Question I'm currently playing nightwolf and I fail to see 'why he is bad'

[LolingOctopus]

For those who don't know me, I'm a local player from the Montreal scene and I'm looking to host my place as a 'MK dojo' and will be uploading footage and stream as time goes for MK/Injustice.

Now, I played a load of characters and NW is the first I truly fail to see why he is bad.

Is it the good D4s that cripples him or what seems to be his main issues vs bad MU? As of now, vs the people I can play offline I don't have... trouble vs MU that are supposed to be hard.

Now I'm not saying I'm the second coming of christ or anything, but I want to be aware of NW's flaw to cover them better.

+ I'm looking to spark some life on this lovely sub forum

 

[Smarrgasm]

No true fast hitting mids. Cant do anything but reflect at full screen. HUGE hitbox. L0rdoftheFLY am i right?

 

[LolingOctopus]

Interesting, after 1221 I notice that nightwolf's footsies range is rather... interesting. What is your favorite offense after that string?

 

[NKZero]

NW has no continuous offense, no mix-ups and a very weak wake-up game. But he is underrated because he does good damage, has an invincible axe in the footsie game, has a good oki game with good whiff punishers. The fact that he cannot zone but yet has nothing solid up close to support really cripples him. Also other characters are simply better. He's not bad though.

 

[Eh SnOwY]

His sweep looks hella weird and its -24 on block

 

[AK L0rdoftheFLY]

No true fast hitting mids. Cant do anything but reflect at full screen. HUGE hitbox. L0rdoftheFLY am i right?

he loses to all the top tier characters.

Kabal is 8-2ish
Sonya is 7-3
Freddy is 8-2
kenshi is 6-4
lao is 6-4

he just doesnt have any reasonable MU in a tournament setting. He does ok against mid to low tiers but that is it. his footsies are decent. NO lightning traps. no range on anything except shoulder but it is duckable and massively punishable.

 

[LolingOctopus]

His sweep looks hella weird and its -24 on block

Call me crazy but I actually like his sweep, for reaction purposes though not on a read! haha

he loses to all the top tier characters.

he just doesnt have any reasonable MU in a tournament setting. He does ok against mid to low tiers but that is it. his footsies are decent. NO lightning traps. no range on anything except shoulder but it is duckable and massively punishable.

You do raise a good point, at shoulder range the opponent can easily duck, bait and punish. However, I find that playing a 'bully/rushdown NW' and just play as fast as I can with as little 'dead time' as possible makes 'ducking' a not desirable situation.

As of yet I haven't played him on a tournament setting, but I'll give it a shot next time there's one.

 

[AK L0rdoftheFLY]

just watch out for those MU i mentioned above.

 

[NRF CharlieMurphy]

You're probably having success on a ton of non-MU experience.

 

[LolingOctopus]

You're probably having success on a ton of non-MU experience.

Yes, which is why I'll continue playing NW, so that MTL can be aware of the MU 'even if useless'. + It makes me learn the character so I'll see if in a few months I still like him

 

[AYSAMO]

Call me crazy but I actually like his sweep, for reaction purposes though not on a read! haha



You do raise a good point, at shoulder range the opponent can easily duck, bait and punish. However, I find that playing a 'bully/rushdown NW' and just play as fast as I can with as little 'dead time' as possible makes 'ducking' a not desirable situation.

As of yet I haven't played him on a tournament setting, but I'll give it a shot next time there's one.

I used to play him like a bully, but half the cast can out bully him lol. My preferred play style is highly defensive, whenever they're in footsies range I throw out d1+hatchet to push them out of range, a lot of whiff and AA punishing. He feels a lot like sub-zero for me, so I don't really get offensive until I have them in the corner.

 

[GLoRToR]

He loses to Jade 4-6, too. But other than no fast hitting mids, weak zoning/counter zoning and huge hitbox, his pokes are weak and he doesn't really have any hard hitting combos. Also I find him kind of boring to play in mk9 whereas in mk3 I absolutely loved him. Might just be my tastes changing.
Doesn't help that most nightwolves I face try to cheap you out with shoulder/lightning and it's a rather tedious fight.

 

[LolingOctopus]

He loses to Jade 4-6, too.

Having played seriously both character I find this hard to believe.

I'm pretty sure in every situation nightwolf outdamage Jade.

JIP :

NW: meterless 39% (JIP 122 xx hatchet, b2 xx hatchet, 1, 122 xx shoulder)
vs
Jade: meterless 37% (JIP b1 xx staff overhead, 1, 12, 12 xx shadow kick xx shadow kick) (correct me if I'm wrong, been a while I played her)

Corner :

NW: Meterless 43-44%
Jade: Meterless 42%

And let's be serious here. You won't hit B1 as easy as you will 12/d3/b3 mixups. However this mix-up does no damage! Hell in the corner you will get AT BEST 25% while every touch nightwolf will do is easily 40%+

Alright, let's take into consideration 'the glow factor'. The glow factor sadly does NOT give you damage only allows you to armor through. Mid screen? At best you will land 37% for a bar of meter WITH a risky b1. Sadly Jade is high risk/low reward.

At range, let's be serious here, Jade's projectile are thrash vs Nightwolf. He can regen on REACTION for a bar of meter or even reflect them.

Quite honestly I believe it is 6-4 for NW best case scenario for Jade.

I didn't cover the 'meter game' because there's way to many parameters but I seriously believe nw has the upper hand. I do not claim the following fact but I believe ex shoulder even has armor crush proprieties vs glow anyway. I need to test this more before making it fact though... his shoulder is somewhat weird.

