The best advice I can give if you are picking up King is to get out of the mindset that he is a grappler character. Making his throws high or low completely destroys the typical grappler archtype’s hit/throw mixups, not to mention having such slow startup and being throwable means the opponent can do literally anything to evade your command grabs. Mash jabs > King.
Sure you can condition your opponent to stand or crouch, but why then go for a command grab when you can safely hit-confirm into a big combo off a low/overhead?? The only way throws start to become useful I find is if you’ve conditioned your opponent to be afraid of your rolling elbow mixup and they’re waiting to block high or low, then and only then go for a grab. Without this fear people will just jab/throw/stare you out of your grabs, assuming you guessed right with the high/low also.
When you say high/low throw mixups, do you mean canceling the blockstun of cr.:lp: into command grab? If the opponent is mashing jab while blocking, your throw will still come out (if you canceled into it). Unless i’m missing something, that seems like a straight 50/50 unless the opponent alpha counters one of your cr.:lp:.
No he means a character like Zangief doesn’t need to guess if the opponent will stand, crouch, poke or throw. A normal SPD will beat all 4 scenarios and only lose to jumps and airborne specials/normals.
King’s command throws lose to jumps and airborne moves + jab mashing + reversals + normal throws AND you need to guess high or low. It hurts him more than mixes up the opponent. And King’s low/overhead pokes and frame traps are better/lead to more damage than his throws so there’s very little reason to go for a high or low throw considering the risk vs reward. (the reward is 20% chance to deal 150/200 damage and the risk is 80% chance to eat 300-400 damage from either a reversal tag, a neutral jump, a backdash or a cross-rush).
We have to use EX throws to have some strike invulnerability but even then it’s too risky and I consider it a waste of meter (considering how great EX Konvict Kick is for offense).
So the problem is that King has a “grappler move set” but was clearly designed to be a mixup/frame trap character in practice. He is terrible as a grappler and there are much better mixup characters in the game. So that leaves King subpar at pretty much everything except damage.
Well I’ll have to go back in training mode again and mess with the command throws. I set the computer to record downback with jab mashing, and a properly canceled command throw from blockstun seems to beat it clean every time. If you have a better way to demonstrate this, that would be much appreciated .
I mostly do use the EX throws, Vulcan, They work best when catching the opponent off guard with good damage. Dash up>EX Swing works well in particular against a charging Hugo.
Otherwise, I see what you guys are saying. There are a lot more risks involved with with King’s grabs. As long as they are used sparingly, they make decent tools. I’ll start using elbow mixups more often now.
Good question lol. I didn’t really think about what could make King more effective but I do hope he gets a bit of help.
I would personally give him armor on either EX Konvict Kick or EX RASC and speed up Shoulder Tackle maybe. That would help him defensively and make him more effective as a counter-character. I think his pressure/frame traps are pretty good, I don’t think that’s where he needs the most help right now. It’s just unfortunate that his command throws and jaguar step shenanigans are such a risky gamble…
Just for fun, I would make his PP parry counter all airborne attacks and his KK parry counter all ground attacks just like Heihachi ha. I think this would be a fair buff considering King only gets a hard knockdown while Heihachi gets a full combo off a parry.
I have just started messing around with King but you guys are kinda making it sound like while his throws may not be ideal they can just be considered a nice extra because his close mixup game is already good enough.
Silph and I were debriefing a few of our matches where his Ryu/Ibuki team dismantled my Hei/King and I think he said it best:
Look, I love playing King - but that’s not exactly a glowing endorsement coming from a player who’s been playing at a high level (you can catch a few of his matches on youtube) for a significant amount of time.
“Good enough” is nice, but in a game where there are more than a few more threatening characters, prepare yourself to occasionally suffer from character envy. I’ll be looking forward to hearing about what you find, though - I’m sure we’ve got a lot of exploring to do.
This is all applying the “play to win” mentality. If :f:+:mp: is more reliable and effective than command throws, the latter should be used at most sparingly. Even I had some doubts about his command throws when I first started playing SFxT. I’m not much of a Tekken player, but I can at least deduce that King’s high/low throws are much more effective in that series than in the moveset Capcom “hotrodded” for him in SFxT.
Yeah his command grab moves totally suck. They work on newbs but after that you just can’t use them… too slow on startup and everything stops his grabs… and the fact that you have to guess high or low really sucks. You think gief, marduk and hugo players would LOVE having their SPD only grapping ‘high blocking’ characters?.. no…
They really f*cked up on King’s grabs in this game… It still pisses me off to this day and I’ve come to just never use them anymore… they’re horrible… I won’t even use them for EX cause there’s still a big risk…
As much as I like King… I’ve slowly started to let him go in replace for Heihachi which has given me better match results.
I’d actually make the argument that King’s command throws are less effective against “newbs,” since they’re more likely to be pressing buttons on wakeup. If you find yourself getting jabbed out of command throws on the opponent’s wake-up, start meaty pressure. In high level play opponents are more comfortable sitting in and blocking, opening them up to King’s throw game.
Don’t give up hope on King - he has a lot of tools, he just needs to create the right situation to use them.
Patch King - command grabs will connect on low and high blocking characters. Just change the damage, reach and startup frames like the other grapplers. That’s what I want. =)
I really can’t see that happening. I’d be quite happy if they just upped the damage to bring the risk/reward ratio up high enough so I actually used them. As they stand, I really don’t see hardly any reason at all to use King’s grabs.
Any request to delete a move wherein a character steps on another character and kicks him in the face must be denied on principle, no matter how well-measured that request may be.
Okkkkk so people are bitching because king isn’t a normal grappler? He is. If all his attacks could connect he wouldn’t be who he is. Your suppose to play him very offensively and his command grabs are great. He is a METAGAME GRAPPLER. If you suck at metagames and frame traps stop playing king seriously stop bitching. If they mess with his graps then they HAVE to not only make him slower but make his damage scale all stupid because king would then have to rely on grabs to win.
That’s what you want? Hmmm
if command grabs work on standing and crouching chars
Then half of his other moves don’t even matter anymore cause he is made to condtion your oppenet to block how YOU want them too. So hmmm your changes orrr a new character…
Go play fuckin marduk lmao
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I’ll start using elbow mixups more often now.