Scorpion General Discussion

[spidey300]

I must've imagined scorpion having a brutal for db2. wish he did.

 

[spidey300]

Anyone else hates that scorpion teleport is completely horizontal from the point he teleports? Sometimes I hit an opponent and teleport in the air but it whips because the opponent would be under it. In Mk11 he would always hit

it's been our punishment for having a mid teleport. opponent does anything that crouches themselves even just a little and it whiffs.

 

[Bloodfang]

(Note: This is a bit long and obviously just my opinions based on personal experience and observations of high level play like MKJavier. I'm a longtime Scorp fan but mediocre skill level) The problem with Scorpion is that without kameo he is totally optimized for two things:
1. Punishing mistakes. Which is great except at high level play or against someone like my friend who has really good defense (his offense is lacking so he plays more turtle/hit and run/keep away style). Opening them up practically requires Kameo as most of his good attacks are all high. Otherwise you hope to just chip them to death, which yeah with Cyrax/Sektor you can do decently, but it isn't really the most satisfying playstyle (again imo). The best punishing tool he has (up close at least) is the fast, long reach, standing 2 or 2,1xSpecial.

2. ANTI-AIR Grandmaster? This is actually I think his strongest area and where I think the devs put all of their focus in their design philosophy with Scorpion. The changes to his teleport being straight movement and ex in air leading to air kombos. Also if you land a jump kick and hitconfirm into meterless teleport low to the ground you can land and connect with standing 1 (or 2 as well I think) into standing spear for kombo. Also his B2xSpear is great anti-air. F4 is also decent but I personally prefer to B2xSpear. Then there's Air spear/Ex Spear. The far version can pull an opponent damn near full screen so if they are jumping full screen away for air fireballs or whatever reason if you're fast you can hop up and just yank them out of the air from almost any distance (for kombo if you EX it).

Sorry, you get the point, he can f you up if you go airborne. And THAT is the problem with this being his niche. I think they were expecting with the reintroduction of air kombos that players would be taking to the sky more. In the first KK they even talked about now having "air footsies". Except you can't air block so most people would see going crouching tiger, hidden dragon as too risky. I think air kombat was truly intended to be a bigger part of the game and he would have been oppressive had that been the case. With how many vampire fans there are and her being SOOO frequently requested I expected online to be infested with Nitaras, lol. Instead it is Smoke and soon Baraka, Raiden, and Cage since everyone says they are good so online will gravitate towards them expecting easy wins. If Nitara had been popular I'm pretty sure Scorpion would literally make her life hell. Low health, can heal but needs to hurt herself AND be able to land a specific special to do it, and almost always airborne? Yeah, I think it would be hard to be Nitara with a Rope Dart constantly coming at you from every angle and any distance. Now admittedly, I don't play her and am not knowledgeable on her so maybe I am wrong but that's my hot take based on observations of her and my limited practice mode testdrives. Anytime an opponent has tried coming at me from the air is when I have had the most success ripping them apart.

Thoughts on Scorpion being high tier in a game intended to have more air kombat? Am I just talking out my ass and sound like an idiot?

 

[spidey300]

scorpion's problem is just everything whiffs. in the heat of the moment it becomes a chore to establish a close range game. he just has a lot of unsafety by himself and little ways to force opponents to move. it's insane how unsafe spear is even from fullscreen. no unblockable hellfire. I wish the ex version at least had some hitsun. 1,2 really should be high mid

 

[Bloodfang]

122 being high, mid, overhead, would be nice. Honestly, I'd like B3 to be special cancelable between 1st and 2nd hits with how much startup it has (anytime cancel is ideal but even if only on hit it would be a huge gamechanger I think). Also special cancel off d1, 3,and 4 (preferably also any time but again even if only on hit it would be an improvement). And the addition of a B1 that is a faster overhead (at least than having to get the full 122 string out). Just those would up his viability immensely I think. With Frost's F+Kameo Low freeze I've had some success as a low starter when frozen is great for him. It would be better as an ambush or faster kameo regen speed. As is there is some degree of additional mixup or low threat to try and bully them into jumping so I can anti-air them. But with the slowness of B3 without cancel and Low Hellfire (and almost no threat from unblockable ex), I haven't been entirely successful at jump baiting. Haven't practiced enough with Lao's Low Hat unlock potential of that yet.

Edit: I forgot Stryker. His oh/low baton mixup from Scorp's 2,1 is pretty nasty. The handcuff move isn't bad and gives a restand (not free hit as previously mistakenly typed). Grenades with B3 at a distance is nice too.

