how would you change it?
I doubt it, it would be a bad change either way. A character with this tool set doesnât need a good reversal, in my opinion. What I strongly feel I personally need after playing Kan Ra extensively in s3, is 2 things. 1: Re-work shadow sandtrap. As of now, it disappears off of a combo breaker, and in some instances (probably a glitch) off a throw tech. This move costs meter and must be spaced properly, so You can see why I feel I am being punished by using it in some instances, perhaps as someone else suggested, have Kan leave a normal sandtrap behind as opposed to having the whole thing disappear when combo broken
2: Better frames. His long range pokes have terrible startup and recovery, making spacing with limbs super difficult and risky. If they donât want to speed up his frames on the limbs because they are combo openers, at the very least maybe they can buff up his non combo opener limbs (s.mk comes to mind), basically I feel he would benefit from a good button or two for the neutral that he can space and check with without having to take a huge risk due to revovery. Command fierce punch (stagger) also comes to mind, good checker but the range is not that great, maybe increase itâs hurtbox a bit?
The other suggestion I have is make his non shadow grapple(s) a true command grab. If you turn on hitboxes, you will see that kan has a blue hurtbox when doing a non shadow command grab. That leads me to believe that being able to throw tech Kan Ra from close is not a bug, because he does not have a non ex true command grab, assuming itâs intentional that is.
tldr
In a nutshell, I think Kan would benefit from an improved shadow sandspike, a true command grab, and better startup and recovery frames on some of his pokes.
Sacrifice is Kan-Raâs best reversal, next to Shadow Whirl imo⊠Sure, it costs recoverable life, but itâs worth it, as it works as an AA and can reverse ground attacks. It only sucks vs certain armored moves, mainly from Glacius and Tusk, but itâs still a great move. I wish the teleporting aspect worked better, because it sucks having to use it, and you still end up in the same position as you started.
The reason those buttons are the way they are with Kan-Ra is to force playing them with traps and scarabs on the field. His normals perform better when theyâre paired with other nuances the opponent has to worry about. For those that play BlazBlue, itâs like trying to fight as Carl without his puppet for the whole match. Itâs not feasible.
I understand why, thatâs not the issue. The issue is that yes, in theory youâre correct, he needs to have stuff out, but thats not practical in some matchups where you donât get the space or time to set your stuff up. The only viable scarabs are light, the others have too much recovery and must be used sparingly. Air scarabs are too risky now since you canât check the opponent with a normal on the looooong way down and must be used in specific instances. Lets not forget most of the cast have moves that destroy scarabs and travel forward for an opening and theres no reason to not just jump at one to avoid other stuff, their damage is terrible, which is understandable, they are meant for other uses.
In theory fighting yes, anything is possible. Iâm talking about practicality and real live matches against skilled people that KNOW THE MATCHUP. This character doesnât play the same anymore. You are forced into a lame game with shadow sandtrap until you get instinct and can start the mixup insanity due to his few safe options. And pray you donât make one mistake or the matchup can take a turn for the worse, due to kan being easy to lame out with a life lead since his chip damage sucks.
At high levels of play Kan has too many bad matchups, and by bad I mean REAL BAD, where the characters can effectively shut down all your tools. Too many people are unfamiliar with Kan Ra, so Raâs are getting away with stuff they shouldnât. When people learn how to fight Kan Ra better he will suffer immensely on a larger scale.
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Youâre right, Kan-Ra has many bad MUs. From my personal experience, Iâve fought a bunch of high-level players online (hopefully offline soon), and Iâve managed to utilize all versions of Scarabs, so as long as I was at a good distance.
Speaking of good distance, I use sandtrap for more than just placing curses during juggles and scorpion AA. Mobility is key for many of the MUs, and I use that to try and trick the opponent into doing something that I can capitalize on. j.HK works wonders as well, as it allows you to do a âmini jumpâ boosting the max height of a jump. It also stops momentum, forcing a whiff bait. It may sound kinda lame, especially when youâre trying to play the ârun awayâ game, but despite Kan-Ra being really effective at mid to long range, some of those MUs have to be played from afar.
