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Subzero General Discussion Thread

Lokheit

Noob
You know, with the Nightwolf leak being confirmed and axes being featured, I wonder why they went out of the way to replace Sub's ice swords (which he has in ALL pieces of art including the one in the menus fighting Scorpion) with ice axes he never used before (even maces would've make more sense).

I understand not using the Hammer because of Shao Kahn, but no one uses real swords (closest things are Scorpion katanas and Kotal's aztek thing). His blades fit him a lot more and now his weapon is going to be redundant with Nightwolf...
 

RM Ree

Shiba Tamer
You know, with the Nightwolf leak being confirmed and axes being featured, I wonder why they went out of the way to replace Sub's ice swords (which he has in ALL pieces of art including the one in the menus fighting Scorpion) with ice axes he never used before (even maces would've make more sense).

I understand not using the Hammer because of Shao Kahn, but no one uses real swords (closest things are Scorpion katanas and Kotal's aztek thing). His blades fit him a lot more and now his weapon is going to be redundant with Nightwolf...
Huh good point as far as traditional Chinese weapons go, swords would’ve been a much better fit than axes.
 

STK

Beso de Muerte + Fantasía Oscura
Anyone have his seeing double brutality. Its the only one i dont have lol. Not sure where to get it.
 

Lokheit

Noob
Anyone have his seeing double brutality. Its the only one i dont have lol. Not sure where to get it.
I have it (I got all of them actually), a couple of brutalities per character are in either the towers on the right platform where you have the "character summon" effect of the specific character or the ones on the upper zone, specifically the ones with a single effect for every tower with a character as boss in one of the towers (the other kind is 2 effects alternating on each tower, then the boss has both effects, many of those have kollector trade items and character stuff as a reward). The Sub-Zero one is the one with the Ice Aura effect (you're going to need consumables for the level 3 version of the aura unless you play some heavy zoning and keep away, that modifier is busted and the IA will do 2 hits, you're frozen, 2 hits, you're frozen, etc... in the corner you can't even block).

I'm not sure in which one should it be (if not in those, then one of the character specific towers that you summon on the left). I have screenshots of all the rewards I've got from towers so I could investigate and get back with confirmation.
 

STK

Beso de Muerte + Fantasía Oscura
I have it (I got all of them actually), a couple of brutalities per character are in either the towers on the right platform where you have the "character summon" effect of the specific character or the ones on the upper zone, specifically the ones with a single effect for every tower with a character as boss in one of the towers (the other kind is 2 effects alternating on each tower, then the boss has both effects, many of those have kollector trade items and character stuff as a reward). The Sub-Zero one is the one with the Ice Aura effect (you're going to need consumables for the level 3 version of the aura unless you play some heavy zoning and keep away, that modifier is busted and the IA will do 2 hits, you're frozen, 2 hits, you're frozen, etc... in the corner you can't even block).
Yea i did my towers. I figured i have it by now.
I'm not sure in which one should it be (if not in those, then one of the character specific towers that you summon on the left). I have screenshots of all the rewards I've got from towers so I could investigate and get back with confirmation.
 

Lokheit

Noob
Anyone have his seeing double brutality. Its the only one i dont have lol. Not sure where to get it.
I dived in the screenshots and I can confirm that the Seeing Double Brutality is in the Ice Aura Effect tower (The Platform is called "TOUCH OF FROST", it appears on the upper right side).

The platform featuring his character assist (ICY TOMB) rewards his "Slicing Meat" brutality.
 
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RM Ree

Shiba Tamer
Who was it that mentioned d4 having a weird interaction with wake-up roll? I’m applying it to Thin Ice so it punishes both forward roll and most u3’s in the corner.
 

CliffP

Noob
I’m beating pretty much everybody at my skill level with DoW, I don’t use the vortex but still play it because of two things. The extension off of the overhead ex freeze when they play bad neutral as well as ex shoulder preserving oki.

