Blocking problems?

I play the ps3 version and main liu kang. I’m posting this here because it might not be for just liu kang.

So,my friend and I have been playing a lot of matches (he plays sub-zero) and we’ve noticed some reacurring and weird things for when liu kang blocks in this match up.

When he baits me to jump in and gets me with an ice clone I sometimes go right through it and block it. I have no clue if that’s normal or not. Like half of liu’s body will be touching the clone,not to mention that it takes a second for the block animation to start up,so I should get frozen shouldn’t I? I landed right on top of it.

Speaking of the animation on blocking, it’s always so inconsistint on when I’m blocking highs and lows. My friend likes to ice slide a lot. I can always see it coming from a mile away and when I block low it still hits me. He likes to ice slide twice then use his bigboot overhead. He uses that pattern all the time. I know it’s coming,I block low,it shows me crouching and blocking low,but then I still take the slide full force. Then he does the overhead and it hits eventhough it shows me blocking high. To make things even more goofy,when I do sucessfully block an ice slide it shows me blocking high,but I am blocking low on the stick. The animation and collision just seem very inconsistint or just plain ass backwards during those situations. I never know if I’m going to be able to block anything because of this and I just have to always try,hoping that it will block. Just that when it does block it doesn’t appear to make any sense at all.

I’m not ripping on the game or anything. It’s just that this annoys the hell out of me when I play my friend. I shouldn’t be taking %50 of the ice slides that he randomly does from across the screen that I know are coming like that. I always have enough time to block and liu fully does the crouch and block animations,yet still takes the full impact. Has this been the case with any other characters and attacks at all?

And no I’m not pressing any other buttons while I’m holding block.

EDIT We just had a couple more matches and I openly blocked an ice slide with high block,which is the way I was intending to block. I can only imagine that it’s a hitbox problem with ice slide.

What stick are you using? And presumably you are playing offline? Cause I’ve seen the standing block ice slide online, and the inconsistent blocking is pretty typical of the input delay in MK online. If it’s offline it’s possible it’s delay from either your stick or the tv. Personally I’ve never had a problem blocking Ice Slides offline.

Also little known thing about ice clone, it isn’t instant to freeze, you can actually if you’re brave dash block them, since if you dash in and block quickly you can pop it without it freezing you, although this is risky since Sub can intercept the dash if you get predictable with them, still useful to know. I wouldn’t try it online though.

Interesting… A friend plays sub-zero, i’ll have to test that.

To op. You could see a crouch animation while standing and blocking because the animation and how you are blocking probably aren’t exactly related. If you are hit while going out of a crouch your character is probably going to stay in crouch animation untill the attacks stop. I’ve heard of this issue before in other games and i believe i’ve seen it in mortal kombat while playing offline with friends. Generally however, my character has blocked as i’ve intended regardless of animation. I can’t really help you, only recommend to block as you should and not to pay attention to the animations.

Thank you for the nice reply. I use an HRAP3 with sanwa parts. I can see how lag would make sense,but I am playing offline and I am trying to block ice slides that are coming from as far away as possible to where sub’s toe will still connect. Far away enough to where I should be fully blocking by the time he reaches me. I’m not gonna dismiss the possibility of it being tv lag,but my friend and I feel that it’s unlikely. My stick has never made lag like that before that I know of. And blocking other things usually work fine. It’s just ice slide and that overhead that gets me. It’s just weird that the animations are backwards from what they should be when ever I do get a sucessful block. But,like I said it might not be lag just due to the fact that nothing else gets affected by any sort of delay that isn’t caused by jailing.

As for the ice clone thing. I land right on top of it. I mean that I should be frozen in the air. Some times it works some times it don’t. And their seems to be no difference in the timing between wether it hits or not.

Makes sense for the overhead. But,I get hit by clean ice slides. Not ones that are part of a combo. Ice slide is just weird to me. Like I know that liu kang’s flying kick loses to it,but raiden’s electric fly beats it. Then again that could be just a weird hitbox thing. Could ice slide’s hitbox possibly extend out farther than it looks? But,even still I should be blocking a clean one from the distance they’re coming from.

This game is odd in that when you’re blocking, your hurtbox gets bigger. That’s why you can’t be thrown or hit by many projectiles when crouching and not blocking, but you’ll get hit by almost all of them when you’re crouch blocking.

Ice clone also has weird hitboxes. As far as I can tell, the limbs of the clone don’t have any hitboxes at all, so you can be touching it without being in its freeze zone.

My best guess is that when you jumped, you landed just next to the clone’s hitbox. When you blocked, you extended your hurtbox into the clone’s hitbox, but you blocked the attack so you didn’t get frozen.

I do this with smoke’s teleport sometimes. Smoke’s teleport is invincible until you come out of it, but you can immediately block. So I’ll teleport into the hitbox of the clone and land on it while blocking, and that’ll make the clone go away.

Also, I’ll confirm what others are saying - your block animation doesn’t change in the middle of a block string, but the game will still read which way you’re blocking. So if you start with a low block and then let go of down to block an overhead, your character will look like he’s crouch guarding but you won’t get hit by the overhead. Easy way to see this is to guard smoke’s 3 d+1 2 blockstring starting with a low block.

Also I just read in the guide that by blocking late. (Within 1 frame of a hit) You will block lows without going into the low block animation, which is actually beneficial since the low block is slower to come out of than standing block. So if you’re reaction blocking late and that’s what happens, good job.

Thanks for the replies everyone. The game being weird with it’s blocking animations and properties makes a little sense to me now. So does the ice clone’s limbs not having a hitbox. That was annoying the hell out of my friend. lol. But,anyways,I’ll just have to deal with all that. I was just wondering if that was all normal or not. Thanks.