Eddy Wang
Skarlet scientist
Thanks to @SaltShaker i was able to get a beta code for PS4 and join everyone else and play the beta, which is still probably going but my internet bandwich has ended and monday is already workday, so i figure maybe i should give my review on things i tested and played around, though none of this is final and definitely subject to change there is a high possibility you will see a different Skarlet on the next beta or even at launch day.
So by far Skarlet seemed work really well with the system, and if you played as long as some of us did you didn't played any of the default variations maybe, so for this review i will place all moves i equipped in a sort of class, which shall give you an idea of what is easy to use and what not, so her effectiveness its higly tied on how good of a sinergy you can achieve with a combination of equipped abilities and default ones.
With the short time i had with the beta, i found myself often designing Skarlet sinergy around blood ball there are some moves that work well with it such as the BF4 moves, which forces players to not neutral duck blood ball and certainly not jumping on her from distance due those 3 moves she can equip one at the time.
So Skarlet has a lot of habilities and i'm pretty sure the majority of it went under explored, by far if you really want to play a very effective MK9 style of Skarlet this is the best configuration to keep up with your initial constant lose of health:
Starter tier
Slot1: Dagger Dance (To counter heavy offense and regain health from it)
Slot2: Teleport ( To counter zoning)
Slot3: Cell Siphon ( To restand and regain health) Beginner level.
This gives you anything you need including a 4~bf4 or 1~bf4 as anti-air which amplified does 200+ damage on hit and still allows you to mix them up on restand for more and throw becomes harder to stuff out and they will have to neutral duck.
Alternative on defense
slot1: killer-clot (Replaces blood trail, and disables opponent's 2 in 1 cancels so they can't combo)
slot2: krimson shield (take less damage)
slot3: add a different effect as needed.
Mid tier
Slot1: Blood Flow (allows you to control the speed of the ball by making it go slower/faster)
slot 2: Teleport (Allows you to travel anywhere on screen before the blood ball gets where you are)
With this setup you can control scorpion's teleport by teleporting right to where blood ball is going to be which condition's him to not do the same thing, but it gives up to the dagger dance defense, you can still get the same achievement without the blood flow
A much harder tier
Slot1: Dagger Dance
Slot2: Retch-Rebution (Forces players to not duck and not jump bloodball under any circustance)
Slot3: Red Rain (empowers zoning making even her db4 and everything she throws at the opponent do more damage)
You can experiment with as many as you go, but for a solid zoning her blood ball is something you should aspire to throw on any setup chance you get to avoid breakaways and force duck unders to hit them with the tongue or other moves which while fullscreen are pseudo safer.
Camera mixups
Skarlet walkspeed in combination with her long reaching normals can be used to walk on the edge of the line where camera shifts to wide or close to confuse your opponents on either you are on or off they range, its so confusing that making it harder to see what's happening, you get to fire bf2s or db4s when out of range to keep them in check and bait anything else with 21 or f2 or b3~bf2 or whatever else you have equipped.
Must have
Dagger Dance = DB1
This move is as defensive as Skarlet goes, she has this glaring weakness up close where ppl will tend to low profile and uppercut her normals once close and can be a struggle to deal with as of now, but its by far the best defensive option she may have for several reasons
Pros
1. The parry animation its somewhat similar to her blocking animation, if one is too eager on offense they might have just miss it and ending up attacking on it thinking she is guarding so this will force players to freeze for a while and take a good look at it to see if you're guarding on parrying, it also heavily conditions your opponent's next decision which can often be anticipated on Skarlet's favor. A good way to hiding it its to stance switch and give SKarlet's back to the foreground, then no one will know for sure either you blocked or parried.
2. The parry can be canceled by releasing the button, or you can extend by holding it down as long as necessary.
3. It parries throws, normals, disjointed hitboxes, specials that are not projectiles
Cons
1.The parry has 3 weakness, it doesn't parry projectiles, doesn't parry lows, neither does jump attacks.
A player who see's this parry or think you're going to use it, will either attack low, jump or use a projectile, you can anticipate and counter all 3 by not parrrying when they are expecting you to do it and counter accordingly.
Jump to beat lows, if mid screen jump in for a full combo punish while they use lows, up close just walk back and wait for a button press and hack away with 2,1 or B1, 2
anti-air jump ins with 4 or with 1 into db4 or bf4 if you have equipped, make sure to take a look at the meter, some players tend to break away often. If close, walk under into b1, 2
While Bolling point seems interesting, i didn't get much results from my testings so this is going to wait until release day, so does any other of her moves and other applications she might have.
I would of course expect dashes in MK11 in general to recover faster, there is no need to be so slow and they could definitely use recovery buffs
I couldn't wakeup as much as i wanted or flawless block as much as i needed, things to practice on release day
Special note to NRS: i really do hope you guys have a filter to which one decides either you want to play wi-fi warriors, cable warriors or both, so the reject ratio starts to become less, i got rejected heavily while at home specially because i was testing how far the net code goes under worse conditions while using a poor wireless setup, and with it i played even against brasilian players under the same setup and the response in general was very good, and had to go to some guy with 2MB of upload speed to play as many matches i could without being rejected, or course the ping quality of some of those matches went around 200ms to 255+ but still playable, which should be the treshold for distance against anyone who wants to fight anyone, beyond that its just terrible, so matches with 250ms are the limit of what i call aceptable and i'm still able to play somewhat reactionary.
