I’m learning this char, and I just wanted to check if we have any S3 Thunders here. I’ve seen some people say they played in previous seasons.
I wouldn’t call myself an “expert” by any means but I have played with him since S1, what do you need to know?
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I knew some solid Thunders, but I’m not sure if they are around anymore. If I remember correctly some “master” mains from the top of my head were ChanChula, Hologram, Ellen, Paulo, Hatdoom… I may be forgetting other here - my fault.
As of recent, I can’t really say that I know any active mains. I’d take the lack of involvement of this post as another sign.
There was this guy on ranked I fought a few weeks back, he seemed like a main and was fairly comfortable working my Jago, really that’s all I recall.
I miss when KI had more activity
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I was sort of just checking the waters, I don’t have a list of concise questions yet.
One thing I am having trouble with is being broken a lot. I’m doing very basic combos; anything I can do to help prevent that? Also, what are strong resets to do with this char?
@xSkeletalx likes Thunder enough to use him as a profile picture.
Though now I’m racking my brain trying to remember the big tournament Thunder mains from Season 2 and 3. If anyone can help my forgetful mind that would be fantastic.
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So @HWXxHoLoGrAmXx just won Season 4 of Cyberfights.
He’s probably the current best Thunder. Try to shoot him a message on Xbox, maybe he’ll get back to you.
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Hologram is the best Thunder around now by a very far margin. He’d probably be willing to help you, but even if not there’s a ton of footage of him floating around for you to watch.
Most Thunder players don’t do long combos, preferring a general strategy of opener->manual->throw linker->manual->sammashinsh->call of sky (or something similar). The character has an extremely nasty HKD vortex and really nasty resets, so most high-level Thunders tend to not play the combo game much. About the only time they’ll extend is if someone locks themselves out.
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Cannon Godlike is really good, at least in Ranked.
So that’s another thing is I haven’t been able to get working the nasty HKD vortex I’m supposed to have. It seems like it doesn’t work far more than it does, so I assume I’m doing it wrong.
I haven’t played KI in a while, and I have never considered myself more than an intermediate player, but yes, Thunder is my primary main. I can offer a few really basic tips, but be advised my understanding of the game comes from simply playing, and not working out anything in the lab, or knowing frame data.
I like to mix up his forward-HP overhead with Ankle Slicer to try to open people up. The overhead can actually catch people who underestimate its range, but it’s really susceptible to being shadow countered.
When opponents are locked out, use light Ankle Slicer linkers and heavy autodoubles for damage - AS is pretty fast. Ankle Slicer for knockdown, Call Of The Earth for damage, Shadow COTE if you have it. Learn where on the lifebar you can get a KO with Shadow COTE, because it’s pretty sizeable damage.
COTE is a great command grab in general.
Better players than myself seem to get a lot from Sammamish followup-mixups, sometimes even a crossup if timed right. A little past my own input comfort zone.
Call Of The Sky buff is very useful, and can be used to crossup or to dodge opponent’s attacks. Experiment and see what you can do with it, and you may be surprised. That’s one of the HKD options - activate the buff during the knockdown and then you can go low, overhead, command grab, or crowdash.
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If Hologram doesn’t reach out to you, maybe looking through his clips might give you an idea on his approach.
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Oh, holy crap. I didn’t think to check anywhere but YouTube.
You’ll often want to enforce the low/overhead mixup with cr.LK over ankle slicer - it’s fasfer, and will give you additional room to go for meaty and tick grab setups. Remember that COTE is a very slow command grab, something like 24 frames. That means that you can basically tick into it from any button that Thunder has. Force the opponent to want to move after they block a button, and then punish them by tagging their jump out attempts.
General Thunder HKD mixup after COTE is microwalk->jump->early/late j.HP/empty low/command grab. The microwalk makes the jump-in super ambiguous, and timed properly it should be a safe jump as well. You have to take the mixup, which is left/right/high/low cmd grab.