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Shao Kahn Discussion Thread

SOULWARRIOR 71K

XBL: SOULWARRIOR 71K PSN: SOULWARRIOR71K
you still got to deal with the cancel or the Amplified so yeah scorpion was nerfed but he wasn't crippled
Not really. Since you can duck the first hit, you can just wait to see if cancels. If he lets the regular teleport rock, you can punish. If he amplifies you can either duck/block punish, duck/interrupt, or d1/d3 which will stop all of his options. If they yolo teleport instead of using their brain, they should be getting destroyed for it.
 

XxSYNDROISxX

For the Shokan since Mk3
Not really. Since you can duck the first hit, you can just wait to see if cancels. If he lets the regular teleport rock, you can punish. If he amplifies you can either duck/block punish, duck/interrupt, or d1/d3 which will stop all of his options. If they yolo teleport instead of using their brain, they should be getting destroyed for it.
again in my opinion he's not crippled he's still a decent balanced character
 

DDutchguy

Stand 4'ing airplanes out of the sky
How good is B3 in practice? I always forget it exists, but considering its range it feels like it can be a solid way to check people from a distance. Sure it's unsafe, but if you do it far away it'll be much harder to get punished.
 

NothingPersonal

Are you not entertained!?
How good is B3 in practice? I always forget it exists, but considering its range it feels like it can be a solid way to check people from a distance. Sure it's unsafe, but if you do it far away it'll be much harder to get punished.
Nope. It leaves you right in front of them regardless of the distance you do it from. I use it only on ocasional reads and stupid opponents. It's pretty unusable otherwise.
 
I'm not super optimistic the new variation will supplant Risen Emperor as the go to competitive variation but I do think it has some value. With enough changes it may even be on par with Risen Emperor but there's a lot of work they'd have to do for that to happen.

Spear charge is really bad. It's so inferior to shoulder charge you'd think you'd spend a slot to change spear charge into shoulder charge.
  • Spear charge's hit box is weirdly bad and whiffs on a lot of things shoulder charge doesn't. Namely JI3 or anything that has a lot of gravity. I can confidently say I haven't seen an example of where the spear charge would land something the shoulder charge wouldn't but there's plenty of examples of the inverse. My guess is that spear charge is probably a tad better in the neutral because the spear may have a little more range but that doesn't offset it's other hit box problems.
  • If you amp a shoulder and it gets blocked or whiffs you don't lose a bar but doing the same with a spear charge does burn a bar.
  • Spear charge also sets up way, way worse than shoulder charge. On hit, spear charge is very tight to run up and do a S4 to continue the combo and this results in less damage potential or versatility than what shoulder charge sets up. Off of shoulder charge you have so many more options and a much larger margin for error when it lands regardless of gravity.
  • They're both death on block so that's a push. If spear charge was maybe safe on amp block that'd at least give it some leg up on shoulder charge. This is virtually negated by anyone who is good at hit confirming though.
  • It admittedly does have great corner carry.
Skewered is great on its own and is way better than scrum grab but isn't something Shao is in dire need of.
  • Shao's S1 is one of the best anti air items in the game and leads to huge damage. Skewered may fill a gap for being able to anti air some jump ins that may be a little wonky to S1 and on its own is a good combo extender when you burn a meter but I'm not sure that's enough to really move the needle.
  • With skewered you're forced to side switch and having an option to change the side you want to put them on would help a lot.
  • Amplified it does extend combos well but not really a whole lot better than does an amplified shoulder charge
  • Also if it's hit box was a little more forgiving on airborne characters a little bit more in front of you so that we could use it in place of annihilation to end combos on airborne enemies that'd be helpful
If spear charge does become superior to shoulder charge and we get skewered then that may be a formidable load out but even then we're missing out on the dark priest + annihilation krushing blow. This isn't supposed to condemn the variation as doomed just that it depends heavily on what changes are made to the abilities in their current form.
 

NRF CharlieMurphy

Kindergarten Meta
I'm only in on this dude if i see
F3, 4 now special cancel

I'd rather just see his base kit get some better frames and for his buffs to once again be sped up so that they're actually useful and fearful in the game.
 

NothingPersonal

Are you not entertained!?
I'm not super optimistic the new variation will supplant Risen Emperor as the go to competitive variation but I do think it has some value. With enough changes it may even be on par with Risen Emperor but there's a lot of work they'd have to do for that to happen.

