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General/Other - Mileena The Mileena General Discussion Thread (All Variations)

YoloRoll1stHit

Publicly Educated
D3 is +15 on hit so you can jail with 1, 2, b1 and f2. Your opponent must block and cannot neutral crouch. F1, f4, and b2 are safe from everything but armor because of the 4 frame gap. Can you jump here? Yes, however understand you leave guaranteed chip/mixup for a jump in that can lead to a knockdown, better damage or give your opponent momentum, or punished. It's not a bad idea to try it every so often to give your opponent a new look.

D4 is +21 however the pushback means aside from b1, f2, and f4 you have to run in afterwards to continue pressure. As far as I know running in after a d4 is safe from checks. However spacing and reactions can change this and your opponent can try to check your advance. This is where jumping becomes useful because in MKX it works as an effective whiff punish with its quick jump arcs, and moves staying out for relatively long durations. It also lets you reset your on screen position due to d4's pushback.

Jumping is actually a legitimate form of offense during pressure and footsies in MKX due to AAs not being that strong and how the game is designed. Do not misunderstand though,
They're not free!
Our playstyles are pretty similar. Knowing the frame advantage from pokes is crucial for Mileena. I main Ravenous and sometimes instead of using quick normals, I throw raw low pounce or F4 high pounce after hitting pokes. That's a kind of safe mixup she can do, the reward is 16-20% which is pretty nice
And learning the timing of jump kick telekick is very important. She can do 37% meterless out of a jump kick, which is even bigger than jump punch
 

Jeffrey Wolf

YouTube: Jeffrey B Wolf
To some of the comments that I see in here: Keep in mind that Mileena isn't a 50/50 character. If that's what you want, they exist (e.g. Sonya, Erron, etc.). Mileena is a punish oriented character. She has some of the best anti-airs in the game, in a system where many characters can't anti-air. She also gets 30% damage off of jump kick air-to-airs, which is one of the best in the cast, and is a big deal since jump kicks beat jump punches. Her F12B4 (though it can whiff, as some are saying) allows her to punish armored wake ups, which few characters can do, and she gets 30%+ off of that combo. Using EN Teleport Kick, she can punish full screen keep away on reaction/read. And to top it off, with Ethereal, she has one of the best wake ups in the game.

Early in MKX's life, 50/50s have obviously dominated, but as we all learn how to block the plethora of Overheads/Lows, as well as which strings are interruptable, the meta will shift, as we're already starting to see, and a character like Mileena, with the tools she has, will become more and more relevant. Props to @YOMI RM SaltFace for placing well in tournaments to show it's possible, and to lab monsters like @TakeAChance who keep the new tech coming. To me, it's just the beginning.
 

Anseyf

Noob
First of all sorry for not bringing any new tech or breakthrough, this thread is purely for discussion and speculation about everyone's favourite empress.

I'm studying the art of fighting with Mileena since launch and just recently found so much hidden potential which is (probably intentionally) locked behind bugs or game mechanics. Most of what I've found is likely already common knowledge and please feel free to correct me if I’m mistaken anything.

Ravenous (create 50/50 situations for some combos):
F2,3,4 would end in a low. So it would be great if you can cancel it in the low pounce to force your opponent to guess how to block. Hitting the low would bring low reward but would be safe on block and hitting the low pounce would be unsafe but at least net 16%. I guess that wouldn't be that broken but it's not possible. The low pounce whiffs on hit and block every time.
The same is true for F1,2,B4 and F3,4,3. Although you can at least cancel after the third, making it difficult to block.
A true 50/50 is 2,1 / 2,low pounce. Maybe that's a mistake on my part but if I'm in the rare circumstance of being close enough to the enemy to hit with 2,1 I rather go for the OS with the hope for the full combo.

Piercing (Vortex):
After adjusting the hitadvantage of telekick from being negative on hit (good old times) to being +22 Mileena almost got a Vortex in Piercing.
After the juggling combo you could end the combo in F1,2+4 to get the restand and cancel in telekick for the hitadvantage. Maybe I’m reading the framedata wrong but although you should be able to cancel F1,2+4 into a special move it isn’t possible to do so. You can’t cancel into roll, telekick or anything else.
If that would work Mileena could become a beast. That said the guessing game for the enemy would be more simple as she needs a bar to threaten the overhead and guessing right on either low or overhead would grant a full combo punish.

Ethereal (meterless Blockstrings)
That last one is just odd design. I understand that Displacer Raiden has the same system, but yeah I haven’t seen him being played much either.
Cancels in this game are far from uncommon. So sometime in the design progress there was the choice made of either implementing Fade (DD2) or being able to cancel Fade towards/away with DD (and stamina probably).
Well we know where we are but imagine the possibilities. Although I’m still enormously pleasured that they fixed the EX-Fades.

