MK9 Ermac vs UMK3/MKT Ermac

[Eddy Wang]

UMK3/MKT Ermac
+ Non Trackable Teleport (its not a yolo move, good to escape and create pressure)
- Ground teleport was good to confuse opponents due the explosion mask
+ Auto-Launchers (strings that launches, like HK LP, or HPHPLP df+ LP)
+ Good Damage output
- Slow fire ball
- Punishable Teleckinetic Slam on Whiff & Block

VS

MK9 Ermac
+ Trackable teleport (YOLO)
- Punishable Ex Teleport
+ Force Push
+ Air Blast
- Levitate was ass
- Pretty bad strings, lack of overheads
+ Good Damage Output.
+ Hardly punishable TS on whiff.
- TS punishable on block
- Very Slow startup teleport on ground and air.

Ok guys, i want to do these for a while, for a healthy discussion, i want to know your input into this, and find out what the community liked or hated about both versions of the character.

STORMS i dunno where could this exactly fit, so if it doesn't suit the proper forum, please do address it to the correct location.
For this discussion, i will also require attention of MK9 Ermac experts and UMK3/MKT Ermac experts, though both engines are different i still think its a good thing to discuss on.

A few questions related to the topic, assuming you have mained one of them at least.

What did you feel lacking in UMk3 Ermac?
What did you feel lacking in MK9 Ermac ?

zaf
Storms (Who else mains Ermac in MK9?)

AK Juggs
Shock

Anyone else is free to join in, however lets try to keep civil here pls, its kind of annoying lately, everything tends to turn into a hate fest.
Discuss.

 

[Mikemetroid]

Yo UMK3 Ermac is top tier

 

[Juggs]

UMK3 Ermac is better by far, primarily due to his teleport. He also has some of the highest damage output capabilities in the game that isn't an infinite. If you get TKS'd near a corner, that's 100% of your life taken out in an instant!

 

[G4S Killin Natzees]

UMK3 Ermac would make mk9 Ermac his little bitch without effort.

 

[GrandMasterson]

I'm just going to add that MK9 Ermac has the coolest costume of all the ninjas past and present. He's like a sophisticated mummy-ninja badass. I hope they keep that design for him for a long time.

 

[Shock]

Against Ermac in UMK3, if you take a standing HK, an uppercut, even a sweep, the next hit anywhere on screen could be game over or so close to game over you might as well give up because a blocked hit is going to kill you. I have advanced in many a tournament from danger, or near danger with one Ermac combo, and I needed it. His fireball is better than it would seem because he has no visible recovery animation (just time) in between release and neutral, so it's somewhat hard to know exactly what to do against the spam with certain characters. His hands are literally extended, and then he can block once the duration passes so you don't have any cue as to when he's going to move or anything. It's just simply, weird. What is remarkable, is that even as powerful as he is, the game is still fun to play even if someone is using him. Most people who aren't aware will see his damage and be like "Wow that is ridiculous, while I can say "Yeah but there are mid and low tier characters with super high damage, or even infinites." Ermac is a great combination of power, mind games and maneuverability.

 

[zaf]

Great topic. Ermac is my main in both games.

MK9 ermac has 2 huge problems that can be exploited and should be exploited.
1 - His d1 and d3 are negative on hit >_> ...... ( well d1 is + on standing hit, just not crouch and d3 is the opposite)
2 - Holes in his blockstrings.

One of my favorite things about ermac, is easily the fact that he gets damage off of anything. He touches you, and because of how TKS works, he can always have a minimum follow up of at least a TKP.

Ermac in mk9 does a lot of damage. You can get over 50% meterless. Most of your bnbs will be high 30's and low/mid 40's.
You are heavily rewarded for punishing and making good reads.

His spacing game is where he excels. He is almost un matched at the far to mid screen game except for maybe a few exceptions.
What makes him so good, is not the actual move Telekinetic push itself, but what it does to your opponent. You HAVE to constantly be blocking against ermac. This gives him windows to actually pseudo "rush down" and pressure. It is all fake pressure, but it is how he works. He definitely has amazing space control with TKP.

