Kim vs Gargos

Characters Kim Wu
1

I fought the first Gargos I’ve run in to who was actually good, and it left me a little confused as to what exactly Kim can do against him?

I played a good Gargos last night and after a handfulof matches or so I just said ‘Ok, I’m done. This is the absolute least fun I have ever had playing a MU’

After I salt-quit, I went to the lab to try to understand WTF Kim can do against this… I’ll post the couple little things I found below, and would appreciate it if any competent Kims could chime in with thoughts. Lets try to keep it reasonable and not most like ZOMG GARGOS STOOPID OP NERFLES. I dunno if he’s the best thing ever or the absolute worst, I just know that he is misery incarnate to fight and if he’s as good as I think he is, I/We need to know how to handle him.

So, first off, Dragon Kick seems awful in this fight. I want it not to be awful, because it covers a lot of distance and Gargos is likely going to be putting distance between the two of you until his minions are down and he can work in close with safety. His sweeping dive thing will beat it flat unless you can catch him early or late… But if he has active frames, you eat the damage. In training mode I can consistently pop him, but that’s training mode. and I know what my recording is doing. Add in his quad jump and general air silliness and I think dragon kick becomes a liability fast. I tested punishing sweep with DK as well and unless I’m missing something here… You cant. More on this in a minute. It doesn’t punish PPs obviously. Now, again, I just did a couple tests with it because if it was useful, it could be huge. We get the whole stage back… But outside of getting lucky using it as an AA, it doesnt seem to accomplish a lot vs Gargos.

I moved on Dragon Dance. No. His PPs and his minions will just tap you out of them. It should be noted that if you read a light PP incoming, you can HK DD to grab some of the screen back. If he heavies or mediums though, they track you it seems and knock you out of it. Minions do as well. Shadow Dragon Dance though looks like a useful tool potentially. It passes through the minions and covers a lot of ground. I tested it Vs his sweep with both minions out and its able to punish, not exactly from full range, but about a step or so inside. Unless I’m slow. Once you are in that range though its a helpful tool to get in his face. Interestingly enough though, if you hit sweep and mash jab during recovery, you will jab Kim out of her shadow DD. Same goes for PPs if shes close-ish and tried to get in with S.DD. Obviously this takes a read on Gargos’ part, but its worth noting that he can do it…

Im focusing on covering distance here, because getting on top of Gargos, obviously, is the first step to beating him… It feels like a HUGE uphill battle with Kim. Just spamming those PP’s is daunting in itself… You can take a small step forward after each one, but its slow going… One wrong move and you practically reset the situation and if he gets a minion out, he can just lock you down where you sit. You have to time one step at a time between PPs and minion swings. Add a second minion and its just crazy. Like I said before, the tracking on those PPs makes it so you literally cannot jump at all from what I could tell. You just get AA’d… And even if you sneak a jump in its risky. One hit and you lose more ground.

Gargos has bad defense until he has minions, then he has some of the absolute best auto-defense I’ve run across. So we need to get in and stay in, keep him under pressure… This is easier said than done when he may not have a wake-up, but he has a LOT of other tools including numerous was to create distance and numerous ways to cover his unsafe moves. B y and large, it seems like Gargos is only as unsafe as he wants to be - he doesnt have to be unsafe to get his offence moving. He just needs a little space.

I dunno. I haven’t run the MU heavily yet, but this feels like its going to be hard for Kim unless I’m missing something fundamental here.

Any way, its 530am, so forgive me for rambling and grammar and the general ugliness of this post, Im so tired I cant keep my eyes open. I will hit the lab some more tomorrow to fiddle around. I also want to end by saying I am NOT saying Gargos is OP or blah blah. Im a new player with very little experience in the MU, Im damn sure not making any judgement call on whether he’s weak or strong, I am merely expressing frustration and bouncing ideas off the Kim players as to what we can do in this MU as I have yet to fight a character that felt so overwhelmingly obnoxious, anti-fun and completely one sided… I’ve finagled sets with some of the better KI players in the world, and vs their mains, I damn sure lost and lost badly, but never felt so utterly unable to even play the game as vs a good Gargos.

