I see many players using Sabrewulf in a strange way. Most rely in just using his run and high/low attacks (most characters have tools to catch Sabrewulf running).
It’s good for a surprise attack but…Risky as hell. Nothing is for free as it used to be before. It’s easier to react to his overhead and his back-forward + cr. LK is very unsafe. Why don’t relying on his better buttons and footsies then? Ok,it depends on the MU,true, but still.
About shadows in juggles. Not worth it,I’m sorry if you want to be a juggle’s monster (maybe consider Rash,Cinder or Sadira. Even Maya!) I recommend saving those shadows for damage or defense. You will need them in the end.
They look neat no doubts!, but means no damage.
In a lockout just use heavy autodoubles, heavy linkers or shadow leaping Slash to increase level Ender. Not flashy, but it’s effective.
You can use Wulf in a very Street Figtherish way and with the right punishes you will do great.
PS: train your best counterbreak option in the lab. It’s easy, but you will find out heavies are your friends. Use either the leaping Slash shadow or eclipse Ender, it’s up to you, but make some damage! It will probably give you the W!
Agreed! that’s how i feel about some Omens and all their Shadow rashakuken tricks and juggles. Looks cool but its didn’t do any damage. It only made them a little confused as to whats next and that’s a good strategy too if you have a life lead. But I totally get what you are saying.
This is actually great advice. Flashy stuff looks great and feels amazing on paper, but when you look over at their health bar and compare eating 3 DPs to five minutes straight of flashy setups, then it all feels in vain. This is why people need to watch Infil’s streams more, after a while you start hearing his voice in your head… “optimize”.
When you say shadows in juggles not being worth it, are you talking about pretty much just Shadow Ragged Edge/Leaping Slash? Shadow Eclipse is obviously there for the cashout if you have a good amount of PD stacked, but you don’t feel Shadow Leaping Slash is much worth the meter?
Yeah, they aren’t worth it in juggles instinct cancel combos situation . But if you are close to kill and have enough PD to cash out with shadow eclipse, then go for it (I would save instinct tho)
Totally not worthy in juggles
Good if you want to recapture because they are locked out or close to danger.
The problem with that recapture is that lowers your ender level. So I would either use it for lockout damage (to rise PD) or countebreaker bait/situational recapture (“maybe”).
If you are fighting Riptors or Cinders, even Glacius! Shadow leaping slash will be such a huge tool to use against them that using it just for being fancy doesn’t mean you are playing smart.
But if someone wants to go fancy, it’s ok, this is my opinion or suggestion.
This came up because some Sabrewulf’s players came and told me “I want to play Sabrewulf like X person does in his stream because he is the best Wulf player I’ve ever seen”.
Yeah, he is the BEST Wulf juggler I’ve ever seen!. And a huge threat as a player for his unique style.
But being honest, though I respect the way he plays I believe the character can be optimal in other way and this new players should consider it; understanding the character strenghts and then decide what type of gameplan they want to develop.
First mildy pedantic thing the instinct combos in the video did slightly less damage than the ones posted on ki.infil.net (with divekick as a opener one bar did 56% for the one bar and 66% for the two bar).
Secondly, I think your conflating good and slow paced with bad and high pace. While shadows in juggles are almost certainly bad, saying just play Wulf like street fighter is kinda removing a part of his toolset and makes him more linear than he is already. The thing about playing wulf in a slow safe fashion is that it is easy to parse what is going on. Since players know whats going on they can make well informed decisions like buffer throw OSing B+HP and pick up on what the wulf attacker wants to do (Hey wulf is trying to catch mash outs/this gap seems pretty loose so wulf is trying to bait sc or reversal). When wulf is played in a high APM way, it becomes more difficult for opponents to get reads on wulf and due to decision fatigue the opponent will be easier to open up.
There are a lot of bad nutty wulf players out in the online-o-sphere but I think that the high APM style can be have some effect and make wulf scarier than just hit/throw and occasional cross thru/run mk/run delay lk.
That’s what it says “a bit more optimal”. I don’t feel the need to repost what I’ve already exposed before with combos with optimal damage videos. But it was just and idea with Instinct. Of course mashing heavies and using heavy linkers do more damage than going fancy. The thing is taking advantage of lockouts during that time.
Wow, I said that? I said :
See? You can play him nutty to mess with your opponent or you can play in another way. Why would I be limiting Wulfs options? There’s a great player who uses just great spacing and does great and there are those going crazy and doing very good too.
I don’t care the back and forth ref because I’m no SF traditional player. Actually I’m a KI 1and 2 player and maybe MK and Primal Rage player.
You make it sound as if it’s was so easy to deal with that. Considering Sabrewulf’s walk speed he could play a great shimmy game if you want to and your opponent is commited to tech.
