How to find your main?

[Arqwart]

The starting points are as follows:

1: Aesthetic
2: Personality
3: Gameplay

Generally speaking, I need all three to care enough for a character to play them extensively. Tanya from MKX is a great example of a character that had the aesthetic and personality down, but had gameplay that just did NOT interest me so I didn't bother with her. Should a character hit all three points (such as D'Vorah, Kitana, Jade, and Kung Lao most likely will in MK11), I figure out the 1 or 2 characters from the list that I want to spend all my time on and focus entirely on them so I can learn the game as a whole while getting better at just a couple characters. Comfort with the game's mechanics then leads to branching out to others that fit my mold.

 

[chrisisnice]

If Kitana is in it... well... yeah... it is her. But I always have a co-main / secondary soo...

I CANNOT play a character who I don't like the look of / personality. So I make a mental list of all of the characters I like the look of.

After this, I get in to practice mode with all of them and check out who is the most fun or fits with my play style. If I like one of them, I will stick with them.

In MK 11, I will probably start with Raiden, Jade (who was awesome in Beta!), Cetrion, Cassie and Noob and go from there.

If I am not in to any of those, I will practice the whole roster and play the most fun (excluding characters who bore me). I always want to play Johnny, but it almost the antithesis of my play style unfortunately.

 

[BS3OOO]

I sure did lol.

Lol cool. Was it CEO? Was that your first big tourney?

 

[Circus]

Lol cool. Was it CEO? Was that your first big tourney?

Yea, CEO 2011. It was literally my first tournament EVER; local or otherwise.
It was where I double eliminated Justin Wong in pools (he had just won the $10,000 PXG tournament).

I was so clear-headed in pools, but throughout all of top8 I was so nervous that I was dropping my BnB 100 times and just making questionable decisions. By top4 my mind was so frazzled that all I was doing was D1ing. I was so nervous. I hate watching the videos from back then lol.

I like to think I've improved a ton and gotten better with nerves since then even though I haven't attended any big tournament after that except CEO 2013 (got 16th in Injustice1) and CEO 2015 (32nd in MKX).

 

[ol_dirty_blunt]

You look for Kung Lao and then pick him.....

 

[BS3OOO]

That's dope. It's amazing that you put in that type of work in your very first tournament. I probably would've gotten nervous in top 8 too. I guess I remember a lot of things from those early MK9 days since I was new to the tourney scene. I just remembered you making waves lol. Well hey man, I wish you the best in MK11!

 

[lionheart21]

I am genuinly lost. There are simply too many characters that i want to try out. How do you guys figure this out? Are their specific steps you go through? Do you just look at aesthethics and lore? Maybe nostalgia plays a factor? Or do you guys just go throught the entire cast to see who clicks? I have a list of 10 characters i want to try out on day one lol. I would love to trim that list.

This is one of the biggest hurdles to get over when it comes to fighting games. For me, I lucked out because I've been a fan of Johnny Cage's personality since the original games, and I've been accustomed to playing both rushdown characters and footsies-based characters in other fighting games so he was a natural fit for me. As for Erron, one of my all-time favorite games is Red Dead Redemption so I'm a sucker for the Old West and that was the main reason that I initially picked him. His play-style is what made me choose him as my top main.

If you're not sure over who to pick, the best plan would be to do as your doing right now, having a pre-made list of who you want. The trimming part will pretty much come as a result of Training Mode., to see who fits you the best.

 

[Juggs]

The game isn’t even out yet...

People who are picking pre-release mains most likely won’t even end up using that character anyways. Has happened in just about every FG, definitely in every NRS game.

What I’m gonna do is go through the entire roster and find out who I like. Like I said in my notes thread, gonna be spending a lot of time on all the characters to find my mains.

 

[DragonofDadashov24]

Liu Kang found me

 

[ArcticTabasco]

I'm pretty sure I'm maining Liu Kang (did so in MK9 and X), but there are a lot of characters that I want to try too (so did MKX) and I have a pretty simple way of paring that list down.

I just hit training mode and figure out (or look up from the forums) their BnB combos and practice them for a while. If doing the combos is fun and cool and feels good to do, I keep going deeper. If they don't, I usually move on from that character.

The reason why I figure this works (for me at least) is you're gonna do those combos a lot. If they don't fit you like a glove, it won't work out. After that baseline I start looking into more technical stuff with the character, like setups and mixups and so on.

I am going to try everyone at least once though. There have always been characters in every game I end up liking and having in my pocket that I didn't think I was going to end up with based on their aesthetic appeal alone.

 

[SaSSolino]

Try every wizard bad guy until I find one that fits my playstyle.

 

[Shoah_Kahn]

How to find your main?

E-sports:

• tier
• match-up favourability
• sponsorship factors

Player:

• design / aesthetic; personality; lore
• gameplay diversity / fun factor; depth

Casual:

• overall ease of use
• best exploits
• online / lag favourability
• whichever looks "koolest" / "makes dick diamonds"

 

[Mind Flex]

I have 3 steps to pick a main.

1. Is Smoke in the game? If so Auto main. If not go to step 2
2. Find best character with some combo of Divekick, teleport, slide. If None then step 3
3. Find a Staff user or other character with really long range normals.

MK11 Day 1 main. Noob

Options for secondary character.
Kung Lao, Kotal, Jade

 

[GLoRToR]

I am genuinly lost. There are simply too many characters that i want to try out. How do you guys figure this out? Are their specific steps you go through? Do you just look at aesthethics and lore? Maybe nostalgia plays a factor? Or do you guys just go throught the entire cast to see who clicks? I have a list of 10 characters i want to try out on day one lol. I would love to trim that list.

Try everyone.

 

[LawAbidingCitizen]

I am genuinly lost. There are simply too many characters that i want to try out. How do you guys figure this out? Are their specific steps you go through? Do you just look at aesthethics and lore? Maybe nostalgia plays a factor? Or do you guys just go throught the entire cast to see who clicks? I have a list of 10 characters i want to try out on day one lol. I would love to trim that list.

I myself am looking at Kitana, Noob, Sub Zero, Liu Kang, D'Vorah, Kotal, Shang Tsung and Cassie. But I don't know who I'll main until the game is fully out. I don't know what every characters frame data is or the range of every move, how the characters play and thier Matchups.
When I get the game I will go into practice, develop combos, pressure, what moves reach the farthest and what moves can be followed after other pokes/strings then I develop Punishers to hard to deal with moves and see what openers I have and tech then it's matchup and combo damage midscreen vs corner.
It will likely take me a month to decide my final main but it's only after labbing everything they have.
The only characters that are exceptions to this are: Cyrax, Reptile, Smoke, Mileena and Chameleon. I'd main them no matter what and pocket a strong character for thier short comings.
.