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MK11 Johnny Cage General Discussion

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Deleted member 35141

Guest
I think nrs really wanted this character to be bad in ranked just by looking at flippy kick compared to rising shoulder.
On block flippy is always negative even amplified whereas shoulder can be amped safe and overhead.
The biggest one to me is as a combo ender flippy leaves you a full dash away. Rising shoulder on the other hand leaves you in range of his best strings, grab and d4.

On a side note I wish I knew how to upload a clip of frost blocking my amped nut punch as I mentioned last page
 

FoughtDragon01

Ask me about my Mileena agenda.
Is there any use to flip kick at all? Like, any? It’s always struck me as weird how it’s seen as a staple of Johnny’s moveset even though it feels like it has no use outside of a cool animation.
It's got a pretty bitchin' brutality attached to it. Definitely the easiest one for him to get. Is it practical? Maybe not, but I've always been a 'fashion over function' guy anyway.
 

FoughtDragon01

Ask me about my Mileena agenda.
It would be nice if Brass knuckles would buff overall damage like Jax's heated arms, I barely use the shits. I noticed it does a lot more chip so it could be useful to follow up f4 and F344 with FB.
It'd be even better if the buff lasted longer than I do in bed than the lifespan of a mayfly. Safest way to activate it is to end a midscreen combo with 121xxKnuckles, but by the time you get back in on your opponent, the buff's already ended a fortnight ago.
 

DrFolmer

AKA Uncle Kano
I need some help with Liu Kang, I get that some in here think it's in our favor - I just fail to see why. Either I suck against this guy specifically despite labbing his pressure string, or I just meet the God Kangs consistently. He punishes us HARD, he doesn't HAVE to play footises since his fullscreen game is good (ours is too, it's about getting lifelead). His throw game is crazy good because his pressure string demands so much respect and we have to be very considerate in terms of poking. Are we even able to punish the flying kick with our average speed mids? It seems to be a really tight window if possible. Can we punish low fireball (and the enhanced version)? Every time I try he blocks in time. Can I interrupt with d4 when he goes for the + on block ender? I can only do it somewhat consistently with d1

I do find success with baiting his string after f344 and back dash, but his f12 string catches that - and sometimes his main string catches my attempt at whiff punishing lol but that's just my dumbass not letting him flush the 4 in the string before punishing. And online is a big factor too, I can't count how many timers I've been KB'ed by the ender even though I read he wanted to go for it and tried to hit him out of it
 

M.D.

Spammer. Crouch walk hater.
Lol how can Cage be in favor of a matchup with someone that has a 9 frame mid?
If parry was like kang's then probably yes but in this case: No.
 

Wrath0594

Steam profile: 76561198102032134
I need some help with Liu Kang, I get that some in here think it's in our favor - I just fail to see why. Either I suck against this guy specifically despite labbing his pressure string, or I just meet the God Kangs consistently. He punishes us HARD, he doesn't HAVE to play footises since his fullscreen game is good (ours is too, it's about getting lifelead). His throw game is crazy good because his pressure string demands so much respect and we have to be very considerate in terms of poking. Are we even able to punish the flying kick with our average speed mids? It seems to be a really tight window if possible. Can we punish low fireball (and the enhanced version)? Every time I try he blocks in time. Can I interrupt with d4 when he goes for the + on block ender? I can only do it somewhat consistently with d1

I do find success with baiting his string after f344 and back dash, but his f12 string catches that - and sometimes his main string catches my attempt at whiff punishing lol but that's just my dumbass not letting him flush the 4 in the string before punishing. And online is a big factor too, I can't count how many timers I've been KB'ed by the ender even though I read he wanted to go for it and tried to hit him out of it
I know where you're coming from, but let's take a step back from the losses and break some of this down.

First point- he does have to play footsies, and he loses them. Johnny's fireball is faster than Liu Kang's. If you're referring to LK's teleport variation, I'd like to point out that his teleport options are all unsafe, it's a mixup. As for fireballs, his are slower to come out and slightly slower to travel the screen.

