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General/Other - Kotal Kahn Kotal Kahn General Discussion

What is your favorite Variation?

  • War God

    Votes: 170 42.0%
  • Sun God

    Votes: 139 34.3%
  • Blood God

    Votes: 61 15.1%
  • All Equally

    Votes: 35 8.6%

  • Total voters
    405

ExpectFlames

Lord of embers
Everyone is so worried about b1, I feel like I'm the only one who used d3 to tick throw with sg :) There's still s1,d3,d4, for tick throws and now that people can't duck the choke sg still seems just as good.
b1 was for more than just sg. the b1 stagger into 21 was Godlike in Wg. now kotal in this meta has just Ok tools.
 

Qwark28

Joker waiting room
Pre-patch, poking after your 114 on hit was just used to catch people waiting to press buttons after B1.

Now you have no way of threatening after a 114 air throw except ex choke.
 

ATP2014

The best mediocre Batman
condition with d1
Right, but if they choose to just block or backdash, it is their turn again. You aren't going to win by hitting an opponent 20 times with d1/d4. I'm not saying that 114 air grab pressure is dead, just significantly worse.

I believe that Kotal wasn't a 50/50 machine at a high level. Good players would punish the swords consistently, as well as OS armor launch through the gaps. Even if you had crap armor pre-patch, a lot of players were backdashing or fuzzying the OH/low sword mixup.

For me, and I believe I can say comfortably for other high level Kotal's as well, he was a footsie/stagger monster, who was always at good frames on block and had amazing buttons to regulate the ground game. B1 was the centerpoint of that Kotal offense, and with that being a high now it is much easier to for other characters to escape.

War God is probably still fine, but now will seriously struggle against zoners and against good players that can consistently block the OH/low sword mixups. F1 and F12 are great, but in the end, the loss of B1 outweigh those buffs. Blood God and Sun God will also suffer.
 
Speaking of the buffs, both f1 and b32 now have increased pushback, f12 is just -1 on block and already had good pushback. How viable would it be for wargod to stagger those into sword mixups, using the distance made by those moves to attack at close to max range, thus making them harder to punish?
 
Speaking of the buffs, both f1 and b32 now have increased pushback, f12 is just -1 on block and already had good pushback. How viable would it be for wargod to stagger those into sword mixups, using the distance made by those moves to attack at close to max range, thus making them harder to punish?
Unless they changed those strings, f12 and b32 cant be special canceled. You can cancel f1 but the risk / reward is ass since you get low damage vs being punished
 

Qwark28

Joker waiting room
Don't forget about the parry! Even ex parry into 114,ex db1,f2, b14 choke. 52% can definitely change a match.
People will poke after 114 air throw, meaning that if you parry and 114 you're not going to hit them because they're ducking. 52% for 2 bars isn't great and parry leaves you open if it doesn't hit. Command grab is much more optimal.
 

Toodrunk2combo

Sub and kotal FTW
People will poke after 114 air throw, meaning that if you parry and 114 you're not going to hit them because they're ducking. 52% for 2 bars isn't great and parry leaves you open if it doesn't hit. Command grab is much more optimal.
Very true command grab can often be better. I'm sure if I get some matches against better players I'd have to change my habits.
 

Tweedy

Noob
Sun God might finally be the best Kotal variation.

I think Sun God gained what he lost, with the new B32 buff. They gotta hold your poke after they block that, if you think they'll block the poke, command grab. B1 command grab before was worse than that, because people could just OS armor you with 1 bar launching armor.
 

mkl

Poopbutt.
What option does WG Kotal have now on wake-up? What's the best option since the armor on EX DB1 is gone? Thanks.
All of the other EX Sword Specials have their value in armor. db3 has two hits of armor. df2 has the most retarded vertical hitbox but is slow. db2 is a relatively fast low. War God still has options, he just doesn't have an unsafe swiss army knife anymore.

