MadeOfMetal
Kenshi Srubtastic,Cyrax, Special Forces Mains
Teeth And Sai's: A Guide On How To Use Piercing Mileena In The Current META (Never YOLO Roll)
To start off, when the game first came out, my go to character was Mileena Piercing, back then she was considered bottom tier trash, over the course of the game with balance patch after balance patch she got Buffs on top of more buffs, and then some buffs for the hell of it.
Let me retrieve some of the buffs she got:
3-8-2016 and 3-29-2016 they completely ignored Mileena and we herd nothing about her until after EVO well after last patch 3-29
- Mileena - Removed 5 recovery frames from Double Sai Blast [Zoining Buff]
- Mileena - Removed 3 recovery frames from Sai Blast [Zoning Buff]
- Mileena - Removed 3 recovery frames from Air Sai Blast [Zoning Buff]
- Mileena - D+1 now has 6 startup frames and is -5 on block (down from 9 startup and -4 on block) [Neutral Buff great poke]
- Mileena - D+3 now has 8 startup frames and is -6 on block (down from 10 startup and -1 on block) [Neutral Buff]Great Poke
- Mileena - B+4 has increased push-back and is now -4 on block (up from -8) [Neutral Buff]
- Mileena - F+4 now has 15 startup frames and is -8 on block (down from 17 startup and -31 on block) [SUPER BUFF to Space Control and offense/Neutral]
- Mileena (Piercing) - Removed 5 recovery frames from Low Sai & Double Low Sai [Zoning buff]
- Mileena (Piercing) - (B+1) is now -2 on block (down from -5) [Space Control/Neutral Buff]
- Mileena (Piercing) - (B+1,2) is now -1 on block (down from +2) [Space Control/Neutral Buff]
- Mileena (Ravenous) - High Pounce now has 12 startup frames, is -3 on block, and has 9 less recovery frames (down from 15 startup and -7 on block) and has increased range. [Massive Buff to Neutral and Footsies and Close up/Keepout]
- Mileena (Ravenous) - Low Pounce now has 8 startup frames and has 8 less recovery frames (down from 13 startup) [OMG Nice Buff to Ravenous Neutral]
- Mileena - F+3 now low crushes BUFF SUPER
- Mileena - F+3,4 is now -2 on hit (up from -4) [Buff]
- Mileena - F+3,4,3 can no longer be 2in1 cancelled out of and is now -9 on block (up from -19) So its safe now, no more links on it though. seems fair, very strong. [Buff]
- Mileena - F+3,4,4 can no longer be 2in1 cancelled out of, is now -11 on block (up from -26), and is now a hard knockdown. Viable mixup not safe against all but hard to punish with blockstun. [Nerf and Buff]
- Mileena - (4)now has 11 startup frames (down from 13) [BUFF]
- Mileena (Piercing) - (B+1) is now -6 on block and 8 on hit (up from -16 and -2) [Huge Buff to Neutral]
- Mileena (Piercing) - (B+1,2) is now 2 on block (up from -3) [Huge buff to Neutral]
- Mileena (Piercing) - (F+1) is now 2 on block and 9 on hit (up from -8 and -5) [Buff to Neutral and OKI and Armor break setup's]
- Mileena (Piercing) - B+2 is now -4 on block (up from -9) [Buff to neutral]
- Mileena - adjusted several hitboxes to hit more consistently
- Mileena - Low Slash (down FP) no longer pushes opponents away before the active frames
- Mileena - increased hit advantage on Rider combo (Away + BP, BP, throw) to 25 (up from -7)
- Mileena (Piercing) - now goes into a ducking state during Low Sai
- Mileena (Ravenous) - increased hit advantage on grab specials
- Mileena (Ravenous) - doing the Quick Taste combo (Away + FP, BP, throw) will now heal her a small amount as she bites
- Mileena (Ethereal) - Reduced the recovery on Vanish Away & Vanish Towards. Also allows for combos to continue afterwards.
Those Two patches where the pivot point for Mileena together with other characters getting Nerfed in the Patches to follow, set her on the top of the Tiers. She Recieved Better Zoning, Neutral, Footsie, OKI, Space Control, and Counter Zoning. all in two patches. and went unnoticed in two patches to follow, and was only found in a few majors recently, then soared to Stardom.