Continuing with the footsies thing, check out his best normals. F4, f3... Uh... B1? Even b2. The range on all of them is pathetic compared to Johnny's. This is the biggest thing keeping it in our favor. He's one of the easiest matchups imo just because of how hard our normals raw outspace his.

Fly kick is high and -20, nearly identical to Shadow Kick. It's punishable by f344, but if that gives you trouble then f21 nutpunch should work. If you're feeling ballsy, it's possible to duck and uppercut as it passes over.

His throw game is kinda eh, since you only need to tech backthrow. His fwd throw puts you back at fullscreen where you're free to outprojectile and outspace him. Both low fireball and amp are full combo punishable. These are things you just have to lab. It's an easier punish than cassies amped low guns. Pretty sure the gap is big enough for d4 on his f43u3, but you have to get the timing down. D1 should work everytime. This is another issue that boils down to practice. You can only backdash f43u3 after the last hit as a reversal if he started the string from further away. If he starts this string close to you and you try the backdash reversal, his next f43 will catch you if his inputs are tight.

Sounds like a lot of what you've said boils down to simple lab work, and a lot of fundamental improvements. Once you've fixed those, don't forget all his options from f43 are unsafe. As anyone vs LK, it's very important to stay vigilant for stagger points since they're all -7. You have to be patient, hold block, and look for when to let it go. D4 is definitely your best bet to interupt the u3, since it stops both the finisher and the parry, and the only thing he's left with is blocking which creates a gap you can use to get out, or lowfireball which only rewards him a negligible amount of damage, and you can blow him up on a read.

Lol how can Cage be in favor of a matchup with someone that has a 9 frame mid?
If parry was like kang's then probably yes but in this case: No.
Who cares how fast it is when you should never be in range to worry about blocking it? If you give him a jump in, that's on you. In equal level of play he doesn't get many of these to connect in this MU without that. And further, the risk/reward ratio is skewed in the opponent's favor. Low fireball amp is like 150dmg, and his hit confirm from f43 bike kick is only 220 amped. If you just block and he fireballs, we get our full 300+ dmg combo. Same if you hold block and react to his parry.

People are overrating LK imo, he's MKX SD Johnny is all. F43 is 11. Holding block and reacting is the new armor reversal that tears the whole mixup apart. He's not chipping you out with this shit. If they want to complete it, I just give them the + frames and stay patient, and nuke em on anything else. D4 beats throw stagger too, so there's not much he can do.
 
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Wrath0594

Steam profile: 76561198102032134
I miss stunt double Johnny from mkx. Such a cool idea. Super fun to play too
It's why I like Liu Kang in this one. But I definitely miss just how creative you could be with setups, even if the counterplay was the same on a lot of them. SD Johnny stayed my main and favorite Johnny variant for the entirety of my playtime. Tho A-lister was insanely strong for a bit, and those Fisticuffs buffs were hilarious until it got nerfed back to base strength.
Also never got tired of the clone activation animation.

Random irrelevant question I've been curious to ask everyone's opinion on:
What do you guys think of Older Johnny in this game, aesthetically?

I realized I can't stand the look and only play the young Johnny skins, even tho I liked his mature look in MKX. I think it's the extra weight put around his face and torso, and the sides on his haircut- they just don't suit him well. Maybe the story makes me biased from it too. Not sure.
 

FoughtDragon01

Ask me about my Mileena agenda.
Random irrelevant question I've been curious to ask everyone's opinion on:
What do you guys think of Older Johnny in this game, aesthetically?

I realized I can't stand the look and only play the young Johnny skins, even tho I liked his mature look in MKX. I think it's the extra weight put around his face and torso, and the sides on his haircut- they just don't suit him well. Maybe the story makes me biased from it too. Not sure.
I like how they managed to make Johnny look clearly older without falling into the 'grizzled' trope. Guy's a proper silver fox.

That said, the only reason why I don't play Old Johnny more than Young Johnny is because they gave Young J his classic shirtless tournament skin, and I have a personal obligation to use it every time.

However, that skin with Old Johnny in the black tank top (Dead Sexy, I think?) is a DAMN close second to my favorite skin for him.
 

