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General/Other Prepare for Kombatant, Smoke!

LaidbackOne

Scrubby nice guy
@Dope Dojo

•Getting accustomed to footsies in the game. This could be because I'm online, but I cant' seem to get any
decent block strings going without someone just D3'ing me after each move.

Smoke should be played as more of a hit and run type character. Most of his good normals and strings are 0 on block and most of the time the meta-game comes down to whether or not you cancel something into smoke away or take a risk by poking when your opponent is free to use armor if they have it or a fast poke themselves. However, Smoke has a big advantage here as d1 smoke bomb will trade with most pokes and give you a full combo. So make your opponent respect this and it will open up more free block strings just because your opponent does not want to push a button.

Smoke's biggest footsie tools are d3 and d4 to continue pressure, and b2 for range. Most opponents will not be blocking low against Smoke so use this to your advantage as well to get + frames off of his pokes into more shenanigans like block strings. Practice cancelling neutral strings into smoke away to force your opponent to make their way in again. You can also cancel these into smoke bomb if you think your opponent is going to press buttons after a block string.

•Anti airing with 2 or D1. I've tried this a few times. I know that Smoke's go to Anti Air seems to be 2, 2, D1 ~Smoke Bomb. I don't know if I'm not angled properly on the 2 but I always seem to get hit by each
jump punch or kick. The same goes with D1.

d1 timing on cross ups (especially online) can be tricky. JK's will normally beat out a d1 AA attempt, but since JPs have to be used late to hit/jail people, think of using d1 a split second before your opponent would throw out their JP to make it connect. That should help with the timing.

Standing 2 anti-air is really easy since the vertical hitbox is so godlike. You can hit people out of the air pretty damn high. So I would suggest just playing the CPU in training mode on normal difficulty because the AI will jump at you ALLLL the time. That way you can practice the timing, and since the AI's jumps are still random, you should get some good practice at doing it on reaction. Definitely get use to it offline first because any anti-air online can end up being inconsistent.

•Resets: The other BnB seems to be using the Enhanced Smoke Bomb as an ender for a 32 combo, or a F4 combo. I'm in training mode half the time when I go for this but it doesn't seem to catch the opponent and pop them up. It just hits for an additional 2-3% damage. It could be because I'm not waiting for them to be low enough to the ground.

Regardless of what your juggle is at mid-screen, you are going to want to hit your opponent with f4~EX bomb when they are roughly at Smoke's waist height. I normally like connecting the f4 when Smoke is about a half-dash away from the opponent. Since Smoke's reset is pretty timing and spacing dependant, most people have their own little quirks they use to get the reset down consistently so you kind of in a way just have to get used to it and come up with your own consistent method.

The corner is much more forgiving in terms of doing the reset and you should be able to pull that off by hitting your opponent at waist height or slightly above.

Obviously check out the Smoke combo thread for some reset combos. For starters, a few easy mode resets I like to do are:

bomb, njp~tele(whiff), dash, 32, 32, f4~EX bomb
21~bomb, njp~tele (whiff), dash, 32, 32, f4~EX bomb
3d12, 3d12, 3d12, dash, d4~bomb, f4~EX bomb (if you don't like the d4~bomb you can link it with other things like 2~bomb, 21~bomb, etc)
b23~bomb, dash, 32, 32, f4~EX bomb (you can change the 2nd 32 to 3d12, but I think the timing is easier with 2 32's...just comes down to your timing mechanism and what works)
Basically all u need if it comes to Tommy V.
 

Dope Dojo

The Bomb Diggity
I ask because I need someone/people to commentate a stream for the game that I've been doing on a weekly basis. Doesn't have to be anything serious.
 

Dope Dojo

The Bomb Diggity
Has anyone ever had a problem getting ex smoke bomb at the end of a combo? I swear I'm doing the proper input for it, but I keep getting regular teleport punch.

3 D1 2 (loop) into F4 - enhanced smoke bomb.
 

xSMoKEx

Coward Character User
I wrote an entire guide ( http://www.mortalkombatunited.com/topic/117398-xsmokexs-smoke-guide/ ), it's a little dated but should still prove useful. If you have any further questions just tag me / PM me and i'll try and help you out. Also, for learning fighters in general I posted this awhile back and here's is my advice:

Play what you enjoy, don't listen to "x game is the best" bullshit because realistically every fg is flawed and it's all personal preference. If you like a game play it because that's how you will improve the most, you have to really enjoy the game otherwise you'll just get frustrated and quit. Same thing goes with characters, don't really worry about which character you choose of the bat because realistically you don't even know your true strengths or weaknesses as a player; meaning you may develop a skillset akin to your character (if he is good at rushdown you may become good at rushdown as a player) or you will just have to change characters later on. Either way it's not too big a deal, again just pick who you like for learning purposes.



