LawAbidingCitizen
Bomb Setups & Ball Rolls(Mileena/Cyrax)
Week 3 Update:
Unpopular opinion I guess but I feel Kotal is a strong character. He has massive range and deadly push back. That Base Sunlight is beast and can keep him alive against zoning used with his near full screen F2. He does have hitbox issues on nearly every combo string:
F1
F2
S1
S2
D1(shit range)
D4(slow).
He is mainly used long range with his F34, F24, B223, F4 and F12. His close game is lacking since his mids are on the slow side and characters that have 9-12f mids can easily lock him down up close and in the corner along with nearly every move having wiffing hitboxes.
What I don't like about him, his close game is on the slow side, his best mid F2 only connects at the very last part of animation despite being a 22f mid it can be caught by someone mashing Normals half screen away. It is also reactable.
His Sun Ray has really long recovery and I'm not seeing safe setups for it other than a semi safe setup off 34. So far I've found Raiden, Cassie, Scarlet, Sub Zero can punish it on reaction.
His totem is hard to get out.
His only launcher has to be added for one slot which makes his other variations useless, Kahn-cut needs to be a base Special Move so we can use totems or other moves with it since it's his only real launcher other than the very situational B22 which is unsafe and has a gap after the B22(gap)3 which can be poked and flawless blocked.
So let's look at his normals speed and range:
12 - is 8f high with very short range, ant move will push Kotal out of range. Wiffs
22 9f high first hit very short range similar to mkx Jacqui. Wiffs
34 - 11 frame high can only reach close bit is too slow to use close. And wiffs on ground and in combo.
F34 - 17f low good mid range shit up close. Crouch duck blocking removes pushback.
F24 - can only be used for wiff punish half screen away. Never use close it's 22f mid.
F4 - decent pushback like F24 but starts up 15 frames can't be used close only mid range. Can't 1 or 2 after without wiffing.
B22 - very slow on startup but launches on hit, can only be used far, easily wiff punished because each hit take forever to come out, like he is swatting flys out of the air.
B223 - high, mid to Overhead, unsafe, like B22 can only be used mid range and is very punishable and can't launch for combo because of recovery and has a gap to FB.
F122 - 11 frame high mid overhead with gap, can't be used close, best used mid to long footsie range. Full combo punishable and flawless Block gap punishable.
F12 - 11 frame high to mid, one if his best starters used at mid range. Has wiffing issues.
As you can see he has nothing but pokes close range and his D4 to get them out is slow so he lacks close up and suffers against zoners having a delay between disks and his Sun ray being full combo punishable midscreen.
Justified nerf
The F3 tick throw was absolutely broke. His move starts up in 17frames and reaches long range and has 16 frames hit advantage which allows him to follow up with another F3 making an infinite loop on top of it he could delay DB2 command grab so it only came out on block but not hit. This made him get 10-20% off it reguardless. This doesn't even take into account it was a mid that couldn't be escaped, couldn't neutral jump it, jump out, Backdash, duck it or counter it.
I'm glad they fixed it.
Tick throws
You can now tick off standing 1 and D1 into tick but there is a legit counter, neutral jump and crouch criss over and jump back. They can't just evade it as it's unreactable but on a read they can. So they have to guess you are doing it which is very similar to the meta of entire cast. Number of hits(guess), 50/50s(guess) stagger and block pressure (guess) but everything has a response. This keeps every character honest and preserves the neutral and mind games of mk.
Scorpion has probably the best 50/50s since he has Mid to Overhead, Low to Overhead, Mid to Low. No other character has this. But everyone has mixups: number of hits will throw off opponent and get them to press buttons when you have advantage, cancel pressure does the same and Sonya, Scorpion, Raiden and Sub Zero 50/50s make them guess on block.
I feel they are more honest than they have ever been in previous games since thier is either responses for all of it or they start as high and can be low profiled and or is very unsafe.
A closer look at Kotal
My boi Kotal Kahn does need help with close game(has a ton of slow starters and mainly highs in a meta ruled by fast mids) and counter zoning (very hard to get sunlight beam out, it's unsafe) but is really decent mid range, if you live in footsie range, just out of thier reach you can wiff punish them with his incredibly good walk speed and movement. His normal forward dash can be cancelled into normals very quick allowing you to trip up and block check them with F2, F3, F12, 3(4), and F4.
His best moves up close are his pokes his 122 and 22 don't have good range.
He has good push back on strings but opponent can crouch block to reduce it and his viable Ascension tournament variation with Kahn-cut switches sides with his Sun Choke which is his BnB for any real damage.
Not to mention all of his strings put him point blank in thier face on block exactly where he doesn't want to be.
His only saving Grace is his range is very powerful and his sunlight counter zones if you can manage to get it out and his parry stops them from using certain Special moves with moderate startup and can be used to stop counter pokes and adds a damage buff.
What does everyone else think of my boi Kotal? Anything you want fixed? Are you struggling with him? Is he OP? Tell me below. I'm interested in what others have to say on day 6+ after hearing so many on day 2 say he needed buffs.