 

[Ramichaura1]

I think 2 1 4 second hit should be an overhead just like Mileena and Geras

 

[Gito666]

I've only been playing Scorp seriously for 2 days, but I'm LOVING him! His 2 and 21 stagger is awesome, I love getting in people's heads with low fire, then anti-airing with b2 xx spear. If you catch them pressing a button mid to long range with Sarrena knives, it's a free spear into full combo. Coming from Sub Zero, Scorp just feels amazing

 

[spidey300]

i was honestly thinking if his 2 was a mid because I heard it from avirk that it would be a little crazy with how far it hits but looking at the animation of it; there's no reason it shouldn't be a mid

 

[spidey300]

122 being high, mid, overhead, would be nice. Honestly, I'd like B3 to be special cancelable between 1st and 2nd hits with how much startup it has (anytime cancel is ideal but even if only on hit it would be a huge gamechanger I think). Also special cancel off d1, 3,and 4 (preferably also any time but again even if only on hit it would be an improvement). And the addition of a B1 that is a faster overhead (at least than having to get the full 122 string out). Just those would up his viability immensely I think. With Frost's F+Kameo Low freeze I've had some success as a low starter when frozen is great for him. It would be better as an ambush or faster kameo regen speed. As is there is some degree of additional mixup or low threat to try and bully them into jumping so I can anti-air them. But with the slowness of B3 without cancel and Low Hellfire (and almost no threat from unblockable ex), I haven't been entirely successful at jump baiting. Haven't practiced enough with Lao's Low Hat unlock potential of that yet.

Edit: I forgot Stryker. His oh/low baton mixup from Scorp's 2,1 is pretty nasty. The handcuff move isn't bad and gives a free hit. Grenades with B3 at a distance is nice too.

you can combo off stryker handcuffs? how? or are you just saying its plus enough to continue pressure

 

[Ptehu]

not sure if it's me only, but I noticed that Scorpions population online grew significantly after the skin release

 

[Juggs]

Yeah smoke is the new online "scorpion". Teleport low. Annoying strings.

Which is funny because Smoke is terrible compared to MK11 Scorpion. Smoke has a lot of gimmicks and can destroy bad players or players who don’t know the MU. But against any good player that knows the MU, Smoke struggles insanely bad especially when in comparison to the rest of the cast.

Which is why I’m switching to Scorpion. He seems super fun so far and I like the flaming head skin and had enough credits to get it. Which makes me want to play him even more lol.

 

[Felipe_Gewehr]

Which is funny because Smoke is terrible compared to MK11 Scorpion. Smoke has a lot of gimmicks and can destroy bad players or players who don’t know the MU. But against any good player that knows the MU, Smoke struggles insanely bad especially when in comparison to the rest of the cast.

Which is why I’m switching to Scorpion. He seems super fun so far and I like the flaming head skin and had enough credits to get it. Which makes me want to play him even more lol.

Is he that bad? I admitedly am yet to fight a good Smoke. Most just do the low overhead string and all it takes is an upblock to punish that HARD. Also, the cancels can be interrupted easily if you are paying attention. However, I was under the impression that maybe throwing some yolo teleports instead of cancels would catch and condition people.

 

[Juggs]

Is he that bad? I admitedly am yet to fight a good Smoke. Most just do the low overhead string and all it takes is an upblock to punish that HARD. Also, the cancels can be interrupted easily if you are paying attention. However, I was under the impression that maybe throwing some yolo teleports instead of cancels would catch and condition people.

The 2 in f32 has a gap (the low into OH), and can be flawless blocked (or up blocked) into a full punish every time. So only real mix is f3 and b2 into his bf3 cancel. And no string is plus after the cancel, and since he has no mids, he essentially has no pressure. And for those that don’t know, if he does his cancel on block, he’s negative. So if a Smoke tries to cancel a string on block and is doing another string after, that’s not real pressure. You can just hit him after the cancel. So as the Smoke player, you have to do the cancel and then block. And in this game that’s really not good because then you have to sit there and hold the opponents pressure. You CAN make these cancels safe and even plus with some Kameos though.

And that’s just a portion of his issues. There’s more but this isn’t a Smoke thread lol. He can be competitive but you have to play 10x more perfectly than your opponent and work so much harder. He’s essentially a high risk average reward character. Even going invisible isn’t as amazing as it should be, however, going invisible as often as you can is really the only way he can hang with a lot of the cast IF the opponent knows the MU. If the opponent doesn’t know the MU, Smoke mauls. Which is why I believe he has been so popular early. Oh and Random teleports are way too high risk for very little reward unless you EX. But you have to EX when you do the teleport, not like you can hit confirm it. That said, he CAN do good in some MU’s and the teleport is good for whiff punishing some stuff.