Unfortunately I feel like The way I’m playing Sub I might as well be playing a character with confirmable mids haha. I’m in a character crisis, I think I’ve taken sub as far as I can at my skill with his tools and I hate thin ice ex slide.
 

Lokheit

Noob
I know it's a non tournament move, but what role are you giving to Kreeping Ice so far? At first I was using it as a "hit confirm on block" move, but most strings are safer if you just end them and Kreeping Ice generally has gaps that can be punished. When I started playing I was trying to incorporate the move into kustom variations but it's falling out of grace a bit for me. It's not as bad as Cold Shoulder or the Icicles, but doesn't seem too useful, or maybe I'm missing something.
 

Owerbart

I miss you
does sub has his ice puddle in any of his kompetitive variations?

also what's the best way to battle his ice setups
 
You aren't wrong about anything you said, however as you have clearly seen, a vast multitude of players - primarily online and scrubby, but not always - are still getting hit by what they deem as an 'un-reactable overhead'. They have a massive issue with the idea of possibly not getting to play the game if they can't guess right between oh/low in Sub's vortex game. In the offline competitive world a.k.a. the real game, yes, Sub-Zero did drop in some tier lists. In the online world - where most of MK11's player base is - Sub-Zero is considered a broken, vortexing mix-up monster who desperately needs a nerf.

This player-base is loudly crying for our darling Sub to get that NRS nerf-bat, and they've had their prayers answered in MK9 and in MKX before. In my estimation, if we don't get ahead of this and give the anti-Sub crowd the most minimal changes to our boy so that they won't get vortexed anymore online, it will be us crying after a future patch.
Scrub Zero had an ice clone in both MK9 and MKX, which completely negated any nerfs thrown his way. NRS promised us a strategic, neutral heavy fighter without 50/50s, yet some characters have them. It's the same thing with the Kyrpt. Lies.
Good players will always mix their game up with throws, ice balls, and slides. A slide that has a crushing blow that always seems to activate at the end of close rounds. As of right now, it's almost impossible to block the overhead. When you do block the overhead, you're watching out for a slide, or his third overhead which also has a crushing blow. He's cheaper than Scorpion.
All we're asking is for Scrub Zero's overhead to be slightly slower. When I take my thumb off the dpad, I want to be able to block it. That's all. Maybe this wouldn't be that big of a deal if we didn't have a block button, but "muh tradition".
I have no doubt in my mind that your character will still be great no matter what. I just think it's funny watching the ninja playerbase get mad at NRS when you guys get everything.
Try playing hundreds of matches without crushing blows or an overhead and then winning. If I can handle it, so can you
 

mrapchem

Noob
Scrub Zero had an ice clone in both MK9 and MKX, which completely negated any nerfs thrown his way. NRS promised us a strategic, neutral heavy fighter without 50/50s, yet some characters have them. It's the same thing with the Kyrpt. Lies.
Good players will always mix their game up with throws, ice balls, and slides. A slide that has a crushing blow that always seems to activate at the end of close rounds. As of right now, it's almost impossible to block the overhead. When you do block the overhead, you're watching out for a slide, or his third overhead which also has a crushing blow. He's cheaper than Scorpion.
All we're asking is for Scrub Zero's overhead to be slightly slower. When I take my thumb off the dpad, I want to be able to block it. That's all. Maybe this wouldn't be that big of a deal if we didn't have a block button, but "muh tradition".
I have no doubt in my mind that your character will still be great no matter what. I just think it's funny watching the ninja playerbase get mad at NRS when you guys get everything.
Try playing hundreds of matches without crushing blows or an overhead and then winning. If I can handle it, so can you
To begin with, besides just playing Sub-Zero, I also play Johnny Cage, so I'm not sure why you assume that I can't or don't win matches without KBs and overheads. Johnny is my 2nd most played character behind Sub too, so I'm not sure where you were going there. You know what they say about assumptions...