Some Information about ME:
I currently Main out beloved Swordsman Kenshi, and i use the Balanced variation because i am Dope like that. but more importantly because i love Kenshi from MK9 and have been a fan, but that love is not Limited to one character in this game, I also use Cyrax as a Main or second main. Depeneds on the matchup, i would not consider any of my characters 2nd's and 3rds. From time to time you will find me using Reptile, Mileena, Raiden MOS and Cassie Brawler as well. but i generally only use Kenshi, Cyrax and Pocket Mileena every now and then.
Why i made this thread
I recently noticed that many players are struggling with Mileena and how to use her correctly, which is understandable since there is a wide range of players online, many might see Mileenas getting away with Ball Rolls when they shouldn't that is because its a unique move, that Has her Hurt-Box in a small region inside her body during the roll, and her Hit-Box(that hits you) is a huge circle surrounding her body during the roll, so many times you will find that she steps out of turn and rolls when she shouldn't and well she wins the trade.
With all of that as motivation and I and any other community should want there piers to get better, for one i could get online and play better Mileenas, Two i can get better practice and strengthen my game by teaching others how to play better and to use better habits. 3rd its just the TYM thing to do, Help others even if they have not put in the time, because thats what we do here on TYM, there may be a few bad Apples here, but that doesn't mean the majority here at TYM are not good Guys and Gals.
This is a short and Simple Guide teching those who do not know how to use Mileena mostly Piercing cus thats a thing now the right way.
@BeastOfManila asked in a thread how to use Mileena and admitted he gravitated to more rolls than he should. and becaus eof him and many youtube comments i am making this short and simple guide for Mileena Piercing Enjoy:
First Off what is the "YOLO Roll"
The YOLO Roll means: You Only Live Once Roll, basically its a term for Rolling when you shouldn't, Like your opponent is clearly blocking or its there turn and they have the capability to block and you Randomly roll without the standard indication that you should have For Example: You throw out a 3 hit string and lst two of the hits connect: that would be an indicator that you should roll or link on end of string, this is called hit-Confirming the roll. Or when your opponent is throwing a string into the air that does not reach you, and you know that move has massive wiff Recovery, thats a Roll moment. or on tendency and ill explain about that later.
The Roll and when to use it!
All you have to do is never use the roll unless you hit confirm into it, or simply punish a negative string that Roll will reach in time. or maybe on reads that you know the player tends to poke out of turn, since Mileena roll will go through most moves.
That's the end of the rolling, never do it outside of that.
Simply Put you can not be punished if you never step out of turn, and only using your Positive Strings or Safe on block string's in the neutral is the way to go with any character. Players from High level to Online Scrub all make mistakes and every one of them use a Negative move from time to time. the key is to Limit doing this as much as possible and Notice when your opponent does it in time to Punish with that 7frame punisher or in Mileenas case you could use her 21/Ball Roll 8frame/123/B12 to punish all of them work very well and are generally fast punisher's. Another time to use roll is when opponet JIP's/JIK's or even NJP, its such a great AA and possibly one of the best in the game. according to reo its top 5. and TY @Scott The Scot for reminding me.
EDIT: another point to add, if your opponent is pressing buttons over your Mileena knocked down and trying to OKI her to stuff her wakeup, that is a perfect time to Roll, that is not considered YOLO roll, yolo is the term for when you randomly out of turn roll on opponent for no reason, and since we know against most of the cast Mileena goes through Mids, Lows, OH's and highs like no other, don't be afraid to punish opponents getting to aggressive on your knockdown.
Blocking Mixups
as for blocking OH's and Low mixups, there is no special ability to see them coming. they are faster than your eye can see. you can learn a players tendencies and Make Reads and block them that way, but what you should be focusing on as a Mileena player is footsies.
Footsies and the Mileena Strategy
She has B12 and F23 and F4 and EX Ball Roll. All of these share something in common. Massive range, B12 is unique it has great range pluss make's a lot of moves wiff her B12 Hurt-box with that small hit-box of hers, and you can abuse this, try to Step back after each attempt to get out of the range of the very few characters that can D4 through each attempt, and then take another stab at B12 then mix it up every now and then, it has an OS or Option select on it. B1 cancels into her specials like Low Sai and EX ball roll for mix-up, So Does B12 into anything. So be creative, But don't do it too often the same Way we don't want to telegraph what we are doing next with mileena. Whats great about this range is aside from a handful of match-ups and Alien, no one can touch her there, and whats great is she has the advantage because she can touch them with all the tools I stated Above and once again here they are: F23/B12/F44/Ball Roll/EX Ball Roll, Then Sai, Low Sai and Tele Kick all reach as well as her Xray in this range called the "B12 range".