DrFolmer

AKA Uncle Kano
I know where you're coming from, but let's take a step back from the losses and break some of this down.

First point- he does have to play footsies, and he loses them. Johnny's fireball is faster than Liu Kang's. If you're referring to LK's teleport variation, I'd like to point out that his teleport options are all unsafe, it's a mixup. As for fireballs, his are slower to come out and slightly slower to travel the screen.

Continuing with the footsies thing, check out his best normals. F4, f3... Uh... B1? Even b2. The range on all of them is pathetic compared to Johnny's. This is the biggest thing keeping it in our favor. He's one of the easiest matchups imo just because of how hard our normals raw outspace his.

Fly kick is high and -20, nearly identical to Shadow Kick. It's punishable by f344, but if that gives you trouble then f21 nutpunch should work. If you're feeling ballsy, it's possible to duck and uppercut as it passes over.

His throw game is kinda eh, since you only need to tech backthrow. His fwd throw puts you back at fullscreen where you're free to outprojectile and outspace him. Both low fireball and amp are full combo punishable. These are things you just have to lab. It's an easier punish than cassies amped low guns. Pretty sure the gap is big enough for d4 on his f43u3, but you have to get the timing down. D1 should work everytime. This is another issue that boils down to practice. You can only backdash f43u3 after the last hit as a reversal if he started the string from further away. If he starts this string close to you and you try the backdash reversal, his next f43 will catch you if his inputs are tight.

Sounds like a lot of what you've said boils down to simple lab work, and a lot of fundamental improvements. Once you've fixed those, don't forget all his options from f43 are unsafe. As anyone vs LK, it's very important to stay vigilant for stagger points since they're all -7. You have to be patient, hold block, and look for when to let it go. D4 is definitely your best bet to interupt the u3, since it stops both the finisher and the parry, and the only thing he's left with is blocking which creates a gap you can use to get out, or lowfireball which only rewards him a negligible amount of damage, and you can blow him up on a read.


Who cares how fast it is when you should never be in range to worry about blocking it? If you give him a jump in, that's on you. In equal level of play he doesn't get many of these to connect in this MU without that. And further, the risk/reward ratio is skewed in the opponent's favor. Low fireball amp is like 150dmg, and his hit confirm from f43 bike kick is only 220 amped. If you just block and he fireballs, we get our full 300+ dmg combo. Same if you hold block and react to his parry.

People are overrating LK imo, he's MKX SD Johnny is all. F43 is 11. Holding block and reacting is the new armor reversal that tears the whole mixup apart. He's not chipping you out with this shit. If they want to complete it, I just give them the + frames and stay patient, and nuke em on anything else. D4 beats throw stagger too, so there's not much he can do.
Yea, I lose the rounds because I don't capitalize on my punishes. Rounds tend to be close for the most part, I just don't capitalize well enough on punishes - and that's alot of damage left on the table unfortunately. Thanks for the pointers my man
 
