So I am in Killer Rank but

I still can’t understand how to do manual consistantly.

What is the best way to learn?

In dojo or practice?

Or

Is it better to find someone who understands manuals to train me?

Its embarrising…it seems like a simple concept, but I just cant do it…if anyone wanna help let me know, and have a mic if you wanna give me some pointers.

I can’t get them consistently either, and I’ve been a Killer for a long time… I can get a hard linker into a light manual about 60% of the time in practice. In a real match? Not really and that’s the easiest one.

The rules are pretty simple. With only a few exceptions, you can do a manual of any strength equal to or less than the strength of your linker. The timing is stricter the closer you are to the strength of the linker - so a heavy linker into heavy manual is really tough while a heavy linker to light manual is the easiest in the game.

The timing is supposedly somewhat different for everybody, although the rules are supposed to be the same. I think a couple of things can really affect this. Probably input lag makes it harder than many of the less strict execution challenges in KI.

Definitely going into practice mode and trying it out is the recommended method. Good luck.

Depends on the character. All characters have an easy jump in opener and a landing normal manual. Ex. Jagos jumping Hp into Crouching Mk.

Go into dojo, set the dummy to autoblock. Start your combo, try a manual. If your character does an auto-double or nothing, you pressed the button too early. If your character does the normal but the dummy blocks It, you did it too late. Just keep doing that until you narrow down and find the proper timing.

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Also in Killer Ranked but never learned manuals.

Depends on your character and the comfort level with them. For example: I’ve learned to do most of the manuals I’d want off of Sabrewulf’s Heavy Linkers, but it takes a lot of practice to get beyond that. Even then I tend to forget to use them in the heat of the moment.

Luckily Shago and soon other characters in Season 3 (including Wulf, TJ, and Tusk, among others) have/will get ay least one move that staggers. Stagger is an easy way to start practicing manuals, since it allows you to get any move as a manual, thus making it easy to get the next part of the manual combo; the linker afterwards.

As far as the manuals themselves go, try to think of it rhythmically.
Example: Use a heavy linker Link, and try a 1-2-3 pattern in your head, followed by a short pause, then hitting the button.
Should be something like…
Link link, link, -pause- manual
Or
1 2 3 - 4
Or
1 2 3 4 5

I know it’s probably not a lot of help just typing it out, but it takes a lot of time to get it consistently. Though light manual after heavy links tends to be easiest, not all linkers/buttons (even on the same character) are as forgiving. It’s easier to get a Heavy Manual off of Sabrewulf’s Heavy Ragged Edge than off of Heavy Leap Slash, for example, and while it’s in credibly difficult to use Standing Heavy Kick Standing Heavy Punch and Crouching Heavy Kick are faster and easier to use as manuals.

Hope it clicks soon. Manuals can be frustrating but are very rewarding. Try going through the Manuals Dojo Lesson a few times, as well as just going into practice or asking a friend. Best of luck!

I can do manuals… but to be honest i dont enjoy them…

i think the autos is where the game is at and id rather counter break.

I noticed last night that I have been doing manuals so much that I dont even do ADs and tried to do one and it felt weird lol…like my muscle memory did not want to break the manual timing.

The only time I do ADs is after the opener…pretty much everything after words is manuals.

The good thing is, once you got it down, you got it… just keep practicing the easiest manual which is any strength after a shadow linker. Once you get that manual down, then you branch out to the other ones…but start with the shadow linker into manual to ender.

Thats the easiest and best way to practice IMO

First off, you don’t need to know manuals to be Killer. There is a lot more to KI than manuals and the way the combo breaker and counter breaker system works you can still win without them if you keep yourself ahead in the mind games.

Second the key component to manuals for me was to buffer the manual cancel. I found originally it wasn’t difficult to hit land the manual I was having more issues with dropping the combo after because I was waiting to see if the manual hit.