Secondly, if you are in constant range of Sub-Zero's low, overhead and throw, you've already lost the neutral game against him. Against Sub, you need to keep your distance - just beyond sweep distance, specifically. Any 50/50 Sub-Zero attempts from that range is a full combo punish on block. It is your job to block it. As people have enumerated a billion times, the overhead is 19 frames with a very distinct animation that gives it away. And it's unsafe. Lab it for yourself.

Thirdly, NRS never said that there would be no 50/50s at all - they stated that the 50/50s were toned down, but they were still present. In just about every Kombat Kast, they made sure to mention the 50/50 options that the featured character would have. In MKX, about half the cast had an oh/low kombo starter, some of whom were completely safe while doing them. In this game, it's only one character and his overhead is reactable and unsafe; the low is good, but has much shorter range.

In MK9, Sub-Zero either lost to or went even with the overwhelming majority of the cast and was easily counter-picked. He beat Baraka, Stryker, Nightwolf, Kaon, Sheeva and Jade. Wow...If you lost to a Sub-Zero in MK9 while not using one of the aforementioned characters, you probably got out-played.

In MKX, he had the klone in 1 variation and though he was more dominant than in MK9, he was still just as easily counter-picked and was also counter-played. If you could stay away from the corner or easily get out of the corner, you automatically beat GM Sub because that was the only thing that made him good. The other two Sub-Zero variations lost to the same characters that beat GM, so Sub-Zero was beaten at the select screen by picking certain characters.

In this game, he doesn't even have an Ice Klone - and you don't hear me crying about it! I'm glad it's gone and I'm happier that
a.) he has better normals and strings because klone cancels aren't a thing anymore and
b.) the klone's replacement requires strategy to be used, but is every bit as effective as the original when used correctly.

You need to learn to make better reads and spend more time typing at NRS to fix its MK11 netkode and less time going back-and-forth with Sub players about how cheap/scrubby he is when he is easily one of the most overhyped characters in this game right now. The very best people playing this game at this moment all seem to recognize that Sub-Zero's 50/50 game isn't nearly as powerful as was postulated in the beginning and that his vortex (which I've stated numerous times should not exist and needs to be patched out) is far too ineffective against good players to win tournaments with. He keeps falling in every latest tier list as a result - the character is good, but nowhere even close to cheap/broken/busted.

Your inability to block high has absolutely nothing to do with Sub-Zero or his players in any form or fashion.

You need to stop whining and start labbing.
 
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seanpon

Noob
Scrub Zero had an ice clone in both MK9 and MKX, which completely negated any nerfs thrown his way. NRS promised us a strategic, neutral heavy fighter without 50/50s, yet some characters have them. It's the same thing with the Kyrpt. Lies.
Good players will always mix their game up with throws, ice balls, and slides. A slide that has a crushing blow that always seems to activate at the end of close rounds. As of right now, it's almost impossible to block the overhead. When you do block the overhead, you're watching out for a slide, or his third overhead which also has a crushing blow. He's cheaper than Scorpion.
All we're asking is for Scrub Zero's overhead to be slightly slower. When I take my thumb off the dpad, I want to be able to block it. That's all. Maybe this wouldn't be that big of a deal if we didn't have a block button, but "muh tradition".
I have no doubt in my mind that your character will still be great no matter what. I just think it's funny watching the ninja playerbase get mad at NRS when you guys get everything.
Try playing hundreds of matches without crushing blows or an overhead and then winning. If I can handle it, so can you
sub zero is tough to block online. He feels like the super girl of this game tbh. Supergirl's teleport was also difficult to react to online, but not as much offline. Supergirl was pretty popular online in injustice 2 and pretty good online. Sub is similar, he's good online but not as powerful offline. IMO this is poor character design from NRS. Most people who play online are going to lament the fact that they have to fight a 50/50 uncreactable vortex machine in sub zero and will ask for the character to get toned down, yet we may not see many sub zeros' competing offline in tournaments. The character is in a tricky place, he's god tier online but mid tier offline. NRS should rework his character a little...
 

