If Kabal never existed...

[Lt. Boxy Angelman]

It was inevitable, but Kabal's zoning game is what wins him more of the important matchups than anything. NDCs are icing on the cake to the entire scheme of things.

If you weaken his NDCs, he won't be nearly as bad as if you weakened his iaGBs. The move is unlike any other air projectile because it comes out as fast as it does and has a huge hitbox. It also pushes him backwards quite a deal.

You make a painfully valid point, now that I think about it.

Months of fights and @REO's pieces of guidance along the way helped NDC's go from the 500-pound elephant in the room, to another outright silly mechanic in the game that seemed impossible to deal with, to being learned, re-learned, analyzed, picked apart, and escaped. Now everyone who competes knows, "Learn how to get out of Kabal's traps," learn your hitboxes, measure the speed of your pokes and prods towards the holes in his pressure, etc...it's as good as a right of passage to learn to combat.

Meanwhile, on point iAGB's are still one of, if not THE most frustrating thing in this game to get around. Unchanged.

 

[OutworldKeith]

We still have KL, Sonya, Cage....catch my drift

 

[DragonPick]

Why not bring back Mortal Kombat Armageddon style air combos?

 

[Lt. Boxy Angelman]

Why not bring back Mortal Kombat Armageddon style air combos?

While there were some parts of MK 3D I loved dearly...if I had a choice between going back to the disappointment of finding out every fighter lost a fighting style to make room for that horrible monotonous thing known as Air Kombat, and dying in an enormous fire, I would honestly rather die in an enormous fire.

 

[Derpin Errday]

Expand on this: what characters do you think Kabal is shielding from being labeled as broken just because he is in the game?

Freddy and Kenshi.

 

[Matador Fiend]

Kabal is the one and only reason I learned Kung Lao. I hate Kung Lao but I fucking hate Kabal that much more.

 

[MortySeinfeld]

exis

I don't mean for this topic to become a bitch session against Kabal, but I just wanted to get peoples' takes on how balanced they think MK9 would be if Kabal never made it into the game. Going back all the way to launch through the present, do you:

-Think the game would have been even better and more competitive than it eventually turned out to be?

-Think that lesser played characters would have become more popular because they wouldn't have been seen as being at as huge of a disadvantage as they are today?

-Think there would be other characters as hotly debated as Kabal? What are some other characters that would really jump up a lot higher in the tier list if Kabal was not in the game? How would it affect your character(s) and fight strategy?


Obviously losing a bad matchup like this would really benefit characters like Kenshi and Smoke, and make them even more prominent in the game...but at the same time I don't think Cage would really jump any higher in the same situation...

If Kabal never existed, we would all be complaining about Kenshi.

 

[K7L33THA]

This thread is whack.

 

[RiBBz22]

This thread is whack.

lol, I dunno why but you losing Kabal made me think of this. Just replace Tony with Kabal and quarterback with character.

 

[BookBurning]

It was inevitable, but Kabal's zoning game is what wins him more of the important matchups than anything. NDCs are icing on the cake to the entire scheme of things.

If you weaken his NDCs, he won't be nearly as bad as if you weakened his iaGBs. The move is unlike any other air projectile because it comes out as fast as it does and has a huge hitbox. It also pushes him backwards quite a deal.

His NDC is just another great tool but a tool none the less and consistently good players can poke out of them. Zoning on the other hand is another story because it safely builds tons of meter while forcing your opponent to keep themselves in check. I agree really, his IAGB is what makes him so good overall.

It needs a nerf.

 

[SaJa]

No kabal, no kunglao would be great. Why ? Because we see too much those 2 in tournaments and that's what's starting to be boring for a lot of people with mk9. Of course, we would probably have sonya, cyrax and JC (sorry but I don't see so many kenshi in tournament), instead but it would be more realistic for a stryker player to participate to a major from there.

A tier is ok, the problem is S tier.

 

[Jakeofspades]

More like: Game balance requires characters to be at equal grounds. Nobody should have game breaking advantage, which is hard to do.
I do believe that NRS has overburdened this game with the 30+ cast. I would have loved to see the cast be:
Cage, Raiden, Sonya, Kano, Scorpion, Subzero, Reptile, Liu, Shang, Lao, Kitana, Mileena, Jade, Jax, and then release every other character as DLC including nextgen like Havok through a course of a year or two, rather spending more time on development than end up with botched mechanics and a shitful of bugs. Poor design choice and rushed release coupled with patching on impulse. Bad.

You forgot alot of characters, Shang Tsung, Smoke, Cyrax & Sektor, Rain. Kabal lol

 

[Reedoms]

but I just wanted to get peoples' takes on how balanced they think MK9 would be if Kabal never made it into the game.

 

[PND OmegaK]

There will always be something to complain about. If kabal hadn't existed this same thread would've been made about Kung Lao or Sonya.

 

[xSMoKEx]

.... Smoke would have one less bad match-up

/thread.

 

[pickle keeper]

Without Kabal Kenshi would have been banned 4 months ago.

 

[GLoRToR]

You forgot alot of characters, Shang Tsung, Smoke, Cyrax & Sektor, Rain. Kabal lol

Shang is there. I left out the rest of the cast on purpose.

 

[McNasty]

Also, Kabal leveled this kommunity up tremendously.
There was a huge rally to learn the MU and becasue it is a tough one for many charecters. Players became better at the game! I am sure some other characters could have taken this role too...but Kabal just has every option covered!

If Kabal were not in this game I probably would main sonya... characters that can cancel shit are the most fun imo

Wow great point! The kabal era really did force people to step up their game from hard match ups to counterpoking


Sent from my LG-LW690 using Tapatalk 2

 

[derOeler]

I still firmly believe that Lao is better than Kabal.

He stands his ground yea. But better?
Kabal goes at least 6-4 vs everyone else, due to his ludicrous tools. (iaGb, NDCpressure, exND)

What makes Lao better?

Notice that i want to believe you, but cannot see any factor that supports your statement besides lao´s 7frame jab, an awesome xray and great meter building (which Kabal does even better).

On Topic: Cyrax would advance to the league of S-tier chars and Kenshi would still be a huge armoured problem for almost everyone (dat shoulder,..rom, rom rom).