching normals wasn't enough to keep them from wanting to jump in.
Bojutsu has great options that will check opponents at a far range and probably out damage a lot of rushers. If you can train yourself to use the low sweep to react to some of the shit, the opponent will have plenty of issues doing much of anything against you since the reach is so ridiculous. KJ has the normals that can reach to continue combos if, say, you hit the MB sweep at it's furthest range. If you play your spacing well, Bojutsu will be one of the better rush-down variations in the game.
SHAOLIN
The Shaolin variation changes Kung Jin's normals. In addition to the far reaching bow staff, he also uses a Chakram that hits pretty hard and maintains the average reach for the game...so you aren't really losing a whole lot by using this variation. While basically having a slightly different moveset, he also has Chakram-specific specials:
Kung Jin throws the Chakram at a pretty fast speed. The start-up is pretty good, as is the cooldown and the hitstun leaves the opponent at negative frames like cray. So you can actually throw this Chakram mid combo and it leaves them with enough hitstun to continue comboing. The normal Chakram throw can be controlled; going straight (normal), flex up or flex down. He can meter burn the Chakram to have it return and hit the opponent from behind. He also gains a low throw that can be "boomeranged", as well.
http://i.imgur.com/IiQ28cU.gif
MB Low Chakram is also a good option for pressure. End a combo string with MB Low Chakram and they have to block it which leaves you at apparent plus frames to continue pressure. If they get hit by it, you will be able to continue combo. If they block the first hit and try to poke out, they will be hit by the 2nd hit for full combo punish. I also believe that if you MB Low Chakram mid-combo on hit, it leaves them with enough hit stun to possibly 50/50, dependent on his normals
http://i.imgur.com/IiQ28cU.gif
MB Low Chakram is also a good option for pressure. End a combo string with MB Low Chakram and they have to block it which leaves you at apparent plus frames to continue pressure. If they get hit by it, you will be able to continue combo. If they block the first hit and try to poke out, they will be hit by the 2nd hit for full combo punish. I also believe that if you MB Low Chakram mid-combo on hit, it leaves them with enough hit stun to possibly 50/50, dependent on his normals
Kung Jin's Shaolin Variation also changes his Flying Kick into more of an anti-air
Wiff on drop
http://i.imgur.com/aQffMuV.gif
Hit on drop
http://i.imgur.com/0E5KTpM.gif
I showed each of these so you can understand that there is almost no reason at all to not use the drop. It doesn't cost any meter to do it and it has decent recovery frames. If you miss you are at much better frame advantage...I mean, you'll still get punished probably but you have a better chance of being able to block something if you drop opposed to floating down. The "float down" as I want to call it will not even allow you to combo on hit. It will still be a pretty good Anti-Air that you may be able to drop (if it doesn't drag them down, too) and recover fast enough for combo.
http://i.imgur.com/aQffMuV.gif
Hit on drop
http://i.imgur.com/0E5KTpM.gif
I showed each of these so you can understand that there is almost no reason at all to not use the drop. It doesn't cost any meter to do it and it has decent recovery frames. If you miss you are at much better frame advantage...I mean, you'll still get punished probably but you have a better chance of being able to block something if you drop opposed to floating down. The "float down" as I want to call it will not even allow you to combo on hit. It will still be a pretty good Anti-Air that you may be able to drop (if it doesn't drag them down, too) and recover fast enough for combo.
OVERALL ASSESSMENT
Kung Jin is fast, has plenty of range with his normals, good zoning options, and good damage. He seems to be the most well-rounded character revealed thus far (As of 3.22.15). His Ancestral is about zoning but he still has normals that pop-up and a divekick that can punish people who also try to zone, his Bojutsu hits hard and showcases the range best but still has the universal arrows and fireball, and his Shaolin variation is centralized around using the Chakram to put yourself at plus frames or to zone with it's speed. Each of these have variations have options to make him decent at the other (Ancestral has good pressure options, Bojutsu has good zoning options, and Shaolin is balanced between both). It's, honestly, hard for me to decide which of these is the best just by this 7 minute video but I, honestly, think any of these can be relevant in competitive play.
I hope I helped shed some light on how dominant Kung Jin is based off his normals, specials, and variations. Let me know if there is anything I may have missed.
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