 

[Chuckychuck]

He loses to Jade 4-6, too. But other than no fast hitting mids, weak zoning/counter zoning and huge hitbox, his pokes are weak and he doesn't really have any hard hitting combos. Also I find him kind of boring to play in mk9 whereas in mk3 I absolutely loved him. Might just be my tastes changing.
Doesn't help that most nightwolves I face try to cheap you out with shoulder/lightning and it's a rather tedious fight.

Boring to play? Have you heard the sound of his Shoulder and combos? NW is awesome to play.

 

[PPJ]

Freddy is 8-2 and Kenshi is 6-4? I think he loses to Kenshi harder than Freddy...

 

[LolingOctopus]

I also feel that NW's AA game is much more better than Jade's (I didn't test the glow/staff tech you posted though so I might be wrong).

A nJIP = 33%
AA d1 = 23%

not so sure about naked AA hatchet but I'm pretty sure it's 34%

Hell nightwolf's AA outdamage Jade's corner damage from b3 (25%) / 12 (25%) / 21f3 (25%)

I'm really hesitant to say that Jade has the upper hand here man, the numbers are not in Jade's favor, let's be serious.

 

[LolingOctopus]

Freddy is 8-2 and Kenshi is 6-4? I think he loses to Kenshi harder than Freddy...

I sadly never tried vs Freddy, I'll check it out with Charlie as soon as I can

as for kenshi, meh it's not that bad. I can see it 6-4 kenshi but nothing worse than that

 

[NRF CharlieMurphy]

I sadly never tried vs Freddy, I'll check it out with Charlie as soon as I can

as for kenshi, meh it's not that bad. I can see it 6-4 kenshi but nothing worse than that

son you playing the wrong folks.

 

[xQUANTUMx]

Who plays Kenshi? Is it Jer? I forget

 

[LolingOctopus]

son you playing the wrong folks.

Yes because CLEARLY, Jer, zaf, Charlie2417, @Krys, Jedah are nothing but scrubs at fighting games.

Will you eternal wisdom claim that I have to play online? Or travel to Toronto? Oh wait... it's not like I did that pretty often for the past year and ended top 16 at toryuken / 9th at T13. Yeah clearly I'm playing wrong folks.

Let me remind you that our community is sadly small and I don't have the privilege of being in NYC/GGA.

Hell, I'm ready to put down money that Jer, zaf, Charlie2417, @krys will body you mercilessly. Even I the eternal scrub will fucking mop you away so stop being arrogant know it all nobody.

However, if you meant the following as 'you didn't play the best at this game yet.' well, I had the chance to play vs the NY scene and yes big surprise Reo, Maxter, Cd Jr bodied me. But really, is that shameful? Not really.

MU numbers are for the very top players. Let's say you give birth to an army of reo where each clone plays a character. You'll find that MU numbers would change dramatically instead of 'I lost, IT MUST BE THE MU!'

The reality is the majority of the community is mediocre, me included. Me getting bodied by pig (theorically) has nothing to do with the MU itself but with skill itself. Pig is a better MK player than I and I have no shame saying that. I still don't feel the MU is any worse than 6-4 though.

 

[LolingOctopus]

Who plays Kenshi? Is it Jer? I forget

Yeah @Jer's kenshi is really good. It's no pig, but I believe only pig outplays Jer's.

 

[xQUANTUMx]

Leo, calm down buddy, there are very few things worth getting that upset about. See how far you can take your nightwolf, and that's it. Let the chips fall where they may


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[xQUANTUMx]

Yeah @Jer's kenshi is really good. It's no pig, but I believe only pig outplays Jer's.

K, I thought I remember him playing Zaf last year at MAT..


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[LolingOctopus]

Leo, calm down buddy, there are very few things worth getting that upset about. See how far you can take your nightwolf, and that's it. Let the chips fall where they may

Dismissal of argument with a basic 'you suck and everyone you play vs sucks' is insulting and downright arrogant. You can endure it, but the comment was a slap to the face to anyone in MTL who plays this game with passion and I will not simply suck it up. Quite honestly, I know where I stand, but considering that Jer is IMO top 4 Canadian tournament player is disrespectful.

 

[Pig Of The Hut]

Yes because CLEARLY, Jer, zaf, Charlie2417, @Krys, Jedah are nothing but scrubs at fighting games.

Will you eternal wisdom claim that I have to play online? Or travel to Toronto? Oh wait... it's not like I did that pretty often for the past year and ended top 16 at toryuken / 9th at T13. Yeah clearly I'm playing wrong folks.

Let me remind you that our community is sadly small and I don't have the privilege of being in NYC/GGA.

Hell, I'm ready to put down money that Jer, zaf, Charlie2417, @krys will body you mercilessly. Even I the eternal scrub will fucking mop you away so stop being arrogant know it all nobody.

However, if you meant the following as 'you didn't play the best at this game yet.' well, I had the chance to play vs the NY scene and yes big surprise Reo, Maxter, Cd Jr bodied me. But really, is that shameful? Not really.

MU numbers are for the very top players. Let's say you give birth to an army of reo where each clone plays a character. You'll find that MU numbers would change dramatically instead of 'I lost, IT MUST BE THE MU!'

The reality is the majority of the community is mediocre, me included. Me getting bodied by pig (theorically) has nothing to do with the MU itself but with skill itself. Pig is a better MK player than I and I have no shame saying that. I still don't feel the MU is any worse than 6-4 though.

Kenshi nighwolf is 7-3