My internet badnwich has ended, so any footage i have from the stress test will come along after 2 weeks only.
So by far Skarlet seemed work really well with the system, and if you played as long as some of us did you didn't played any of the default variations maybe, so for this review i will place all moves i equipped in a sort of class, which shall give you an idea of what is easy to use and what not, so her effectiveness its higly tied on how good of a sinergy you can achieve with a combination of equipped abilities and default ones.
With the short time i had with the beta, i found myself often designing Skarlet sinergy around blood ball there are some moves that work well with it such as the BF4 moves, which forces players to not neutral duck blood ball and certainly not jumping on her from distance due those 3 moves she can equip one at the time.
So Skarlet has a lot of habilities and i'm pretty sure the majority of it went under explored, by far if you really want to play a very effective MK9 style of Skarlet this is the best configuration to keep up with your initial constant lose of health:
Starter tier
Slot1: Dagger Dance (To counter heavy offense and regain health from it)
Slot2: Teleport ( To counter zoning)
Slot3: Cell Siphon ( To restand and regain health) Beginner level.
This gives you anything you need including a 4~bf4 or 1~bf4 as anti-air which amplified does 200+ damage on hit and still allows you to mix them up on restand for more and throw becomes harder to stuff out and they will have to neutral duck.
Alternative on defense
slot1: killer-clot (Replaces blood trail, and disables opponent's 2 in 1 cancels so they can't combo)
slot2: krimson shield (take less damage)
slot3: add a different effect as needed.
Mid tier
Slot1: Blood Flow (allows you to control the speed of the ball by making it go slower/faster)
slot 2: Teleport (Allows you to travel anywhere on screen before the blood ball gets where you are)
With this setup you can control scorpion's teleport by teleporting right to where blood ball is going to be which condition's him to not do the same thing, but it gives up to the dagger dance defense, you can still get the same achievement without the blood flow
A much harder tier
Slot1: Dagger Dance
Slot2: Retch-Rebution (Forces players to not duck and not jump bloodball under any circustance)
Slot3: Red Rain (empowers zoning making even her db4 and everything she throws at the opponent do more damage)
You can experiment with as many as you go, but for a solid zoning her blood ball is something you should aspire to throw on any setup chance you get to avoid breakaways and force duck unders to hit them with the tongue or other moves which while fullscreen are pseudo safer.
Camera mixups
Skarlet walkspeed in combination with her long reaching normals can be used to walk on the edge of the line where camera shifts to wide or close to confuse your opponents on either you are on or off they range, its so confusing that making it harder to see what's happening, you get to fire bf2s or db4s when out of range to keep them in check and bait anything else with 21 or f2 or b3~bf2 or whatever else you have equipped.
Must have
Dagger Dance = DB1
This move is as defensive as Skarlet goes, she has this glaring weakness up close where ppl will tend to low profile and uppercut her normals once close and can be a struggle to deal with as of now, but its by far the best defensive option she may have for several reasons
Pros
1. The parry animation its somewhat similar to her blocking animation, if one is too eager on offense they might have just miss it and ending up attacking on it thinking she is guarding so this will force players to freeze for a while and take a good look at it to see if you're guarding on parrying, it also heavily conditions your opponent's next decision which can often be anticipated on Skarlet's favor. A good way to hiding it its to stance switch and give SKarlet's back to the foreground, then no one will know for sure either you blocked or parried.
2. The parry can be canceled by releasing the button, or you can extend by holding it down as long as necessary.
3. It parries throws, normals, disjointed hitboxes, specials that are not projectiles
Cons
1.The parry has 3 weakness, it doesn't parry projectiles, doesn't parry lows, neither does jump attacks.
A player who see's this parry or think you're going to use it, will either attack low, jump or use a projectile, you can anticipate and counter all 3 by not parrrying when they are expecting you to do it and counter accordingly.
Jump to beat lows, if mid screen jump in for a full combo punish while they use lows, up close just walk back and wait for a button press and hack away with 2,1 or B1, 2
anti-air jump ins with 4 or with 1 into db4 or bf4 if you have equipped, make sure to take a look at the meter, some players tend to break away often. If close, walk under into b1, 2
While Bolling point seems interesting, i didn't get much results from my testings so this is going to wait until release day, so does any other of her moves and other applications she might have.
I would of course expect dashes in MK11 in general to recover faster, there is no need to be so slow and they could definitely use recovery buffs
I couldn't wakeup as much as i wanted or flawless block as much as i needed, things to practice on release day
Special note to NRS: i really do hope you guys have a filter to which one decides either you want to play wi-fi warriors, cable warriors or both, so the reject ratio starts to become less, i got rejected heavily while at home specially because i was testing how far the net code goes under worse conditions while using a poor wireless setup, and with it i played even against brasilian players under the same setup and the response in general was very good, and had to go to some guy with 2MB of upload speed to play as many matches i could without being rejected, or course the ping quality of some of those matches went around 200ms to 255+ but still playable, which should be the treshold for distance against anyone who wants to fight anyone, beyond that its just terrible, so matches with 250ms are the limit of what i call aceptable and i'm still able to play somewhat reactionary.
My internet badnwich has ended, so any footage i have from the stress test will come along after 2 weeks only.
