I think that’s one of the reasons I like this game so much. Not because I’m a MK fan, but because I feel I can play with any character, have fun and if I dare take it to another level, hold my own even against top tier characters piloted by decent players.
Who is talking about punishing dive kicks from different distances? Ground spikes are not very useful versus Cyber Sub Zero.
Freddy’s goal is to spam glove toss and bait, block, and punish a dive kick when Cyber Sub goes for one. All versions of the dive kick are punishable by medium ground spike and EX ground spike unless the dive kick is timed perfectly to hit Freddy’s feet. You can bait dive kicks by mimicking the motion for the glove toss and doing d+1, for example. EX ground spike leads to half life combos with the use of one bar. Cyber Sub has to dive kick Freddy more than six times to make up for the lost damage.
Cyber Sub is a poor man’s Kung Lao as far as fighting Freddy goes. Cyber Sub does not have access to the same pokes, pressure, and defense Kung Lao has access to. Also, Kung Lao’s dive kick has little to no whiff recovery frames yet leads to juggles in the corner. Kung Lao has a superior teleport too. The point is that Cyber Sub is not a difficult match up for Freddy.
On another note, MK is similar to ST in terms of match ups. Some match ups are almost unwinnable for some characters, and MK lacks ToD combos and cheap corner tick throw set ups to make the match ups bearable. Use any low tier character versus Kung Lao or Kabal to get the idea.
What if he never goes for the dive kick? You blocked for no reason, and he gained ground. He may not be a bad matchup, but he just gained a jump’s worth of ground as you waited to bait the dive kicks.
Sure, in a Cyber Sub’s head dive kicks are like a heroin fix, but that doesn’t mean they will do the far dive kick, or any at all. You’re talking about blocking dive kicks. I’m talking about them purposefully whiffing dive kicks or not doing any dive kicks and blocking your retaliation.
Cyber Sub Zero’s pokes and normal attacks are very slow while Freddy has a 6 frame d+1. There is nothing to fear up close. Whiff all the dive kicks you want. I’m going to keep spamming glove toss and look to bait you occasionally. I only need to block a dive kick once to have a shot at a 50%+ juggle. The risk vs. reward ratio is clearly in Freddy’s favor.
By the way, Tom Brady has posted a new tier list on TYM.
So post-patch, I expect Sub-Zero to take a jump back up top on the tiers. Extra freeze time + EX armor on Slide is a big deal, especially now that Sub can EX through any offense/zoning now. All the characters he has problems with got significant nerfs (although I’d say Noob gives him even more trouble than before with the new overhead Clone Tackle) and his advantage matchups pretty much stayed where they were.
Sindel, Baraka and Stryker are no fucking joke now BTW. Expect some new killers.
I still don’t get why Tom Brady and REO think Sheeva is A+ now. They considered her bottom tier pre-patch and now all of a sudden she’s on the same tier as Johnny Cage and Nightwolf lol. But all she got was a special mid fireball, overhead EN fireball, armor on EN jump stomp and a better hitbox on air grab. But I don’t see how those buffs are all that great.
I guess her new fireball is pretty good. 12% damage and you can’t duck it. You’re forced to either block or jump over.
Well, 1) her jump you could just jump forward or back with kick to avoid or stuff it. Now you can’t. And this is also one of her only ways to approach easily. 2) Forcing the opponents to jump fireballs is nice because it keeps them off the ground, and close enough to your air grab with a better hit box.
So there you have it. She can throw fireballs that can only be avoided by jumping and teleporting, both essentially bringing the opponents to her, and she can enhanced stomp without being interrupted for a quick approach or punish.
Sub-Zero still gets blown up by Kitana and other zoners. Longer duration doesn’t help much when he can barely trade with all the fast projectiles. EX Slide through zoning is better on paper than reality.
The real deal with Sheeva is that she was never truly that bad. She’s been ok since her first buffs. The armor on EX Stomp is only for the way up. You can still punish but it’s better for escape now.
Although I’m definitely not playing Kitana’s at your level, I’ve never had too much of a problem with her even with Sub-Zero. Holding Down completely avoids like 90% of everything she does outside of mid-screen, and although she’s a fucking killer up-close with mixups she’s not the best by a long shot. It’s probably his worst matchup overall (haven’t seen any good Skarlets post-patch so I don’t know how good her Dagger zoning is anymore, and Noob is still a pain in the ass), but it’s hardly unwinnable. Probably one of the only matchups I’d use EX d,f+3 because of the quicker startup/longer duration. Really wish they hadn’t raped Subby’s damage as bad as they did.
To answer your question, her dagger cancel game is now nearly nonexistent. She cannot interrupt Sub from doing at least one ice ball between daggers.
Affects me in no way, though. The only moment I ever used daggers was mid combo, and the timing for those has changed as a result, but not by much. Her true strength lies in being aggressive… but of course with dagger cancels shutting many down no one even dared to try it.
anybody have the most current tier list ?
Holding down doesn’t win a match though. You’re just slowly letting me build meter so I can have a breaker if you do manage to get a trade.
I will hardly get in close. Pretty much the only thing I do besides fans is max range d+1 and maybe try to whiff punish a d+4 with f+2,1.
Then there’s the ass factor. Even when you get me in the corner I’ve got one of the best escape teleports in the game. You can punish ass with slide or x-ray but if you’re looking for that you’re not playing your game. The same goes for shenanigans like placing the clone in the air.
It’s a match that comes down to turtling and sitting on a life lead. Your problem is to get one you’ve gotta try trading or sliding and that’s much riskier than what I do.
Doubtful, Sub Zeros buffs only really help him in matches he already had the advantage in anyway. Believe it or not this patch actually made him even WORSE against zoning.
The universal dash nerf means he has to move in even more slowly than he did before (which is saying something) and you can no longer get a guaranteed EX Ground Freeze off of freezing someone in the air, meaning if you want to use B121 in order to nullify wake ups and continue pressuring you have to use his 2,2 and and B1, 2 strings more often instead of the usual 2, 1 pressure.
Yes he got armor on his EX Slide, but EX Slide is a terrible move for trying to get in. The only time its useful is if your back is to the corner or if you have a well placed clone, otherwise the second hit just knocks the opponent away so he can just roll backwards and continue zoning you afterwards. It doesn’t even have armor its whole duration btw, only the first 20 frames.
The increased Freeze duration might have helped if it wasn’t for the dash nerf, but with it trading with ice ball yields pretty much the same results it did before.