Your Main Focus with Mileena up close
Your main focus with Mileena is Space Control, keep them at B12 range and if they ever get in some how, you have that super fast D1 slap backhand poke. That thing is unreal and immediately gives her the turn and proority to make a move. If thats not good enough she has a decent hard to counter D3 which has decent range as well. And never underestimate her D4 range it is a bit slower, but its still damn fast and no-one is gonna React to it. so use that to keep them out and back into B12 range.
Zoning with Mileena
And if they start Zoning you, you have some of the best Zoning in this game With Low Sai/High Sai and a get in quick tool that has Block-stun that is very hard to punish on reaction Known as DD3 or tele kick. That move used in synchronicity with Low Sais and High Sais she is a force to be reckoned with, far away as well as medium range and up close This Character is not to be underestimated.
Mileena Perception and Tier Placement
Sometimes you will come across a Mileena player that believes she sucks balls, and just doesn't have what it takes to beat the cast. This is incorrect and false information, and very understandable, because any main of any character feels the weaknesses of their character in a greater way than they do the characters Strengths. this is common practice. But i am here to tell you through this mini tutorial on Mileena that she has tools to handle Every character in the cast.
She can handle Zoning, Up Close, Full screen, Medium Space Control Range. Vortexs, Restands, Heavy Mixup charcters, Rushdown characters, Space Control characters. She shines in all aspects, and this is because she has unique tools to deal with them. Don't be mistaken Piercing is not her only and best pick for all macthups, I tended to use Piercing The most because it is well balanced variation. But we will talk about that in the next Section.
Variations and which one to pick for match-ups.
Mileena Piercing is the all around balanced variation, covers Zoning, Medium range footsies and Close up. this is because she gains the following tools to help in these situation's: B12, Low Sai, and of course B21-2+4 Combo ender which does the most damage of all of them. and a stagger string F1-2+4-1+3 this one can lock them in corner in a weird way, but i wont get into that.
Piercing continued:
B12 is used for space control to keep them at a safe range that they can't reach you at, Very strong tool, Don't underestimate it! Low Sai is a very very strong tool, that for some characters like Kenshi Balanced is a Game ender win all move. anything that low profiles Kenshis BF3 Tele-Flurry Zoning tool is a bad thing for him. and she uses this against a notable amount of match-ups. helps counter zone and win the trades. Then we have B21-2+4 this puts Piercing in another bracket ahead of the other two because it does more damage, and since this game is so punish heavy doing more damage on each conversion is very important and gives the edge to Mileena.
Ravenous and when to use it:
This variation is great and has very unique tools within that help in a lot of situations, Low Pounce and High Pounce are two key moves in this variation and then are are extenders to combo enders that are in this variation that others lack, Which boosts damage and how Negative or Positive you are at the end of the Combo, and that is uber important. You can basically spam High punce on your opponent and it has so little recovery and is so fast that it is a scary tool and you should utilize this move in your Ground to Air Combos and use it to AA Crossovers as well, that and U+3 works to stop Crossovers. Ravenous is the Anti Rushdown variation and works very well.
Ethereal and When to use this Variation and why its important:
This variation is a new brand of anti Zoning Pressure and anti Space control, This one Brings her Signature move Fade into battle, and this move is Like no other, it blinks out of the match and brings her Hit-box/Hurt-box with her, meaning, when she Fades she is not gonna get hurt while she is tapped out of the plain of the field. Why is this important you ask, well That is because she can use it to get in on Zoner's easily, She can Escape things no other character can like Vortexes, Cancel Pressure, Corner Traps and the best thing about it, is when you Meter this move to do so, Its your turn, and you can use Normals linked to FADE and keeps the pressure up. Enemy's Ethreal - Mileena, its never your turn if Mileena Has meter in Ethereal!
With all of this said: she is an oki setup character and has F1 to break armor, abuse this move, you can hit confirm into F12B4 and mixup with sai or roll at end if you confirm hit and repeat combo, i like to end them in jik tele kick sai so i can run up and F1 before they can armor wakeup. keep that in mind just a friendly tip.
Mix-ups and blocking them continued:
Each character has different ones, and Playing a consistent opponent as in a friend who plays them that specific character well is a good start, you can play them sets of 20 until you start blocking those moves and get used to the animations. on top of when you play someone better than you, Record your matches with your DVR feature and Find what opened you up, what special tactics did they use to do it. and whats your flaws. work on those in Practice mode and with your friends, Replicate them as best as you can in the LAB set AI to record and play which move counters until you find best punisher's for gaps and whatever move they constantly abuse on you. and repeat this process on every opponent that beats you consistently. and as long as you are playing your best game and not throwing out punishable moves you should be improving over time.
