Liu Kang
Our chinese fellow is at the mid of the tier list. That means 7 of 15 players in Mk4. Fast as hell and with so-so damaging combos available at all time. Liu can be a headache for many players. He can be played like Liu in Mk1 and Nighwolf (punishing everithing blocked). He can turtle a little but his wpn helps him to rush and inflict good chip damage. The Flying Kick is perfect for punishers and wakeups, fireballs could be used as zoning sometimes mixed with aa Bike Kick + juggle and his weapon makes him very annoying enemy.
His moves are all basic, with nothing special to write about. RH and Sweep slow as usual. Nice aaHp for retaliations. Nice aaHk easily followed by a flying Kick for a simple 2 hit juggle. Also punisher aaSUJK Hk release bike kick aaHp Flyin Kick is very damaging and relatively easy. normal Uppercutt and crouched attacks. Both of his throws are good. Specially his Lk wich can be used as a mixup starter.
Fireballs are kind of good here. Both grounded high and low can be seen easily and heavily punished by jumping over there. Low fireball as always, has the ongest recovery of the 2. Ground fireballs are not used much but the high one is good for minimal zoning for example after connecting a long combo that doesnt end on max dam). Air fireball is excellent! You can avoid aa traps like Hks or trip sweeps. It can be used as a crossup tool ala Raiden torpedo and best of all: His recovery if hit (blocked or not) is minimal allowing Liu to preempetive run and combo/grab. If the fireball whiff it has a lttle more recovery. Air juggles like Jump HP HK + Air Fireball would get 32% which by MK4 Standarts is very good aa juggle. Watch out for teleporters when spaming fireballs.
Bike kick is improved here. Can be used as an anti crossup and best yet: If you do it in a Juggle, you can follow it with another hits. It can be used to extend his combos and create very damaging combinations. In corner is particulary deadly because of the aforementioned. If blocked it will go into punishment mode but recovers fast. It cannot be used as a transport move because its shorter here than in MK2/Umk3. As already mentioned it can be followed by a juggle, for example mid-screen: Bike Kick, aaLP/HP Wpn Attack, Flying Kick or aaLP, Flying Kick x 2 in corner. Its possible to get otg aaSUJK mid-screen after bike kick and then Flying Kick but its very difficult.
Flying Kick sees here his best version ever. it can punish ALL BLOCKED OR WHIFFED ATTACKS in the game. Sweep? Punished. Wpn attack blocked? Punished. Lk/Hk standing? Punished. Close blocked fireballs? Punished. It can go out of corner traps and run away from crossups. It would be excellent for transportation if it didnt travel the screen that much. Think of it as a Nightwolf UMK3 Shadow ram. You can even fake your foe by doing for example HpHpHkHk Fly Kick, Then inmediately Fly Kick. Can be connected twice in a corner Juggle (like NW shoulder). If blocked it can easy punished. It can be used as an escape from jab and corner pressure and catch jumpers.
Liu's wpn is good and fast. It has a medium launcher (Lp) and a very good dashing stap (b+ Lp) that hits crouched foes. His neutral Hp is a rushdown attack. A quick swipe that can be repeated up to 3 times but is better to leave it at 1 hit. Like HkHp > HkHp and so. Its very difficult to get out of this trap unles you are Scorp or Sub.Also you can mixup heavyly from there. B + Lp is a spinning strike similar to Sonyas and it also can be done several times in the corner, there is also an infinite using this weapon which is completely useless and we will not go into details about it, otherwise it should be done in close corners and you must do few hits in corner when the last one gets them out of corner, then run under the opp and do aaSUJK followed by another spinning attack into the other corner and repeat it, again there is no sense to try it in a vs match. Liu has one extra weapon attack. After his LP wpn attack press immidiately HP, this is somehow like Baraka's double HK in MK2, you cant get that special HP wpn attack alone, it has to be done after LP attack. What it gives you is a free juggle (HP, HP, HK, HK, Weapon Draw, ~HP, Flying Kick - 39%). B+HP can be used as a wake up and thats it.
No different game for Liu Kang if Maximum Damage is turned off, the only thing that could eventually help you (if you manage to get someone with it) is his B+LP weapon attack in corner.
Basic Juggles:
1. HP, HP, HK, HK, Flying Kick (5 Hits, 29%)
2. HP, HP, HK, D+HP, aaHPx2, Bike Kick, aaLP, Flying Kick (9 Hits, 40%)
3. HP, HP, HK, D+HP, aaHP, Jump HP HK, Air Fireball (8 Hits, 36%)
Advanced Juggles:
1. HP, HP, HK, D+HP, SUJK, HK, Flying Kick (7 Hits, 34%)
2. (near corner) HP, HP, HK, D+HP, aaHPx2, Bike Kick, aaLP, Flying Kick x 2 (10 Hits, 48%)
Video!
3. (near corner) HP, HP, HK, D+HP, SUJK, HK, Bike Kick, aaHP, Flying Kick (9 Hits, 46%)
4. HP, HP, HK, HK, Weapon Draw, ~HP, Flying Kick (7 Hits, 39%)
Punishers:
1. SUJK, HK, Flying Kick (3 Hits, 34%/ 43% for Second Flying Kick in corner)
2. SUJK, HK, Bike Kick, aaLP, Flying Kick (5 Hits, 46%)
Video!
3. (With Weapon) SUJK, B+HP, Flying Kick (3 Hits, 41%)
