(I will reface this by saying I am a terrible and inexperienced player)
I've now played MKX for 40+ hours, mostly with Sun God Kotal Kahn and I have some impressions/questions.
Sun God Kotal seems like a very bad character. Mostly because his normals are very slow, allowing a lot of characters to beat his moves (seemingly) on reaction. His wakeup also suffers greatly because of this, being cornered seems like a death sentence.
He feels like a medium range fighter who wants to use the range of his normals to keep an opponent at bay. If an opponent gets close he's screwed because their normals will beat his normals, leaving him with just a command throw and a parry. Likewise an opponent at long range is also problematic because Kotal barely has any options to deal with strong zoning. Casting (ex) sunlight on himself is a losing proposition vs zoners.
He doesn't seem to have a good high/low combo starter like some other characters. I have not found a lot of usefulness in the 1,4 combo.
He doesn't seem to have fast multi-hits to blow up armoured moves either.
His metre build seems downright atrocious because he can rarely use his specials and is forced to defend a lot. An opponent getting 6 bars for every 3 of mine is common.
It's very hard to keep the pressure on an opponent. Their faster normals and mixups usually force me into defence mode very quickly where I usually stay. From then on it's hoping for a mistake so I can sneak in a combo and/or command throw.
I know basically two combos right now, both do 38-39% with 1 bar. Decent but not great either. His f2 can result in massive damage but actually landing it is incredibly hard and risky. 1,1,4 seems to be his best option.
I don't want to be a downer though. I still like playing him a lot. His Dry Rub Brutality is one of my favourite things to do in MKX and his normals generally look great.
To improve my game I would like to ask for some advice from the much more advanced players like you guys and gals are:
- Does anyone know of good ways to open up players and/or keep them on the defensive?
- What about air to air moves? I always seem to lose the air battle unless I throw out my attack well before they do.
- What about anti-airs? Are air grab and d2 my best bet?
- Any tips on beating corner pressure would also be greatly appreciated normally I try to neutral jump or d4 with a ex parry or command throw if I think I have a read on a player, sadly it seems like a lot of attacks beat nearly all of those options.
- I am bad at combos. Even the f2,1,f2,ex air grab,f2,d2 (39%) took me 2 hours in training mode to figure out and even then I've only managed to do it online maybe 5 times. 1,1,4,ex air grab,f2,d2 (38%) is easier but I've failed at reliably extending that one. Are there other (easy) combos which would be a good addition to my repertoire? I've noticed multiple characters have ~40% combos even without metre.
Thanks for the help in advance and if anyone has questions I will do my best to help.
Okay, the first thing you have to make sure you understand is that the threat of Sun God Choke will do all the opening up that you'll need. Because it is unblockable, landing it once reinforces that you don't need a mid/low mix up because your 50/50 mix up is "am I going to strike you, or am I going to throw you?".
His d+1 and d+3 are some of the fastest normals in the game, so you need to utilitze them when you're up close and you don't have a game plan. Also, you can cancel either of these into the Sun God Choke on block and it can't be reversed (i.e. their only options for escape are jump/back dash). I'm still checking out some other normals, because some feel like you can cancel them on hit and still get the throw. I'll get back to you on that. I believe b+1,4 is in this category.
You can use jumping 2 early in your jump for air to air combat, it comes out reasonably fast. If you land it, you get a full combo. (i.e. f+2, (delay) f+2, 2,1> ex air throw, 2,1, sun god choke). This is my BnB, and it's around 43% at level 3 so it works just fine for me.
Range 2 where f+2 can land is a great place to be. It's just outside of d+4 range which is ridiculous in itself, and still close enough to where you can dash Sun God Choke (back to the hit/throw mixup).
Once you've choked them once, apply pressure based on their habits. Many people wake up blocking/reversal, so I normally start with jumping over them. I'll either do a jumping 2, expecting them to block so that I can work on a block string into Sun God Choke... or empty jump and Sun God Choke again. You must train them to respect the choke as an option before everything becomes easier. Getting to level 3 choke makes the match much easier from a lot of different angles. Oh, and people will try to uppercut you on wake up when they think you're going to choke again... so just walk backwards to make the uppercut whiff, then choke them or f+2 them!
Always end juggles with the Sun God Choke if possible. Much easier to level it up that way. 2,1,2 is a nice ender if you want to keep the opponent close to you after you reach level 3 choke, but otherwise... choke 'em out!!
The combo I mentioned above is normally the only one I use unless I'm off that day and I'm not hitting the second f+2, then I just take out that f+2. For a corner variation, you can do 3x f+2 before starting the rest of the combo (I saw a vid of this guy hitting 5x f+2 in the corner! Crazy!). Practice the juggle that works for you. You want to get the most reliable damage you can, because the rest of your ground game will make up for it. Using the juggle you have now, you still only need two combos to end the round once you're ground game is doing what it's supposed to do.
Once you have meter (2 bars normally), use EX Sunstone to surprise people. Great damage, and the knockdown will give you plenty of time to move back in. I try to keep one bar for EX air throw unless I just have to stop an opponent's long range assault.
If you have 2.5 bars... Level 3 Soul Scorch > X-Ray is viable, and it will surprise almost any zoner you come across.
I learned here that b+3,2 is safe on block so be sure to use it in order to cover ground safely. I can't remember the other strings which are safe ta the moment, but this is the one I use to cover ground. If you want to keep the pressure on, EX Sun God Choke will give you armor if they retaliate. This is a good way to scare them, so the next time you do this string... they'll either spend bar for an armored reversal, or give you back the advantage you wanted in the first place by trying to avoid the throw.
The parry is going to be the key for high end play. We're going to have to learn common strings for other characters so we will be able to interrupt with EX parry, and murder them afterwards. It only takes one parry to save a round for you. Parry into EX Parry is great too. I've started working on this more for special moves which I know have multiple hits (i.e. Kung Jin's Bo staff swing). We have a unique opportunity to turn common pressure strings into unsafe situations for the opponent, so we must take advantage of it when we can.
We're glad to have you here with us, and we plan to take Kotal Kahn to his rightful place as Emperor! I personally want to take Sun God to the next level, and so anything I find that is helpful I'll be happy to share. The other players here are awesome, and I've already learned a lot from them in only a week. I can't wait to develop even more with everyone's help.