I used Mileena when the game first came out, Short story she got alot of buffs and my brother mains her along with Reptile, and well we have this thing that we will not use eachothers characters. so i went on to other characters until Cyrax came out and im somehow using Kenshi Balanced/Kenjutsu as my main and Cyrax as a secondary. Damn if i think about it she got close to 27 buffs or sumshit. OMG we must have downplayed the shit out of her to get that treatment, now she is Top 5 easy. you picked a good character.
hope she works for you and you stick it out.
Well I hope this helps some Mileena players in there Online battles.
The YOLO Roll means: You Only Live Once Roll, basically its a term for Rolling when you shouldn't, Like your opponent is clearly blocking or its there turn and they have the capability to block and you Randomly roll without the standard indication that you should have For Example: You throw out a 3 hit string and lst two of the hits connect: that would be an indicator that you should roll or link on end of string, this is called hit-Confirming the roll. Or when your opponent is throwing a string into the air that does not reach you, and you know that move has massive wiff Recovery, thats a Roll moment. or on tendency and ill explain about that later.
The Roll and when to use it!
All you have to do is never use the roll unless you hit confirm into it, or simply punish a negative string that Roll will reach in time. or maybe on reads that you know the player tends to poke out of turn, since Mileena roll will go through most moves.
That's the end of the rolling, never do it outside of that.
Simply Put you can not be punished if you never step out of turn, and only using your Positive Strings or Safe on block string's in the neutral is the way to go with any character. Players from High level to Online Scrub all make mistakes and every one of them use a Negative move from time to time. the key is to Limit doing this as much as possible and Notice when your opponent does it in time to Punish with that 7frame punisher or in Mileenas case you could use her 21/Ball Roll 8frame/123/B12 to punish all of them work very well and are generally fast punisher's. Another time to use roll is when opponet JIP's/JIK's or even NJP, its such a great AA and possibly one of the best in the game. according to reo its top 5. and TY @Scott The Scot for reminding me.
EDIT: another point to add, if your opponent is pressing buttons over your Mileena knocked down and trying to OKI her to stuff her wakeup, that is a perfect time to Roll, that is not considered YOLO roll, yolo is the term for when you randomly out of turn roll on opponent for no reason, and since we know against most of the cast Mileena goes through Mids, Lows, OH's and highs like no other, don't be afraid to punish opponents getting to aggressive on your knockdown.
Blocking Mixups
as for blocking OH's and Low mixups, there is no special ability to see them coming. they are faster than your eye can see. you can learn a players tendencies and Make Reads and block them that way, but what you should be focusing on as a Mileena player is footsies.
Footsies and the Mileena Strategy
She has B12 and F23 and F4 and EX Ball Roll. All of these share something in common. Massive range, B12 is unique it has great range pluss make's a lot of moves wiff her B12 Hurt-box with that small hit-box of hers, and you can abuse this, try to Step back after each attempt to get out of the range of the very few characters that can D4 through each attempt, and then take another stab at B12 then mix it up every now and then, it has an OS or Option select on it. B1 cancels into her specials like Low Sai and EX ball roll for mix-up, So Does B12 into anything. So be creative, But don't do it too often the same Way we don't want to telegraph what we are doing next with mileena. Whats great about this range is aside from a handful of match-ups and Alien, no one can touch her there, and whats great is she has the advantage because she can touch them with all the tools I stated Above and once again here they are: F23/B12/F44/Ball Roll/EX Ball Roll, Then Sai, Low Sai and Tele Kick all reach as well as her Xray in this range called the "B12 range".
Your Main Focus with Mileena up close
Your main focus with Mileena is Space Control, keep them at B12 range and if they ever get in some how, you have that super fast D1 slap backhand poke. That thing is unreal and immediately gives her the turn and proority to make a move. If thats not good enough she has a decent hard to counter D3 which has decent range as well. And never underestimate her D4 range it is a bit slower, but its still damn fast and no-one is gonna React to it. so use that to keep them out and back into B12 range.
Zoning with Mileena
And if they start Zoning you, you have some of the best Zoning in this game With Low Sai/High Sai and a get in quick tool that has Block-stun that is very hard to punish on reaction Known as DD3 or tele kick. That move used in synchronicity with Low Sais and High Sais she is a force to be reckoned with, far away as well as medium range and up close This Character is not to be underestimated.