Spear charge is really bad. It's so inferior to shoulder charge you'd think you'd spend a slot to change spear charge into shoulder charge.
  • Spear charge's hit box is weirdly bad and whiffs on a lot of things shoulder charge doesn't. Namely JI3 or anything that has a lot of gravity. I can confidently say I haven't seen an example of where the spear charge would land something the shoulder charge wouldn't but there's plenty of examples of the inverse. My guess is that spear charge is probably a tad better in the neutral because the spear may have a little more range but that doesn't offset it's other hit box problems.
  • If you amp a shoulder and it gets blocked or whiffs you don't lose a bar but doing the same with a spear charge does burn a bar.
  • Spear charge also sets up way, way worse than shoulder charge. On hit, spear charge is very tight to run up and do a S4 to continue the combo and this results in less damage potential or versatility than what shoulder charge sets up. Off of shoulder charge you have so many more options and a much larger margin for error when it lands regardless of gravity.
  • They're both death on block so that's a push. If spear charge was maybe safe on amp block that'd at least give it some leg up on shoulder charge. This is virtually negated by anyone who is good at hit confirming though.
  • It admittedly does have great corner carry.
Skewered is great on its own and is way better than scrum grab but isn't something Shao is in dire need of.
  • Shao's S1 is one of the best anti air items in the game and leads to huge damage. Skewered may fill a gap for being able to anti air some jump ins that may be a little wonky to S1 and on its own is a good combo extender when you burn a meter but I'm not sure that's enough to really move the needle.
  • With skewered you're forced to side switch and having an option to change the side you want to put them on would help a lot.
  • Amplified it does extend combos well but not really a whole lot better than does an amplified shoulder charge
  • Also if it's hit box was a little more forgiving on airborne characters a little bit more in front of you so that we could use it in place of annihilation to end combos on airborne enemies that'd be helpful
If spear charge does become superior to shoulder charge and we get skewered then that may be a formidable load out but even then we're missing out on the dark priest + annihilation krushing blow. This isn't supposed to condemn the variation as doomed just that it depends heavily on what changes are made to the abilities in their current form.
Actually you can do more damage for two bars with spear charge and skewered than with shoulder charge. The only thing they need to do is buff the spear charge and give him another krushing blow off of one of the moves in the new variation. Also definitely buff the hammer thyțre gonna give him, since both air hammer and seeking hammer are ass.
 

SOULWARRIOR 71K

XBL: SOULWARRIOR 71K PSN: SOULWARRIOR71K
Honestly I don’t care about another variation. Just remove the gap from f34 and up hammer, and speed up the priest buff.

Edit: and give him a 6 frame down 1
 
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MagicMan357

"130 ms is more legit than Labbing" - TYM
His spear roll should be invincible on start up or something cool like that

so you could react to so much stuff and just spear them, that would be hype.
 

NothingPersonal

Are you not entertained!?
God I hope they give him the seeking hammer for his third variation. I don't really care, I just want it to have chance at being buffed. It's a great move that deserves to be good. Air hammer is good too, but it's boring as hell. I'm kinda certain they'll put this one in though, cause they're pussies.
 

NothingPersonal

Are you not entertained!?
Shao's third variation is baaad. If they don't do anything to those moves it's gonna b worthless. Also they need to give him another krushing blow, cause he needs one not Kitana, goddamn.
 

NRF CharlieMurphy

Kindergarten Meta
In my head I imagine them making f34 special cancel (the gap is actually not a bad thing).
Laxing the spear KB to be a little more accesable (hahahahah yeah right) OR making it a "better" projectile.

buffing his buffs so that they're not completely useless. There are how many characters that can buff themselves VERY easily in this game. Khan is over here with like -999999999999999999999999 taunts on recovery.

I wish EX Annih recaptured so he would have a grounded combo route. This is the other thing that really bothers me about this character... is that you can break his combos VERY early since the shoulder itself launches.

making his pokes not a frame perfect jail into his s1.
 

SOULWARRIOR 71K

XBL: SOULWARRIOR 71K PSN: SOULWARRIOR71K
Obviously it’s still very early and as such this comment may not age well, but I don’t see any reason to pick his new variation over the ones with Shoulder Charge. Let alone getting side switching combos for less damage. But I’m sure you lab monsters will find something that I’m not seeing.
 
Well, you do get the useless seeking hammer instead of the useless up hammer, so you get to ignore a different move.

It does just seem to take stuff away from him without really adding anything, though. Maybe I’m missing something too, but I don’t see a point to picking this one.