My first few matches haven’t been pretty. They have been funny though 
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Hey @IronFlame you’re a cinder guy right? how does cinder Fair against the hisakos ?
Congrats!
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Hey thanks. And thanks for your feedback and help
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I’d say it’s a decently fair fight, most Hisako players can be countered if you know their tricks and playstyle. Cinder has some advantages though in this fight, as does Hisako. Namely, Cinder’s specials are projectile based, and Hisako’s counter (high and low) does not catch projectile attacks, so if she makes a bad read, Cinder can get a chance at an opener. However, it’s very difficult for him to answer her low air ORZ (done using tiger knee motion) other than block, but it kinda requires a guess. She’s also got two command grab style moves and this tends to be a bread and butter for a lot of players, so be ready to use some empty jump shenanigans to throw them off.
I’d say 5.5-4.5 in Hisako’s favor, fairly balanced, nothing a capable player shouldn’t be able to overcome with knowledge.
Against Shin Hisako, a competent one with setups can really make life hard for Cinder, but the worst part is the insane backdash S.Hisako has, where a Shin player can be very turtle style and try for constant off guard attacks, and then press for constant hard to block setups on wake up. It’s honestly more difficult I think than the regular Hisako fight, given her extreme mixup/lockdown gameplan.
Personally, I’m also under the impression if there were a season 4, Kilgore, S.Hisako, and Eagle would all be seeing some adjustments to their styles, as they are all in possession of some absolutely broken tech in the state the game is in.
Could you expand on that last part regarding the broken tech of eagle Kilgore & shin?
You always provide such detailed write-ups I really appreciate that I normally save these for my little writer app for reference
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Well tonight I just need to set the controller down I just lost to a ripter who is continuously just pressing high punch and nothing else
Well, I will say beforehand, this is my opinion on the matter and does not reflect the opinion of the community in whole. There are still plenty of more seasoned players on here than I and may be able to interject with relevant opinions as counter, but I’m fairly certain some of my sentiments are shared by a few people here, though I won’t speak for them.
Starting with Shin, she’s actually one of the more balanced of the final three characters made, but has some fairly busted tech that once she has it going, it’s hard to regain momentum, but not impossible. It’s mostly her spirit orb mechanic creating situations where it can be near impossible to block correctly and regain momentum. Spirit orb can create an X shaped projectile which depending on how you strike it with her sword, changes the speed and direction the projectile travels. This projectile is also REALLY strong, with priority on par with something like Jago’s shadow endokuken, in which smaller projectile’s are simply destroyed by it. Combine this with her other specials, which can interact with spirit orb as well for odd combinations of tactics, creates really difficult to fight situations when she gets her opponent on a hard knockdown.
She also has probably one of the most wicked backdashes in the game, decreasing her hitbox to low profile a great deal of attacks and puts lots of ground between her and the opponent quickly, and is very spammable. This can lead to some turtle style gameplay and is really annoying at most, but with spirit orb in play, she can close the gap near instantly from even full screen with the right specials or even her teleporting dash. However, none of this really holds a candle to her spirit orb being used as a projectile. It creates a powerful lockdown pattern on enemy wake up, combined with subtle timing variations, create some of the most absurd, difficult to predict, block, or counter wake up tactics, some of which I’m sure even Shadow Jago would be jealous. Even worse, if you know what you’re doing, it can be repeated over and over.
She also has what I honestly call a brain dead instinct mode. It’s basically a slow moving homing grab that deals a flat damage rate, and while you can dodge it if you know what you’re doing, some situations people would just suggest tanking it and getting hit, like if you’re really low and you got like 5% on your first bar left. Personally, after seeing season 2 Thunder and Gargos, I’ve had a distaste of anything that tracks the player and would like to see that attribute used sparingly, and this move is just another instance of something that is just autopilot and requires no thought or input on the player’s part, everything to gain, nothing really risked, and no effort or skill to plan around or control.
A lot of KI’s design philosophy is grounded in the principle of risk versus reward, and honestly, I feel like a lot of that philosophy goes out the window with certain season 3 and 3.5 characters, which makes some characters far less fun to fight, and sometimes, it seems downright near impossible.
I’ll break this post off here and post more on Kilgore and Eagle next.
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Kilgore is where we really start to dive into the characters which break KI’s design philosophy and truly make for what seems like unbalanced competition.
Kilgore is in some ways a lot like Sagat and Dhalsim from Street Fighter, with high and low aimed projectiles, as well as angled, and others are just huge scatterburst to fill an area or just having excellent lane control. His bullets do no chip, but build meter VERY quickly. His overheat state, while it seems like a burden at first, is where his true strength lies. He has a similar trick to Cinder’s burnouts, but these are on a timer and can’t be removed by combo breakers, though not a long timer. His normal damage output is low however, unless you take advantage of the overheated state correctly.