His fireball is really good as it lowers his hitbox, has a decent speed and nice recovery. The more important part of his fireball is that it is even better in the air, probably one of the best aerial moves in the game. This move essentially does what TKP does for ermac, but in the air. So you do have to respect ermac jumping at you, because there are some situations and some characters that can not anti-air his air fireball. This makes you want to just hold block some times as you do not want to keep getting hit by air fireballs as each one on hit practically grants a free jump in punch any ways. So when his air fireball is respected, he gets to jump on you. Once again, fake pressure.

His teleport is leagues better in UMK3 then it is in MK9.
- Slow ground start up.
- Heavily punished on block
- EX teleport is heavily punished on block as well.
- The only reason to ever use ex teleport is on wake up. It has more invincibility frames allowing him to get out of some traps in the corner and get out of pressure on his wake up. Which then can lead to a combo.


UMK3 Ermac does not appear to have the same problems as MK9 ermac.
Shock AK Juggs
Please correct me if I am wrong, but .... In UMK3 ermac does not suffer the problems of his blockstrings having holes in them which can be poked out of and his pressure is then interrupted. Even HK does not whiff.

Both UMK3 and MK9 ermac are power houses when it comes to damage.
Fireball goes to MK9 Ermac IMO because of the viability of air fireball.
Blockstrings and pokes go to UMK3 Ermac.
Teleport goes to UMK3 Ermac. Reason being it does not tract and can be used as an escape, pressure and mind game tool.
Specials in general go to MK9 Ermac IMO because of the utility of TKP.


With all of these taken into consideration, I believe UMK3 Ermac to be the superior Ermac and best ermac in any MK game thus far.
I am not sure how it would be if MK9 ermac did not have those 2 problems though.

 

[Eddy Wang]

Very interesting stuff, love the deep explanation ^^

The reason that made me drop ermac in MK9 when i did explored him day 1 it was how his strings concepts were designed, the first tournament i ever joined i felt like it was the hardest character to use on that time due the lack of overheads and holes on his strings, from that time on i dropped ermac for good.

 

[zaf]

Very interesting stuff, love the deep explanation ^^

The reason that made me drop ermac in MK9 when i did explored him day 1 it was how his strings concepts were designed, the first tournament i ever joined i felt like it was the hardest character to use on that time due the lack of overheads and holes on his strings, from that time on i dropped ermac for good.

I understand what you mean, but that is not how ermac works. He is not a 50/50 character. So having no REAL overheads ( he does have u4) does not really cripple him. His pressure works different and is more based on reads. That being said, you really need to grab a lot as ermac. Instead of his 50/50s being overhead and lows, pretend they are blockstrings and grabs that you constantly need to mix up.

When you play a character like ermac from day 1 like I have, you tend to make his weaknesses your strengths.
Although I have stated his two main issues, they are almost no longer issues for me because I have found work arounds for myself.

 

[zaf]

Eddy Wang
Also, remember that he has no holes on a jump in. He is free to use his blockstrings.
It is only without a jump in that he has those issues, if you find ways to cover that aspect of the footsie game, you will do a lot better as an ermac player. For example, using iafb in place of a blockstring can work wonders.

It's not about using what he has that has problems, but knowing where his problems are and finding solutions.

 

[Eddy Wang]

Eddy Wang
Also, remember that he has no holes on a jump in. He is free to use his blockstrings.
It is only without a jump in that he has those issues, if you find ways to cover that aspect of the footsie game, you will do a lot better as an ermac player. For example, using iafb in place of a blockstring can work wonders.

It's not about using what he has that has problems, but knowing where his problems are and finding solutions.

Yeah, the game devveloped a lot over the time but, by then i was already locked thigh in sync with Skarlet. ^^

Hoping MK10 Ermac to be the best of both honestly.

 

[ColeTrain]

This post makes me want to pick up Ermac
#differentapproach

 

[STRYKIE]

Just to clarify, Ermac was only as good as he was in this game because he was a tacked on Scorpion with more popups, don't use this as an oracle to make him better in MK10 lol.

 

[zaf]

Just to clarify, Ermac was only as good as he was in this game because he was a tacked on Scorpion with more popups, don't use this as an oracle to make him better in MK10 lol.

i dont know what you are saying. he is nothing like scorpion.