mrapchem

Noob
sub zero is tough to block online. He feels like the super girl of this game tbh. Supergirl's teleport was also difficult to react to online, but not as much offline. Supergirl was pretty popular online in injustice 2 and pretty good online. Sub is similar, he's good online but not as powerful offline. IMO this is poor character design from NRS. Most people who play online are going to lament the fact that they have to fight a 50/50 uncreactable vortex machine in sub zero and will ask for the character to get toned down, yet we may not see many sub zeros' competing offline in tournaments. The character is in a tricky place, he's god tier online but mid tier offline. NRS should rework his character a little...
NRS should rework the online so that it's not as laggy and doesn't disconnect people every 12 or so games first before doing any character adjustments.
 

CliffP

Noob
Good players will always mix their game up with throws, ice balls, and slides. A slide that has a crushing blow that always seems to activate at the end of close rounds. As of right now, it's almost impossible to block the overhead. When you do block the overhead, you're watching out for a slide, or his third overhead which also has a crushing blow. He's cheaper than Scorpion.
He only has one overhead, the axe. The axe string followup (the kicks) that krushing blows, are mid hits, and only KB on counter hit.

The Slide has to hit two times and be enhanced before the Sub player can magically activate the krushing blow, once again, do some research into characters before you whine about them.

Thin Ice is the variation where you should be worrying about the overhead the least, stay out of range and you wont ever have to think about it outside of oki situations where you already have 4 counter options.
 

Lokheit

Noob
yea

yeah ice puddle (ground ice)

i found them super annoying and deceptively long.
Ice Puddle can be countered by waking up with Up 3. Good players will use setups where your U3 won't hit them, so basically you're using 1 bar of each meter to ignore it (I find it better than using both defensive bars though, as you will be able to use both meters and the refill rate won't be so bad).

By doing that you ignore 70 damage from the puddle and the opponent won't be able to follow up with jump in punch into 50/50.

Of course you can always block the 50/50 correctly, it's harder to do than with other SZ 50/50 situations though, as the Jump In Punch is guaranteed and it makes you have to block high, then low, or high high, and the animation isn't as obvious after the jump attack. With some practice you can flawless block the jump attack too (they have to land it late so it can combo into the strings, so it's easier to flawless block) and reverse it with a launcher U2.

In the corner no matter the setup, your wakeup U3 will hit the Sub-Zero player and he won't be able to block it so SZ should only use the puddle setups midscreen mostly, unless you don't have meter.
 
To begin with, besides just playing Sub-Zero, I also play Johnny Cage, so I'm not sure why you assume that I can't or don't win matches without KBs and overheads. Johnny is my 2nd most played character behind Sub too, so I'm not sure where you were going there. You know what they say about assumptions...

Secondly, if you are in constant range of Sub-Zero's low, overhead and throw, you've already lost the neutral game against him. Against Sub, you need to keep your distance - just beyond sweep distance, specifically. Any 50/50 Sub-Zero attempts from that range is a full combo punish on block. It is your job to block it. As people have enumerated a billion times, the overhead is 19 frames with a very distinct animation that gives it away. And it's unsafe. Lab it for yourself.

Thirdly, NRS never said that there would be no 50/50s at all - they stated that the 50/50s were toned down, but they were still present. In just about every Kombat Kast, they made sure to mention the 50/50 options that the featured character would have. In MKX, about half the cast had an oh/low kombo starter, some of whom were completely safe while doing them. In this game, it's only one character and his overhead is reactable and unsafe; the low is good, but has much shorter range.

In MK9, Sub-Zero either lost to or went even with the overwhelming majority of the cast and was easily counter-picked. He beat Baraka, Stryker, Nightwolf, Kaon, Sheeva and Jade. Wow...If you lost to a Sub-Zero in MK9 while not using one of the aforementioned characters, you probably got out-played.

In MKX, he had the klone in 1 variation and though he was more dominant than in MK9, he was still just as easily counter-picked and was also counter-played. If you could stay away from the corner or easily get out of the corner, you automatically beat GM Sub because that was the only thing that made him good. The other two Sub-Zero variations lost to the same characters that beat GM, so Sub-Zero was beaten at the select screen by picking certain characters.