I think it's safe to say that a lot of us know most of the matchups by now. For the past week I've been utterly dominating, even against the more powerful characters. Just recently in the past 4 days, I've hit a wall. Almost every player I go up against, they turtle against Cage. They'll just sit there, crouch block literally everything, and anticipate grabs. I simply can't rely on grabs anymore to open guys up. My pokes don't have that much of an effect anymore, because they're always blocking low.
If I play against somebody who doesn't know Cage's matchup, but he's a good player, my ranked sets go something like this:
  1. I'll completely destroy the other player in the first match, to the point where I make him look like a beginner.
  2. Sometimes he switches characters. In the next match, I notice he's relying on spacing and projectiles. He now knows he can poke out of most strings, and he knows it's his turn to poke after F4. Still, I win the match by keeping my head and playing patiently, despite getting hit by a cheap fatal blow or several uppercuts.
  3. My opponent does one of two things: he either zones me out during the entire match, or he turtles. While turtling, all he does is wait for me to grab, breaks it, then responds with a combo. The only thing Johnny can respond with fast enough after a break is F3, but my opponent is always ready and pokes out of it.
  4. Brass knuckles are little to no help whatsoever. Brass knuckles seem to scare my opponent into zoning for the remainder of the match, jumping around like a madman, or non-stop attacking. They're always spacing, waiting for me to miss my wake-ups. The cycle continues.
  5. I get completely shut down. My only hope is to land 1 grab out of 20 attempts as he's always waiting for it. He reads Cage Rage like a book at this point. He comes back from 2-0 and wins 3 straight, leaving me pissed off and demoralized.
I hate to say this, but the old "Cage needs a damn overhead" thoughts are running through my head again. I'm back to going on losing streaks, and switching to my 2 other learned characters out of frustration. Many of you, especially Wrath, convinced me that F3 being a high wouldn't be a problem anymore so long as they add a few more frames to F4, and fix the hitboxes. I'm still on board, but Cage just can't answer to a lot of things. Forgive me for saying this, but would an overhead still be possible? Maybe change F43-make 3 an overhead? If you think I'm bullshitting you, please play against a good Jacqui or Cetrion.
Again, I'm still going to use Cage no matter what, but holy shit I'm pissed off. It bothers me that I couldn't do anything.
 

Wrath0594

Steam profile: 76561198102032134
I've been losing a lot lately too. I think I'm autopiloting so I'm tryna take a break for a few days. You know it's you when you lose to a Johnny Cage. Lmao. B34 and f3 staggered me into a bloody pulp... I KNOW MY OWN FRAME DATA, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?!

X')
 
I really don't pay much attention to old/young cage differences. They both have good skins like old having the tank top and those pilot jackets. Young has the jackets from the story and the og shirtless Johnny. Overall doesn't matter much to me in terms of his head
 
It's why I like Liu Kang in this one. But I definitely miss just how creative you could be with setups, even if the counterplay was the same on a lot of them. SD Johnny stayed my main and favorite Johnny variant for the entirety of my playtime. Tho A-lister was insanely strong for a bit, and those Fisticuffs buffs were hilarious until it got nerfed back to base strength.
Also never got tired of the clone activation animation.

Random irrelevant question I've been curious to ask everyone's opinion on:
What do you guys think of Older Johnny in this game, aesthetically?

I realized I can't stand the look and only play the young Johnny skins, even tho I liked his mature look in MKX. I think it's the extra weight put around his face and torso, and the sides on his haircut- they just don't suit him well. Maybe the story makes me biased from it too. Not sure.
While I always use younger Johnny, I think he had better lines in MKX. In MKX he was mature, but funny. He always talked that talk but walked the walk. Plus he looked like a badass when he'd fold his arms after a win. Like he's cocky but can beat your ass and back up his words. I think they went overboard with the humor and intros in MK11. Who else beat Shinnock legitimately anyway?
 
