Pyrosis
Gentlemen, behold! My opinion!
I wanted to make a thread dedicated to Shao Kahn's thick meat. Hopefully this will be a thread for any Shao Kahn players still remaining crickets to place their setups for meaties, now that the game has changed to allow for them.
That out of the way we should discuss the absolute ideal meaty button for Shao to land, since it allows him to continue into strike/throw pressure by being +6 on block: the illustrious Forward4 KAHN KICK. F4 starts up in 28 frames and covers a very large distance. Unfortunately for Shao Kahn (nothing new here) he only has one move that has enough hit advantage to allow for an absolutely true F4 meaty set up: Hammer Lunge on hit rewards Shao with 50 frames of hit advantage, enough though the move list says 48. This means that after any un-AMP'd Hammer Lunge hit you are guaranteed a meaty F4 if you insert a frame kill. The frame kill we use here is a D1 before immediately hitting F4 right after. Here's the math that ensures this frame kill works on standard wake up:
Down 1 is 7 start-up frames, 2 active frames, 15 recovery frames for a total of 24 frames to complete the move. Since F4 has 28 start-up frames if we add these two we get 52 frames total, only 2 frames over our 50 frame hit advantage from Hammer Lunge. Since no character has any move that's 2 frame start up we are guaranteed to get our F4 meaty on the standard wake up timing, not even holding up will beat this.
This is, unfortunately, all I have that absolutely guarantees the F4 on the standard wake up timing. Shao simply does not have any other moves with enough hit advantage or moves that are fast enough to be used as a frame kill off of the proceeding meaty set up. Anything after this is speculative but does work often for me in real games to get the meaty f4:
In essence, you are looking for any knock down with hit advantage that is larger than 28 frames and the method I've been using on these knockdowns that isn't Hammer Lunge is something we're all used to by now: Wave Dashing. Using the time it takes to complete just one dash, canceled by block and inputting the F4 directly after can allow for meaty set ups off of the following enders or hits:
• 2,1,2 which is 40 frames of hit advantage, and knocks far so you actually need the single wave dash to get the F4 follow up into range
• F4 itself is 36 frames of hit advantage, so you can meaty off of it. Inputting another F4 after a F4 hit immediately will result in it whiffing so you need the single wave-dash "tech". You can end combos in F4 as well.
• F2,4 is 32 frames of hit advantage, which allows for a single wave dash into f4 as well
• Up Wrath Hammer gives 42 frames, incorrectly listed as 33 in the move list
BUYER BEWARE: All these set ups are speculative and not exact frame kills since I'm not sure the exact frames of a single wave-dash, but they all work very consistently for me
Moves that have enough hit advantage but don't need the "wave-dash tech" are:
• Shoulder Charger down amplify is 27 frames of hit advantage. For this if I want to try to meaty F4 I just go directly into it
• Spear Charge un-Amp'd gives 29 hit advantage frames. This is only applicable in the corner, since it knocks too far mid screen. If you want to meaty F4 input it directly after. Not super useful since the power of Spear Charge is in it's Amp and Shoulder Charger is better all around imo
That out of the way we should discuss the absolute ideal meaty button for Shao to land, since it allows him to continue into strike/throw pressure by being +6 on block: the illustrious Forward4 KAHN KICK. F4 starts up in 28 frames and covers a very large distance. Unfortunately for Shao Kahn (nothing new here) he only has one move that has enough hit advantage to allow for an absolutely true F4 meaty set up: Hammer Lunge on hit rewards Shao with 50 frames of hit advantage, enough though the move list says 48. This means that after any un-AMP'd Hammer Lunge hit you are guaranteed a meaty F4 if you insert a frame kill. The frame kill we use here is a D1 before immediately hitting F4 right after. Here's the math that ensures this frame kill works on standard wake up:
Down 1 is 7 start-up frames, 2 active frames, 15 recovery frames for a total of 24 frames to complete the move. Since F4 has 28 start-up frames if we add these two we get 52 frames total, only 2 frames over our 50 frame hit advantage from Hammer Lunge. Since no character has any move that's 2 frame start up we are guaranteed to get our F4 meaty on the standard wake up timing, not even holding up will beat this.
This is, unfortunately, all I have that absolutely guarantees the F4 on the standard wake up timing. Shao simply does not have any other moves with enough hit advantage or moves that are fast enough to be used as a frame kill off of the proceeding meaty set up. Anything after this is speculative but does work often for me in real games to get the meaty f4:
In essence, you are looking for any knock down with hit advantage that is larger than 28 frames and the method I've been using on these knockdowns that isn't Hammer Lunge is something we're all used to by now: Wave Dashing. Using the time it takes to complete just one dash, canceled by block and inputting the F4 directly after can allow for meaty set ups off of the following enders or hits:
• 2,1,2 which is 40 frames of hit advantage, and knocks far so you actually need the single wave dash to get the F4 follow up into range
• F4 itself is 36 frames of hit advantage, so you can meaty off of it. Inputting another F4 after a F4 hit immediately will result in it whiffing so you need the single wave-dash "tech". You can end combos in F4 as well.
• F2,4 is 32 frames of hit advantage, which allows for a single wave dash into f4 as well
• Up Wrath Hammer gives 42 frames, incorrectly listed as 33 in the move list
BUYER BEWARE: All these set ups are speculative and not exact frame kills since I'm not sure the exact frames of a single wave-dash, but they all work very consistently for me
Moves that have enough hit advantage but don't need the "wave-dash tech" are:
• Shoulder Charger down amplify is 27 frames of hit advantage. For this if I want to try to meaty F4 I just go directly into it
• Spear Charge un-Amp'd gives 29 hit advantage frames. This is only applicable in the corner, since it knocks too far mid screen. If you want to meaty F4 input it directly after. Not super useful since the power of Spear Charge is in it's Amp and Shoulder Charger is better all around imo
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