Iâve also had to switch up against the opponent, so that they arenât totally building a game to counter my long range shenanigans.
S3 Kan definitely forces you to mix up way more while having a fallback just in case opponents smarten up on your overall game.
Maybe heâll get a touch here or there when Gargos drops. Iâve had some more success using the flip out after a launcher ender but still get mauled in the corner by people that know what theyâre doing.
Kan Ra without sand in the corner is guaranteed dead, and with still struggles if they stay outside sandsplosion range. His buttons are bad. This could be a beneficial bait tactic though depending on your opponent . Walk yourself slowly into corners while building meter to trap them instead with ex sandspike after fishing for an opening .
Is sandsplosian not throw invincible? Ive been grabbed out of it twice and lost gamea because of it.
Itâs definitely throw invulnerable. If youâre getting tossed out of it, either youâre not really doing it with reversal timing, or youâre seeing some form of rollback or other bug.
What about when not doing as a reversal and trying do it raw while standing.
You canât be thrown out of the sand explosion in no way shape or form.
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What Cstyles said. If youâre getting thrown out of an intended sand explosion in a neutral situation, then you simply didnât hit the sandsplode button fast enough, or got caught by some weird rollback issues.
If thereâs a slight delay between your button presses and their actions onscreen, this could also be the result of display lag rearing its ugly head. But you cannot be thrown out of sandsplosion.
Thatâs probably what happened because I know I hit the buttons. Connection was a little spotty last night. Back to the MakeKanRaGreatAgain Grind
Just turn on hitboxes, you will see throwing Ra out of sandsplosion is not possible, he lacks a blue hurtbox. Its a real reversal
I have been playing Kan Ra since launch and as far as I can recall he always struggled when he was cornered.
Also, I think you should try more with flip out, even after clutch. I like to do clutch, light clutch (flip out) then Cr.HP, Medium Sand Spike, into Cr.LP for another flip out into either clutch again or a meaty swarm.
Kan without sandtrap isnât always a bad situation IF your defense is on point. All you really need is a good moment to do either 1 of 2 things: cr.LK or j.HK. Hereâs my reasoning.
With a well-timed cr.LK (Kanâs fastest low hitting move afaik), you can easily do 2 things: interrupt the opponent to either hit-confirm into a combo, OR disrupt their overall rushdown to work towards getting out of the corner by building up a small defensive platform. What I mean by âdefensive platformâ is that me, being a Kan-Ra player, will try to do something like instant j.MK into air scarab. By doing this, Iâm slowing down their rushdown to either brute force my way out of the corner, or simply jump over and do something like j.HK on the other side, giving me the opportunity to super jump away. The brute force option comes in many different flavors, so itâs really up to you as a Kan player to figure out âHow to bruteâ⊠I can explain a few tactics I use at a later time.
IF by some chance during your blocking, the opponent attempts to grab you, or they do something that allows you to escape by jumping upward (like doing nothing, or screwing up a blockstring), j.HK can work wonders for you. You have a means to super jump when the time calls for it, and you have Sacrifice readily available. Sure, it still puts you in the corner, however, if you time it right, you can hit the opponent and have enough time to work on both a way out, and apply pressure or whatever tactic you so choose.
Kan has options, even in the corner. The main problem most Kan-Ra players (myself included) have, and this was mentioned on a stream some time ago, is lack of defense-- or no blocking.
Thatâs what Iâve been trying to incorporate into my game. Does cHP work as a good anti air because people have started jumping out of my cLP light clutch setup and visually cHP doesnât look like it should anti air
Based off the hitbox, it looks like it should work, however, from MY personal experience I havenât been able to get it to function as a proper AA. If anything, I just use it as a launcher, especially after my st.HP/st.HK shindigsâŠ
is cHK his anti airish move? Just trying to find a move to catch people jumping out of the flipout clutch setup
I think you mean df+HK with sandtrap (antlion AA). Kanâs cr.HK is just throws a sandtrap in front of him. That does work depending on what youâre doing to setup, and the reaction of the opponent. For instance, after clutch flipout, something like st.MP~MK Spike, df+HK might work if the opponent tries to jump after blocking MK Spike.