MK9 | "Where there is Smoke, There's FIRE!" Smoke genereal strategy and video comments

so maybe its cause I havent played MK in a long while, but does it feel to anyone else that Smoke is limited if he tries to attack ppl.

Looking at his tools and specials, sure they are good for anti-zoning purposes, but how is he supposed to approach.

I read that his sweep is fast as hell. Has some damaging combos, though im not too certain how ure supposed to open someone up with his specials.

His fireball seems useless when people jump, even from afar, because of its downward arc.
His power seems to be on his ex moves, but they seem good for escape and reversal purposes only, and they are knockdown, cant really follow-up (right?)

thoughts? I dunno, those combos, sure they do a nice chunk of dmg, but i guess tactics vs certain chars will develop over time.

his sweep is pretty fast. But getting jumped at is really annoying, I can say that this is his weakness. His uppercut is too slow and sometimes youll get hit on startup. his normals are slow, but he has good pressure on wake up, so its cool. his reversals are decent, I’ve gotten thrown from teleports on wake up though a handful of times. even EX version. people are really under using his smoke teleport though, you can make people whiff normals and then punish with smoke bomb. he has really good potential. I’m maining him for now, but I feel that I might get bored with him because hes pretty simple.

im like 160-21 online using smoke so I can say so far bad matchups are: Cyber Sub-zero, Kung Lao.

also somewhat sonya, her fireball recovers quick, and its hard to punish with teleport. and her divekick lets her cover ground. and random catapult leg thing keeps her in the fight.

Well, if someone jumps, then why don’t you just teleport? That should work on reaction, I think.

EDIT: The other things I said were wrong.

Try using BP as an AA. Good hitbox and much faster than his uppercut. Works pretty good and it’s puts them in juggle and is cancelable. So you can do all sorts of stuff after including smokebomb although the timing is tight. BP, jump forward FK, airthrow is pretty reliable AA.

Projectiles should always be punished with shake, not teleport.

You guys mentioned that his back 2 is fast right?

<-2, 3 xx Smoke Cloud

Is a good start up…messed around and the start up can be seen at the 3rd combo


Also, this was the song that is playing during the Smoke fight in Mortal Kombat Annihilation.

Smoke’s damage is so goddamn easy.

3d12, low JK xx air throw, OTG bomb, 3d12, JK xx air throw. The easiest 44% you’ll ever come across.

if you can time those otg smoke bombs right

The OTG bombs are really easy IMO. But that’s just me…I find Reptile’s dash combos fairly easy as well.

i havent played reptile yet. but what how are you timing the bomb after the air throw? are you hitting bp as soon as smoke lands?

i can do it like 1/10 times i try it

I checked TYM and here and no one mentioned that Smoke can delay his X-Ray. He turns invis and emits a bit of smoke. I don’t know why this is even in the game. Full charge X-Ray doesn’t become unblockable or carry some buff I can’t figure out.

they mention it in the prima guide.

apparently you can cancell it into a dash as well, by “holding the punch button and hitting toward, toward, or back, back”.

must be a misprint. you just hold the xray and then dash

Try to do the motion as smoke is landing and press bp just before he lands. You can buffer the inputs right before you land so it will come out right when you land. I’m landing that combo consistantly now. Oh and you need to do the jump kick really late after the launch. If you kick the guy too high then the bomb won’t hit. Hope that helps.

yeah, i figured it out.

i started jumping as soon as i launched, and doing the kick air throw as late as possible. otg bomb hits every time now.

do you guys think that this will stay in?

44% bnb is the highest ive seen. its not situational, and its pretty easy to do after you figure it out.

theres characters that can do 40%, but its a bit harder to do than this.

We need a combo thread, someone want to make one and we can start posting combos?


My Day 1 Smoke Combo. Probly nothing you havent already seen before or talked about. But with that kick to throw otg smoke bomb… throw the kick on the way down from the jump. Once you do that its mad easy. Hope its helpful

What do you guys use to punish moves with little recovery like Sonya’s divekicks or baraka blade charge?

Trying to get into Smoke. Got into Scorpion on the demo, but as he’s an early favorite, I wanted something a bit different. Smoke is certainly not the most combo heavy character. Though I’m still surprised how fast he is. I think that will be his biggest advantage going into match ups.

smoke is played as a keep away character. a good strategy with smoke is using his bf3. its the smoke teleport move which can, if timed right, go thru projectiles and some hits. for example, if you do 3,2 and its blocked, you can quickly do bf3 to teleport behind and grab.