General/Other - Grandmaster Sub-Zero Theory Crafting Zone

[HGTV Soapboxfan]

Let's be serious here. The ice clone is like the coolest move in any game ever. It's original, versatile, and really practically limitless in potential. It's a good move no matter what, but when combined with a creative and calculating player, it becomes absolutely ridiculous.

 

[Amplified$hotz]

Let's be serious here. The ice clone is like the coolest move in any game ever. It's original, versatile, and really practically limitless in potential. It's a good move no matter what, but when combined with a creative and calculating player, it becomes absolutely ridiculous.

Definitely one of the most unique moves in fighting games. It's awesome and looks really tight after 212

 

[YOMI MITYEAP]

Another mirror match maybe?

if the community wants it, it would be hype and would happen haha. No real bad blood btw djt and tom, ppl just made it that way

 

[Amplified$hotz]

if the community wants it, it would be hype and would happen haha. No real bad blood btw djt and tom, ppl just made it that way

I know tom even admitted it didn't mean much and that djt was an incredible player. Also can we please get triforce on commentary.

 

[Tom Brady]

That's about right. I never understood why so many Sub-Zero players (and opponents) didn't seem to acknowledge that he had that strong quality. So many Sonya's, Jax's, Liu Kang's, etc. thought they had free reign in the fireball war against Sub. That 4-to-1 trade would bite them in the ass.

Anyway: I was thinking about how Sub-Zero used the Clone in MK9 as far as what the goal was. I'm glad Tom mentioned it as an "offensive" tool because that's what I considered. Hiding behind Clones and running away is great and all, but that seemed like an elementary tactic that everyone assumed was the way to go all the time. The "goal" as I saw it, was to always advance forward, continually cutting the screen down further and further until the opponent had little to work with and ultimately had to commit to something likely not in his favor.

Well from what we've seen of MKX in general so far; they really seem to be emphasizing the maneuvering interactables. They even specifically mention providing universal escape routes from the corner. It makes me wonder if the "goal" of the Clone will be something familiar to MK9 or if it will be some strategy nobody is considering yet.

Well, in MK9 my strat became that every hit goes into the ice clone. After Sub-Zero lost all damage, players just didnt care if they got hit and they respected nothing. So I decided that if I could find a way to make EVERY hit equal a combo then I could change the mind game..

A slide wasnt just a slide, it was a slide into the clone. Same with EX slide, jump kick, etc.. This made players just block and try to wait out the storm but the storm was a continuous loop of attacks~Ice Clone and repeat until the opponent assumed risk to escape. This was mandatory because his damage was so low. In MKX the clone will have different uses if Sub-Zero does high damage.

 

[ChaosTheory]

What about the proximity of the Clone as far as attacks going through it? Have we seen many examples of that yet? I can't remember.

I'm curious if a Kitana/Cage d1 type move would go through the MKX Clone. That's a big factor.

 

[xQUANTUMx]

What about the proximity of the Clone as far as attacks going through it? Have we seen many examples of that yet? I can't remember.

I'm curious if a Kitana/Cage d1 type move would go through the MKX Clone. That's a big factor.

It better fucking NOT

 

[champdee]

yeah right now him not having an air clone (Instant air clone ( ia clone helps a few mu's in mk9 of the top of my head sheeva, and mileena, delayed clone is great, he's a gimmicky characher, needs his air clone esp if it plays like mk9

But honestly I'm trying to stay positive because it's a completely different,and new game however if it plays anything like mk9 he should have an air clone seriously..

and nice write up, glad I wasn't the only one thinking of this

 

[just_2swift]

Having options to explode the clone and to throw the clone should really add an interesting side to how sub zero plays in mkx. It will be interesting to see how opponents react differently to the ice clone now that sub will have these additional options. I dont think that not being able to put out a clone while airborne will be a significant loss. The whole idea is to occupy ground space plus in mk9 often an airborne clone was the most useless because of how easy it was to avoid unless it was done very low to the ground). It was basically only useful to do an airborne clone to essentially cancel your jump in. Absorbing projectiles is huge IMO. Even if it just wastes more time like relaxedstate said wasting time until time out are what many of sub zeros matches are all about so anything that helps him do so is a buff

SMOKE SMOKE SMOKE SMOKE SMOKE SMOKE SMOKE SMOKE

 

[ChaosTheory]

yeah right now him not having an air clone (Instant air clone ( ia clone helps a few mu's in mk9 of the top of my head sheeva, and mileena, delayed clone is great, he's a gimmicky characher, needs his air clone esp if it plays like mk9

But honestly I'm trying to stay positive because it's a completely different,and new game however if it plays anything like mk9 he should have an air clone seriously..

and nice write up, glad I wasn't the only one thinking of this

I'm not sure how big a loss not having an Air-Clone is. It had some uses in MK9 as far as beating some air-to-air attempts or cancelling a non-deep jump-kick. You could use it a certain way to force hesitation and whiffing from your opponent, but that was pretty character/player specific. Ultimately, it had uses but it was nothing to base your match-up around.

