Jago Player, Critique/Advice

Classic Fighting Games Killer Instinct
1

Hopefully this is an approprite thread, if not apologies in advance.

Been playing KI for about a month and although I’m really diggin’ it, I have found myself becoming pretty discouraged with a couple of things:

  • Combo breakers. After a month of play I’ve pretty much stopped attempting these all together because I realized I was just guessing every time, and usually incorrectly. [which leads to a minor cause/effect: if combo breakers are a first layer to the mind games that can be had, I haven’t even seen the possibilities that counter breakers etc. would add.]

  • Offense. Literally, offense as a general state has me stumped in this game. I’ll add a link to a video of some of my matches here, but what I mean by this is that I feel like the other players I’ve encountered online are just going ham for the whole match (and don’t get me wrong, still being pretty green in the game I do certainly lack the knowledge of what can be punished and by what), and any time I touch a button I take damage. I tend toward a more resigned play style, letting the opponent make the decisions and capitalize on their mistakes, but that has not proved fruitful for me in Killer Instinct so far. I’ve been trying to focus more on spacing and anti-airs in my game but I wonder if I’m playing this game too much like I want to play Street Fighter: i.e. ground based pokes and short minimalist combos. Maybe this game is just far more offensive than I’m playing it.

So, my basic question pertains to the combo breakers. How best to practice these? I thought about going into training mode and just programming the dummy to come at me with every auto double across the cast, one character at a time, and try and memorize what they all look like. But that honestly seems really boring, and uninteresting. Which begs another question: do most of you who play the game actually break on reaction? Are you actually able to see certain autos as they occur, or are you just conditioned to certain patterns and make reasonable guesses based on good reads?

As far as my issues with offense, I can probably answer my own question which is to just play. Play and over time I’ll become more familiar with the other characters moves and set ups and learn what to punish and with what. But if you’ve got any wise words for a struggling Jago, I’m all ears.

Check out the video if you’re interested, it’s just four ranked matches I recorded this afternoon, I’d love to have you guys critique/poke fun at my play.

Video: http://youtu.be/CIJFbFzOfEQ

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Even if you can’t tell visually identify an auto double by the animation the easiest way to decipher is the by the speed of the auto double. Light auto doubles animate the quickest, medium auto doubles animate a bit slower and hard auto doubles animate really slow. That’s the quickest way to put it together. Helps to practice in training mode also.

Your offense or spacing problem sounds like you just need to spar with someone to help you understand your spacing. Offense can be a bit reckless in this game since all ground normals are cancellable on block or hit so there isn’t as much emphasis on hit confirming as there is in SF and more wild or random hits can occur because of that. That’s why learning to read and break combos is important so people don’t get damage off of every stray thing they mash at you and convert into a combo.

I was watching your first match and you kept forgetting to punish Sabrewulf’s slide special which is terribly unsafe on block. There’s just a lot of things that you are not knowledgeable about and you’ll need a sparring partner or mentor to help you through it. I’ll send you a friend request and see what I can do if you’re around sometime.

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Thanks for responding. Okay, that seems waaay more reasonable than what I was thinking of doing. I knew it was going to be a matter of good old fashioned work, but this seems like the most optimal thing to do. Honestly I really just need to pay more attention to what’s happening and what the opponent is doing.

Yeah, that’s definitely what I’m coming to understand. I had come up with a few combos in training and committed them to memory, and every one of them I had practiced with two crouching light jabs at the start as confirms. Maybe that’s still a viable thing, but I get the impression that I can be far less safe with my specials than I’m used to, coming from Street Fighter anyways.

Definitely, I’ve been playing a bit on week nights and I’ve had some trouble getting matches and it would be convenient to have someone to go into a 1v1 lobby with. Hopefully I won’t waste your time too much. Thanks again.

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man, that scrubby sabre was mauling you. With this type of players, mashing some dp is a must, at least for me. Gives them a taste of their own medicine. It seeems also that you play too much like if it was street fighter. I dont think you have gotten the basic mechanics of the game. Did you play the dojo?

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HaHa! Yeah, in the video I posted the second Wulf took me about half the match to realize I needed to play patiently and just let him go nuts and block; their inputs in the replay confirmed what I suspected.

I played everything in the Dojo up to lesson 32, so no I haven’t finished it. I definitely play this game like it’s Street Fighter 4, last night I got demolished by this player because they had me in the corner and they were jumping at me and I instinctively kept blocking like they were crossing up, forgetting that you can’t cross up in the corner in Killer Instinct. Ticked me off. I need to play this game more, weed out my tendencies and get more familiar with the system. I actually took Deviljin’s advice and went into training and practiced paying attention to the varying speeds of the autos and I was actually able to break a couple on reaction, so that got me hype.

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Yeah sfiv is lame with its corner cross ups. Just blindly jump forward into the corner and cross ups start happening. The game has the most awkward hit box system of any SF game.

