What's new

Question Smoke air kick grab so effective??

I have so much trouble against smokes air kick grab in the air and while on the ground. If I block I get insta air grabbed anyway. This is so effective and I have found no way to counter this.

What can I do man it's so annoying online, players who do this fail so hard in the face to face combat but I just can't find a way around this tactic.
 

RoboCop

The future of law enforcement.
Administrator
Premium Supporter
I'm not sure I understand what's happening to you. How do you get air-grabbed while blocking? I'm not sure if this applies directly to your situation, but I can tell you my anti-Smoke strategies. Smoke is a bait-and-punish character, in that you have to bait him and punish him. His teleport is so fast that you can't commit to any large motions. Try to stay on the ground because you are very vulnerable while airborne, especially against Smoke. Smoke has almost no mixup game so you are typically safe just blocking his strings. All you have to watch out for are sweeps and throws. What character are you using?
 
I'm not sure I understand what's happening to you. How do you get air-grabbed while blocking? I'm not sure if this applies directly to your situation, but I can tell you my anti-Smoke strategies. Smoke is a bait-and-punish character, in that you have to bait him and punish him. His teleport is so fast that you can't commit to any large motions. Try to stay on the ground because you are very vulnerable while airborne, especially against Smoke. Smoke has almost no mixup game so you are typically safe just blocking his strings. All you have to watch out for are sweeps and throws. What character are you using?
he waits until he is close to the ground then kicks and does air grab. I can't block that or jump or anything cuz id get by kick, so I block but the air grab goes off while he is still in the air (but close to ground).
 

RoboCop

The future of law enforcement.
Administrator
Premium Supporter
he waits until he is close to the ground then kicks and does air grab. I can't block that or jump or anything cuz id get by kick, so I block but the air grab goes off while he is still in the air (but close to ground).
Why can't you block the kick? And if he's delaying his kick until he's that low can you not anti-air? What character are you using?
 
If you block the jump kick, the air grab will not come out. What it sounds like is that he's doing a regular grab once he hits the ground, in that case just tech it, punish the jump kick, or jump out.
 

hardwire

Noob
I tried sub and reptile. Subs clones never come out they always whiff and disappear :(
ya you have to do the clone early

if the fighter is to close to sub it wont come out cuse apparently in the old mk games you could jump in on your opponent and insta freeze them with your clone.
 

RoboCop

The future of law enforcement.
Administrator
Premium Supporter
I tried sub and reptile. Subs clones never come out they always whiff and disappear :(
I can tell you from personal experience fighting good Sub-Zero players that you should NEVER be able to jump in on Sub-Zero. I rape people online and I don't dare leave the ground while fighting him. If you are Sub-Zero and you are getting jumped-in on then I'm sorry, but your are doing something wrong. Reptile I'm not as familiar with. Like hardwire said, it sounds like you're busting out your clone too late. Make sure to block when you get your clone out because I'm assuming you're getting teleport punched, right? If you block Smokes TP he should head right into your clone on the 2nd hit. As far as the jump-ins go, he shouldn't be able to get close enough to your Sub-Zero to jump in. Smoke just doesn't have the tools to accomplish that.
 

fleshmasher

i got the poison
I had a Kano online doing that to me, Jump kick, air Grab or (when the normal jump kick is blocked) normal Grab, repeat.
Online makes it hard to time a response to this.
1. Don't play on a bad connection.

2. after being knocked down by grab or air grab, moves like ice clone or any wake up special must be timed so that they are registered as a wakeup move.
Wakeup specials have other properties than specials from a standing position. They are faster and have invincibility.
With timing ice clone could work not sure on that Slide may be better and is faster.
I've been slided out of jump kick attempts often by Sub and Reptile, Smoke's own :en shake works good against jump kicks too.
But keep in mind that wake up specials are often unsafe.

3. After having blocked a jump kick you don't wanna be thrown.
You can do attacks with a duck built in (called tech crouch) like d1, d3 or d4.
Uppercut may be too slow in the start up to not get thrown.
Sweep can be jumped over and punished with another jump kick or a jump punch i think.
You can also escape standing grabs by pressing 1 against normal throws or 4 against front throws when being grabbed.
A 50/50 chance dependin on which grab he does. But Smoke's front grab is better for knockdown pressure so you wanna use the 4 grab escape more often.
Unless your opponent is predictably using the normal one, try to read him.

Edit: i think you cannot hold block and escape at the same time like in Soul Calibur and other fighting games, in MK you must let go of block to escape a throw.