All in all I still love the style and design of Mileena and understand that not every char can be S-Tier, but with at least one patch still awaiting us a man can still dream.



tl;dr: #muffbileena
 

1man3letters

Alpha Tarkatan - Moderator
Moderator
But you're right. Should've posted this in the General Discussion Thread.
ill move it now.

on topic of what you were saying,
imo the f1 2+4 string is useless that it cant be cancled, theres that gimmicky restand you can do with it in corner but theres zero reason to do that since b12 1+3 dd2 has better hit adv and better damage.

low pounce doesnt know if its a overhead or a throw so it just does both bad.
if it worked as either of those correctly id use ravenous
 
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Anseyf

Noob
ill move it now.

on topic of what you were saying,
imo the f1 2+4 string is useless that it cant be cancled, theres that gimmicky restand you can do with it in corner but theres zero reason to do that since b12 1+3 dd2 has better hit adv and better damage.

low pounce doesnt know if its a overhead or a throw so it just does both bad.
if it worked as either of those correctly id use ravenous
That was quick, thank you very much.

I tend to use B1,2,1+3 due to the better hitbox as I'm unable to land b1,2,1+3 consistently after the b3,4,airsai, but I hate the distance it creates which ends Mileena's pressure.
 

ZeroEffect

Warrior
While I disagree with some of these examples, there's some truth in this. I always felt that Mileena in theory =/= Mileena in game. Because for every character like Mileena, who has tools that are top tier in utility, but have obvious risks to balance them out, you also get characters with low risk/great utility moves. In theory, Telekick is a top tier move.

- One of the best anti-zone tools in the game.
- Kills jump ATTEMPTS at anywhere on screen, leading to a full combo in the air, and a mixup on the ground. (EX Telekick gives a combo in the ground).
- You can cancel into air sai on block to try and reduce punishes, (though every damn move seems to go under it, lol)

But it's death on block... and rightly so. Telekick SHOULD be unsafe. It also loses to forward movement and for some reason, forward jumps from closer than half screen. (This part I don't get).

As far as I know, Roll might be the only Low-profile special that gives combos meterless. (Tanya needs EX Drill, Sub needs clone to combo off EX Slide.) This is, in theory, a HUGE asset to have. But again, death on block, travel distance was nerfed a bit, and hits Mid. So it seems that with her obviously superior tools, they went and made sure, as they have for any other game Mileena's been in, that they compensated for that. And I agree with that decision.

It's not that "Mileena could've been broken", since every character could say that, it's more that they really made sure Mileena was FAIR. She might've been one of the earlier characters they worked on, since it seems like the later characters and DLC always end up with unnecessary shit that was somehow overlooked. Perhaps due to time constraints? I dunno.
 
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1man3letters

Alpha Tarkatan - Moderator
Moderator
That was quick, thank you very much.

I tend to use B1,2,1+3 due to the better hitbox as I'm unable to land b1,2,1+3 consistently after the b3,4,airsai, but I hate the distance it creates which ends Mileena's pressure.
yea you lose any pressure using that ender unless you in the corner where you get a guaranteed b1 opponent must block.
i like the distance it creates for midscreen use though personally
 

ZeroEffect

Warrior
yea you lose any pressure using that ender unless you in the corner where you get a guaranteed b1 opponent must block.
i like the distance it creates for midscreen use though personally
I use it only for damage, as this ender keeps Piercing on par with many of Ravenous' combos. If I want midscreen I'll just uppercut, lol.
 

JerzeyReign

PSN: JerzeyReign
I think I finally crossed the threshold from rookie Mileena to semi pro and finally agree with "Mileena doesn't need a lot, just make her slightly safer" group. One of the reasons is completely selfish: I don't want any of the top players, except for Saltface, to hop on Mileena and turn her into "flavor of the month" so to speak. I love reading the buff ideas still but unless they're making that ball roll low (*evil laugh*) I hope she's just made a bit safer.

Offline casuals have changed my mentality 100% when it comes to playing Mileena. Hard for me to watch streams nowadays because the mistakes made by online randoms aren't made that often by good players so all of those "swag combos" aren't optimal haha. Fun to watch sometimes but it clouds my decision making.


Edit: And by "top player" I mean the guys you always see on streams. There are quite a few boss ass Mileenas in here and I enjoy the tips/videos/matches from you all.
 
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TheGabStandard

The anticipation is killing me
That was quick, thank you very much.

I tend to use B1,2,1+3 due to the better hitbox as I'm unable to land b1,2,1+3 consistently after the b3,4,airsai, but I hate the distance it creates which ends Mileena's pressure.
I'm assuming you meant to say you struggle to land B212+4 consistently?
 

TheGabStandard

The anticipation is killing me
You're correct, my apologies.
No worries, after B34 xx air sai you do a very small run cancel into B212+4 and it should hit. If you see Mileena running for two or more steps then you haven't cancelled quick enough and B21 will miss. Timing is a little tricky at first but eventually it becomes a lot easier.