 

[Eddy Wang]

i dont know what you are saying. he is nothing like scorpion.

definitely not, not even close.

 

[zaf]

Almost all UMK3 characters would beat MK9 characters. Your safest bet would probably be MK9 Cyrax.
Most MK2 characters would beat Injustice characters, if not all of them. The only thing I could see winning would be Hawkgirl evading or unblockable specials like Doomsdays stuff that would turn into pseudo infs.

If there were a way to actually run this, I think it would be even more in the arcade characters favor than I would expect it to be due to anti-airs and damage alone.

It's too bad that there isn't a way to do something like this without it being Mugeny.

kabal, cyrax, kenshi even maybe lol... there could be a couple.
but there are breakers in these new games and that helps with the big damage

 

[Minh Giang]

MK9 for his look.
UMK3/MKT for his moves.

 

[STRYKIE]

i dont know what you are saying. he is nothing like scorpion.

I mean in the sense of how he was designed, apart from the TKS he's pretty much just a hybrid of left over sprites from Scorpion's teleport, Human Smoke's LK,LP popup, Sub-Zero's Freeze (replaced with a fireball) and CPU Noob's HP starter.

IIRC it wasn't until MKD that NRS/Midway started creating him from the ground up, it just seems weird to compare them.

Just my opinion though, feel free to carry on.

 

[Eddy Wang]

I mean in the sense of how he was designed, apart from the TKS he's pretty much just a hybrid of left over sprites from Scorpion's teleport, Human Smoke's LK,LP popup, Sub-Zero's Freeze (replaced with a fireball) and CPU Noob's HP starter.

IIRC it wasn't until MKD that NRS/Midway started creating him from the ground up, it just seems weird to compare them.

Just my opinion though, feel free to carry on.

all ninja type characters where pallete swaps like, however, ermac was the better of all of ninjas besides human smoke.

 

[ColeTrain]

I'm still a reptile fan, green has always suited me more than red. However in light of all of your arguments about Ermac he doesn't look like a bad character to pick up at all. He may not be agressive like my Sonya. But his tactics, especially mid screen, seem way more deadly than most. And that's where a lot of the fighting usually happens if you are good at spacing. Something I'm still learning.

 

[zaf]

I mean in the sense of how he was designed, apart from the TKS he's pretty much just a hybrid of left over sprites from Scorpion's teleport, Human Smoke's LK,LP popup, Sub-Zero's Freeze (replaced with a fireball) and CPU Noob's HP starter.

IIRC it wasn't until MKD that NRS/Midway started creating him from the ground up, it just seems weird to compare them.

Just my opinion though, feel free to carry on.

ooooooooooh

do you mean ermac and scorpion are similar in umk3?

 

[zaf]

True, but Kabal wouldn't be anywhere near as effective vs UMK3 Kabal and a lot of other characters. His fireballs do a stupid amount of damage in UMK3 vs MK9 and I think there would be a lot of situations where the MK9 characters would just be in blockstun infinitely. They do have really good low pokes to deal with runjabs, but if they get caught by them it would could result in a lp midscreen infinite. I'd love to see what a UMK3 character could do to an MK9 characters hurtbox lol.

There would be some impossible stuff for MK2 characters to deal with in Injustice too. Especially if it were played on Injustice stages, but against characters that can deal with those moves, it wouldn't be fun for Injustice characters.

what about mk9 kenshi lol

 

[STRYKIE]

ooooooooooh

do you mean ermac and scorpion are similar in umk3?

Essentially yes. I didn't mean the MK9 versions of Ermac and Scorp. xD

 

[zaf]

Essentially yes. I didn't mean the MK9 versions of Ermac and Scorp. xD

oh ok, i had the impression that we were talking about mk9 ermac and scorpion. my bad haha.
so then back to the ermac and scorpion similarities. I can see that much more present in umk3

 

[Cobra]

Yeah, MK Trilogy Ermac is better on tier list. But I like the Mk9 Ermac, the character design, looks, etc. Plus he isn't THAT bad and his moves look cool.