I will say this much though, Gargos is like everything people find frustrating and annoying and fun-killing in a character all rolled in to one package.

2

Is it possible to parry the portal punches? (Not a Kim player by the way, looking to pick her up during the weekend though)
Gargos’effective range is fullscreen or up close, so you should probably block and stay in st. MP range from the get go. If the parry works, you could dissuade him from spamming them somewhat. I haven’t dealt with a Gargos that uses minions effectively or at all so I’m not sure what to do there.
I wonder if you could catch Gargos’s jump shenanigans with the 2nd hit of Shadow DK, probably worth a look.

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Kim beats Gargos IMO. Its a good match up for her.

I’ll elaborate later

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yes i have parried portal punches its a normal hit

she also has many options to clear the space to avoid those portal punches and long range attacks from her dragon kick to her dragon dance and the dragon dash from her spirits

she was made to counter every one of his sneaky %## attacks

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you have to stay on the offensive and punish as much as you can… closing the gap as much as possible and keeping it that way is the game plan… dragon kick and dance will be your go too, stay on him and punish hard and you’ll keep him reeling

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Dragon kick seems useless in this MU outside of a read and using it as an AA. It wont punish anything, unless the Gargos is dumb. Now, if you have a dragon you can use it to clear distance then cancel out to make it safe… But if he has minions, you stand a VERY good chance of getting poked out of it. A good Gargos is going to get minions out unless you steamroll from frame one. He has numerous was to get them out.

How do you avoid the PPs? The light, sure, but the other two track pretty effectively and outside of shadow Dragon Dance, I couldn’t find a way to ‘avoid’ them. You block and inch forward, block and inch forward, etc. You can parry the punches yes, but its not an answer. You get a dragon, but he gets to just use another one right away and if he throws off your timing, his reward is significantly better than yours. (dragon for a combo). Like I said, I labbed this a little this morning, and I dont see the tools for clearing space as being all that good. D.Kick gets you punished - hard. Dragon Dance outside of s.DD is only an option up semi close and if he knows to just spam jab, it stops you dead and if he has minions they handle the stopping for him. Shadow DD does seem like a viable option for getting in, even if it wont punish much.

I’m not looking at this from the perspective of steam rolling a Gargos. That’s obvious, but against a good player, you aren’t going to be steamrolling the entire time, its just not feasible. Gargos has a LOT of options and he has options to mix those options up, making punishing far from cut and dry. Steam-rolling any character is obvious. Stay on them, punish and keep momentum… But a good player will stop you from doing this. Ive watched numerous, very experienced players on streams get on top of Gargos, and press the momentum, only to get reset. I haven’t seen a very good Kim vs a very good Gargos though.

@BblackorchidD I dont really see the counters you’re talking about. I’m not saying your wrong at all, just on the surface I don’t see it.

Really, looking back after having slept and cleared my head, the issue was the minions. Once he got a minion out, it usually led to getting a second minion out, and once they were down it was just over. Even when I made a perfect read and managed to get in, I got poked out of any offense I managed to mount. The answer here is ‘don’t let him get minions out’ obviously, but again, that’s not all that feasible against a good player who knows Gargos’ setups and such.

@Dayv0 Im very interested in hearing your opinions because, at least on paper, I am not seeing how Kim beats Gargos, unless you manage to ride your momentum from frame 1 to the bell… I agree that no minions and from about Kim’s st.MP range she definitely wins, but one mistake that gives up screen space and you’re in his gauntlet - if that gauntlet leads to a minion… it feels like things start to spiral out of control.