In this game, he doesn't even have an Ice Klone - and you don't hear me crying about it! I'm glad it's gone and I'm happier that
a.) he has better normals and strings because klone cancels aren't a thing anymore and
b.) the klone's replacement requires strategy to be used, but is every bit as effective as the original when used correctly.

You need to learn to make better reads and spend more time typing at NRS to fix its MK11 netkode and less time going back-and-forth with Sub players about how cheap/scrubby he is when he is easily one of the most overhyped characters in this game right now. The very best people playing this game at this moment all seem to recognize that Sub-Zero's 50/50 game isn't nearly as powerful as was postulated in the beginning and that his vortex (which I've stated numerous times should not exist and needs to be patched out) is far too ineffective against good players to win tournaments with. He keeps falling in every latest tier list as a result - the character is good, but nowhere even close to cheap/broken/busted.

Your inability to block high has absolutely nothing to do with Sub-Zero or his players in any form or fashion.

You need to stop whining and start labbing.
If NRS didn't lie, a third of the roster wouldn't be worthless, and the same 4 characters wouldn't be used in every match. I didn't say you were a bad player, that's you getting defensive. I mentioned one thing which was the overhead. It is hard to block online, as most people are saying. "Labbing" is a flawed argument. All players and matches are different, especially online with the input delay. You learn in fighting games by playing against other players and getting experience against different characters. Amplified Ice balls eat through projectiles, or you can slide under them. You can't always fight from range. I don't think Sub Zero is overpowered at all. In my opinion, Geras and Erron Black are, but that's it. The overhead is too fast online and nothing more.
I understand in the 90s that NRS decided to name the series Mortal "Kombat", but that doesn't mean you have to go out of your way to put a K in place of every C. It was cute back then, because the title stuck, but just type normally. That's like visiting another country and trying too hard to talk to the locals with their native accent. They'll look at you like you're a moron.
He only has one overhead, the axe. The axe string followup (the kicks) that krushing blows, are mid hits, and only KB on counter hit.

The Slide has to hit two times and be enhanced before the Sub player can magically activate the krushing blow, once again, do some research into characters before you whine about them.

Thin Ice is the variation where you should be worrying about the overhead the least, stay out of range and you wont ever have to think about it outside of oki situations where you already have 4 counter options.
Right, so when you're watching for a slide or his low starter, you're getting hit with a crushing blow. In fact, you'll probably get hit with his slide-crushing blow anyway, because he doesn't even have to trade pokes. I did my research, and came to the conclusion that Scrub is cheap, but not overpowered. Big difference. Thanks for the advice though.
 

CliffP

Noob
Right, so when you're watching for a slide or his low starter, you're getting hit with a crushing blow. In fact, you'll probably get hit with his slide-crushing blow anyway, because he doesn't even have to trade pokes. I did my research, and came to the conclusion that Scrub is cheap, but not overpowered. Big difference. Thanks for the advice though.
Stop spending the game watching and start playing, then you’ll get better and stop complaining.

We don’t know how else to explain to you the concept of staying out of ranges where you would have to “guess” so please just leave the Sub discussion board and troll somewhere else.
 
Stop spending the game watching and start playing, then you’ll get better and stop complaining.

We don’t know how else to explain to you the concept of staying out of ranges where you would have to “guess” so please just leave the Sub discussion board and troll somewhere else.
I don't know how else to explain that Sub Zero's amplified ice balls eat through projectiles. You can't trade with him or fight him from range. On top of that, he still has the option to slide under yours. I didn't say I was bad against Scrub Zero either, though I have lost against him. I simply mentioned how his overhead is almost impossible to block online. Blind assumptions.
"If you have a different opinion, state facts about broken mechanics, or explain what you're struggling against, you're either a troll or you suck at the game."
This is usually the last argument that people use regardless of what game you're talking about.
You claim I watch more than I play. I rarely play KOTH in this game, because the matches take too long. Sub Zero is just one of those characters that people fall back on when they're losing a set. If they can't win with Geras, I can expect fight against Scorpion or Sub Zero, as my opponent is looking for a cheap and easy win. Because of this, I have a lot of experience against him.
You can add me on Xbox so we can play first to 3, then post the results here. I'm on right now. I promise not to use fatal blows, like Sub Zero players love doing.
 

