So Kan-Ra really is in a bad spot right now. That sucks cause he was my favorite character in S2 along with Cinder. Those two got me to killer back in the day and was my first lvl 50. Before I played a strong keepaway game and made a web of scrabs, spikes and baited command grabs as my playstyle. With all the nerfs what kind of play style does Kan-Ra actually try to play since he sucks up close, his scarabs were nerfed and his zoning is meh.
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Now he is all about shadow spike. Somehow get a life lead and just turtle behind (or on) a shadow trap and swarms. He doesnât allow you to make one little mistake
You guys know what a real nightmare is? Getting cornered by Jago or Omen who fireball you until youâre dead. Good player will stand just outside your sandsplosion range and there is nothing you can do.
Makes me wish shadow whirl was projectile invincible. And why a shadow trap doesnât just transform into a normal trap on hit or at least when combo broken is just torture.
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How about the fact that once you shadow trap there goes your ranged harass tool and escape tool just gone.
Thatâs why you need a life lead. Or a good position for that trap. Didnât say it was easy. Thatâs the problem with Ra.
Would be awesome to have 2 separate traps. So you donât kill your own trap when doing spike or HK moves. I donât know whether this would be too good, but we also have Omen who has those ridiculously OP fireballs that just wonât go away.
Or what about those down forward LK, MK trap spikes being special cancelable? You see them jump over your trap, AA spike xx whirl recap. Or just pressuring them with spike strike xx spike over and over.
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How about keeping Shadow Swarmâs priority to that of S2, while keeping the damage it does in S3. It literally hits the field, and then evaporates in mere seconds. I almost donât even like Shadow Swarm tbhâŠ
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Yep, sometimes it comes out and disappears after 2 hits. I think itâs a bug
So, Iâm curious⊠Whatâs the consensus regarding what Kan-Ra needs to be considered viable.
I believe his scarabs need to go back to what they were in S2, but the damage nerfs can stay.
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This all sounds good I just hope that someone that can make changes to this character is listening
Iâve avoided commenting in this thread for the most part because I donât play Ra and you guys for the most part seem to be figuring it out. I will pop in to say though that âmaking the scarabs like they were in S2â is kind of a non-starter. The insane plus frames he got off close scarabs is why Kan got to play rushdown last season, and was the main reason people hated him so much. Itâs not much fun to be stuck in pseudo-infinite block strings until you almost inevitably get command grabbed, and kind of plays against the type that Kan was always supposed to be. He was never meant (or advertised anyway) as a crazy close-pressure character - his âsecret sauceâ was supposed to be his options to prevent the opponent from getting in. S2 Ra fought stupidly well at close range the moment he made you block anything.
Well, the plus frames donât have to be there. I just want the multi-hitting aspect back⊠It sucks trying to use Scarab in say a combo, and it may or may not hit more than once. Iâm not saying make them the threat that they were in S2, but definitely give them a reason to be used outside of random juggles that do very little to no damageâŠ
I am pretty sure IG wonât un-do any changes.
So what could they do to help Kan-Ra instead of simply take back his changes.
Those are just MY ideas
(I have a lot more ideas to re-rework Kan-Ra but those changes listed are the most important and not too drastic IMO. I also have problems writing down all my thoughts because I am not a native speaker. And most important: no offense to anyone at IG. You created a monster that is very hard to balance. I love and hate Ra at the same time. I like his unique playstyle and I love IG for creating him)
So here we go:
Start the match with a trap under Kan-Ra
Ra is the worst character in the game at the beginning of the match. With no defense and bad close normals he has to guess his way out of pressure. A trap would give him a reversal and a way to escape while still being risky and counter able.
Shadow whirl should be projectile invincible and have faster movement OR shadow clutch should be projectile invincible
Getting cornered by Jago, Shago, Aria, Sadira or omen is very hard to escape. Sandsplosion doesnât work because they stand outside itâs range. Same thing with shadow counter. You just eat projectiles and long range pokes all day.
It would also help escaping fulgoreâs vortex (Shadow whirl would be better in that case and vs Sadira in general). That change wouldnât influence Kan-Raâs (arguably) better matchups like Tusk or Sabrewulf.
I talked about this with @TheKeits on twitter and he replyed that this was Kan-Raâs weakness which they wonât just take away (not his exact words). I donât understand this. A keep-away zoner shouldnât loose to fireballs. Itâs kinda the same thing as when IG said a character like Kan-Ra shouldnât do so much damage. So what is he supposed to do?
Better Anit-airs (startup + hitbox)
A lot of characters in KI have ridiculously good air attacks (Kan-Ra included). Kan-Raâs option against that are way too slow IMO. Cr.HP, Cr.HK and AA clutch just take to long to come out. They also donât work at the area directly above his head. Sandsplosion works well, but it has the obvious draw backs. A keep-away zoner should have very strong AAâs.
