I also found this stupid mixup off of a level 1 DP, quick-rise only. He seems to have a lot of dumb, probably not practical quick-rise crossups.
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Here are best counter breaker combos I can find (damage numbers after jump HK -> counter breaker). OH = overheat needed:
0 meter: HP, light dash, HP, light dash, HP, light dash: 41%
1 meter (OH): HP, shadow dash, HP, light dash, HP, damage ender: 58%
2 meter easy (OH): HP, shadow dash, HP, light dash, HP, shadow launcher ender: 65%
2 meter hard (OH): HP, shadow dash, HP, light dash, HP, launcher ender, juggle QCB + MP, manual late shadow DP cashout: 72%
It’s not even worth spending meter if you don’t have overheat, you will not extend your numbers much beyond 41% (I think it’s like 43%-44%), so I don’t even list them. You want to do shadow dash early so the guy gets burned out and starts cooking.
The two meter hard combo requires some practice, but the QCB + MP juggle needs to be very early (basically just mash it as soon as Kilgore touches the ground after landing from launcher, the camera won’t even be settled yet). Then you need to delay the DP so all the hits will connect, but not too long or he’ll fall to the ground. If you’re early you’ll still get a cashout but the damage will be 65% or so. I also had a bit of trouble getting it to recognize DP instead of shadow gun dash, something to do with the back input from QCB forcing a fireball motion over a DP if you finish your DP motion on forward accidentally. You can try to fix it by doing QCB + MP and then letting the stick go to neutral, or rubbing the corners for the DP, but it’s still pretty blech. The damage is probably worth it though.
For the 2 meter hard version, you also need to have OH for the whole combo, which means your CB kinda has to be early in the OH state. For the 1 meter and 2 meter easy combo, all you need is for it to last long enough to start up the shadow gun dash, so it’s much more reasonable.
UNFORTUNATELY, there is a bug that means shadow gun dash does not start cooking an opponent if you are overheating because of instinct mode, only in regular overheat. Which means the time you are most likely to 2 bars (due to meter build while zoning) AND the full duration of overheat going for you, these combos won’t work at all. It’s not a game breaking bug, but holy cow does it make Kilgore’s life miserable, and it doesn’t sound like it’ll be fixed for at least 3 months.
For the meantime, Climax above has posted some instinct-only counter break combos to hold you over. You need to use these, otherwise your damage will be identical to non-overheated mode (and therefore spending meter is terrible). Good luck remembering to do these.
1 bar (instinct already active): HP, launcher ender, cr.MP juggle, dash forward (very important), immediate QCB + LP, delay a bit, LP gun dash, delay a bit, shadow DP cashout (60%)
1 bar (instinct not active yet): HP, instinct cancel, then follow the above combo (72%)
To make matters worse, you’ll be at level 2 for the top combo after launcher cashout, and level 3 for the bottom combo, making the timing on cr.MP juggle different. Have fun!
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A bit off topic, but I assume that you got the windows 10 update?
I hope it goes smoothly and gives you no issues ^^
Back on topic, thank you a lot for this!
Could you share your early impressions about Kilgore?
I built a new computer, so I installed updated Win10 on it. So yeah I have KI again now.
Getting KI back on my computer was a story of untold Microsoft incompetence, and it made me very upset. Then, the MS store wouldn’t let me buy Kilgore because it wouldn’t let me choose anything but an American street address, where I do not live. It wouldn’t even let me use Paypal, which I have American funds in, to buy it without providing a street address (providing a fake address caused the MS store to choke, and then I spent 10 minutes trying to figure out what went wrong before giving up entirely). I then had to do google magic to find out that there is a setting buried deep in my Windows (not the store) that caused this.
In case you haven’t noticed, I have been very upset with them a lot recently. Most of the time, MS is very frustrating to work with and it makes me just want to go play Rocket League instead.
As for Kilgore, he seems like a lot of work and a little buggy. His visual and sound design is pretty cool though. He is probably one of the game’s biggest lab monster characters… I think you stand no chance of playing this character even remotely well if you don’t invest serious lab time. He’s probably low-mid tier if I had to take a super wild guess. (Oh and I still really dislike the name “Kilgore” but c’est la vie, compared to the frustration MS has put me through over the last week it seems like such a silly thing to complain about now)
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It’s very hard to judge how good a character like this is. Low-mid makes sense to me, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if he ended up being secret high tier in the hands of a VERY good player. That being said, Kilgore is definitely not a character for players that don’t put the training mode time in.
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I think he can probably win (and might have some pretty lopsided matches in his favor), but he’s a knife’s edge character that doesn’t have as much of the upside as the other knife’s edge characters like Mira and Aria.
But that’s not necessarily bad. I don’t think they can make his HP guns do chip damage for instance (chip damage resets the white life timer, so good luck getting your white life recovered, ever, from anywhere). Maybe they could increase his gun damage a bit (3% to 4% or something), but I can see why they kept it low in case Kilgore turned out to be super powerful and they didn’t want KIWC to get wrecked.
He stands no chance unless you lab him up though. You need to know ways to get max damage, how to use cooldown cancels like Leo was showing, how to use shadow missiles after OTG (only works after some spin speeds), how to avoid doing special moves up close, etc. If you don’t do these things and play him like another KI character, I think you more or less instantly lose.
Yep, compared to the rest of the cast, he is very unintuitive. When I started playing Gargos, at level 10 I was confortable with him. I’m around 20-25 with Kilgore and still struggle to do some basic stuff.
