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Kotal Kahn General Discussion

Marinjuana

Up rock incoming, ETA 5 minutes
He's very very cool. The new Sunbeam is super cool.

Not in love with the tournament variations. The command grab one appeals to me the most but Blood God was always my favorite version of Kotal by far and I'm disappointed that we'll only see the blood totem in the kitty cat variation. Wish they would have dropped God Ray on the command grab variation and maybe had the defensive totem.

Glad he's got a canon W against Shao Khan.
 
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Qwark28

Joker waiting room
Idk what to think of the character. He gets fucked over super hard by some characters and his command grab is completely garbage.
 
Uppercut variation is pretty cool. F12 is not an op tool like it was in mkx but still very good as a high with that range. I do not really dare ducking against Kotal yet lol. However my friend complained a lot as I low profiled him very much. Need to work for the plus frames.
F12 needs hitconfirm but that's true for other strings too.
D1 is +10 and choke is 14F so after D1 mashing is not allowed. I like that mindgame but it is not that strong as it was with 114 in mkx.
Damage is pretty good.
 
Idk what to think of the character. He gets fucked over super hard by some characters and his command grab is completely garbage.
Why is it garbage? I did not find out yet. When I played with Kotal I can easily use it and when I played against him I did not find an easier way to get around than in mkx.
 

Qwark28

Joker waiting room
Why is it garbage? I did not find out yet. When I played with Kotal I can easily use it and when I played against him I did not find an easier way to get around than in mkx.
Because it has the same range as a normal grab, and normal grabs give you oki, unlike sun choke. The damage is lower than a normal throws as well.
 

_CHINOCUDEIRO_

Machakabotones
it looks fun idk but doesnt have alot combos
B22 is Kotal universal launcher.
You can do midscreen meterless B22-F12-and then choose if you want the damage and corner carry of the BF4cat (227 dmg). Or put a safe totem or change position with the DF2 sword of this variation
This combo can do it at the beggining of the match distance and if you use the cat it carries the opp to the corner and puts you at mid distance where Kotal shines
B22 is unsafe but you can follow on block with 1(OH) and make it safe. This variation also has the DF4 ray that if amplified tracks the opponent .
I mean, the grab variation is cool, but dont sleep on the cat

Also I´m beggining to use the unblockable in hard knockdowns or even between blocked strings, superuseful

EDIT:
B22-34-BF4cat (262dmg,midscreen,meterless,corner carry)
 
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Wrenchfarm

Lexcorp Proprietary Technologies
Messing around with the blood totem variation and it's interesting. Blood totem doesn't disappear when you get hit this time. More interesting, any time you call out a totem and get a hit you can summon another totem for an instant cash out. It's health on demand. So let's say you have a lv1 totem out, you score a basic combo, something like B22 122 for the full screen knock back. Summon your second totem while they are full screen and that's 68 health right there, also you have another lv 1 totem that is ready to convert to health for any other hits.

But it gets better. If you knock a character far back (lets say you were midscreen and did B22, F12xsword cut) and you summon another totem, it will appear near Kotal and work as a lv 1. But, if you manage summon again on the same screen as the first totem, they will stack. You still get your lv 1 totem pay out when you summon the 2nd one, but the next cash out is worth double. Adds up fast.

If you manage to stack three, the health boost is massive. Like a single stray F34 string will heal you for 130. A single throw will heal 150. If you hit a combo, you're basically healing back a combo worth of damage.

The Jaguar moves are more interesting than people are letting on too. Not many people seem to be aware that when amplified, they are projectile immune. Kotal isn't very meter dependent without his sun choke throw, so you can use them to do okay damage and get in on projectile heavy characters pretty often.

TBH I'm really struggling with the new Kotal. Everything he does seems so slow and half his fucking moves are high, I get beat out A LOT. So far combo potential seems low, I'm used to Kotal having BIG BOY damage. But I think there is a lot to explore with him and his second variation might not be nearly as bad as it seemed on first blush. Hopefully people can open up this character and put all his weird pieces together.
 

Wrenchfarm

Lexcorp Proprietary Technologies
just realized I never bothered with his character tutorial and I'm gonna be embarrassed if they go over all of what I just posted, lol.
 

_CHINOCUDEIRO_

Machakabotones
The Jaguar moves are more interesting than people are letting on too. Not many people seem to be aware that when amplified, they are projectile immune. Kotal isn't very meter dependent without his sun choke throw, so you can use them to do okay damage and get in on projectile heavy characters pretty often.
Thanks for the totem tricks,
BUT...... Jaguar amplifield moves? In my move list jaguar moves CAN´T be amplified :confused:
 
AFAIK Kotal Kahn only ticks off d1 and d3 (and d3 whiffs unless you are right on top of your opponent) so he really only has 1 reliable tick throw? Why would they do my boy like that?
 

Lanqu

Noob
TBH I'm really struggling with the new Kotal. Everything he does seems so slow and half his fucking moves are high, I get beat out A LOT. So far combo potential seems low, I'm used to Kotal having BIG BOY damage. But I think there is a lot to explore with him and his second variation might not be nearly as bad as it seemed on first blush. Hopefully people can open up this character and put all his weird pieces together.
Same here. His abilities are unique and look really kool. But without proper setup they are useful. And to setup anything you need a good base moves, but he lacks such. Ducking beats every option he has upclose or from the range. There is no way to cash out small frame adv-s that are usually left if you guessed right the safe move. So you basically forced to wait for opponents severe error to punish him. But he doesn't hit for half of your life anymore.

At least you can condition folks to guard after getting hit by a poke with f4 that nocks backs with a bit of damage. That's probably it for the neutral game: or you whiff punish, you have good tools for that; or you kick them out to full screen. There is still a question, what do you do, if you don't want to push them away. I can't find an answer here, seems there is no consistent way to launch opponent to stop him from ducking KK.
 

Wrenchfarm

Lexcorp Proprietary Technologies
Could you guys check out my kotal Kahn ranked matches if you wouldn’t mind?
Gotta love the 2nd round mercy :)

I'm really struggling with Kotal so take my advice with a grain of salt. One area I can definitely see you need improvement on though is hit confirming. If you go to the Sub-Zero fight, you throw out F23xKhan Cut a bunch of times even when he's blocking. You get away with it a few times because he doesn't seem familiar, but that will get you blown up on the regular. Just cutting out that habit and waiting to make sure the first two strikes actually hit before doing the special will help improve your game.

I'm terrible at hit confirming but one thing that has really helped me is doing the string and inputting the directional part of the special command, but not hitting the button till I know the string hit. Never give them a chance to hit you for free.