Also, remember that the builds we're seeing have been out for a couple of months now. And they're likely builds from the game that are several months older than that. There's no telling what will be added or removed before release. Look back at some of the pre-release gameplay vids of MK9 and you'll notice a lot of moves and properties being completely changed by the time the game came out.

In the MK9 demo Sub-Zero's b2 didn't freeze, Scorpion's d4 was an animation that I don't remember seeing anybody have in the final game, etc.

 

[Gesture Required Ahead]

Good theory. We can never be sure though because the actual game isn't in our hands yet. You are assuming that the overall movement and the clone itself will behave similar to how MK9 did. But we are explicitly shown that it isn't. Footsies will clearly not work the same as MK9 or any other FG due to how mobility interactables will come into play. You can not guarantee that the clone will be as scary as it was in MK9. And we don't even know if we'll get air-dashes or double jumps yet. That will also some into play. I'm sure there's a reason as to why the clone has various functions now. It is probably implied that it should not be used the same way it was used in MK9. For example, just look at UMK3 v MK9, despite being both 2D fighters the clone is used very differently simply because the game mechanics are very different from each other. I'm sure it will be the same case as MKX and we'll just have to wait to be sure.

But again, this is just all speculation to have fun with before the game comes out. So I'm just saying.

 

[Braindead]

Guys, you can't throw Ice Clones in the air like MK9.

@Tom Brady

 

[LinKueiLegend]

By just watching any gameplay video that uses the Grandmaster variation ( I swear every Sub Zero gameplay uses Cryomancer) im excited to just think about using it. Though you cant use it in the air anymore the fact it stops certain projectiles just shows that if used properly its gonna kick some serious ass. Subby for mindgames master!

 

[Amplified$hotz]

Guys, you can't throw Ice Clones in the air like MK9.

@Tom Brady

That sucks. But I'm sure he'll have stuff to make up for it.

 

[loogie]

Iirc he retains the ground pound move on all variations sans Unbreakerable, where it's replaced by the parry.

The ground pound can detonate the clone but the properties of the exploded clone has yet to be seen tho.

in Unbreakable, it's not replaced by the parry... parry is instead of the clone and he gets ice shield (kinda like Doomsday) instead of the ice burst...

 

[loogie]

the exploding clone, or detonating clone is something not clear yet ... having played the demo earlier this month, when doing the ice burst (the pound) I did not notice a clone detonating... or to be frank I did not try that setup at all (putting a clone up and trying to detonate). but I did play it for more than 4 hours and almost exclusively with Subzero (Grandmaster most of the time), the 'detonate' did not catch my attention or indeed ever happen.

I might be wrong...
It could be an early build ...

plus, having the detonate option would make Sub kind of 'overpowered'? think about it:
- still a 1 frame clone
- longer/better recovery (Scorpion was NOT able to spear me on my recovery, remember MK9 smoke/scorp hitting Sub after a clone cancel off the 212? it's gone)
- eats projectile
- can be thrown (and the throw arc is pretty big, hit box is huge... it was very hard/impossible to jump it, or duck it at mid to full screen, you can duck it upclose at sweep distance)
now add the detonate to that and see if someone can escape his offense

 

[ChaosTheory]

Cryomancer does look interesting. The uppercut immediately looked great to me. It reminds me of the weapon uppercuts from MKD and particularly MKA due to the anti-airs. Some of those were pretty excellent in that regard. Obviously the air drop-down move is very interesting. I hadn't seen that until this build, personally.

Another thing I noticed for the first time was the whiff-recovery on his Slide. It looked very, very fast especially compared to the MK9 version. That was the most interesting part to me. Wonder if it's fast enough to use as a mobility tool. Like at full-screen, Slide under a projectile and full-combo punish. Or Slide out of range, bait a whiff-punish into Clone, etc.

 

[Braindead]

in Unbreakable, it's not replaced by the parry... parry is instead of the clone and he gets ice shield (kinda like Doomsday) instead of the ice burst...

What does the pound move do without a clone?

 

[loogie]

What does the pound move do without a clone?

it looked to be a safe move that on block pushed opp little back and on hit sent them almost 70% fullscreen. (I hope it gives a hard knockdown).
The ex version pops them up for a juggle, albeit just half height compared to a full bounce you get from njp. So you can do a juggle combo follow up.
Both versions are blockable.

