Domination 101: Divekick Edition - The S-Kill Thread

Classic Fighting Games Divekick
1

This thread is all about S-Kill. Post strats, grievances, etc.

About S-Kill
S-kill is one of the two double jump characters, meaning he can’t attack until his jumps are used up. On the other hand, he can do aerial kickbacks which only double jump characters (and Markman with meter) can do. S-Kill’s unique skill is the ability to teleport. This is useful because you can use it to make the opponent guess where you’re going to end up. And with meter, the guessing game is extended further with the Trick ability. His ground special is the parry. If you parry correctly, S-Kill will end up behind the opponent for a (potentially) easy kill.

Air Special - Trick
A teleport that brings you closer to the opponent, usually placing you in position for an easy headshot.

Ground Special - Parry
Blocks the opponent’s kick, and puts you in a position behind your opponent. NOTE: Parry does not work against Baz.

Meter Data
Max: 130
Air: 80
Ground: 30

A note about how to read the meter data

Spoiler

In the game, I count the number of kicks it takes to activate kick factor. Since I don’t have access to the code, I assume that each kick adds 10 points.

Recommended Gem: Meter or Kick

Pros & Cons
+Teleport creates mind games
+Shortest meter in the game
+Trick can position you for an easy headshot
+Kick can be cancelled with Trick
+Parry protects against headshots
-Sometimes kicks in the wrong direction, putting you at a disadvantage
-Follow-up attack after parry isn’t guaranteed vs. all characters, might have to time your attack a bit*
-Trick doesn’t always put you in front of the opponent, so you need to be somewhat smart with it
-Teleport animation is not invincible at all

*Against CPU S-Kill, if he parries your attack, his powered-up state causes *him *to get KOed. His kick speed puts him in a position where he ends up getting hit. I don’t know if this kind of thing happens in vs. play. Need confirmation on this.

How do you guys feel about Mr. N? I personally have a hard time fighting him. I think the problem is his high jump, which S-Kill can’t match. Not sure how useful the dive gem would be here.

2

I just recently had a good set with one of my friends who is a good S-Kill player, and what I noticed was that he was struggling against some of the “vanilla” characters. I believe if you can play footsies with S-Kill, it will be tough for S-Kill to actually get in on you without getting punished since his kick is pretty slow, making his meter game a little slow.

One good note is that you can cancel a kick into trick. Trick is difficult to punish, but I have baited it out in the past. The best time to use trick is when your opponent is on the ground (which works great against Jefailey). I don’t think you could react to it. I think the best way to bait out a trick is to dive a lot.

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Response below edited on 8-22-2013 after discussion with King9999

It’s worth noting that you don’t have to go very high on the second jump. As you noted below shortly after I made my previous response, it’s possible to cancel the second jump pretty much immediately and thus in effect make it seem like you kicked out of a single jump. For those just joining us, please read King9999’s clarifications below; they are more technically correct than my original response was, and I apologize for the error (even if it did bring us closer to better info in the end).

This is true of all the high-jumpers. Dive gem does not help much; it increases your chances from “suicidal” to “casino odds”. You might get something out of it with incredible mindgames and timing, but this is not something I’ve had much success with. Instead I find the Kick gem or Meter gem (both working toward the same goal here) to build meter, make the opponent stick something out, then teleport over it or parry it is a little better. Still a rough situation, but this seems to help a little.

Don’t take my advice as infallible, mind. I’m roughly 50% win-rate with S-Kill currently and have had some pretty bad losses in certain matchups.

4

I wouldn’t mind seeing some matchup opinions. I could see myself going with S-Kill as a main once I look at the bigger picture.

5

Technically you are using both jumps. You just don’t see the second jump because it can be cancelled at any time, including the first frame of the second jump. And you have to double tap the kick button after the first jump because if you don’t, you’ll get the second jump instead.

Adelheid Stark (Evo Divekick player) has some opinions on matchups. Check it here: http://divekick.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=aba2p6v0f16ssuga9dl94hins0&topic=6.0

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Hm, okay. That’s a good point. I will edit my post above to clarify this.

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Something important to know about the teleports: you don’t have to wait until the second jump animation begins to perform the second jump. In fact, if you tap Dive or Kick right after the first teleport animation is finished, you will do the second jump without teleporting in first. This has three functions:

  1. It throws off the opponent’s guess. They may try to attack where they think you’re going to appear.

  2. You can get the highest possible jump, which allows you to teleport in from off screen

  3. You remain off the screen longer since the second teleport animation doesn’t start until the jump is completed.

I think this is very useful to know since S-Kill has no invincibility, and it will allow you to score a kill when the opponent guesses the wrong teleport location.

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Can you Trick while “invisible” from the back-to-back teleports? Like Dive->Dive->Trick all before you appear on screen?

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Yeah, you can. You can cancel into Trick anytime.

10

That’ll come in handy, thanks.

11

I can’t seem to work this out. Can you instantly trick after jumping, or do you have to wait for the startup frames of the jump to finish?

12

After your first jump you can do Trick without using your second jump. So then when you teleport over to the opponent you still have one jump left to either chase them down or bait a kick and punish.

13

Against Kenny, try to save your meter for the spirit bullet. Once they use it, you can use Trick to avoid it completely.

14

Against Baz, I think the second teleport is your friend. When they go for an angled kick, you can kickback and hit them when they land. I think I would avoid doing any high jumps so you don’t get hit by the horizontal lightning. Just keep doing dive > double tap kick repeatedly to build meter and create pressure. What you want is for them to do the angled kick.

15

More info on the Baz matchup:

It would help if you can attack ahead of time so that Baz pretty much runs into your foot. Baz moves very fast, but you know where he’s going to go ahead of time, so you can sort of plan ahead.

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Here’s the grand finals of the PAX Prime Divekick tournament which Adelheid Stark won.

I need to develop a habit of parrying whenever I land and the opponent is close. I’m not consistent enough with them. And the opponent definitely doesn’t want to be standing for very long when S-Kill has meter.

17

I don’t know about you guys, but I actually enjoy S-Kill mirrors.

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You can avoid the spirit bullet better than most characters even without trick because S-Kill has no physical presence during his teleports. That’s one reason why the Seth-Shoals matchup is so bad for her, he can get out from under her very easily.

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I enjoy watching them because they’re about as ridiculous as Tager mirrors. Playing them? Well, they’re alright by me but they’re kind of silly. And intense, but also silly.

Fun character in any case. I’m glad I’m starting to understand him better after a recent slump (I was doing really, really badly. Worse than that. …A tad worse still. No, that’s a little too far. Okay, yes, about that poor a showing) and putting in more consistently play. One thing I’ve been experimenting with lately is intentionally doing a full-screen double jump and kick, blatantly setting myself up for retaliation… then doing Trick out of it and going for a second shot. Doesn’t always work and it might prove to be a bad idea in the long run, but I have baited out some headshots this way before.

Edit: Also, S-Kill seems to intimidate some players. I have had tons of folks lament over their mic during Character Select that they have no idea what he does or how his teleports work. This fades with match-up familiarity of course, but it’s fun listening to some folks be all “oh no…” about him.

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I found this is the most accurate way to describe S-Kill mirrors:

http://www.troll.me/images/ancient-aliens-guy/everyone-is-crazy-except-me.jpg