There might not be one way to play one character in this KI but some ways are more damaging than others. You can reset someone all day long and mix them up driving them crazy. Until the day you will find a way better player, who will block,tech and challenge all your crazyness. Good luck with that.
Like most things, I believe optimal Wulf is a combination of solid play and nuttiness. There’s def no reason to get super fancy on lockouts though - always just go into max damage basics.
Yeah, because I went ‘super fancy’ in the last example (combo).
If final 95% counterbreaker isn’t optimal damage then what would it be…
And there’s one counterbreaker easy situational combo that leads to more raw damage in lockouts than 66% but since you all seem to know how Sabrewulf is played optimal there’s no need to post it.
Honestly both seemed to miss the point or one guy just didn’t bother to read and put words I didn’t even said.
You might know the character better than me.
Oh wait! nah.
Still, I wouldn’t say nuttiness and unpredictable/confusing play are the same. One is just going crazy with no sense whatsoever, the other one is making the other person believe you are going crazy while you have a flexible gameplan.
There is little justification for not maximizing lock outs. If someone says there is a reason to not go for max damage you say they are wrong any why that is. If they insist then you smile, nod, back away slowly, and never talk to them again if they continue to spout nonsense like this.
You are probably a nice person that is skilled with your character. you are entitled to share your opinions on how wulf should be played, Opinions about how KI should be played shouldn’t be shunned for the skill of whoever said them or what they placed in x or y or other trivial reasons. They should be considered and agreed with/rebuked/expanded upon because that’s the point of a forum, to share and discuss ideas. I just have to say this because the discussion is starting to feel a bit mean spirited. I don’t play Sabrewulf nor do I like playing Wulf. I just want to make sure that people know nutty play has merits and there are drawbacks to relying solely on hit/throw when there are options in KI against it.
OK,so…
Without the context of the previous 2 matches the final double Counter breaker thing seems like the non optimal thing to do, as a decision. On the first XB your sabrewulf had ~40% health left and ~a lvl 3 worths of PD on. If you are right and just do one XB combo that doesn’t go over the lockout timer you would’ve done around 60 percent and oki and If you were wrong and Water did Heavy> Shadow CS, it would’ve been one chance into death. The second XB it was obviously for the lifebar when you were correct but if you wrong you probably still would’ve died maybe in two chances. Furthermore, You could have just taken the damage and oki and would’ve had roughly the same chance of killing him in a 50-50 w/o the imminent threat of getting punished with fierce shadow(fierce shadow is death, DP isn’t death). So if it playing against risk/reward out of combos is being a nut then playing against risk/reward in combos is also nutty. It isn’t not nutty because it works.
Speaking of nutty and effective, Nuttiness and unpredictable/confusing gameplay are the same. People who go “crazy with no sense whatsoever” are just bad. It like saying tadpoles and frogs are different because tadpoles get eaten by fish and frogs don’t. And there are bad players who aren’t nutty and just bad.
I took that descision because I didn’t want to face a Glacius with resources and Instinct in the ground tbh. But most important, I felt I was already dead. It’s something I wouldn’t suggest (giving up in a Match) but I felt my chances were so minimal that I left everything in that counterbreaker. Still, is huge damage for Wulf in a CB situation that will probably never happen again. But playing the combo game is a story for another time.
The more damage you make then more chances to get the W. That’s all. Still wasting Instinct just for flashy juggles…mmh, well yeah I wouldn’t recommend that, but if it makes you happy so be it.
Optimal damage after opener CB: Heavies auto/ heavy linker (leaping slash will be a carry while hammstring changes sides) / heavy auto again/ heavy linker / shadow leaping slash (can’t get broken because of lockout timing) / Ender (shadow eclipse Ender).
After a launcher (for instance running uppercut) and CB repeat that combo above. It will be a little more damaging as a raw combo.
CB during longer combos damage might scale ( ?) (maximum I has is like 87%) Still I prefer to use shadow leaping slash even twice instead of shadow eclipse damage Ender, but that’s up to the player. Damage will be pretty much the same if we are talking about level 4 ender.
I mean, I agree with you? Not quite sure why you think I’m challenging you here…
My point was a general one, not particularly directed at either of you or your video above. Just making an observation that both you and SWK are saying things that have merit. “Nuttiness” there was simply referring to dash-through shenanigans, overheads, and resets. The stuff that’s a bit unsafe, but it really is powerful for opening folks up when used wisely.
This pretty much, wulf excels at fundamentals and crazy, he’s pretty unique that way, most chars only do one or the other. Gone are the days of being able to rely purely on safe play with broken guaranteed damage on his instinct, now you have to earn it which is much better design, I’ll take less damage and more movement and options every time.