Lol, I said this wasn’t a Smoke thread and then kept on, my bad. He just is lacking right now and unless someone figures out some tech with him, you just have to work too hard. And why do that when there’s characters that can do either the same things or similar things but much better?

 

[Bloodfang]

you can combo off stryker handcuffs? how? or are you just saying its plus enough to continue pressure

Yeah no either I meant plus enough to continue pressure or my brain was in full black screen when I wrote about the handcuff move. It's an ok restand or throw off their game type move but other than that it is his least useful (for Scorp at least). The most success with a Kameo I've had has been with either Cyrax for chip/safety or with Frost for low freeze combo route.

 

[spidey300]

Yeah no either I meant plus enough to continue pressure or my brain was in full black screen when I wrote about the handcuff move. It's an ok restand or throw off their game type move but other than that it is his least useful (for Scorp at least). The most success with a Kameo I've had has been with either Cyrax for chip/safety or with Frost for low freeze combo route.

I've been running mostly motaro with scorpion so I can run some kind of mix and still combo off it but at higher levels everyone's ready for hellfire teleport. It's just so hard opening people up. eventually I switched to cyrax and even though I still have a hard time opening people up at least I get the safe chip.

 

[spidey300]

I just noticed both of scorpion's j1/2 are the same animation. now I know all characters aren't like this but I feel like scorpion would really benefit from a jump punch that's at least angled downward. got enough problems with our stuff whiffing as it is

 

[DoctorPurpleMan]

not sure if it's me only, but I noticed that Scorpions population online grew significantly after the skin release

I feel like a lot of casual folk dropped Scorpion after launch week after they realized he requires a specific playstyle. This isn't your father's MKX Ninjitsu Scorpion.

I guess Scorpion could be considered a beginner character in that his toolkit forces you to learn strong fundamentals instead of relying on a gimmick though.

 

[spidey300]

Yeah I have to suffer with this mid tier scorpion because of the rampant complaining of multiple people playing a scorpion that came out the gate strong. Actually getting tilted.

 

[DoctorPurpleMan]

Buff party finna go crazy brotha

 

[Juggs]

Having a lot of fun learning Scorpion right now. Don’t have much time with him at all, but it’s already much more fun to mess around with Scorpion compared to Smoke.

I’m using the Scorpion Kameo, what Kameos have y’al been trying out?

 

[DoctorPurpleMan]

Having a lot of fun learning Scorpion right now. Don’t have much time with him at all, but it’s already much more fun to mess around with Scorpion compared to Smoke.

I’m using the Scorpion Kameo, what Kameos have y’al been trying out?

Cyrax seems like the preferred choice so far since his Chopper move makes Scorpion's DB+2 even more lethal on chip AND safe.

Personally I've been rocking Kano since I love the knives for neutral and Kano Ball makes DB+2 safe as well. Plus people underestimate his laser, so it helps establish Scorpion's long-screen threats. Knives can extend kombos after a F+32 route, but the timing is kinda specific so I haven't really replicated them online yet.

Sareena is a given too, but she goes well with literally every character on the roster anyway. She's like a universal Beginner Kameo. Though she can't help Scorpion with his DB+2 cheese so that's one detraction for her.

 

[spidey300]

been rocking mataro/kung lao so i can run some kind of mix with 122 and the low options/teleport options from the assists but at higher levels; no one's falling for hellfire mix most of the time. started running cyrax for that safety but that's pretty much all you get. still hard to open people up. started running sareena so i can auto pilot neutral and hit confirms. might just stick with her. of course I started out with scorpion/scorpion but as I progressed I wanted to try new things. might try that again later.

 

[Bloodfang]

I play Scorpion/Scorpion for fun but when it gets serious I usually pick either Cyrax for chip/safety or Frost for Low Freeze adding low mixup/another stun.

 

[Juggs]

Feel like this is a good neutral overhead and low mixup that lead to good damage with the Scorpion Kameo

 

[spidey300]

I play Scorpion/Scorpion for fun but when it gets serious I usually pick either Cyrax for chip/safety or Frost for Low Freeze adding low mixup/another stun.

I've been thinking that but stuff like frost low freeze is super unsafe if blocked and against certain characters I normally dont wanna take such a big risk. maybe i'll give it a try