On topic though. 114~df1 is still plus. Quit acting like it's some terrible situation suddenly. d1 checks have always been legit since on hit you're just put into more bullshit plus frames. On block who gives a shit. If they backdash they don't get anything and are risking getting chewed up by a f2/f1 read. If they armor they've used a bar to do 10% to you, that maybe you blocked and chewed through them for. And you still can b1 like normal because they're not going to continually neutral duck like morons after getting their asses beat in this situation. It's a great situation and y'all need to chill. Only on TYM could anyone ever say that +4 with 6 frame normals is a situation where you better just armor because your opponent is going to press buttons. loooooool
 
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What option does WG Kotal have now on wake-up? What's the best option since the armor on EX DB1 is gone? Thanks.
ex df2 is very slow, and be careful with ex db2, one njp or crossup and youre done with a million recovery frames and pretty minus on block, some characters can punish you by blocking it and others can run up and pressure

you can use ex db3 (they can still njp or crossup you, so be careful though) rather than ex db2 since ex db2 can be armor broken most of the time easily by normal strings if timed correctly
 
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ATP2014

The best mediocre Batman
Played a long set with Sun God exclusively and I still am not sure I like it over War God. F12 is the main string now imo, and I feel like War God has better ways of taking advantage of it on hit and block.

Also, the knockdown from Mid Sword seems even more crucial now in order to stay in on zoners. Unless your opponent is already cornered, Sun God's enders don't give him much advantage to get back in and maintain pressure.
 

P3irce

Noob
Been thinking about using ex canceled sword quake as a pseudo parry, do we have frame data for that on block / hit?
 

Paul the Octopus

Slow Starter
Does anyone have advice on the grandmaster matchup (as sun god)? Please dont respond with "pick another character" joke advice.

In general, my strategy has been to play pretty lame, parry ice balls and clone throws until they get impatient and come in. Then Kotal is in a decent spot, as a successful antiair or whiff punish leads to decent follow ups. However pretty easy to overcommit while keeping the pressure on, and run into an ice clone, which leads to a terrible situation.

One thing I've started doing is parrying the clone into throw/b2 mixups, and that seems to help a bit. Destroying clones w sun disk seems to help a little too.

However, still seem to lose this matchup pretty consistently unless I'm just far better than the opposing player.
 
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Dre_Kang

Blah
Does anyone have advice on the grandmaster matchup (as sun god)? Please dont respond with "pick another character" joke advice.

In general, my strategy has been to play pretty lame, parry ice balls and clone throws until they get impatient and come in. Then Kotal is in a decent spot, as a successful antiair or whiff punish leads to decent follow ups. However pretty easy to overcommit while keeping the pressure on, and run into an ice clone, which leads to a terrible situation.

One thing I've started doing is parrying the clone into throw/b2 mixups, and that seems to help a bit. Destroying clones w sun disk seems to help a little too.

However, still seem to lose this matchup pretty consistently unless I'm just far better than the opposing player.
Your right the best way I've found to deal with Grandmaster is extreme patience it's a battle of who makes the least amount of mistakes and who can take advantages of opportunities! Especially Sun God! And very calculated Sun Disk throws!
 

ToX

Noob
I just picked up Kotal Kahn and I think he's a badass character.

Any useful strings or staggers that are good for people who are newer to the character and game in general?
War God is the variation I'm using atm
 

CrazyFingers

The Power of Lame Compels You
114 xx Air Grab on block creates a pretty strong frame trap. F1/F12/F1B2 are all things you need to get used to using since F1 is your only fast mid. B122 is good for catching back dashes but other than that it's become pretty lack luster since it's a high now. B2 is good on knockdown since it low crushes and hits overhead, can catch people off guard. F3 is a decent low normal and F34 into special can be good. Basically your main stagger will come from F1 but you should be staggering everything in War God to keep the mix alive.
 
dont abuse your f1 (or anything that starts with it, like f12 and f1b2) outside of punish and whiff punish since it has a really bad hurtbox with a pretty bad hit advantage, so even trading becomes a disadvantage

mix is your strongest tool with war god now (imo), so you need to take advantage of it to be successful, and if they can punish your blocked mix ups (since a good amount of cast can) you're done