Unpopular opinion I guess but I feel Kotal is a strong character. He has massive range and deadly push back. That Base Sunlight is beast and can keep him alive against zoning used with his near full screen F2. He does have hitbox issues on nearly every combo string:
F1
F2
S1
S2
D1(shit range)
D4(slow).
He is mainly used long range with his F34, F24, B223, F4 and F12. His close game is lacking since his mids are on the slow side and characters that have 9-12f mids can easily lock him down up close and in the corner along with nearly every move having wiffing hitboxes.
What I don't like about him, his close game is on the slow side, his best mid F2 only connects at the very last part of animation despite being a 22f mid it can be caught by someone mashing Normals half screen away. It is also reactable.
His Sun Ray has really long recovery and I'm not seeing safe setups for it other than a semi safe setup off 34. So far I've found Raiden, Cassie, Scarlet, Sub Zero can punish it on reaction.
His totem is hard to get out.
His only launcher has to be added for one slot which makes his other variations useless, Kahn-cut needs to be a base Special Move so we can use totems or other moves with it since it's his only real launcher other than the very situational B22 which is unsafe and has a gap after the B22(gap)3 which can be poked and flawless blocked.
So let's look at his normals speed and range:
12 - is 8f high with very short range, ant move will push Kotal out of range. Wiffs
22 9f high first hit very short range similar to mkx Jacqui. Wiffs
34 - 11 frame high can only reach close bit is too slow to use close. And wiffs on ground and in combo.
F34 - 17f low good mid range shit up close. Crouch duck blocking removes pushback.
F24 - can only be used for wiff punish half screen away. Never use close it's 22f mid.
F4 - decent pushback like F24 but starts up 15 frames can't be used close only mid range. Can't 1 or 2 after without wiffing.
B22 - very slow on startup but launches on hit, can only be used far, easily wiff punished because each hit take forever to come out, like he is swatting flys out of the air.
B223 - high, mid to Overhead, unsafe, like B22 can only be used mid range and is very punishable and can't launch for combo because of recovery and has a gap to FB.
F122 - 11 frame high mid overhead with gap, can't be used close, best used mid to long footsie range. Full combo punishable and flawless Block gap punishable.
F12 - 11 frame high to mid, one if his best starters used at mid range. Has wiffing issues.
As you can see he has nothing but pokes close range and his D4 to get them out is slow so he lacks close up and suffers against zoners having a delay between disks and his Sun ray being full combo punishable midscreen.
Justified nerf
The F3 tick throw was absolutely broke. His move starts up in 17frames and reaches long range and has 16 frames hit advantage which allows him to follow up with another F3 making an infinite loop on top of it he could delay DB2 command grab so it only came out on block but not hit. This made him get 10-20% off it reguardless. This doesn't even take into account it was a mid that couldn't be escaped, couldn't neutral jump it, jump out, Backdash, duck it or counter it.
I'm glad they fixed it.
Tick throws
You can now tick off standing 1 and D1 into tick but there is a legit counter, neutral jump and crouch criss over and jump back. They can't just evade it as it's unreactable but on a read they can. So they have to guess you are doing it which is very similar to the meta of entire cast. Number of hits(guess), 50/50s(guess) stagger and block pressure (guess) but everything has a response. This keeps every character honest and preserves the neutral and mind games of mk.
Scorpion has probably the best 50/50s since he has Mid to Overhead, Low to Overhead, Mid to Low. No other character has this. But everyone has mixups: number of hits will throw off opponent and get them to press buttons when you have advantage, cancel pressure does the same and Sonya, Scorpion, Raiden and Sub Zero 50/50s make them guess on block.
I feel they are more honest than they have ever been in previous games since thier is either responses for all of it or they start as high and can be low profiled and or is very unsafe.
A closer look at Kotal
My boi Kotal Kahn does need help with close game(has a ton of slow starters and mainly highs in a meta ruled by fast mids) and counter zoning (very hard to get sunlight beam out, it's unsafe) but is really decent mid range, if you live in footsie range, just out of thier reach you can wiff punish them with his incredibly good walk speed and movement. His normal forward dash can be cancelled into normals very quick allowing you to trip up and block check them with F2, F3, F12, 3(4), and F4.
His best moves up close are his pokes his 122 and 22 don't have good range.
He has good push back on strings but opponent can crouch block to reduce it and his viable Ascension tournament variation with Kahn-cut switches sides with his Sun Choke which is his BnB for any real damage.
Not to mention all of his strings put him point blank in thier face on block exactly where he doesn't want to be.
His only saving Grace is his range is very powerful and his sunlight counter zones if you can manage to get it out and his parry stops them from using certain Special moves with moderate startup and can be used to stop counter pokes and adds a damage buff.
What does everyone else think of my boi Kotal? Anything you want fixed? Are you struggling with him? Is he OP? Tell me below. I'm interested in what others have to say on day 6+ after hearing so many on day 2 say he needed buffs.
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