Who to play if you have slow reaction time?

[Rangda]

Hello everyone

I'm wondering if some characters are better suited for people like me who have trouble reacting to stuff and if so why.

Obviously, you'll always be at a disadvantage to some degree but if one wants to minimize that disadvantage which character should that person pick in your opinion?

This isn't supposed to be a thread about mocking characters and their fans (e.g. "XY mains are slow in the head, so just play him and get ez wins") though. I'm just genuinely curious.

 

[greeneless]

If you know that is an issue for you you should actively work at leveling that up instead of looking for a replacement main. I definitely have a similar problem, I recognized it and am often focused on trying to get my inputs out as soon as I want them out... work in progress really. Especially annoying for anti airs and throw techs. I feel like I hit "tech" everytime but my brain refuses to let go of the block button so nothing happens.

Anyway if thats not something you want to do play Cetrion.

 

[stokedAF]

Baraka probably. His big damage might make up for it. Or nightwolf looks good for that as well. 6 krushing blows in 1 variation lol.

 

[DeftMonk]

i would say find someone whose d1 is heavily plus on block compared to the rest. I dunno if there is such a character but you won’t get too far if u can’t react to d1 hitting or being blocked accordingly. Otherwise id reccomend erron black/liu Kang/sub zero/scorpion. First two have really useful strings with lots of time to hit confirm. Sub zero is pretty yolo. And scorpion is all of the above.

 

[Sazbak]

i would say find someone whose d1 is heavily plus on block compared to the rest. I dunno if there is such a character but you won’t get too far if u can’t react to d1 hitting or being blocked accordingly. Otherwise id reccomend erron black/liu Kang/sub zero/scorpion. First two have really useful strings with lots of time to hit confirm. Sub zero is pretty yolo. And scorpion is all of the above.

You can hitconfirm d1 into something without getting hit by the opponent's mashing d1? Afaik it's not possible.

 

[ABACABB]

If you know that is an issue for you you should actively work at leveling that up instead of looking for a replacement main. I definitely have a similar problem, I recognized it and am often focused on trying to get my inputs out as soon as I want them out... work in progress really. Especially annoying for anti airs and throw techs. I feel like I hit "tech" everytime but my brain refuses to let go of the block button so nothing happens.

Anyway if thats not something you want to do play Cetrion.

lol cetrion , she requires a lot of skill to be good with .

I recommend erron scorp sonya geras

 

[Rangda]

Those are a lot of options already, thank you. And I love your explanations/reasoning as well

On the subject of improving:

If you know that is an issue for you you should actively work at leveling that up instead of looking for a replacement main. I definitely have a similar problem, I recognized it and am often focused on trying to get my inputs out as soon as I want them out... work in progress really. Especially annoying for anti airs and throw techs. I feel like I hit "tech" everytime but my brain refuses to let go of the block button so nothing happens.

Of course I'll try my best to improve at reacting stuff in the game. My reaction time is a bit slower in general though, not just in MK, and there is only so much I can do about that.

So I think that it is a good idea to adapt and find a way to decrease the impact of that factor.

 

[sub_on_dubs]

Probably zoners. I have a similar problem so the more I spam projectiles, the less I have to worry about reacting. I find I lose often in the poking war so the better I can zone my opponent out, the better.

 

[Rangda]

lol cetrion , she requires a lot of skill to be good with .

I recommend erron scorp sonya geras

Just to make sure that there are no misunderstandings here:

Skill can mean so many different things. I'm not looking for a character that requires "no skill". Just one that relies a bit less on mechanics which require good reaction times. As some posters pointed out: Hit-confirming is one such mechanic, among many others, I assume.

 

[sub_on_dubs]

I watched this video awhile back about improving reactions. I haven't implemented any of this because I'm a junk food addict, but supposedly some dietary changes may help with reaction time. I'll leave the video here.

 

[Juggs]

Cetrion

 

[Vslayer]

You can zone, but even then you still need to react quickly to your opponent. Just working on getting better and faster, trying to use a character as a crutch won't help you overall and you'll never improve.

 

[greeneless]

lol cetrion , she requires a lot of skill to be good with .

Didn’t seem like a question of skill to me, of course it’s a skilled character, you just generally have more space to play with and space can make things more reactable

If you said for example that you’d need to react to specific movements/dashes and respond with specific projectiles as Cetrion I could see that. I don’t get the skill angle though.

