Ask Us Anything: KOF FAQ & Advice Corner

With Joe you generally want to be always moving fast, be it from long range or close range. He has a really bad blind spot on him: he lacks a good vertical anti-air. So in light of this problem, you need space between you and the opponent (a large time/frame advantage also helps) to set up an anti-air j.CD or fancy run-under. His EX Tiger Kick can help out with this issue, but it costs meter. If the opponent gets in on you, prepare to block for a bit unless you wanna go full Haregoro and try backdashing or rolling or some other risky method to escape.

With that in mind, Joe can cover a lot of the screen and go into a bunch of fullscreen and close range traps. hcf+A covers fast, so from long range you can start trailing his projectiles to attack from two fronts. One really simple and safe trap is to do hcf+A > hcf+B/D. If the opponent tries hopping over the projectile, the Slash Kick can anti-air them and the move is really easy to space to be safe on block. These setups can be beaten (for the one I listed, some early jump-ins can beat the Slash Kick, or the opponent could do a reaction DM) but you can bait those responses or constantly change your tactics so you’re not predictable (i.e. next time trail your projectile all the way up to the opponent, and start a close range mixup since you can get in on them easily).

For closer matters, Joe has a st.A that hits crouchers and you can chain st.A > cr.B > st.A >f.B for a hitconfirm that incorporates a low. Unfortunately his f.B has terrible recovery on block; you can cancel it into a fireball, but that makes you more susceptible to guard rolls and hcf+A wont make a tight string so you could get DP’d or DM’d in between. So generally you’ll wanna be sure to have his chains down moreso than random f.B blockstrings. His hop pressure is basic, but j.D and j.B can cross up or work as any normal jump in.

Ideally Joe wants to work the opponent into the corner where he can do his stun combos/1 Power/Drive combos which can do 45% easily. Cornering can be easy from his zoning game or just continually hitting the opponent with lights/hops/running pressure, and all his BnBs into Slash Kick carry well. Even when you corner the opponent, you’ll need to be able to snipe jump out attempts with either frametraps, a j.CD (best choice, especially if it counterhits which leads into a huge combo), or a psyhic qcb+K.

But believe it or not, Joe actually has really powerful midscreen HD combos. But in terms of meter or 50% drive combos, it’s all about the corner. Just search for “Haregoro” on youtube to see the best Joe player in action if you want more reference.


Kim’s got them normals. You can run some gimmicks with his specials such as qcb,b+D for an instant air overhead hangetsuzan, or use ff+A against a cornered opponent and go for a rebound gimmick, but you’ll need much more than that.

He can work his way in by anti-airing an offensive opponent with a st/cl.D (vs vertical approaches), st.B (vs more horizontal approaches), or cr.B/D against whiffed jumping attacks or at max sweep range. His air-to-airs are also neat, and you can even try ff+A and buffer a special so that if it hits and AAs, you get the combo followup automatically. Otherwise he can get in by playing footsies with pretty much the same normals. Scare the opponent with a st.B, then run in to cr.B range, or hop, or get in closer, etc. Once in, he’s still more about his normal strings than his specials since only qcb+B is safe on block, but it doesn’t combo from lights unless you EX it. That said, his j.A and j.D are great cross ups you can easily set up via blockstrings (such as doing one or two cr.Bs, then (hyper) hopping forward with j.A), with cr.B and j.C his high/low game is strong, and his st.D is a pain for the defender to mess with since it’s very difficult to counter with cr.Bs, on hit it links into a combo, and on block Kim’s still in their face. You can use the fear of st.D to get an opponent to try a cr.A or mash chain cr.Bs, which could be countered with a hop for not a guaranteed punish, but you’re still stealing the frame advantage and possibly landing a cross up. They also might try DPing eventually since it’s really hard to escape the move since there’s absolutely no way to hop out of it.

So with Kim you can run his footsie game, shut down a lot of options for the opponent, hitconfirm into a hard knockdown into a safejump or cross up or empty hop setup each time meterlessly, have access to a 3F reversal (EX Hienzan) which can even beat certain safe setups like Kyo’s hcb+K > sj.CD safejump, and be able to have nice defensive and offensive options available to you.

Is there an extensive, beginner friendly guide anywhere? Thinking about learning this game (along with BB, GG, and VS (that last one just because)), and I was hoping there’d be a guide that could show me all the basics, and hopefully additional guides for intermediate and advanced stuff. Can anyone direct me anywhere helpful?

