Lets talk about Breaker strategy.

[Vagrant]

I want to use this thread for discussion about the strategy of breaking combos in Killer Instinct.

Here's what I've noticed about a week into playing.

-Autos
I get combo'd, opener, and here If I think they're going to do an auto double I watch what the first hit looks like and if by looking at that first hit, I recognize the strength of the auto double, then I break the next hit.

I'll get better at this as I continue to study more and more auto double animations. Which is alot less daunting right now with 6 characters.

I don't know if it's possible to confirm lights. Maybe with enough preperation, otherwise you'd have to just guess.


-Shadow moves
Breaking shadow moves is interesting. The timing on the one I practiced on was not as easy as I thought it would be. Jagos EX laser sword.

I could consistently get the "1 2 3!" on every other hit of the shadow move, but I couldn't pick and choose which hits I wanted to break whenever I wanted without missing the timing and getting locked out. I think being able to break any hit at any time will be crucial to avoid being easy to read and counter breakered so I have some serious work to do on the timing for these. It seems each move has a different timing as well so players who want to get this down will have ALOT to practice. That being said there could be some trick to this that I'm completely missing that makes it easy as shit but, that's part of why I made this thread =).


-Linkers

I haven't really practiced breaking linkers but I understand the basic principal. With alot of linkers, the heavier move will have more hits. so for like jago's wind kick as a linker if you see it hit twice you would get ready to break with the heavy buttons IF and as soon as you see a third hit.

I would guess that breaking a 2 hit medium linker would be a risk because you don't know if they actually are doing a heavy linker and there will be a third hit.

1 hit light linkers I would assume is a guess.

Knowing this, the best thing to do right now for me will probably be to study each characters linkers and look at which ones I can confirm third hits with heavy breakers.



Feel free to discuss your breaker strategy, lets keep it information based though and not about people's thoughts about the system. There are plenty of other places for that.

 

[ShadowBeatz]

Honestly, at this point, I RARELY break, for a few reasons (obviously varies depending on experience against an opponent):

1) If you hit the wrong breaker or are too late, you're going to get hammered with heavy's and take a lot of damage.
2) If that "!" is not appearing above your head, your opponent is more likely to either a) end the combo early to avoid being broken or b) fish for that counter-breaker and end the combo entirely
3) If you get counter-broken, it resets that KV meter so you take even more damage (although, not SIGNIFICANTLY more then hitting the wrong breaker)

As far as what I break, it's essentially always either auto-doubles or shadow-linkers (although I've toned down the latter because people are starting to learn you can cancel those with counter-breakers...). But yeah, I pretty much just eat the damage for the most part

 

[Vagrant]

Honestly, at this point, I RARELY break, for a few reasons (obviously varies depending on experience against an opponent):

1) If you hit the wrong breaker or are too late, you're going to get hammered with heavy's and take a lot of damage.
2) If that "!" is not appearing above your head, your opponent is more likely to either a) end the combo early to avoid being broken or b) fish for that counter-breaker and end the combo entirely
3) If you get counter-broken, it resets that KV meter so you take even more damage (although, not SIGNIFICANTLY more then hitting the wrong breaker)

As far as what I break, it's essentially always either auto-doubles or shadow-linkers (although I've toned down the latter because people are starting to learn you can cancel those with counter-breakers...). But yeah, I pretty much just eat the damage for the most part

1. yeah but thats kind of on the player to practice hitting it at the right time.
2. yeah but thats part of the meta, sometimes it's worth it to go for the breaker.
3. yes the kv meter resets but the damage scale still remains in tact.

You want to guess as little as possible when you break I agree. but there are situations where you don't really have to guess, you can confirm.

 

[Vagrant]

GGA Dizzy

Anything to bring up or add here? How do you go about looking for when to break?

 

[NRF CharlieMurphy]

It sorta comes down to the player and the character you're using.

Everyone has their own gimmick when it comes to the combo system. Jago can be hard to break, because he doesn't have to go directly from AD/Manual into a linker. Same with Orchid, she can back to back her linkers and sneak in some damage or throw off what you're looking for.

Manuals are basically going to be something you'll have to do later on to get the ! and get the huge damage on someone. Especially if you do the same manual over and over, and you get the orange !.... you'll typically have a good conditioning tool to say "Ok.... time to wail on you"

as for myself. I set rules before the match on how i'm going to break. So i'll go into one match only looking to break every other time.... or something as simple as. 1st combo they land i'll break on the 2nd AD. 2nd combo i'll break the 1st.... etc etc.
I find that when i actually have a set plan, I don't fall into an instinctual pattern that is easy to read.

 

[ShadowBeatz]

You want to guess as little as possible when you break I agree. but there are situations where you don't really have to guess, you can confirm.

I know, but even when you're confirming, there's always the risk of that counter breaker, which I find a lot of players like to go for at this stage of the game (probably because it's hype as hell lol), and so my general rule is to just wait until they open themselves up and punish them.

But again, because this game is more about mind games and anything else, so breaker strats vary with every opponent ^__^

 

[Vagrant]

I know, but even when you're confirming, there's always the risk of that counter breaker, which I find a lot of players like to go for at this stage of the game

If you break on the active frames of the second hit of a heavy auto, I would think a breaker would beat a counter any time. A counter can't be done after a breaker it has to be preemptive and since your breaking while they're in the middle of attacking you with the second hit of an auto double they're obviously not countering.

therefore any counter break attempt would be done after your breaker, which wouldn't work.

 

[xhChrishx]

Heavy autos are so slow, they are easily spotted and broken. So, the only time I though out a heavy auto is when I am going to attempt a counter breaker.