I think it's safe to say that a lot of us know most of the matchups by now. For the past week I've been utterly dominating, even against the more powerful characters. Just recently in the past 4 days, I've hit a wall. Almost every player I go up against, they turtle against Cage. They'll just sit there, crouch block literally everything, and anticipate grabs. I simply can't rely on grabs anymore to open guys up. My pokes don't have that much of an effect anymore, because they're always blocking low.
If I play against somebody who doesn't know Cage's matchup, but he's a good player, my ranked sets go something like this:
  1. I'll completely destroy the other player in the first match, to the point where I make him look like a beginner.
  2. Sometimes he switches characters. In the next match, I notice he's relying on spacing and projectiles. He now knows he can poke out of most strings, and he knows it's his turn to poke after F4. Still, I win the match by keeping my head and playing patiently, despite getting hit by a cheap fatal blow or several uppercuts.
  3. My opponent does one of two things: he either zones me out during the entire match, or he turtles. While turtling, all he does is wait for me to grab, breaks it, then responds with a combo. The only thing Johnny can respond with fast enough after a break is F3, but my opponent is always ready and pokes out of it.
  4. Brass knuckles are little to no help whatsoever. Brass knuckles seem to scare my opponent into zoning for the remainder of the match, jumping around like a madman, or non-stop attacking. They're always spacing, waiting for me to miss my wake-ups. The cycle continues.
  5. I get completely shut down. My only hope is to land 1 grab out of 20 attempts as he's always waiting for it. He reads Cage Rage like a book at this point. He comes back from 2-0 and wins 3 straight, leaving me pissed off and demoralized.
I hate to say this, but the old "Cage needs a damn overhead" thoughts are running through my head again. I'm back to going on losing streaks, and switching to my 2 other learned characters out of frustration. Many of you, especially Wrath, convinced me that F3 being a high wouldn't be a problem anymore so long as they add a few more frames to F4, and fix the hitboxes. I'm still on board, but Cage just can't answer to a lot of things. Forgive me for saying this, but would an overhead still be possible? Maybe change F43-make 3 an overhead? If you think I'm bullshitting you, please play against a good Jacqui or Cetrion.
Again, I'm still going to use Cage no matter what, but holy shit I'm pissed off. It bothers me that I couldn't do anything.
Honestly I think this game could be amazing after the first patch, but until then don’t get disheartened, you, probably like me, are facing the same 6 top tier characters every single game or Atleast having players run to them on game 3, maybe some teabag action too(constantly by scorpion,geras, and Sonya’s.), but look at what dude said above, when those characters get hit with the nerf bat those scrub lords won’t know what to do and will get frustrated and drop the game, then we can actually have decent matches with characters properly playing mk11.
 

Wrath0594

Steam profile: 76561198102032134
While I always use younger Johnny, I think he had better lines in MKX. In MKX he was mature, but funny. He always talked that talk but walked the walk. Plus he looked like a badass when he'd fold his arms after a win. Like he's cocky but can beat your ass and back up his words. I think they went overboard with the humor and intros in MK11. Who else beat Shinnock legitimately anyway?
I liked how he got serious when he needed to, too. MK9’s ending left Earthrealm’s defenses in shambles. When X rolled around, Johnny stepped up where it counted and bodied everyone in chapter 1 single handedley. Not just Shinnok, but Scorpion and Sub Zero in a 1 v 2, and every other revenant he came accross. They definitely went way out of their way to make him a joke this time around. And yeah- his old outro was so cool! I just don’t get the same badass dad feel I had from him before.

And about him being serious some times, he had an intro vs Cassie I liked:
“Think you can take your old man?”
“I know I can.”
“Then show me.”
 

kevkopdx

Noob
I think it's safe to say that a lot of us know most of the matchups by now. For the past week I've been utterly dominating, even against the more powerful characters. Just recently in the past 4 days, I've hit a wall. Almost every player I go up against, they turtle against Cage. They'll just sit there, crouch block literally everything, and anticipate grabs. I simply can't rely on grabs anymore to open guys up. My pokes don't have that much of an effect anymore, because they're always blocking low.
If I play against somebody who doesn't know Cage's matchup, but he's a good player, my ranked sets go something like this:
  1. I'll completely destroy the other player in the first match, to the point where I make him look like a beginner.
  2. Sometimes he switches characters. In the next match, I notice he's relying on spacing and projectiles. He now knows he can poke out of most strings, and he knows it's his turn to poke after F4. Still, I win the match by keeping my head and playing patiently, despite getting hit by a cheap fatal blow or several uppercuts.
  3. My opponent does one of two things: he either zones me out during the entire match, or he turtles. While turtling, all he does is wait for me to grab, breaks it, then responds with a combo. The only thing Johnny can respond with fast enough after a break is F3, but my opponent is always ready and pokes out of it.
  4. Brass knuckles are little to no help whatsoever. Brass knuckles seem to scare my opponent into zoning for the remainder of the match, jumping around like a madman, or non-stop attacking. They're always spacing, waiting for me to miss my wake-ups. The cycle continues.
  5. I get completely shut down. My only hope is to land 1 grab out of 20 attempts as he's always waiting for it. He reads Cage Rage like a book at this point. He comes back from 2-0 and wins 3 straight, leaving me pissed off and demoralized.
I hate to say this, but the old "Cage needs a damn overhead" thoughts are running through my head again. I'm back to going on losing streaks, and switching to my 2 other learned characters out of frustration. Many of you, especially Wrath, convinced me that F3 being a high wouldn't be a problem anymore so long as they add a few more frames to F4, and fix the hitboxes. I'm still on board, but Cage just can't answer to a lot of things. Forgive me for saying this, but would an overhead still be possible? Maybe change F43-make 3 an overhead? If you think I'm bullshitting you, please play against a good Jacqui or Cetrion.
Again, I'm still going to use Cage no matter what, but holy shit I'm pissed off. It bothers me that I couldn't do anything.
Your description is dramatic but I’ve had similar experience. I’ve said before that the online meta for ranked is a lot of turtling and it’s annoying. I played a Jade in particular that literally crouched the entire time waiting for me to advance. I won the set but it was the most ungodly type of gameplay I’ve ever taken part in. Jade seems to be able to poke any advancing move if she just sits there waiting and her d2 covers any jump in attempt. So this player’s strategy was to zone full screen and as soon as i was mid screen they would go into crouch defense mode. I was literally dashing/walking in and baiting mistakes until the timer ran out. Without a low projectile to discourage turtling, Johnny has nothing. I feel like he needs a leaping overhead that doesn’t combo, like baraka. Otherwise this type of technique will be the norm with any character that has long reaching down 3s or 4s. Does he even have a non-tourney move to cope with something like this?
 