CliffP

Noob
I don't know how else to explain that Sub Zero's amplified ice balls eat through projectiles. You can't trade with him or fight him from range. On top of that, he still has the option to slide under yours.
:coffee:
Someone else handle this one I feel like a bully.
 

mrapchem

Noob
sub zero is tough to block online. He feels like the super girl of this game tbh. Supergirl's teleport was also difficult to react to online, but not as much offline. Supergirl was pretty popular online in injustice 2 and pretty good online. Sub is similar, he's good online but not as powerful offline. IMO this is poor character design from NRS. Most people who play online are going to lament the fact that they have to fight a 50/50 uncreactable vortex machine in sub zero and will ask for the character to get toned down, yet we may not see many sub zeros' competing offline in tournaments. The character is in a tricky place, he's god tier online but mid tier offline. NRS should rework his character a little...
NRS should rework the online so that it's not as laggy and doesn't disconnect people every 12 or so games first before doing any character adjustments.
If NRS didn't lie, a third of the roster wouldn't be worthless, and the same 4 characters wouldn't be used in every match. I didn't say you were a bad player, that's you getting defensive. I mentioned one thing which was the overhead. It is hard to block online, as most people are saying. "Labbing" is a flawed argument. All players and matches are different, especially online with the input delay. You learn in fighting games by playing against other players and getting experience against different characters. Amplified Ice balls eat through projectiles, or you can slide under them. You can't always fight from range. I don't think Sub Zero is overpowered at all. In my opinion, Geras and Erron Black are, but that's it. The overhead is too fast online and nothing more.
I understand in the 90s that NRS decided to name the series Mortal "Kombat", but that doesn't mean you have to go out of your way to put a K in place of every C. It was cute back then, because the title stuck, but just type normally. That's like visiting another country and trying too hard to talk to the locals with their native accent. They'll look at you like you're a moron.

Right, so when you're watching for a slide or his low starter, you're getting hit with a crushing blow. In fact, you'll probably get hit with his slide-crushing blow anyway, because he doesn't even have to trade pokes. I did my research, and came to the conclusion that Scrub is cheap, but not overpowered. Big difference. Thanks for the advice though.
A third of the roster is worthless???? Just because people aren't playing them often online? That's some flawed logic right there. The reality is most of the roster is at least good, even most of the lower-tier kharacters. We just saw a Johnny Cage pretty konvincingly beat SonicFox's Erron Black.

As for Sub's overhead, we already know that it's harder to block online than offline - that isn't even news. However, that doesn't mean that the overhead itself needs to be changed - it's already slow as it is. And again, if you're not at point-blank range of Sub-Zero, all his oh/low options are fully unsafe beyond sweep distance.

As for how to learn in a fighting game, if you're not using the lab, you're doing a grave disservice to yourself. Fighting against people online only teaches you peoples' scrubby tactics. It does not teach you about frame data, gaps, optimal punishes from short/long range, anti-airs or your characters' movement/spacing options. Fighting online often gives a false impression of a kharacter's strengths and weaknesses because it serves to make some of them - like Sub-Zero - appear better than they actually are and others to appear worse.

What does need to change is the online konnection in this game because in its current state, it doesn't match MKX's netkode. Once that is fixed, you will find that everything that I and all the other Sub-Zero players have been saying about his overhead is exactly korrect; it is quite reactable, sometimes even predictable and always punishable once blocked.

It's too bad you play on Xbox - I'd love to give you even more reasons to detest Sub-Zero in a set.