Ggs last night. In some ways its good that you play as defensively as you do because having a patient mind is more important than how much you press on the controller. With that said I can see your main issue is that you dont know when to attack and your defensive game is pretty much entirely based on blocking. You need to get a more active defensive game because the frame traps in this game are much more lengthy and dangerous than in SFIV depending on the character. The blockstun is also considerably heavier so dping at the right time is even more important

I noticed you were having trouble dealing with Sabre’s crouch normals also. Which isnt the most embarrassing thing cuz even grimmmz has trouble with them. Well have to go over how to make your defense more active and work on your pressure and combo game. Definitely gonna need some smarter dps and learn to use shadow counters.

Makw sure you have your kinect in and we’ll go over stuff. Hopefully I can stay up late enough tonight or another night and catch you.

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That makes sense, I kept hitting buttons after a blocked attack thinking I’d be good to go only to eat another attack. Maybe it was something else but it got a bit frustrating.

Or just Sabrewulf in general. I was seriously just trying to get away from you a lot of the time last night, keep you at bay. Wulf’s got all kinds of stuff going on that straight up confuse the hell out of me, particularly his cross-up dash, I kept crouch blocking and ended up blocking the wrong way when you’d attack. I have to assume that Wulf would be in a recovery state long enough after that dash to let me attack, but I was either not doing it correctly or he’s got a lot of advantage.

I’m pretty Kinect/Xbox illiterate, literally have one for this game, and this game only. I’ll have to do a search and make sure I’m not doing anything stupid, but I assume that I can just talk in the room and the kinect will act like the the chat mic? The console did come with a little headset, but the hook up point won’t connect to the stick I’m using. Unless I can plug it into the Xbone controller while still using the stick and talk just the same. Either way, I’ll be on probably a bit after 2200 PST all week.

Thanks a bunch by the way, it’s real cool to have someone reach out and lend a helping hand.

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If you have the Killer Instinct TE2 like me, then yeah theres no mic port. You basically have to plug in your kinect since xbox doesn’t use bluetooth. Yeah the kinect basically lets you talk like youre using the speakerphone at an office job or something. Just plug it in and you’re good.

Yeah Sabrewulf is a tricky bastard. Only the zoning characters like Glacius ane Fulgore can keep him out. Jagos walk speed and the hit box of his fireball just does not allow him to actively keep the Wulf out. If you watch J.Wong vs Grimmmz its pretty much all playing the footsie game and the point blank defensive game. So basically just a lot of anticipation and reaction at close range.

Ill try to stay up after 1am then.

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That’s the one. Too bad it can’t take the mic. Just to clarify, when you say “plug in the Kinect” do you mean other than the default connection to the Xbone?

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Just that. Plug it into the infared port on the back of the Xbone (the only wire attached to the kinect) and you’re good). Once you see the infared lights and xbox symbol come up you’re good to go.

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Hi there, I can also help you out with some general knowledge for the game as well. If you want to get familiarize with the Sadira matchup, then feel free to hit me up on Xbox One; my GT is “Eirokaj”.

And yes, I’ll be gentle~

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Eirokaj is the gentlest person I know

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Sweet, I’ll take you up on that.

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noob question, but now that I think about it, I realize I still havent learned(2 months lol) how to autocorrect reversals on wakeup. Everytime I try, lazer sword comes out, instead of dp. Is it like in sf4? doesnt seem to me.

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@Antiochli
Good games earlier. Sorry that we didn’t pick right back up where we left off after that unexpected connection drop (I was a little busy at the time). But we can get some more games in later on if you’re available?

Now, focusing on the matches we’ve had; having defense in your gameplay is a good thing and all, but if you want to keep yourself alive throughout the match, then you must also have offense in your gameplay as well. Go for reversals and throws after a blocked attack (notably special and Shadow moves), use Jago’s light version Tiger Fury to get out of frame traps and jump-ins, and make sure you don’t put yourself in the corner, because otherwise you’ll be giving Sadira the upper hand in the match (though, she’s still very vulnerable in that area, since she’s in the air with no way on protecting herself besides her Widow’s Bite). As a Jago player, your main tools for the Sadira match up is by utilizing his frame traps, meaties, Tiger Fury, Wind Kick, Roundhouse Kick etc. Since Sadira’s ground and wake up game is rather poor, and for the fact she lacks an overhead, going ground-to-ground combat against her is definitely in Jago’s favor. Your main objective is to keep yourself close to Sadira as much as possible; with that being said, you want to utilize frame traps (example: st.MK~MK~, cr.LK into light Wind Kick, Roundhouse Kick into light Wind Kick/Laser Sword etc.), stuffing Sadira’s grounded Shadow moves with st.HP/MK on wake up, and using high and low mixups during pressure. For aerial-to-ground combat, this can be in both Sadira and Jago’s favor if the player uses their tools, defense, and spacing correctly; for Jago’s case, he can dominate this specific match up by simply using his anti-air tools to shut Sadira’s aerial game down. For example, after blocking Sadira’s medium/heavy Widow’s Bite, you can easily punish it by using Shadow/Tiger Fury, Shadow/Laser Sword, cr.HP. After blocking the two hits of heavy Widow’s Bite, you can either use Shadow Counter (which can be activated immediately after the first hit), or just dash into Shadow/Tiger Fury, or Shadow/Laser Sword. But to finish up this post, try not to keep yourself far away from Sadira; always be near her comfort zone and apply pressure when necessary.