All you ask for is on the SRK XIII Wiki:
http://wiki.shoryuken.com/The_King_of_Fighters_XIII/Series_Guide
http://wiki.shoryuken.com/The_King_of_Fighters_XIII/System_Guide
http://wiki.shoryuken.com/The_King_of_Fighters_XIII/Strategy
http://wiki.shoryuken.com/The_King_of_Fighters_XIII#KOF_XIII_Advice_Articles

I’ve noticed from watching streams that a lot of characters have an attack that makes them hunch their shoulders and do some sort of stance that hits the opponent. I’m pretty sure it’s done by hitting 2 buttons. What is this attack and why do I always see it in combos?

That’s an hd cancel. It’s a mode that basically lets you use drive cancels until the meter runs out. It’s performed by pressing heavy punch and light kick at the same time

Since there is no plinking in KOF that means there can’t be roman cancels, right?

Roman cancels is a system that allows you to cancel ANYTHING on hit. That does not exist in this game. However, you can super cancel any blockstring. For example, Kim can do D+Hagetsuzan and is -16 on block, however, he can super cancel 236236+K and put him in Frame advantage(the super is +2 on block).

Good shit, thanks.

Jesus I love this game.

Stupid question, I used to get Vice’s Overkill DM in trial 4, but I can’t remember exactly how or when to do it after hcb+A hcf+A.

I can get it sometimes just after hcb+A but never after both.

Are there any motion shortcuts for the DM?

I’m just starting out on King of Fighters 13, and I’ve been wondering what are good starter characters in KOF13? I’ve been thinking about trying out a team of Elizabeth, Raiden, and Shen Woo.

You’d be fine, I would suggest it in the order you put it. Maybe switch Raiden with Elizabeth.

You have to do it after the follow up when she smashes them to the ground, timing is pretty lenient, if you are looking for the exact timing, just rewatch the demo play for the combo it is way later than you think.

Haha, I’ve been doing that but to no avail, guess it’s just a muscle memory/execution problem.

there’s no shortcut that i know of, but it can end on any of the down directions. it doesn’t have to be straight down. you can pretty much do an entire 360 if you prefer. i usually start the motion right before the splash since the cancel window is during the rebound. the window is so large that you can even do it late enough so it won’t hit. holding the button helps since this game repeats the input for a brief period.

Hey guys, complete KOF noob here. I come from a Street Fighter/Marvel background. I saw some beginner guides on an earlier post so I’ll go through those later.

I’ve taken an interest in learning how to play after watching it live at CEO 2012 and after playing casual’s yesterday at a friend’s house, I’ve narrowed down my team to Kula, Athena and Mai. What would you guys suggest for the optimal team order (for starting since I’m sure team order can be situation.)

I played KOF long time ago, believe it was KOF 98. I’ve been playing SF III, SSIV, MK, and a couple others but mainly play casually. Gamestop is having a sale and I was thinking about picking up KOFXIII cause I played the demo and thought it was pretty fun. Is this more of a hardcore fighhting game or is it something yall think I can have fun fun with casually, just off and on when I have time?

The inputs are much harder than say, SF. It is very fun, but it is a bit more on the difficult side in terms of timing, execution and whatnot.

It just has a different feel from most of the games I’ve played.

So I’ve been interested in this game since it came out on consoles but never got around to buying it. How difficult is it to play using a pad (analog stick). Specifically are there double-tap motions that are integral to good play?

Double tap, as in, tapping buttons twice quickly in a row? Answer: No

Double tap, as in, forward, forward to get a dash? Answer: Yes.

The game isn’t very hard on execution, you just need to be aware of the buffering tricks, and don’t assume that the trials included in the game have anything to do with combos used in actual play. (They’re designed to be really difficult, not to be useful, which doesn’t mean none of them are useful but still)

I couldn’t disagree more. Buffers in this game are enormous, even by KOF standards. You have a much time to do everything, and there’s very little things with really difficult timing (unlike SF4 1-frame link galore).

As long as you aren’t one of those retarded who thinkgs 321 is a legit hcb, and 323 is a legit dp, you should be fine.

With this I agree. I think the main problem people have that makes them call the execution difficult, is that it feels very different from capcom games. But really, once you get the feel for it, very few things remain difficult. You just need to be able to keep track of where you are in longer combos, but anyone who has played Marvel shouldn’t have any trouble with that.

Order is overrated. But: Athena/Kula/Mai will work, Athena/Mai/Kula will work too. None of those characters are particularly meter intensive, and all of them are okay at building meter. If you wanna cheap out wins with Mai’s stupid neomax, keep her last, otherwise, do whatever you’re comfortable with.

Damn. I really can’t deal with double-tap dashing :frowning:

Why would you insist on playing pad + analogue stick if you can even do dash commands. That will disallow you to play basically anything but MvC and Skullgirls. Get a stick/learn d-pad.