Why is Sheeva considered low? I’m curious. I don’t really play MK9 much…
and why is Sub high?
Try out the EX Soul Steal – it has armor and a good sized hitbox in front of Shang. Just don’t use it when an opponent’s going to jump over you.
And Shang Tsungs air fire balls are good from stopping them from the jump in.
I should know, I was almost raging 2days ago because some bitch kept at it, but I don’t think it was on purpose. Still won 2-0 though. 
Shang doesn’t seem that good to me. He has definitely has good combo damage, especially when he has some meter for EX ground ball, but IMO he really suffers because his ground ball and up ball have a really slow start up. He also seems pretty damn vulnerable to wake-up pressure as he doesn’t have any wake-up attacks with good invulnerability. The only one I can think of is his EX soul steal, but that costs meter and it’s not invulnerable, it just has a hit of armor. I find him hard to use. Compare that to a character like Johnny Cage who you really can’t pressure on wake-up at all.
Nightwolf definitely has very solid tools, and he has his EX hatchet and shoulder on wake-up, both with full invulnerability. I think Sketch is saying he’s not great against rush-down because he doesn’t have many fast pokes to attack his way out of pressure, that’s a problem I’ve noticed when using him.
I really want to main Jax but it’s been extremely tough. Ermac seems impossible to beat with Mr. Briggs. Actually, I hate Ermac in this game, he’s a bitch to play against no matter who you’re using. He has such a good set of specials and the hit boxes on his two telekinetic moves are literally too humongous to fair IMO. If you’re using a guy like Jax, getting in on him feels truly impossible, and he can always teleport to f*ck you over if you do happen to get too close – same with Raiden, his teleport is so fast it’s just godly.
Slow. Poor rushdown. No keepaway. Poor combo potential. Shitty X-Ray. Her damage buff definitely helped but she just has no answer vs. someone like Sub/Ermac/Raiden with all their safe, easily spammable strategies with low risk/big payoff. I might put her above Jax in the future (talk about a useless character) but she’s pretty unanimously ass.
Sub has an answer for virtually every situation in the game. Clone zoning is pretty much unbeatable (especially near a corner), his damage output is excellent (not crazy like Kung/Ermac/Smoke but high) considering how many ways he gets free damage, he has a safe f+4 overhead that confirms into Freeze > 30-40%, a fast, easily-comboable X-Ray (that happens to be the fastest in the game and can also be delayed which adds armor), Slide stops back jumpers, a game-breaking glitch in the corner (banned in tournaments I’m sure), the 2,2 string which is completely safe + confirmable to huge damage, Re-freeze shenanigans with charged Ice Palm (b+2) and simple low/mid mixups with big payoff. There’s 2-3 characters that give him any real trouble (IMO Raiden/Smoke/Nightwolf) and they’re probably 5-5 matchups anyways. Just a ridiculously solid character.
thats not true. Sheeva can beat an Ermac with good stomp mix ups since you can control where you go. and the fact that she recovers almost instantly from a whiffed stomp means you can either block or uppercut and then maybe go for a fireball or a 212bf3 combo. i think the only thing sucking for her is that in real tournament play your gonna see alot of “laming out” zone and stomp, uppercut, fireball strats because her best combos only come from low throw and its really hard to train them to duck so you can use it.
Sheeva eats a b,f+1/d,b+1/d,b+4 on reaction vs. Ermac (depending on spacing) if she so much as flinches. She’s slooooooooow, and this game is about aggression/speed or godlike zoning. If you don’t have those qualities it’s an uphill battle at best unless you have awesome gimmicks, that’s why you don’t see anyone beasting with Jax/Baraka/Sheeva because there’s about ten characters that do anything they do but better.
Take Baraka for example. He’s monstrous in-close in the right hands, but how is he getting in against any competent Sub/Raiden/Cyrax/Ermacs? I put Liu Kang at top of mid-tier and I’d say Kang/Baraka is probably 7-3 in Kang’s favor even if he just zones instant air b,f+1 / b,f+3 all day (and he’s not even a good zoning character), because Baraka just can’t do anything about it outside of block/duck/blow a bar for armor, with no way to get in. Even when he’s close, he gets blown up by b+3,1,2 / f+3 / 2,1,3 mixups for free. Why? He’s great in-close, it’s just that Kang’s better at it.
Sheeva’s not as bad as Baraka IMO and deals with zoning much better because of Stomp/TeleStomp, but she’s still too slow and has too many big flaws to be any better than low-mid at absolute best, barring any big patches. Point is, as a character her inborn flaws are too numerous compared to the rest. It’d be one thing if she had a solid style of any kind, but she’s bad at offense AND defense. TeleStomp can get stuffed with a j.anything with proper timing, Sub can Clone, Ermac/Raiden/Smoke can Teleport, etc. and that takes about 50% of her options away.
I just played sheeva because that stomp shit is lol. its such a funny shenanigan.
Isnt sheevas X ray unblockable? Also, she is GREAT vs any projectile zoning. Stomp all day.
Given the points mentioned, i can see why Sub Zero can be top though. That QCB freeze is pretty rape in corners. Agreed. and his x ray is definitely fast as hell
Sheeva’s X-Ray is unblockable but it’s very telegraphed. And considering that TeleStomp/Ground Stomp are her only real options vs. zoning, a good opponent will look, bait and punish. That’s my issue with her - what can she do when those options are taken away? Again, she’s not a worthless character and she can win, but you have to put in so much work and get perfect reads just to pull even when they can work 1/4 as hard and get much better results.
