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Skarlet General Discussion Thread

Eddy Wang

Skarlet scientist
Basically just counter in between the gaps if you think your opponent will attempt to poke afterwards?
Aparently the can't flawless block and poke at the same time from what i'm hearing
Countering the gaps with the reversal or a faster move keeps a lot of people at bay
https://twitter.com/GunShowXO/status/1108055375905873920

There is another video which i can't seem to find of a Skarlet with a pixel life being flawless blocked but not countered due the fear of dagger stance and sometimes the opponent tried to interrupt he got caught by the siphon.
 

Hitoshura

Head Cage
Aparently the can't flawless block and poke at the same time from what i'm hearing
Countering the gaps with the reversal or a faster move keeps a lot of people at bay
https://twitter.com/GunShowXO/status/1108055375905873920

There is another video which i can't seem to find of a Skarlet with a pixel life being flawless blocked but not countered due the fear of dagger stance and sometimes the opponent tried to interrupt he got caught by the siphon.
That was gorgeous!!! That Skarlet did 1,2,4 xx into counter to counter the FB punish. Can the 4 in b3, 4 be canceled into counter as well?
 

Eddy Wang

Skarlet scientist
That was gorgeous!!! That Skarlet did 1,2,4 xx into counter to counter the FB punish. Can the 4 in b3, 4 be canceled into counter as well?
Any special cancelable string can
As long as they don't answer with a special, a jump or a low its a defining strategy

Besides her Parry is holdable and deceiving as well, it takes at least a second to see if she is parrying or blocking choose your not expecting it.
 
what are everyone's thoughts on skarlet after the beta?

i enjoyed playing her more than any other character in the beta but she doesn't really have any broken or really strong stuff like other characters. i felt you had to change how you play against every character and i found it mostly comes to neutral and pokes with her.

i ended up rarely using 212 combo and just stuck to 124 for most punishes.

my overall impression is she doesnt feel that strong in any area, her zoning is good but not really effective against most characters in the beta
 
Who do you main and what issues were you having while fighting her?

Just as a few general pointers:

1. Her main launcher, 212, is full combo punishable on block at -11, so any standing 1 combo starter should do the trick to make her second guess. If she just staggers with 21, then it's your turn to start your pressure.

2. Speaking of her 212 string, it has a LOT of range to it, so if you're going to throw out a button, make damn sure it doesn't whiff.

3. If Skarlet does catch you in her 212 BnB, don't breakaway immediately. Instead, wait for the 44, then breakaway, as this is when most Skarlets cancel into her Siphon. Last I checked, you have enough time to file your taxes before she finishes recovering from that.

4. Similarly, her Blood Tentacle takes a while to recover as well. Not as much as Siphon, but if you can manage to make it whiff (usually with a well-timed jump), you'll have plenty of time to close the distance, or even throw out a full screen punish (i.e, Scorp's teleport, Kabal's Dash).

I can't think of anything else right now, tired as sin at the moment.
I mean I wanted to punish her 212 with scorpion standing 1 but i couldn't get it
 
She does almost the same thing she did in MK9, but withing MK11 rules, so that's intended.

But she has very obvious weakness, If you flawless block her specials her disadvantage increases so she can't use it relentless, it s a good way to counterzone Skarlet players specially the ones that zone often.

Her highs are duckable and her strings are minus which means her turn is bound to end if she start staggering as much.

Basically every correct read you do backfires for her depending on how she plays.
Up close she has the worse pokes in the game, slow and minus enough to not allow her to start pressure without much respect.
I mean it's not the specials in neutral like tentacle. Scorpion anything seems to get punished and he barely starts any pressure
 

Edmund

Kitana & Skarlet
Skarlet was the most fun to me in the beta by a huge margin. Like I enjoyed Jade, but she didn't have that spark that Skarlet had. If Skarlet just had a little more variety I think I'd use her a ton. Most of her abilities seemed... well... not amazing. And losing tentacle for the power up is kind of sad, I'd prefer to get the red aura in replace for bf3 instead of blood tentacle.