Start off by learning some basic combos, their special moves, good attacks, etc. You kind of try to piece things together to get a basic understanding of how the character plays while working on your muscle-memory for things like combos and special inputs. This is the most basic level of learning a character.



Once you feel a little more comfortable with the character you can start trying more advanced things, whether it be longer combos or just learning how to confirm any hit you land into a combo. For example, in Street Fighter you would practice FADC combos, and as another reference in MK I learned how to confirm any hit into a combo by linking into smoke ball via one way or another.



Now you've got the combos / damage and muscle memory down but you're going to notice vs. good players this will not matter if you do not have a solid footsie game or good general understanding of the game. You now need to focus on the neutral game (The point at which both players are approximately around sweep range and are trying to engage on one another while not being to careless and getting caught on a bad read). Focus on things like spacing, whiff punishing, feints (throwing out a quick attack like a jab to bait a reaction out of your opponent), etc. This is honestly the key to fighters. Once you have a solid grasp of the neutral game (which is for the most part almost universal across all fighters) you can pick up any game and do relatively well based off of this knowledge alone. Knowing and understanding things like frame data also greatly help because it allows you to easily dissect a situation. For MK9 frame data is rather easily, so there really is no reason why you shouldn't know the frame data to most of the high-tier characters main attacks on both block and hit.



Fighting game are a big combination between mental toughness and physical execution. It takes plenty of time and practice to really get good at them and honestly you probably will get frustrated once and awhile but it's important that you realize you will learn 10x more from a loss than you will from a win. No lie i only got decent at MK9 because i got my ass handed to me plenty of times by good players. If I went noob-hunting yeah I would have won a hell of a lot more and felt better temporarily but I would have never gotten better as a player.



tl;dr : Play your favourite character+game. Focus on the basics like combos and specials to learn the muscle-memory. Then try some more advanced combos and learn to hit-confirm. Then focus on frame data and developing a solid neutral game. DON'T BE AFRAID TO LOSE THIS IS HOW YOU LEARN
Hope this helps.
 

Titanman_88

Adamantium Addiction
I wrote an entire guide ( http://www.mortalkombatunited.com/topic/117398-xsmokexs-smoke-guide/ ), it's a little dated but should still prove useful. If you have any further questions just tag me / PM me and i'll try and help you out. Also, for learning fighters in general I posted this awhile back and here's is my advice:



Hope this helps.
I want to learn a new character after reading this. Very well said that is basically exactly what I did when I picked up Kenshi
 

Dope Dojo

The Bomb Diggity
Yeah it was a good read. I'm experienced with a few of these steps having been in the competitive Street Fighter & Soul Calibur Community. It's just rough stepping into a new game, particularly one where a lot of people have been playing for the 3 years it's been out. But on the upside, there is a wealth of information to be found. I just spent the last 2 hours in training mode doing 2 combos involving the Smoke Bomb reset. Thank's to some tips, and videos provided by a few people here I now have a good understanding of how the resets work. But it will be dozens more hours in the Training Room before I can do them 100% without fail offline. But that's the fun part!
 

Dope Dojo

The Bomb Diggity
@xSMoKEx Actually I do have a question. I spent roughly an hour practicing using Smoke's stand 2 anti air to dash into combo. Basically doing 2, 2, D1 xx Smoke bomb, 2 D1 3, F4 xx enhanced smoke bomb. But I found that in that particular string the enhanced smoke bomb seems significantly harder to accomplish then in say a 3 D1 2 loop or other BnB. Is that normal? Or is the timing just that much different doing the string because the opponent has already been juggled so much.
 

xSMoKEx

Coward Character User
@xSMoKEx Actually I do have a question. I spent roughly an hour practicing using Smoke's stand 2 anti air to dash into combo. Basically doing 2, 2, D1 xx Smoke bomb, 2 D1 3, F4 xx enhanced smoke bomb. But I found that in that particular string the enhanced smoke bomb seems significantly harder to accomplish then in say a 3 D1 2 loop or other BnB. Is that normal? Or is the timing just that much different doing the string because the opponent has already been juggled so much.
Timing is just different because the opponent has been juggled a lot, they fall fairly quickly after the 3D12 and the timing to land the reset is just below the waist. Some people prefer to sacrifice a bit of damage by doing only 32 rather than 3D12 because they find it makes the timing a bit easier. With the reset it all depends on the gravity scaling (number of hits in a combo) and whether or not you are near the corner (and if so, how far away from it). Those are the only 2 variables in the reset, the rest is up to your execution.
 

Dope Dojo

The Bomb Diggity
Ah, gotcha. This is almost as frustrating as the reset lol. I do 2 2 D1 bomb to F4 with ease but when I incorporate the 32 into the mix the bomb doesn't want to come out.
 
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