Sheeva’s X-Ray is anti-projectile. That’s what makes it good.
Baraka up-close is good when he gets his 50/50 started. His stuff is risky, since everything in that mixup is unsafe. But that’s only factoring if he gets in…his burning a meter to get in isn’t really that bad…look at Kabal. Unlike Kabal, though, he can’t build it nearly as well.
Exactly. You know how Sektor has B+1 or Stryker has 4 for getting people off you? The closest thing Nightwolf has against pressure is D+1.
Better Nightwolf players than me – would D+1 then F+3 be a frame trap?
Wish they would buff Sektor to at least a A+. He has some very good potential.
lulz
Shang tsung dies to Cyber Sub and Raiden.
So? Dhalsim gets blown up by 11 characters in SSF4, but that doesn’t prevent him from being A+ tier.
Plus:
-His combos are projectile based meaning they can’t be interrupted by breakers.
-He has safe jump set ups off fireballs on knockdowns.
-He has surprisingly good mixups up close despite his slow pokes and can use ground firelballs to make his strings safe or trap his opponent.
-He can get a 30% combo of a full screen projectile with 1 meter. (most characters only get 8 or 9%)
-His ability to transform into the opponent and the fact that he can transform at will at the end of any combo kind of eliminates all bad matchups. Even a 3-7 matchups can turn into a 6-4 match because of Soul Steal alone.
The reason why Cyber Sub and Raiden beat Shang is because their greater mobility easily avoids Shang’s zoning game and traps. But Shang Tsung can still be played offensively and like any character, he can fuzzy guard, dash block, armor absorb and crouch tech. So it’s not an impossible matchup, just tougher.
I think Cyber-Sub is especially tough for Shang Tsung because he can’t do anything vs his dive kick. He has 0 punish options.
Smoke annihilates Shang hard. Dude has literally no options vs. a good Smoke because he’ll be eating constant Shake/Telepunches anytime he throws a fireball.
At low levels maybe. But any decent high level Shang will NEVER throw random fireballs at Smoke or get caught by a random teleport punch like most noobs will.
I’m sure Alex Valle and others could blow up Smoke easy. Imo Smoke is only S tier at a low level of play. At higher levels, people know how to deal with his tricks. Problem is that Smoke is purely an anti-zoning character, but he has no mixups up close.
Shang’s offense is almost as poor as Smoke’s. Sure he has more low/mid overheads and mixups but he’s a lot slower than Smoke and has to open himself up to just as much risk to get in with harder payoff. Pre-patch all it takes is one Smoke Bomb/low-level Air Throw to lose 40%. If one thing is certain, Shang’s going to toss a fireball and if I’m not in the middle of something, it’s getting Shake’d. Don’t forget EX Shake stops almost every move in the game too. Who’s doing a random Telepunch? I don’t touch that shit outside of punish/combos. You’re presuming that Smoke’s a noob character and not used by people with quick reflexes and skills like anyone else. You forget Smoke has the fastest b+4 in the game, one of the best d+1s and a long-range d+3 to peck/poke. Safe 3,2/3,d+1,2 blocked (with possible frame adv. when dash-cancelled to BLK). Smoke is a great zoning character that can also put on a modest amount of pressure when needed (especially if invisible) and a quick X-Ray that’s great on punishes. Plus you can’t knock that combo damage.
Smoke isn’t S tier at all. Low/mid A maybe but he needs to work to win. He’s likely going to take a big fall once the OTG is patched out (guarantee Cyrax will drop to mid-B as well)
I didn’t say that. Markman had a very nice Smoke at PDP. I just don’t think Shang vs Smoke is really 3-7 simply because “Smoke has shake”. I really doubt good players would throw a lot of unsafe fireballs at Smoke knowing well his anti-zone options.
And I disagree about Cyrax falling that much in the tier list. Keep in mind that all characters will lose their glitches and block infinites so in the end that will reset the playing field. Plus Cyrax didn’t entirely lose his bomb trap contrary to what many believe. They’re just making it techable / not guaranteed. So he still has this great 50/50 guessing game and if you guess wrong he can end up dealing more damage than he did pre-patch.
Granted, he won’t be as scary as before, but he’ll still win because all his tools are still there so there’s really no reason for Cyrax to drop to B tier. Post-patch he’s A tier at worst imo.
If anyone needs neutering, Raiden needs a frame or two recovery nerf for Teleport IMO. Too easy to insta-punish anything on reaction and Fly is such a braindead punish anyways.
Smoke has the 2nd fastest Teleport in the game, to the point where its dumb easy to reaction punish anywhere on screen. Smoke Bomb is always a threat and hit confirm-able from any string or b+2,3 (overhead? not sure) for big damage. Plus Invisibility. Combined with EX Shake and Akumaport he’s one of the best runaway/zoners in the game and a huge anti-zone char too. Shang is 75% zoning and he needs to throw fbs to do that. His rushdown just isn’t good enough to win on without a good zone game, which is something a good Smoke takes advantage of. Probably 6-4 with Smoke but its uphill for Shang imo
According to Tom Brady, Kano’s upball is getting a slight nerf. Fast specials and normals will be able to punish it. It’ll probably be -9 or something like that on block. Sounds fine to be. I thought the upball buff was too much, so I’m glad it’s getting nerfed. I don’t want my character to be brain dead.
I feel that Kano is still going to be a top-tier character because he lacks many bad match-ups. He has tools for mostly any situation.