I would say that realistically Skarlet is a middle ground character. Nothing Krazy, nothing too bad, however.
 
Anyone have advice for the Kabal MU? Feels like I always end up getting bullied by his air projectiles and staggers.
I'd like to know the same. I'm not good at the MU at all.
MU is garbage AF. Too angry to even discuss it.
Yeah, that sounds about right. Gives me flashbacks to the Grandmaster MU when I mained Johnny
In my opinion Skarlet wins that MU) she outzones him fullscreen, when he gets into the range for air projectiles she can block a projectile (better to FB so you have more frames to work with) and start her pressure when Kabal is recovering. The best pressure tool against him is f2xxBlood Tentacle which you can do after blocking his air projectile. Kabal can't do much after without getting hit by another f2.
 

Hitoshura

Head Cage
In my opinion Skarlet wins that MU) she outzones him fullscreen, when he gets into the range for air projectiles she can block a projectile (better to FB so you have more frames to work with) and start her pressure when Kabal is recovering. The best pressure tool against him is f2xxBlood Tentacle which you can do after blocking his air projectile. Kabal can't do much after without getting hit by another f2.
Can you Bloodport and sit under him in anticipation to him doing an air projectile, then as he falls use d2 to fist his pelvic floor?
 
Can you Bloodport and sit under him in anticipation to him doing an air projectile, then as he falls use d2 to fist his pelvic floor?
Depends on the timing, on the read you can do that and full combo punish Kabal on landing. I did it like twice against a pretty good player who I played a lot in the beta. But a lot of times I tried that it didn’t work, so it isn’t guaranteed. You are making a read, and if Kabal does his air saw a bit later it can autocorrect coming out the other way. And if he does it earlier than you expected you get hit out of the start up animation of the Bloodport
 

Alex_Smith

The artist formerly known as blueNINE.
That was gorgeous!!! That Skarlet did 1,2,4 xx into counter to counter the FB punish. Can the 4 in b3, 4 be canceled into counter as well?
B34 isn't a cancellable string, but you might be able to cancel just a B3.

Can you Bloodport and sit under him in anticipation to him doing an air projectile, then as he falls use d2 to fist his pelvic floor?
You certainly can! You actually get a 212 punish if you time it well. The Bloodport In Front seemed to work well for this, since it makes the air saw whiff if they do it from higher up, but Behind can work too if it's timed correctly.
 
Hi what do you think about this skarlet (revealed variations)?
With all the respect to Foxy Grampa (as he played very effectively in the current circumstances) but for me it was a bit to much zoning I do not wanna zone that much to be successful with her - rather neutral and footsies (how Sonicfox-Semiij-Dragon played). My hope is that the game will not allow it anyway even on casual level (teleport, rush downs). :)
(I could not play Beta so I only saw what you guys have posted.)

Btw the 2 variations are revealed at least... syphone with the more zone heavy variation, parry+teleport is for the other. Meh but I agree with the balance. Syphone+teleport+parry would be "too much" and another variation would not be viable.


 
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Eddy Wang

Skarlet scientist
Blood Drive = Keep away game, struggle with zoning of your own but steal a lot of health in return
Heart Piece = Master of all trades, loses restand in favor of Teleport and Parry

Note: Both variations still get to regain health big difference is
a) Blood Drive only gets health if she lands a hit
b) Heart Piece only gets health if she gets a counter hit

In a sort of way its a balance, feel free to use what you need the most depending of the matchup, but to me honestly, skarlet strongest point it stil her walkspeed, she is probably the fastest walking character in the game, something to test when the game releases.
 

Eddy Wang

Skarlet scientist
Blood Drive seems like the better variation to me, but both are pretty sweet.
They are situational Blood drives gives enhanced zoning with controlled blood ball speed and siphon in case you are getting into patient players, but if you find someone with an even stronger game than skarlet you will struggle to stand your ground, other thing blood drive will suck at, its when up close or cornered the struggle will be real, something you get everytime siphon hits because it gives you health at cost of restand which isn't exactly the variation strong point.

