Kan-Ra is all about nasty setups. You found something ambiguous and hard to block? Post it here!
I am gonna start a compilation of setups, usefull information and general stuff we found so far in this post:
Normals:
cr.MK lowers your hurtbox. You can make fast flying projectiles wiff with it (e.g. Maya’s daggers)
cr.MP hits twice. This is useful for meaty setups. Opponents trying to jump to escape a clutch will get hit by the first hit and back dashes get hit by the second hit.
Antlion connects after a level 4 spike ender. This is very useful after a counter breaker. When your level 4 ender puts them into the danger zone you can end the match with an unbreakable antlion into ultra. (thx @Crainiak24)
Setups:
You have to time that shadow Scarab right behind the opponents head. Works best with a trap or instinct super jump because the falling speed is faster
unbreakable combos:
Infinite true block string:
(spike), cr.Mk xx l.swarm, (spike), cr.MK xx l.swarm, (spike) cr.MK xx l.swarm… loop
Let’s say kan-ra is on player one side. When he does a Shadow spike
the opponent will always be pushed to the right side on block. It doesn’t matter whether the spike hits the opponent’s front or back.
The cool thing is, if Ra now manages to get on the opponent’s right side the spikes will STILL push the opponent to the right side. Right into Ra. This makes the infinite true block string possible.
The only way to escape that string is to get hit by cr.MK while standing up or shadow counter.
Kan-Ra’s Instinct is sooo underused. His dash-canceled normals into j.HP are great. cr.MK (on block or hit) xx dash, j.HP xx shadow swarm is a low into an instant crossup that can give you a full combo on bigger characters like Aganos and Glacius.
BONUS:
After a swarm ender, good players backdash to be safe vs your grabs and meaties. Good thing is you have cr.MP. It hits twice, so you hit back jumps meaty AND back dashes also.
In case you don’t wanna block Maya’s dagger, use cr.MK. It lowers your hitbox so those daggers and many other fast flying projectiles just wiff.
Wow, that is a very nice trick that I had missed! I will have to hit the training room and practice it.
Also, I have not thought of using dash cancelled normals at all, so I need to look into that also. I will try to use your example to understand how it plays out. Thanks for the tips!
Instant overhead combo vs Aganos.
All attacks are light and I was only able to get an ender with shadow whirl so it is very easy to break. But it looks cool ain’t it?
I saw that kind of combo in a video before so I won’t take any credit for it. I just recorded my version and posted it here.
First combo:
j.HP xx sh.swarm, jump back l.swarm, m.swarm, l.swarm, walk forward, manual xx ender
There is only 1 chance to break the combo and that is the manual.
You can confirm this combo during the shadow swarm flash. When the j.HP xx shadow swarm opener hits and the opponent is standing, just go for it. To make the jump back l.swarm hit you have to delay it until you are close to the ground. After that just do m.swarm and link it into l.swarm into manual and end it. There might be other ways to do it.
The combo is already well known and often performed by Sleep during tournament matches. I do not know who came up with it and I won’t take any credit for it.
This combo is a little strange. After the shadow swarm you use the HK to set up a trap. What HK also does is kick the opponent out of the shadow swarm juggle and back into it right in time for the antlion to conect. The ANTLION seems to be an OPENER altough you can already break the HK. If you skip the auto double/ linker part after the antlion you can break the ender.
I have no idea why this happens. Please comment if you can describe what happens and I will update the description.
UPDATE: Infil told me Antlion is an unique move. It is a recapture move that does not allow to go right into an ender. The ender will always be breakable after Antlion even mid combo.
Those are cool combos for sure. On the first one, I am pretty sure that you could get an extra hit at the end by throwing a sand spike during the bounce from the clutch, but I haven’t got a chance to test it.
One of my favorite set ups (that I have never seen anyone else use) is after a connected clutch command grab. After the ground bounce, I do crouching HK to get a trap in front of me, then do a forward sand dash and do an air scarab as I fly over their body. I end up on the opposite side and people get hit by it all the time.
that’s a pretty cool setup. Just practiced it the last 30 minutes. I find it kinda difficult to input the swarm fast enough to make it hit but this could be just me. It will also work in S3 I think, although the hitbox if swarm will get smaller.
EDIT: This setup is actually VERY good. You can make it hit cross up or fake cross up. It depends on your timing.
You can just crouch to avoid hit, but then they get hit by your regular pizza cutter jump in the next time.
Also, I have been modifying it recently so it is used less as a mix up and more for building meter. it’s similar, but easier to block (which is the point)
-connect clutch
-crouching HK
-sand forward dash
-light air swarm
-walk backwards a little bit
-medium swarm
-Hk
-light swarm
The walk backwards just makes sure that the medium swarm connects as a projectile, not the breath attack. Also, this stops becoming a true block string after the HK, but the spacing usually insures that the light swarm connects as a projectile, not the breath. This builds nearly 75% of a stock of shadow meter for Kan Ra, but also gives his opponent quite a bit of meter as well.
The only things that may stop this from being viable in season 3 is the reduction of swarm hit boxes or the swarms only doing 5 hit. If those don’t interfere with the setup, that it should still work fine in season 3.
and as expected it is very character specific now.
I don’t think it is possible now to do vs Kim Wu.
Season 3 stuff I found so far:
unbreakable combos:
back+HP, back+HP xx shadow clutch (23%)
back+HP, back+HP xx clutch xx spike (21%) xx shadow swarm (23% the swarm only hits twice so it should be unbreakable)
you can do those combos with st.HK too but the scaling is worse.
In the corner after the 2nd back+HP/st.HK the 3rd one becomes breakable.
I found some cool flip out stuff after spike ender but FOs are VERY character specific.
cr.MK xx l.swarm (hit confirm into) xx shadow spike, down-back HP xx l.swarm, (wait for the swarm and spike to hit) down-back HP xx l.swarm, (wait…) down-back HP xx l.swarm
… at this point your opponent should blow out. Your opponent will fall to the ground and get up blocking a swarm. Now you should be able to mix him up and cash out with either dash cr.MK or double dash (using the shadow trap) into j.HP for an instant overhead or clutch.
The combo itself is kinda tricky but it looks cool. Only the HP and the 1 hit of l.swarm are breakable. It does around 21% damage itself, adds some potential damage and slows down.
You can vary the combo by slightly changing the timing of down-back HP and the swarm cancel and the swarm button.
Gonna make a video…
I’d like to see that combo seeing that I couldn’t do it myself, lol but I was bored and fooling around and got this. Maybe you guys could optimize it for a more practical use. This cost way too much for only 43% but it looks a little cool.