I’m not meaning to come across defeatist and do the classic ‘ask for help then ■■■■■ about that help’, I’m just trying to play devil’s advocate a little bit. I’ve fought a few Gargos’ prior to the guy I fought last night and never felt he was particularly difficult to deal with. He wasn’t ‘easy’ exactly but obviously nothing that sent me to the forums to make a post about. I got in his face and stayed there and things felt reasonable. i didnt always win but it never felt pointless. Ive fought some Gargos’ that dont use minions… At least for Kim, those Gargosii(?) are fine. i can see how she beats that MU, but a GOOD Gargos that is focused on getting minions out and has the setups to do it, is, hands down, the absolute most obnoxious MU I have ever fought.

Ok, so a quick recap of the MU knowledge so far:

Stay on him, dont let him get momentum.
Parry punches if you think you can, use dragons to close distance. (i dont agree with this but its been suggested)
Use Dragon Kick for gain screen. I would say only if you have a strong read. It wont punish much unless you’re already close and it opens you up. Not to mention once you do it once, he can start to bait this out. Too much risk outside of a hard read.
Use s.Dragon Dance to gain screen, punish from a step or so inside his sweep range and bypass minions. this might be the key to the MU if you lose the initial momentum and have to claw back into the fight.
Dont Jump without Dragons unless you’re close. His PPs track her slow jump. Unless you have a read, if he has you on the outside and is running his PP gauntlet, jumping is only going to end in pain. If you have a dragon you can try to bait an AA tracking PP by dash as he does it, that seems to get through it and puts you on top of him. This, I feel, is important.
Dont ever guess wrong.

@DoobyDude23 You can parry the PPs but he can spam them… Using the parry to dissuade him doesn’t seem to be very effective since even if you parry one you arent at any measurable advantage, he just throws another… and all it takes is one mistimed parry, or for him to bait the parry, and you are open to a combo, which can and will lead to a minion most likely if he’s any good. I was able to parry several punches but aside from getting a dragon, (which is def nice) I always had to eat/block the next PP, and Id argue that him trading you a couple dragons for baiting a combo that leads to a minion is a huge trade in his favor. You can obviously break, but he can counter. The Gargos I fought was pretty good at his counters too… and then it just gets uglier. Obviously breaking correctly is important and is a factor of the MU I need to work on.

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PP’s, just dash and block. Kim has faster dash now. So I’d just block a PP dash then get ready to block again. Then when close enough read it right. I’m not a kim player agaisnt portals I just block dash block until something.

But you have to be fairly quick on the dashes or else you’ll get blasted again and have to restart. Don’t worry about shadow PP. 12 frame startup after blocked Light PP won’t stuff you.

Of course in this situation if you have meter available you can block dash then if he does Shadow PP then just cancel the remainder of your dash (it should be 1-2 frames left) into shadow overhead since it’s projectile invincible and then you’re in.

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Ok, let’s recap:

Kim’s advantages:
-She has tools to stay in the most unconfortable spot for Gargos, mid range. She has good forward dash and great walkspeed, and a great normal to keep him stay: standing Mp
-Excellent preassure on knockdown: regular throw, command grab into combo, fast heavy meaty, an overhead… Once Gargos is in the ground, he has to guess
-This MU generates a lot of dragons for Kim. Portal punch, minions, his long range but slow normals… All of them demand a parry. Once you got a dragon, party starts
-During instinct, shooting a dragon cleans the stage, staggering Gargos on hit and hitting one time each minion.
-Dragon Kick. It basically bans Gargos for Jumping.

Weakness:
-Gargos can cover very well the air space. M Oblivion, j.MP, H devil divide, H portal punch, J. HK, HK… Not a good idea to happy jump in this fight
-As almost with all characters, two minions and a good Gargos are really hard to deal
-Devil divide command grab can be really annoying to deal, and without meter, which Gargos can steal, Kim deals much less damage

The plan:

As Kim, you always want to be in the spot where L Dragon kick can hit Gargos. Given the attack range, that’s not so hard. If for any reason you are fullscreen from Gargos, your good walking speed and forward dash are more than enough to get to this position after blocking one portal punch. Once you are here, always block low. Gargos has his c.HK, with great range, but nothing else. He has no long range overhead, and must jump to commit one, so you can react that.