Heart piece you still have all zoning options but you cannot have the siphon to regain health everytime you hit something, since its an offense and anti-offense variation you can still zone and do mostly everything blood drive does, but you get to teleport and deal with heavy rushers using dagger dance.

Other thing Heart piece its superior againt blood drive, you cannot counter flawless block punish with it, in heart piece you can do it and use 124~blood tentacle with less chance of getting flawless blocked into a 9f launch

I'm pretty sure this will be a challenge for many, but i've known this character for many years to know they would give me counter hit teleport and restand all in the same variation, which was a very strong build, instead, NRS doesn't screws me but gives two options that are very well designed, you get 80% of skarlet in each variation, and the 20% difference its on this details to adapt according to playstyle
 
Probably other character's variations will be the same: instead of creating a 100% character with all the best abilities they rather create 2 80%.

First I will lab her gaps and the ability of covering it with parry. If its possible at least in one good string (I saw one counter against Jade) it seems superior besides the rush down counter.

However I like getting the momentum with a restand+heal+damage lol. It is a big trade in 2 variations. Its a shame we need to choose but reasonable.
 

KeyserSoze

Fabled Villain
They are situational Blood drives gives enhanced zoning with controlled blood ball speed and siphon in case you are getting into patient players, but if you find someone with an even stronger game than skarlet you will struggle to stand your ground, other thing blood drive will suck at, its when up close or cornered the struggle will be real, something you get everytime siphon hits because it gives you health at cost of restand which isn't exactly the variation strong point.

Heart piece you still have all zoning options but you cannot have the siphon to regain health everytime you hit something, since its an offense and anti-offense variation you can still zone and do mostly everything blood drive does, but you get to teleport and deal with heavy rushers using dagger dance.

Other thing Heart piece its superior againt blood drive, you cannot counter flawless block punish with it, in heart piece you can do it and use 124~blood tentacle with less chance of getting flawless blocked into a 9f launch

I'm pretty sure this will be a challenge for many, but i've known this character for many years to know they would give me counter hit teleport and restand all in the same variation, which was a very strong build, instead, NRS doesn't screws me but gives two options that are very well designed, you get 80% of skarlet in each variation, and the 20% difference its on this details to adapt according to playstyle
Good insight, thanks. During the Beta, I just felt that Siphon was her best overall move, but you make good points. I really didn't get to play around with different custom variations as much as I wanted to during the Beta because I was hella busy with real life stuff.
 

Eddy Wang

Skarlet scientist
Good insight, thanks. During the Beta, I just felt that Siphon was her best overall move, but you make good points. I really didn't get to play around with different custom variations as much as I wanted to during the Beta because I was hella busy with real life stuff.
Skarlet goes with the philosophy that the more blood the gets the more stronger she becomes

in MK9 it was the more meter she had, the more stronger she would be, Skarlet with 1 bar of meter was insane in MK9 and with 3 bars was pretty annoying to deal with, because she was extremely resilient with super armor, access to faster 50-50 mixups and guaranteed loopable pressure which in turn built her meter.

In MK11 blood Drive/ Heart Piece the more blood she gets, the more health she gains, its the new moto which any blood ablility that drains health makes her harder to kill, reason why Honeybee said "You should always assume Skarlet players have at least 1500 HP of health" because they can drain you for doing things you shouldn't be doing.
 
I basically played blood drive during the beta, and liked it a lot) if I won’t like anyone else’s gameplay, I will stick with Scarlet until Shang Tsung.
 
During the London stream foxy did Skarlet’s b2 KB, I noticed that it was only the second b2 in a row. I think it is more practical now to land.
 
During the London stream foxy did Skarlet’s b2 KB, I noticed that it was only the second b2 in a row. I think it is more practical now to land.
Good finding. In that case at least a great mind game opportunity after the first B2. The risk reward factor is better and the opponent might be afraid of it and opens him up in other area.

I still find B2 too crappy though. But at least have an oh and opponent need to care about one more thing instead of auto block low.
 
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