Shadow spike becomes a normal trap when Combo broken
Loosing your trap (escape option + reversal) when getting combo broken is just bad design, seriously. I can understand itâs gonna be a problem when you break a combo and get punished for it by a shadow trap strike. But thatâs why I just want that trap to become a normal trap when hit by a CB.
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I somewhat disagree. I donât think that the safe offense was the MAIN reason Kan Ra was so hated. I think the jumping back and doing scarabs (which is still in the game) was a HUGE factor. I play Kan Ra and I know I hate the tactic.
Many people view zoning as a cowardly strategy, so it really isnât any surprise that one of the best zoners in the game is also one of the most hated characters.
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I truly agree with the anti air situation most DPâs in the game are 3-7 frame startups while all of Kanâs AA are greater than 10 frame startup and not reliable. also he is the only character that has to commit to his bad anti air situation most other characters can cancel bad dpâs or anti air with instinct or meter once Kan commits to a command grab either it hits or he gets hit no way to make it safe not to mention that his command grabs are like the slowest in the game startup and recovery wise next to shatter and other shadow command grabs cant be escaped after the freeze so im not sure what the real intent is with this character but I cant seem to drop him so im stuck
Letâs switch the chess board a bitâŠ
As for anti-airs, I agree with everything said thus far; however, based on Kanâs overall gameplan, shouldnât his scarab be the optimal AA?? His AA Clutch may be a bit slow, but itâs mainly effective when people are either cursed, and/or theyâre dealing with scarabs in the air⊠With that said, this brings about another question: How often do we curse opponents during a match, and do we capitalize on it the way we should?
I feel like most Kan-Ra players, myself included, need to work towards taking advantage of doing AA Clutch on cursed opponents. Someone in the Twitch chat whoâs on these forums made a mention of it while watching the KSB stream. Heâs absolutely right. Should it be faster? I think so. Maybe not DP fast, but something along the lines of 7-8f.
Going back to curses, I somewhat wish we had another means of cursing opponents, like maybe from Sacrifice.
Most grapplers in fighting games have at least a light chainable jab (Hugo, Zangief, Catherine, Chadha, Alex, Lilith, etc). If Kan-Raâs cr.LK was chainable with damage proration penalties, I think it would help him to some extent in the even heâs trapped in a corner. I put emphasis on damage proration, because this will keep players from relying on cr.LK as a combo starter and ONLY use it as a means of getting away, when Sacrifice wonât work.
Just a few thoughtsâŠ
@lHagenl Iâll expound on some of your thoughts. Iâve touched on a few, but Iâm still letting your other inputs marinate in my brain, lolâŠ
Ra is not a grappler. He just happens to have a command grap. I think not even IG is sure about what he is. But I understood that they donât want him to be a rushdown character.
The way I play him he is a keep away character. My whole gameplay with him is centered around shadow spike.
I am happy that we have a ârealâ discussion about him now and I would like someone from IG to join us. @thekeits how do you guys want Kan-Ra to be played?
Well according to @thekeits and some of his colleagues Kan-Ra is considered a âtrap-grapplerâ (at least thatâs what those guys were tasked to create for S2)⊠Iâm not truly sure what aspect of this archetype IG wants to put emphasis on, considering he can do both at a decent level, as well as mid to long range zoning.
I was simply expounding on the grappling aspect, because like most grapplers, Kan-Ra faces issues when heâs cornered by rushdown tactics, and he doesnât have much outside of Sacrifice, and popping Instinct to do something like super jump, or maybe a cr.LK~Clutch (and pray that it works).
I guess to some extent IG is taking the âKan-Ra is Dhalsimâ approach, where Dhalsim has all of these great tools, but canât self chain normals to escape anything. TBH, Sacrifice doesnât work on a consistent level, except as an AA. Outside of that, if you donât have Instinct, you better know how to read frames and punish accordingly. It shouldnât have to take that I think, and this is coming from a frame-junkieâŠ
Seems like if the opponent has that magic pixel, and you try to kill with Sacrifice, it wonât work. This has happened to me at least twice already. Not sure if itâs an online only thing or whatâŠ
Are you sure? It worked well for me, although I canât really tell if it hits or they block.
Buggy game is buggy
Iâm certain of it. It was actually 3 times. The first two of them I landed as an AA. The other one was grounded. All 3 accounts the opponent had the magic pixel. One match I did Sacrifice twice in the same match⊠That was the AA and grounded oneâŠ
If Kan-Ra had a better reversal would that solve a lot of his problems?