Why Dragon kick it’s so good? Because Gargos can’t cover the space in front of him with portal punch. Portal punch, as homing attack, spams directly on Gargos’ opponent. This has advantages and disadvantages. Obviously, the homing properties are great, but the bad news for him it’s that the absence of a traditional fireball puts a hole which Kim can use. Every time you see the start up of a portal punch and you are in range, Dragon kick it. If you have dragons and meter, you can get really high damage for this. You can’t do this with Jago or Fulgore, because you would be stopped by the projectile. Not the case with Gargos, it’s hard to get stuffed if you are fast.

If he is conditioned to NO use portal punch, what are his options?
Let’s take a look:
-His footsie game it’s bad(poor walkspeed means Kim can walk out or in his range easily).
-Jumping it’s suicide, M or H dragon kick would destroy him whitout remedy
-L oblivion its another bad idea, If you block any oblivion, M or H dragon kick should be enough to discourage him to do this
-Maybe forward dash into surprize command throw. This is actually a good strategy for him, so be prepared.
-C.HK has tons of recovery, so you should punish every one you block
-Getting the minions out should be deal with L dragon kick, damaging both the minion and Gargos.

At this point, Gargos has to play defense until he gets space and minions out. It’s your time to shine.
-Defy his wake up with c.HP or standing HK. Both are really fast, and if he has instinct, the only thing he can do it’s wake up instinct and explode, and that wont get him far.
-Walk in and out MP range and keep him check.
-Surprize forward dash/dragon dash into grab/dragon dance/low van be useful, but dont get predictable.
-If you can land a dragon kick and you have dragons, you MUST know how to capitalize this into big damage.
-Dragons are really important. Use them a lot, because minions can be very helpful to get more of them.

If Gargos it’s pestering you with minions, use c.MP to hit them, and expect Portal punchs to keep you in check, or a surpize dash into command grab. If Gargos tries to jump to set you up with the minions, get him out of the sky with dragon kick. If he is in Dragon kick range and begins any animation that you can punish, dragon kick it, minions will get their part.
Also, if he has minions out and you manage to start a combo on him, use comand grab to switch sides and hit easily or avoid the minions.

I think thats all, if I recall something I will put it. Opinions?

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Parry explosion should also knock down minions (I would think), so Kim should be able to mitigate at least some of Gargos’s minion+PP pressure.

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Can’t she just use those spinning dragons kicks to move forward while knocking them down?

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She could, but Gargos can punish her for doing this with a portal punch.

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Well this is a kim thing…Eh. I’m sure they’ll figure it out.

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Very good write-up, thank you.

Ok, I did some testing, I hadn’t really thought of Dragon Kicking on reaction to a PP… It has its merits, but its very risky. l.PP, unless I’m just slow, doesn’t let me l.DK on reaction with real consistency. I get counter-hit out of it unless I’m really early (more or less DKing on a read) or real late… which lets him block. Even with a dragon to make it safe-ish, he can jab-spam to catch you. Now, the other to PPs, yes, DK seems to work well for that, but of course its something to use sparingly because its bait-able and a good Gargos is going to be waiting for this and after he sees you do it, he’s going to fish for it… Now, some Gargosii may end up conditioned NOT to PP, but a good player is likely going to want to bait you. That’s how I (if I were Gargos) would look at it. Its kind of the same thing when you run into someone who uses a DP frequently to punish you for this or that, you usually turn the tables and start baiting that DP. Obviously we cant argue every possible thought process and we cant take in to account every single bait, or counter bait, etc, we are just discussing tools here. It should also be noted that minions will knock you out of DK fairly often. If you get both minions down I think I was getting 2-3 out of 10 in training mode.