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Of course. Finding an opponent that will actually play for more than one game (if even the one game) has been difficult to say the least. Can’t say why exactly, but I get a lot of dropped games with the message “Opponent has left the lobby. Returning to the main menu.”, or just players who are in a public lobby that will only play for a single game before dropping out. It’s a bit frustrating and it’s relieving to be able to go into exhibition and just run a set (even if we have a connection issue, HA!) at least we were engaged in the match.

I hear your advice, I’m way too passive, way too reliant on blocking as opposed to countering and fearful of being counter hit whenever I get the itch to touch a button. For instance, during the set we played, there were multiple times that you had me in the corner and I honestly couldn’t think of a way out of there, I felt like you had advantage on the pressure you were applying and that you were applying it with a rhythm and frequency that left me without an option. Now realistically that’s largely due to my unfamiliarity with Sadira and her move set, but I was having the same issue when you switched to Jago (matter of fact, you absolutely bodied me with Jago), so I’m left wondering if the best plan of action is to go into training and set the dummy to replicate what you were doing and see what the frame advantage is on those moves, or just keep playing like a moron, and try and figure it out in matches. Another part of the problem too, and this has largely to do with me just needing more practice, is that when I’m holding down-back and need to quickly do a special move I screw up the input since I need to go from down-back to down, back to down-back and than back to do his laser sword/wind kick. I guess it’s just nerves.

What am I looking for with a Sadira player to identify a frame trap? Wouldn’t a reversal during a frame trap be dangerous? I mean doesn’t the player executing the frame trap have advantage?

Okay, that’s good information. I’ll have to practice that. I really under utilize the double roundhouse and the laser sword, which is unfortunate because they’re safe.

I get real lost with all the jumping that Sadira does, you were actually much more grounded than some of the Sadira play I’ve seen. So as Jago I need meter in order to shut down her air offense? It doesn’t seem like I can use standard anti-air tactics against her, she can stay in the air and jump around, really confusing.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to give me some feedback, I really appreciate it. If I see you on I’ll send you a message and see if you want to play for a bit, and I understand if you don’t want to play for too long, I don’t present much of a challenge, more like playing against the training dummy.

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Yeah, it’s must be the netcode itself, since I’ve been getting the similar treatment as of late. Iron Galaxy Studios mentioned somewhere that once Season Two gets released, the netcode will be vastly improved. The netcode we currently have now isn’t so bad, it just have it’s “unfortunate” moments from time to time. And I’m always willing to have more than one match, since I rarely have anyone to play with anyway.The more people I have on my friend list to play with, the merrier. Haha!

If you notice Sadira’s frame trap is in play, then you have either; A) keep your defense game going until you see an opening that give you enough time to punish (Roundhouse Kick is an effective tool to go for), and/or B) go for a light Tiger Fury, cr.LP/LK normal moves, and throws if close enough. You just gotta get familiarize with not only your character but opponent’s as well. Practicing will definitely help guide you on what moves can be utilized against that specific match up, learning the ins-and-outs your character’s advantages/disadvantages and so forth. It also doesn’t hurt to watch some high-level play featuring Jago, since observation is another important tool to have if you want get better on match up knowledge, tech etc… You’ve have much to self-improve on as time progresses; no need to rush it (I still have A LOT to learn about KI as well).

Normally my way on utilizing Sadira’s frame traps is these; st.LP~LP~LP, cr.MP~MP, and cr.MP into light Blade Demon. There are tons of other ways for Sadira to use her frame traps, but personally I feel that those I’ve mentioned earlier are generally safe for my grounded play style. Using a reversal is indeed a risk, but certain moves can actually out beat the oppressor if timed correctly (example: Sabrewulf’s normal moves out beats Sadira’s majority of the time). You just gotta hit up the training room and test to see what moves can be used as a solid reversal tool.

Yeah, a lot of players say that Sadira’s aerial combat is where her true strength lies at, but I feel that her strength also lies within her ground combat as well. You don’t necessarily have to have meter to shut Sadira’s offense game down. Like I’ve mentioned earlier, light Tiger Fury to shut her aerial game down, frame traps and using meaties all day on wake up, using light normal moves for tick throws and so forth.

And no problem at all, Antiochli. Whenever you want to play, I always be willing to accept a challenge since I hardly have anyone to play with… ;n;

Good luck on the training! ^u^

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Such simple advice, and yet I find that it’s the one thing that I’m the least accomplished at, as far as consistently doing it match after match. And this game rewards and punishes observation a lot, I find. In fact after playing Killer Instinct fairly regularly for the last week I think I’ve identified my three biggest failings:

⦁ Remembering and utilizing all of the characters options throughout a match.
⦁ Observing what my opponent is doing.
⦁ Capitalizing on an opportunity.

Granted, there are other things too, but I feel like if I could consistently make those three things second nature I would see a noticeable change in my play. And if I could add a fourth one, it would be to fully understand what every other character’s move set consists of and how the opponent wants to utilize those moves. But that last one is more a matter of training and experience (with point #2 at a premium), and just becoming more familiar with the whole game system.

Thanks a lot guys, it’s helped.