D

Deleted member 35141

Guest
F43 if it didn't whiff on block I think it would be pretty good as its + on block if I remember correctly.
As for story Johnny I really love the character development they gave him besides randomly disappearing in mk11.
I love his older design in mk11, in mkx it looked very odd as if his clothes were 2 sizes too big.
 
Your description is dramatic but I’ve had similar experience. I’ve said before that the online meta for ranked is a lot of turtling and it’s annoying. I played a Jade in particular that literally crouched the entire time waiting for me to advance. I won the set but it was the most ungodly type of gameplay I’ve ever taken part in. Jade seems to be able to poke any advancing move if she just sits there waiting and her d2 covers any jump in attempt. So this player’s strategy was to zone full screen and as soon as i was mid screen they would go into crouch defense mode. I was literally dashing/walking in and baiting mistakes until the timer ran out. Without a low projectile to discourage turtling, Johnny has nothing. I feel like he needs a leaping overhead that doesn’t combo, like baraka. Otherwise this type of technique will be the norm with any character that has long reaching down 3s or 4s. Does he even have a non-tourney move to cope with something like this?
You're right, it shouldn't combo, because that would be excessive. If an overhead were to be implemented, the second attack in F43 would be the most balanced option. Just make it a knockdown, and put a crushing blow on his shadow kick.
 
Has anyone else seen his secret brutal with the flash kick? Ran an ai tower and it done it in one of the fights but I cant think of how to replicate it
 

M.D.

Spammer. Crouch walk hater.
It's 3 flippy kicks done in the last round, then end in a flippy kick.

Still need to unlock it though and I have no ideea where it is.

About liu kang, he will always get in. This game is not zoning based and Cage is not a zoner. If the player is decent he will always get in. And then it's 9 frame mid stagger city.

Matchup is definitively not in our favor.
 
It's 3 flippy kicks done in the last round, then end in a flippy kick.

Still need to unlock it though and I have no ideea where it is.

About liu kang, he will always get in. This game is not zoning based and Cage is not a zoner. If the player is decent he will always get in. And then it's 9 frame mid stagger city.

Matchup is definitively not in our favor.
That's sick man thank you !!! Thing is, I've not got it unlocked but the ai managed to still do it?
 
Ok so i found out about this dude named fgc juicebox and he does in depth analysis on characters and Johnny was surprisingly his go to in mk games. He went through all his moves and couldn't come up with a gameplan. Like he's plus 3 after amp forceball and plus 6 and 124 and 34u3 but u get nothing guaranteed. My question is what do u guys think nrs intended this character to be? Day 1 Johnny main btw