 

[Wigy]

Sonya. Spam rings.

 

[NaughtySenpai]

Common misconception that fighting games are about reactions.
These "reactions" you observe are a lot about expectation and experience.

You just have to practice more. Say you're playing a character you don't know shit about for the first time in your life. You won't punish shit, you won't react to anything because you don't know what might happen at any range. He could pull out a gun and you didn't know he even had one.

Now let's say you know the matchup against Scorpion and you stand half screen away. Suddenly you know that he can't use any of his buttons and the only things you have to watch out for is the spear and the hellport.
Now let's say you've even played that guy a couple of times and in that situation he liked tele cancel behind you and throw you. Suddenly you can make a read and react perfectly to what is happening by neutral jumping the teleport, interrupt him with 11 into a full combo, or just playing it safe crouch blocking and releasing block for half a second to punish his throw attempt as well as defending a tele cancel into d1/d3.

That's just really what it comes down to:
Knowing the matchup, gathering data on your opponent and being able to control your character well enough so that you don't have to think about moves and can focus on the bigger picture.

The more of the shit you can rule out, the easier it is to react to the scenarios that you know that can happen.

Play whoever the fuck you want to play.

 

[Noserfatu]

Someone who is on offense more than defense. And has great d1 and throws. I like geras for my slow reaction times.

 

[vegeta]

Geras maybe? I learned him in a few minutes. Most of his game seems based around the same concept and he’s usually on the offensive, d1 is quick too, make opponents guess. He kinda plays himself in a way

 

[vegeta]

But overall if you aren’t reacting to something it can just be lack of exp. that comes with time and practice. You haven’t taught/programmed your muscle memory yet. Most times when I react it is simply muscle memory. I do it without “thinking”. If I’ve seen a move or situation enough my mind just knows what to do. Having a read on something enhances that.

Whatever you aren’t reacting to try recreating it in the lab and do it over and over. At some point you’ll find you react to it in a match without immediate thought

 

[Eldagrin]

Honestly? Just pick a character that seems interesting to you and play them. If you practice someone enough you will naturally get better at their hitconfirms and the like and your reactions should improve some.

 

[RoboCop]

You want someone that’s easy to hitconfirm with. Sub Zero, Sonya, Kabal, Jade, and Kitana are ones I think of off the top of my head as being able to easily confirm into nice damage on hit or remain safe on block. The means you don’t have to worry about reaction as much, since it’s so easy to see whether your string was blocked or not before committing to an unsafe special.

 

[Metin]

Super Rugal, Kof98

 

[stokedAF]

I agree with @NaughtySenpai that adapting is a much bigger issue than reaction times. My reaction times aren’t the greatest but it’s so satisfying when you see through their gameplan and know exactly what they are going to do.

My problem is that 2 games isn’t enough time for me to adapt sometimes. Mostly with matchups I’m unfamiliar with but sometimes I don’t realize what’s going on until I’m half life in the second match and it’s so irritating lol. Practice against those characters does seem to be the remedy but I definitely need to work on adapting faster.

 

[TaserFace007]

I have garbage reaction time and play Baraka and Jade semi-decently. Jade you can just zone with and then poke them with a D4 and jump backwards if they get close to you. With Baraka, it's best to keep a bit of distance and then punish them whenever they try to do something.

 

[DeftMonk]

You can hitconfirm d1 into something without getting hit by the opponent's mashing d1? Afaik it's not possible.

Bro if u can hitconfirm one 6-7 frame normal, start practicing to take on sonic at next evo. My point is some d1 are not very + on hit thus not very forgiving. If you throw d1 and it’s blocked u lost ur turn (unless ur geras) so if u don’t respond accordingly and not press buttons ur about to eat it. If the d1 hits, depending on how + it is you have less/more time to react and get on the offense. Edit: side note d1s don’t combo into shit in mk so ya. If that’s what ur asking.

 

[Rangda]

Oh, I know that not everything in the game is reactable and a lot of things have to be predicted, but there are some things that require quick reactions and I'm asking about those things specifically.
If a character has strings that are hard to hit-confirm then he might be less suited for me than a character with strings that are easy to hit-confirm for example. Yet, both of them require practice and prediction skills.

And I like a lot of the characters from the roster so I thought I'd make this part of my decision of who to learn.

Thank you a lot for your replies and your suggestions.