You also mention using DKs to stop him jumping… I really don’t see this once he realizes what you’re doing. He has so many movement options in the air including attacks that will stuff DK outright, that you have to make a hard read to land one and risk getting bopped out of it or whiffing it. Depending on how it whiffs it can be no big deal, or can hurt. This is another ‘use sparringly’ situation… As a good Gargos will start trying to bait your AA dk’s. If you’re right on top of Gargos yes, this is a nice AA, but his j.hk dive will stuff your DK’s so if he jumps and does that immediately he will catch you. Now, of course this gives YOU an option to bait HIM.

So, L.DK is a tool to gain ground when used on reaction or preemptively against PPs. That’s good to know and keep in mind. Its also a good AA when up close, but be careful.

Next is the parry… Now, I as a player, need to work on my use of it… But I really don’t see how you get numerous parrys against a good Gargos, especially after a match or two when he knows you are using it frequently. If you throw it out to parry a minion… Well, Gargos himself can smack you at will, thats a big risk. Parrying a PP works well, but you can spam them, the Gargos will just stutter the timing a little and it becomes a guess… and a right guess is nice but a wrong guess is huge… It can lead to damage, screen position and/or minion on the board.

You made a point here I did not think of though… having three dragons will allow you to effectively clear the board of minions if you have instinct. That’s potentially enormous. Its a large trade-off, because the air dashes are so useful in general, HOWEVER, it should be noted that even with blowing dragons to air dash, the M and H PP’s will track you. It seems to me that assuming the Gargos is good, Kim cannot at any time leave the ground outside of some specific read of the situation. Gargos can mindlessly spam you down, or do it right and time it with numerous methods. The short of it is, don’t jump.

Again though, using dragons in Instinct to clear the minions is very good to know and keep in mind.

I do see more that Kim has vs Gargos than I originally did, but this being a winning MU I still cant see. Minion-less Gargos I can see as an even fight, but a good Gargos that knows how and is focused on, getting minions out… I just don’t see how its an even MU. We might have a tool or two, but we essentially control a very small section of the screen, vs Gargos who controls the entire rest of the screen, has unlimited ability to damage us at range and has numerous tools to put us outside our zone of control when we dont have much to get us back outside of block and walk/dash, which becomes impossible with minions. We have a good knockdown game against him and if a good Kim gets momentum and keeps it, sure, but against good players how long is anyone, even another good player, able to just keep momentum?

This MU seems to boil down to not letting him get minions, or getting rid of them when he does… Because honestly, once the minions are down unless you have an unassailable life-lead, its almost game over… if you stop to target the minions a good Gargos will annihilate you… When does anyone, in any MU have time to just stop fighting the main guy they are fighting to fight someone else? Even if its only a few hits, we live in a world where 1frame is a big deal… Otherwise, they totally stop you. They can poke you out of every special you have except s.DD, they stop you comboing, they open you up, they have special moves, etc. I agree, if a Gargos gets his minions out he should have an advantage, thats the point… but I kinda feel like they mistook ‘have advantage’ for ‘horseshit ignorance that shouldnt exist’

I will type more when I get a chance, have to run to the store. Again, I am not trying to argue or deny assistance, just playing devils advocate and sifting through the info presented. In theory Kim has a lot going, but in practice, its all so chancy and situational Id really like to see some actual matches with a high level player who has a ‘serious’ Gargos vs a high level player with a ‘serious’ Kim and see how things play out.

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Dragon Kick should probably also be a very good move to throw out on reaction to any blocked torpedo.

With Mira, my MK embrace basically stops any follow up he does after a blocked torpedo, except a jump forward, which will evade the embrace. But this forces the gargos to take a risk and empty jump forward, which is basically a free punish if I don’t do the command grab.

I’d guess you can obtain similar or better results with Kim’s DK’s.

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If you want, we can play some sets and analyze what to do in each situation, so we can see “in the field” the best solutions for each problem

16

Sorry for the slow reply, been a busy few days.

I’d like to get together for that sometime. Hit me up any time your free and see me online. My GT is the same as my name.

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