Because Kilgore relies so heavily on projectiles a lot of his fanciest (and yet, very practical in combat) combos will allow him to juggle opponents for good damage that is ENTIRELY unbreakable, and several moves allow him to put his opponent into a state where juggles are possible. While overheated, these projectiles do even more damage, and build white damage really fast. Kilgore also has one shadow move in the game unlike any other, Shadow Metal Ball. With this move, he is projectile invincible, can stagger opponents for combo openings, recaps opponents in the air, and it can even be aimed slightly for cross up mixups, but is VERY low damage. The best feature of it though is it is a single, UNBREAKABLE hit (tested using training mode, cpu confirmed unable to break it).
If you go on youtube and check out the juggle combos, you’ll see all kinds of freaky juggles, and most of them are oddly enough one chance to break combos. Kilgore can destroy lifebars and gain meter quickly, and have really difficult one chance break combos, where after he cashes out, depending on the setup, he can continue juggling, and even double cashout with enough meter, with the second cashout being unbreakable due to how the combo system works. Kilgore gets some crazy setups, but can easily play zoner the whole time as well and lock you out if he wants, making it incredibly frustrating to get in to damage him.
While the bullets he shoots for his normals, his uppercut, and his forward moving special have no chip damage, the lock on missiles on the other hand do, and the shadow missiles do some rather ridiculous chip at that, making it a very good move to close out a round if your opponent has a stubborn little bit remaining on their life bar, and you could win by chip damage.
I’m sorry, but he’s got a lot going for him with little to risk. He does require some thought, setup, and practice, but once you’ve got it, he’s just devastating. There’s also very few characters in the game that serve as an adequate counterpick to him.
If you face a good one, you honestly have no choice, but to try and play patiently, because like Shin, he has a great backdash that can gain him distance quickly, and one mess up, and he will escape, forcing you to make your way back in again slowly, unless he decides to surprise you and come at you.
I’ll expand on Eagle later.
I think the risk vs reward factor is basically always intact outside of Instincts, it’s just that some characters get to use that to swing across the line between low risk and high reward in ways that are inherently very annoying and tight to deal with. For example, strong zoners like Gargos and Eyedol are beatable with patience and their common tricks are counterable, but you have to be very prepared and knowledgable for the specific moments where they can escape your advantage and go ape on you, and even then success isn’t necessarily guaranteed. If you slip up on addressing their reversal or lose some other gambit in your continued pressure, the reward you worked for closing the gap suddenly turns into a huge punishment. It’s quite frustrating to play when the odds can turn against you like that.
While climbing the silver ladder:
Bodiedbykim: “No sweat… I know most of the stuff pretty well I’m super sweet and I will continue winning a lot and everything will be fine”
Climbing the gold ladder:
BodiedbyE̶v̶e̶r̶y̶b̶o̶d̶y̶kim:
…
:
“…Aaaannnnd…dead”
Also dead.
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Yeah, the same happened to me, I got stuck on Master rank for a long time and could not get any significant number of wins, I was always getting beat or railroaded.
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It can be discouraging in Gold as the skill levels very wildly. Part of the big problem is that you have tons of Killers that haven’t played in a while and get deranked. You also have Killers who are learning new characters and have reset their ranks, and then you have actually Gold players.
Think of reaching Killer as a marathon, not a race. This is the time to learn tech, learn strategies, and the weaknesses of the other characters.
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That’s actually great advice
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So I fought some little brat in ranked and he was telling me I was cheating in the mic. During his second body session he disconnected and sent me a message saying that he’s going to bang my mom tonight… This kid had to have been about maybe 11 or 12.
I finally had to block him but I sent him a message saying that when his parents come home they’re going to make fun of him for being so bad at killer instinct.
He laughed at me and said I’m an idiot because he only lives with his mom.
I responded by saying that he was the reason his parents got a divorce.
Then I blocked him. Somebody had to break it to him right?
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I usually don’t respond to that stuff, there’s no point to it. (except for pumfiller, whom I enjoy tormenting.)
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I think I had a weird conversation with him one time and I couldn’t tell if he was joking or what… is he a little ‘off’?
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He’s on and off. Very switchy.
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The rare times I have stuff like this happen, I just ignore them or if it starts to get really insistent, I Mute, block, report and move on.
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Yeah I don’t think I’ve had to block anyone before…
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I’m starting to dislike rash
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