UMK3: After a knockdown....

[MIKECALDWELL]

I have a few general questions about what to do after I knockdown my opponent.

1. I may be wrong about this, but it seems like when I land a close range sweep, my opponent recovers quicker from the knockdown than I do from the sweep animation. They are always able to just jump out and cross me up even though I wake up with jabs after I sweep them. Should I hk after the sweep connects? I guess this is dependent on my opponent's habits.

2. Why is it that everytime I try to jump away after a knockdown, a good player always manages to connect his low starter auto combo, but when I try it the knee whiffs and my opponent just jumps away. I can't seem to keep these idiots grounded to save my life because they recover to quickly from knockdowns. I know I can hk them as they are jumping away, but I'm more interested in knowing if there is a specific timing to landing an auto combo as my opponent is getting up from a knockdown.

3. A little off my topic, but after I block a sweep what are my options? It clearly seems like sweeps have quite a bit of recovery. Can you basically apply free pressure after you block a sweep? Is it possible to punish a blocked sweep with a low starter if the sweep is done too close? I know Sonya's sweep may be a different because of it's quick recovery.

 

[MIKECALDWELL]

Wow guys. Thanks for all the advice.

 

[Killmaim420]

Eh I'm not really a pro but I will try to help you out with what I think based off my experience.

I suppose it's possible that your opponent recovers faster than you after you land a close sweep, depending on which character you're using and how fast their sweep is, however I can't imagine it's much faster as sweeps don't land until like half the animation is already over so once you land it there isn't that much time.

After you knock down an opponent, for some reason if you try to get on them and do an autocombo too fast it will whiff much of the time. It does this probably because your opponent hasn't recovered fully yet, that's just a guess though. You just need to run in and time it right really...you're doing it too fast, you need to pause for a slight moment before you do the autocombo.

I can't really give you any tips on always landing an autocombo on a jumping away opponent as most of the time I just do it attempting to rush someone down who happens to jump away. I think it's more likely to occur with certain combos than others though, character run speed might be a factor.

After you block a sweep your opponent will be in recovery for a little bit longer than you. You can block it faster if you just tap down+block rather than holding it down. This way your character wont duck and it will cut down your recovery time. As for counters, when I play as kabal I've landed many spins after blocking sweeps. On opponents who tend to sweep a lot and are likely to do another, if you are close enough to them you can run in and hit them with a low hitting combo before their sweep hits.

Another thing I can think of off the top my head is with jade you can block a sweep and do her dash kick right after, and it will hit some characters while they are still in the sweep animation, even though they are technically ducking when sweeping. There are other specials that can do the same thing, hit certain characters when ducking when they miss on others.

That's really the best I can do though lol. I think most of it is pretty accurate. Most of my experience is playing online though, and i'm assuming it's the same for you as well. Sometimes funky things happen online and delay makes it harder to land counters when you only have a small frame window where it will connect.

 

[MIKECALDWELL]

Killmaim420 Thanks

 

[Killmaim420]

NP. It kinda sucks how dead these forums are.....UMK3 is an old game though...it's kinda to be expected.

A decent amount of people still play it, enough for you to find people to play with on xbox/ps3 but it seems people don't really chat about it much in a format like a forum, at least not anymore. It just discussion among people, and i suppose this is partly due to the fact the game has been out for like 17 years and there's already a lot of easily attainable information about it.

The whole landing combos on people jumping away thing doesn't seem to be something that people really are trying to do it's just a result of circumstance. It would be hard to react to an opponent jumping away by doing that...you'd pretty much have to be already intending to run towards them and do a combo and they just happen to jump backwards. If you get hit with that a lot it's probably because you tend to jump backwards after you get knocked down, rather than because your opponent is trying to do it.

Gotta be careful with habits like that. People tend to fall into patterns in UMK3. I've noticed that....but all the best players seem to NOT be predictable. If you keep using the same tactics, your opponent catches on and will just start waiting for you to do things and countering accordingly. I find this is how I beat a lot of people on XBL. Make a conscious effort to not be predictable.

The only instance I can think of where people try to land an autocombo while their opponent is in mid-air is doing the 2hit HK LP combo with ermac off a TKS.

 

[Posthuman]

off topic... How do you guys train on MK kollection with no training mode? Im trying to get into umk3 hardcore but cant practice

 

[MIKECALDWELL]

Killmaim420 I didn't mean I was trying to land combos mid air. I'm trying to start the low starter as they are getting up after a knockdown but before they have time to jump away.