I found myself using it to shake off opponents upclose, e.g. D1 or d4 into burst...

 

[ChaosTheory]

it looked to be a safe move that on block pushed opp little back and on hit sent them almost 70% fullscreen. (I hope it gives a hard knockdown).
The ex version pops them up for a juggle, albeit just half height compared to a full bounce you get from njp. So you can do a juggle combo follow up.
Both versions are blockable.

I forgot about you saying you played the game. I have several questions. If you could just answer what you can....

1. -Do you remember what the range looked like on the Ice Burst move? Was it basically a point-blank type of move or did it look like it could be used around sweep-range or so?
-Do you remember what the recovery was like on whiff? Did it seem like the type of move you could use to sort of check opponents at around that sweep-range or would it get punished?
-Finally: you said you were using it with d1/d4 to "shake off" opponents... was it comboing or was the Ice Burst being blocked? Could you theoretically do a dial into Ice Burst and hit-confirm the Enhanced version for a combo?

2. -I looked around and didn't see you mention this about the Slide... Like I mentioned in my previous post, the whiff recovery looks very fast in the Quan Chi build. Was it like that when you played?
-If so; did you mess around with using it for mobility?

 

[ZoO]

I'm guessing Sub's X-ray can either be used as a parry or he can manually execute it. Not sure, maybe they changed it? Check out the vid at 2:55. He combos into it. IMO he doesn't need a parry, Hes got a MF ice clone lol

 

[loogie]

I forgot about you saying you played the game. I have several questions. If you could just answer what you can....

1. -Do you remember what the range looked like on the Ice Burst move? Was it basically a point-blank type of move or did it look like it could be used around sweep-range or so?
-Do you remember what the recovery was like on whiff? Did it seem like the type of move you could use to sort of check opponents at around that sweep-range or would it get punished?
-Finally: you said you were using it with d1/d4 to "shake off" opponents... was it comboing or was the Ice Burst being blocked? Could you theoretically do a dial into Ice Burst and hit-confirm the Enhanced version for a combo?

2. -I looked around and didn't see you mention this about the Slide... Like I mentioned in my previous post, the whiff recovery looks very fast in the Quan Chi build. Was it like that when you played?
-If so; did you mess around with using it for mobility?

Will try to aswer what I know/experienced with the build I played on, but things could change as we all know...
1) Ice burst
- Range does not reach sweep distance, but has a good hitbox area. you can say it is at max d-poke range.
- It looked to be a safe move, I did not check the frame data on it. recovery was pretty good I would say, I don't remember getting punished for it, but then again I wasn't playing against 'good' opposition as most players were just there to mash things out or jump around infinitely or do continuous uppercuts. You could also cancel his strings into the burst, some of which would make him whiff completely i.e. if you do a burst after the f42 string midscreen the burst will not connect on block at all, this could leave you open for a punish. in the corner though it connects and you get a nice pushback.
- the only move I tried to combo with a poke on purpose to see if it registered as a combo was the d4 into slide, and it did register as a combo. I don't recall how it was registering for the d1/d4 burst. but it was quite useful to shake 'em off.

2) Slide
- MK9 slide was ass on whiff ... that's for sure. I would say in the build I played, it looked to be recovering fast but honestly I am just trying to think back to a situation at the expo when I got punished for whiff, and it didn't happen coz like I said the players playing me were mashing shit out most of the time and testing the slide did not come to mind with regards to the whiff recovery. So, I would say that it is likely it is better than MK9 but not conclusive without proper testing. and that I did not do. The one thing I remember about the slide pretty clearly is that he was ducking way too low ... I would say it would most certainly go under every projectile we have seen so far in the gameplay videos, and it was pretty fast. but one thing, is it does not travel the entire screen, maybe about reaches 80% or 90%.
- did not mess around as a mobility tool, I was trying to get used to the run button for that and using dashes.

Sorry I could not answer all your questions, guess we'd have to wait till more info comes out or till release

 

[Law Hero]

Tom Brady's write-ups make me wanna main Sub-Zero.

 

[Barrogh]

I'm guessing Sub's X-ray can either be used as a parry or he can manually execute it. Not sure, maybe they changed it? Check out the vid at 2:55. He combos into it. IMO he doesn't need a parry, Hes got a MF ice clone lol

Accordingly to "Dubai witnesses", his X-ray can indeed be used both as an attack with an option to charge/delay it or as a parry.

This thread is interesting in that it shows how effective this theorycrafting about a game that will be out in more than half of a year really is. For example, some ideas in the OP on how mech works are already shown to be inaccurate, and then it may be remade several times by the release...

 

[NB Semi Evil Ryu]

Is slide one of the universal moves that Subby Z gets, regardless of variation?