I have A LOT time to put into the training mode
BTW, a second shadow DP at the end of that instinct cancel combo pushes it up to 81%. I think it could go higher juggling into an unbreakable move and THEN shadow DP, but it depends on if he can get full hits on DP and also not blow out the combo
Yeap, I noticed how hard it can get vs a Spinal.
Sorry to laugh at your pain, but this was too perfect not to quote.
On topic, I’m way out of my league here but I wanted to post a couple of thoughts. Thanks to everyone for all of their interesting investigation. I’ve played with Kilgore for like an hour, outside the lab and can certainly confirm that he is a low damage, unintuitive character. I spent maybe 20 minutes in a mirror with @Dayv0 and we shot each other for days without doing any damage at all. I think 50% of our total damage output was throws.
He does have some tools that are going to confuse and frustrate low and maybe even mid tier players but won’t do much against high level players. Some of his combo timing is weird and therefore weird to break. His first AD is often delayed and the hits after his ball linker are out of rhythm. His shadow ball linker - what the ■■■■ is that? Anyway I think at least for a while early lockouts are going to be common. So you can confirm his terrible damage combos.
The only other thing I would add is that, although it’s immediately obvious to everyone that his guns are worthless in terms of damage don’t underestimate the psychology of being able to say “nope” to whatever your opponent is trying to do. His bullets are so fast they stuff just about everything at full screen. This is going to make Sabrewulf players nuts even if it does no damage and may well frustrate everyone else. And while Kilgore isn’t going to win matches just by zoning he is going to be able to very easily prevent any other character from zoning him. Which is probably good for something.
Anyone play much of the Kilgore Vs Gargos matchup yet?
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I did. Kinda got bodied. When outside of heat mode trying to build heat he will either punish with Tele or just summon demon and its kinda hard to keep gargos off.
Honestly I think the only buffs kilgore needs then is that c. Hp hits low and c. Mk hits low. Given for the fact that the only comboable low hit is c. Lk which has such a short range means its unreliable.
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Maybe I misunderstand, but Kilgore can combo off of crouching medium kick into special as well, can’t he?
Yes, he can
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I dunno, I think it’s a little early to pull the buff/nerf cards out. That said, cr.HP absolutely does not need to be a fullscreen low check.
I hadn’t realized his cr.MK doesn’t hit low. That’s weird. When I went to check it, I noticed that cr.MK allegedly is 6/4 and -1, so it can be timed meaty for +3. I don’t think they intended for Kilgore to be hanging around at footsie range trying to play Street Fighter, which is what his cr.MK being low would encourage. I think his kit is supposed to encourage a slightly more creative approach to neutral (and offense, for that matter), and making cr.MK low is a strict detriment to that.
cr.LK you can confirm w/ itself before cancelling, and with a bar you can cancel OTG, making cr.HK also a low confirm. Those two should be plenty reliable.
In the Gargos matchup (as w/ Spinal, Fulgore, Hisako, among others?) you shouldn’t be hanging out at range pressing heavy buttons just to build spin. In fact, you should probably be trying to do the opposite - pester him w/ a couple Missiles trying to bait a Tele, then [3K]Flicker and get your punish. If he gets wise and tries to maneuver through the air to you, you’ve got M/H Barrage, DP’s, cr.MP, j.HP, j.MP, even M/H Missiles. Don’t worry about building spin in neutral, build it from AA’s and in combo, he WILL give you a chance - you’ve got too many different hitboxes you can lay down on his “effective arch”. Gargos should feel like he doesn’t get to play against Kilgore, way I’m looking at it.
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I haven’t really gotten my hands on him so take this with a grain of salt, but I think he’s gonna have a lot of trouble. With no grounded overhead I don’t know how he’s going to really open people up. I’m guessing ball mixups, possibly with missiles for more fuckery, but until then I feel like most of his stuff is kinda fake. He certainly has the one chance damage, but injust dont see how he’s gonna get there.
Any good player who knows kilgores moves will know that his only lows are c. Lk and hk. And if they are just a little bit away they will know that c. Lk will whiff. Other than that all they gotta do is block high.
Yeah… like, on the one hand, it seems like he’s supposed to lean on throws and AA conversions. On the other hand, he’s got diddly for plus buttons, and I don’t really see too many ticks off of st.LK happening for him. He doesn’t have much to offer fundamentalists, that much seems apparent.
I think he’s gonna end up relying pretty heavily on Missile Flip ■■■■■■■■■ Exhaust-check conversions, and traditional meaties. He does have hella-active MK’s (4f), so meatying with leaves you plus enough for a tick/throw game before having to back off. I figure the opponent guessing right in these situations is why he’s got his b.HP Back Off move that can be Exhaust-cancelled for conversion (or not).
Why would you block high against a character with no overhead? If you crouch you force him to rely on cr.HP for spin from down range, as st.HP will whiff over most crouchers. It’s not much, but it’s a minor advantage gained by not unnecessarily stand-blocking. Remember the golden rule - block low and react to the overhead. If he has to jump to hit overhead, you can AA instead of stand-block on reaction. That’s pretty nice.
His missing-low isn’t a big deal. It hasn’t stopped other characters, and it won’t stop him. The opponent can’t win by holding db while you throw them over and over. There IS still a game to be played.
At higher levels your opponent isn’t going to let you grab them repeatedly. Like I know the low thing isn’t that big of a deal but kilgore needs more way to open up his oppemet.
Wanna bet? I bet you $5.
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Yeah given how much people punish on reaction a failed counter breaker or shadow counter you’d be surprised how often throws happen on accident. Also bear in mind tick throws. Heated Kilgore pressure is going to be scary once people figure it out.