 

[Killmaim420]

off topic... How do you guys train on MK kollection with no training mode? Im trying to get into umk3 hardcore but cant practice

Well you don't really have a lot of options. It's a pain, but what I do is pick the 4 player 2 on 2 mode and just practice until the match is won. basically you got 4 full life bars to practice with then you have to character select. It's annoying but not that bad. If you'd like to learn some things feel free to add me on XBL. I actually enjoy teaching people things about the game, and seeing them get better. I'm not the best player ever but I'm pretty knowledgeable and if you're new I could teach you a lot of things. My advice to you is learn how to do run jabs and memorize some combos, it's not too hard of a game to get into but it takes a lot of practice to get really good.

Killmaim420 I didn't mean I was trying to land combos mid air. I'm trying to start the low starter as they are getting up after a knockdown but before they have time to jump away.

Ohhh okay. Yeah I answered that in my original post...combos will whiff if you try to get on top your opponent too quickly. You have to time it right for some reason. I figured this out on my own eventually but i still will mistakenly run up and whiff at times.

 

[Posthuman]

Your XBL id doesnt work.

 

[MIKECALDWELL]

Your XBL id doesnt work.

Try it without the underscore.

 

[Killmaim420]

Your XBL id doesnt work.

ohh my bad I changed my gamertag a few months ago. It isn't killmaim420 anymore it is now sagejiraiya52. You can add me as well if you'd like mikecaldwell. I have a feeling we'll be relatively evenly matched and I usually enjoy the game most when I'm fighting against someone who is at or around the same skill level as I.

Who knows though maybe I'll just get my ass whooped lol. Though it's becoming rarer that I run into an opponent who can actually provide me with a decent challenge, not sure if it's cause I'm getting better or because there's just so many inexperienced players, probably a combination of both.

Fighting noobs on XBL gets bored quick because it's so damn easy to win, and if I don't coddle them the whole time they tend to ragequit lol.

 

[tehdrewsus]

Fighting noobs on XBL gets bored quick because it's so damn easy to win, and if I don't coddle them the whole time they tend to ragequit lol.

Now that's funny. I think I over-coddled a guy last night on PSN, because he won 2 in a row and quit on me. We got maybe 5 matches in.

 

[Juggs]

There's not many things you can do on wake-up in UMK3. You just have to block, poke with cr.lk, or jump away. cr.lk and jump away can be baited and punished though. The wake-up options in UMK3 are very limited.

 

[MIKECALDWELL]

There's not many things you can do on wake-up in UMK3. You just have to block, poke with cr.lk, or jump away. cr.lk and jump away can be baited and punished though. The wake-up options in UMK3 are very limited.

I was referring more to my options after I knock my opponent down. At my current level of play, it's almost easier to deal with smarter players than bad players, because the bad players somehow are always able to jump away or cross me up as I'm running in after the knockdown, but the smarter players will block more. When I say smarter I don't mean great players. I'm talking about players with some common sense. When I play someone of your level, I can hardly ever jump away after you knock me down, so I end up blocking alot.

 

[Juggs]

I was referring more to my options after I knock my opponent down. At my current level of play, it's almost easier to deal with smarter players than bad players, because the bad players somehow are always able to jump away or cross me up as I'm running in after the knockdown, but the smarter players will block more. When I say smarter I don't mean great players. I'm talking about players with some common sense. When I play someone of your level, I can hardly ever jump away after you knock me down, so I end up blocking alot.

If they're always jumping away, do a jump kick on their wake-up. I usually do that to people who like to jump on wake-up, works every time. Or do some character specific stuff, like dash with kabal, shoulder charge with NW, spear with Human Smoke, etc.

 

[MIKECALDWELL]

If they're always jumping away, do a jump kick on their wake-up. I usually do that to people who like to jump on wake-up, works every time. Or do some character specific stuff, like dash with kabal, shoulder charge with NW, spear with Human Smoke, etc.

I do that too. What's aggravating is when you connect 2 jump kicks back to back. so you naturally think they would've learned, so you go in for jab pressure, but low and behold they jump again. Drives me nuts. lol.

 

[Konqrr]

I do that too. What's aggravating is when you connect 2 jump kicks back to back. so you naturally think they would've learned, so you go in for jab pressure, but low and behold they jump again. Drives me nuts. lol.

I played a guy from Italy last night in a set, xxMK-WIZARDxx, and he played this way. It was obviously extremely delayed with him being on the other side of the world, but my normal setups were getting blown up by him doing instant air throws with Robo-Smoke lol ... The one time I beat him was when I would do my Kitana JK setup early and I kicked him on wakeup like 6x in a row to win. He would never change, he would never stop jumping after I knocked him down, but there was nothing I could do about it with the delay and against Robo-Smoke lol ... it was infuriating!