Mileena Perception and Tier Placement
Sometimes you will come across a Mileena player that believes she sucks balls, and just doesn't have what it takes to beat the cast. This is incorrect and false information, and very understandable, because any main of any character feels the weaknesses of their character in a greater way than they do the characters Strengths. this is common practice. But i am here to tell you through this mini tutorial on Mileena that she has tools to handle Every character in the cast.
She can handle Zoning, Up Close, Full screen, Medium Space Control Range. Vortexs, Restands, Heavy Mixup charcters, Rushdown characters, Space Control characters. She shines in all aspects, and this is because she has unique tools to deal with them. Don't be mistaken Piercing is not her only and best pick for all macthups, I tended to use Piercing The most because it is well balanced variation. But we will talk about that in the next Section.
Variations and which one to pick for match-ups.
Mileena Piercing is the all around balanced variation, covers Zoning, Medium range footsies and Close up. this is because she gains the following tools to help in these situation's: B12, Low Sai, and of course B21-2+4 Combo ender which does the most damage of all of them. and a stagger string F1-2+4-1+3 this one can lock them in corner in a weird way, but i wont get into that.
Piercing continued:
B12 is used for space control to keep them at a safe range that they can't reach you at, Very strong tool, Don't underestimate it! Low Sai is a very very strong tool, that for some characters like Kenshi Balanced is a Game ender win all move. anything that low profiles Kenshis BF3 Tele-Flurry Zoning tool is a bad thing for him. and she uses this against a notable amount of match-ups. helps counter zone and win the trades. Then we have B21-2+4 this puts Piercing in another bracket ahead of the other two because it does more damage, and since this game is so punish heavy doing more damage on each conversion is very important and gives the edge to Mileena.
Ravenous and when to use it:
This variation is great and has very unique tools within that help in a lot of situations, Low Pounce and High Pounce are two key moves in this variation and then are are extenders to combo enders that are in this variation that others lack, Which boosts damage and how Negative or Positive you are at the end of the Combo, and that is uber important. You can basically spam High punce on your opponent and it has so little recovery and is so fast that it is a scary tool and you should utilize this move in your Ground to Air Combos and use it to AA Crossovers as well, that and U+3 works to stop Crossovers. Ravenous is the Anti Rushdown variation and works very well.
Ethereal and When to use this Variation and why its important:
This variation is a new brand of anti Zoning Pressure and anti Space control, This one Brings her Signature move Fade into battle, and this move is Like no other, it blinks out of the match and brings her Hit-box/Hurt-box with her, meaning, when she Fades she is not gonna get hurt while she is tapped out of the plain of the field. Why is this important you ask, well That is because she can use it to get in on Zoner's easily, She can Escape things no other character can like Vortexes, Cancel Pressure, Corner Traps and the best thing about it, is when you Meter this move to do so, Its your turn, and you can use Normals linked to FADE and keeps the pressure up. Enemy's Ethreal - Mileena, its never your turn if Mileena Has meter in Ethereal!
With all of this said: she is an oki setup character and has F1 to break armor, abuse this move, you can hit confirm into F12B4 and mixup with sai or roll at end if you confirm hit and repeat combo, i like to end them in jik tele kick sai so i can run up and F1 before they can armor wakeup. keep that in mind just a friendly tip.
Mix-ups and blocking them continued:
Each character has different ones, and Playing a consistent opponent as in a friend who plays them that specific character well is a good start, you can play them sets of 20 until you start blocking those moves and get used to the animations. on top of when you play someone better than you, Record your matches with your DVR feature and Find what opened you up, what special tactics did they use to do it. and whats your flaws. work on those in Practice mode and with your friends, Replicate them as best as you can in the LAB set AI to record and play which move counters until you find best punisher's for gaps and whatever move they constantly abuse on you. and repeat this process on every opponent that beats you consistently. and as long as you are playing your best game and not throwing out punishable moves you should be improving over time.
I used Mileena when the game first came out, Short story she got alot of buffs and my brother mains her along with Reptile, and well we have this thing that we will not use eachothers characters. so i went on to other characters until Cyrax came out and im somehow using Kenshi Balanced/Kenjutsu as my main and Cyrax as a secondary. Damn if i think about it she got close to 27 buffs or sumshit. OMG we must have downplayed the shit out of her to get that treatment, now she is Top 5 easy. you picked a good character.
hope she works for you and you stick it out. Well I hope this helps some Mileena players in there Online battles.
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