I’m not the greatest with manuals I’m basically a scrub who only consistently has heavy linkers to light manuals (against good players your heavy linkers will get broken on reaction). However, I beat plenty of killers who clearly have manuals down. You can learn a lot about a player in the first lifebar of a match. Does the guy DP on wakeup, okay he’s pretty yolo, good chance I can heavy auto bait a counter breaker next time I combo him. Is he first frame guess breaking? Okay open with a linker which will automatically lock him out.

It just drives me insane, its like being able to beat every song it guitar hero with 4 stars and none in 5. Like I am missing a fundamental part of the game.

Ima try this though.

The easiest way I found is to have your select character go into training against Jago. When you are trying to do manuals notices the knockback on Jago’s head then time the next manual. Note that you cannot manual off of everything and some require strict timings. Light manuals are the easiest then mediums and in time you will learn hard.

Get used to doing a combo and manualing in that combo so when you learn, you will be able to carry that manual from memory.

For a visual clue, you could go Combo breaker trainer and set dummy for only manuals. It will do olnly manuals and no auto doubles, and you can “see” the timing needed for each manual.

You have to practice, but this can help you about “when” you have to attempt a manual

Now I want to pop in GH3 and beat TtFaF*E again.

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If you Open with a kick is it better to follow up with the punch manual and vice versa or doesn’t matter?

Doesn’t matter, all that matters is the speed of the normal.

Sometimes a character will have a faster punch manual than a kick manual and you should probably always use that one. For example, if you want to do a medium manual with Jago, you should probably always use standing MK because it’s faster than the other medium buttons. The other medium buttons work, they’re just more strict and there’s no beneficial reason to do that*.

A lot of other characters have this property too. ARIA for instance has very easy heavy manuals because cr.HP is very fast compared to her other heavy buttons. So there’s no reason not to use cr.HP whenever you’re trying for a heavy manual.

It would probably help if we knew what characters you were trying to learn manuals with.

*Unless you have some weird spacing concern where st.MP will hit but st.MK won’t, but that’s an isolated case.

Well, I turned off combo assist to adjust my timing, and its like back to day one. I am so scrubby its sad. Not saying even with CA I was even that great, but After turning it off…man its not pretty…dropping every thing, timing is off, its bad…thats a whole other discussion though…

I find that I can do manuals, just not consistantly, and its ok maybe I will get there idk. The game is so much more fun without cam though, the combos actually feel like they have some “umph” again. But I am getting bodied left and right and getting crazy whip lash.

In a way its kinda fun, and with season 3 im just gonna pretend like CAM never existed and stick to the regular way of playing.

There’s no shame in using CAM. But also, you shouldn’t have too much trouble adjusting to motion inputs again.

Anyway, to the subject of the thread: my advice is to find a nice long podcast (the Giant Bombcast is fun) and sit in Practice mode with the dummy set to auto-block, and just spend a while grinding it out. There’s nothing deep about difficult link timing, so you shouldn’t be engaging your brain in the activity so much as trying to beat the timing into muscle memory. (In fact, I’ve heard that engaging your brain might make you worse at nailing the timing.) At some point you should either switch the dummy to medium or hard CPU (no higher, there is no point to being able to beat the default AI at high difficulty settings), jump into Shadow Survival, and/or jump into Ranked, and try to nail the manuals whenever you score an opening, because you also need to break in that muscle memory under pressure at some point.

Also, you should focus on medium linker into medium manual. You don’t need light manuals right away (light auto doubles are almost as good), you get pretty marginal benefit from heavy manuals, and heavy linker into medium manual is usually an easier version of medium linker into medium manual. You’ll need to suss out your character’s opener manuals for yourself, though, because those are character-specific.

Start off with using light manuals after medium linkers, and medium manuals after heavy linkers.

Heavy linkers are generally easy to break, but half the value of manuals is forcing your opponent to do that “focus shift” to your linkers- it will let you sneak in autos that you normally couldn’t.

The funnest way to learn manuals in my opinion is Thunder. Turn your dropped manuals into throw resets :slight_smile: