Apparently it fixes the ‘hair trigger’ that is on his qcb+P move. No clue why it was a problem in the first place, and it sucks that it wastes a gem slot, but it’s something.
That sounds about right, but I’d say he’s mixup heavy as well.
Yup sounds about right. Don’t forget st.LK though! Hits low and has great range.
Yeah took me a while to realize that. Someone mentioned it in this thread but I thought it was a typo and he meant crouching short instead of s.lk. That’s a pretty good poke to have. 5 start up low with good reach. I like that. 
I have a question…listing simple things and going up to advanced tactics, how does one play King?
Edit:
Question still stands, but after reading this I sort of understand. So, does f+mp hit as an overhead or just the last hit of Rolling Elbow Rush? Are there some characters it will whiff on when crouching?
Also doing mid-range footsies with shoulder tackle and disgraceful kick seems a bit too risky. The start up on it is really slow so if your opponent is expecting it and jumps, or if you whiff it completely, you could be eating a lot of damage, right? As for shoulder tackle, I guess it would be safe if spaced properly, but with that proper spacing comes the risk of being hit twice and breaking that armor that King initially has in the move.
Yeah, I’m not having a lot of success midrange with Shoulder Tackle and Disgraceful Kick…
Shoulder Tackle saved my butt a couple of times on wake up. I was also able to snuff a couple of reversals with it and that allowed me to safely tag out for free so it can be a good trade even if I lose the trade ha. A meaty Shoulder Tackle beats pokes/reversal mashing and jump attempts but loses to backdashes and blocking.
I also tried to use Shoulder for anti-air a couple of times but it doesn’t work too well. They usually have time to land and mash jabs. So you have to react a little early and land ST before they land and start mashing.
Yes only the last hit is an overhead. So the elbow mixup is f.mp, f.mp and then third elbow or c.lk cross-rush or EX throws.
The only thing is the last hit of rolling elbow rush is -4 on block so you can be punished by a full combo if they read it. I personally never go for the high/low throws because a normal throw can beat both of those. 
btw cr.lp, cr.lp, f.mp, f.mp is a 4 hit combo that leaves King at +3/+0 and at the perfect range for a fs.lk that will hit low.
This is probably old but after a Running Jaguar Bomb or an EX RASC, you have time to store a counter hit, backdash and block 3 frame reversals (no matter if they get up normally or roll forward).
And if you do bait a reversal that way you can punish pretty hard using the CH you just stored for a Shoulder Tackle or Disgraceful Kick into JKLs combo.
Yes, Yes, so many times yes. Of course, the downside to this is that once your opponent gets wise to this, you’re out of ideal range for Tomahawk (they can scout it out & stand/jab on reaction at this range) unless you want to burn a meter for the faster/invincible EX version.
This is a great low-risk way to handle the opponent’s wake up, but I can’t help but feel like when I do this, I’m giving up some momentum. I’m going to defer to you more experienced/better players here, because I just know my unease with this is largely due to the fact that the first fighting game I’ve played since the 90s was MVC3 and I’m completely baffled with this whole “neutral game” that’s so important here. When my opponent wakes up and I don’t really have frame advantage from something meaty, I feel like I’ve missed the bus (Keep in mind that I’m mediocre at best, and my neutral/footsie game is lacking, to say the least).
I guess what I’m looking for is some analysis of the pros/cons of taking this approach - do the benefits of storing up a free CH at the cost of wakeup pressure outweigh the benefits of going for immediate pressure with the risk of eating a reversal if you muck up your meaty timing or blockstrings?
Of course the answer is situational (it’s why we play these bastard games, isn’t it?), but it couldn’t hurt to discuss it, right?
Variations on this question seems to be popping up in new threads and probably belongs here: “What kind of character is King supposed to be?”
We all seem to be in agreement that he’s not meant to be a pure grappler - his command throws are high/low, slow, and easily jabbed out of. They’re good, but situational.
He’s also clearly not a footsie character like Bison or Chun Li, his normals lack the range and frames. They’re solid, but not dominating.
It’s been said in this thread and elsewhere he’s meant to do great tag damage, offer a mixup on wakeup, and get the hell out of there. If that’s the case, what’s to recommend King over a pure grappler like Zangief or a tekken character with strong wakeup pressure?
I’m loathe to throw up my hands and give up on King, since I want him to be great in the worst way, but what makes him stand out from the rest of the cast? He’s got a variety of tools, not unlike Jin, only Jin has exceptional frame data.
Is there something we’re missing? Something that makes King more than the sum of his varied albeit mostly mediocre parts?
Hoping someone else is still out there spinning for the children…
Anyone catch Flash Metroid’s King on the option select stream last night? Lots of LK Konvict Kick pressure, really opened my eyes for that move’s usefulness.
Comes in around 54 minutes, has shows some nice corner pressure around 1:00:35 using EX konvict kick.
King is starting to feel like a proper liability on my team, people are wising up to his shenanigans and he doesn’t have the best fundamentals to fall back on.
What kinda gems should King be using?
As for more of King’s unique merits, do people like Zangief really have better options than King on the wakeup? I feel King has so many ways of mixing up the opponent, some with multiple layers, that if you utilize all of them in a match your opponent will not know what to do. I think it’s great for tournament play where you can start afresh with them each round, but they lose their sheen when in extended sets with the same opponent. King’s role as we’ve said is to do big damage off a tag in, earn a hard knockdown (this is huge for him), and then immediately pressure the opponent and mix them up for huge solo damage. If you did a combo worth of damage with your point character, King really only needs 1-2 mixup opportunities to take the round. If that does not work, knees into J.HK tag cancel does huge damage and the point finishes the job. King NEEDS a strong point character, which is one of the reasons I love the multiplayer option of this game. It is my goal to learn all of King’s intricacies and form a team with a player who plays point amazingly (like Richard Nguyen’s King with Snakeeye’s Zangief on point, except I’d do more as King).
Lastly, recent tech illustrates that throws are tag cancelable. Has anyone tried Tag Canceling his Liger Bomb? The knees into J.HK tag cancel would do much more damage but in this way he can gift his partner a hard knockdown. I would not be surprised if he is able to tag cancel from his counters as well.
When starting out with any new character, I recommend using all defensive gems to give you more health to learn with. That being said once you get competitive with King I believe that Power and Meter gems are his two best, using one more than the other depending on what gems your first character has. King is meant to do huge damage in 1-2 combos that either results in a win or getting him the hell out of there, so giving lots of power gems increases the chances of him finishing the job himself. On the other hand, he needs to expend lots of meter to extend damage with EX Konvict and use his EX throws to make his mixups much safer. As for the requirements, since he can do so much off a boost combo “activate when partner launches” is your best bet. Second is “hit x amount of normal attacks,” since his knees and combo extensions are packed with normals.
I do not see speed gems helping too much unless it really helps his backdash during his Oki game, I’ll have to check.
Do not have my game on me, can anyone tell me if a blockstring canceled into EX CADC (instantaneous counter-hit stored) going into either disgraceful kick or shoulder tackle has the potential to catch opponent’s offguard?
Also could anyone list some of the moves that King is safe to tag cancel with on block?
As for King’s elbow string, does ending it before the overhead and going into ex Swing or cr.lk negate the chance of a backdash? I’ve seen people backdash in between the second hit and the overhead on the string, and I really do not want this to become a failsafe escape (I imagine EX Swing reaches them but a without meter option would be great).
Lastly, how often do people use Shoulder Tackle as an AAir move? upclose it seems terrible, but it seems to be a virtually failsafe punish to people jumping fullscreen like a doofus: them attacking leads to a counterhit and more damage, and them empty jumping just eats the shoulder tackle and puts them back fullscreen. It’s kind of like Sagat’s Step Kick Step Kick Uppecut, though not nearly as damaging or possessive of the ability to bait these jumpins in the first place.
Ugh, all character boards are so dead. I think the most activity I see is in the yoshi (rock on manji clan.)
So I’ve gotten a little bored of my main team, Gief/Bob, and decided to switch it up a bit. Still working on my Rog/yoshi team, but I’m having a blast with Sim/King. Sim is a solid solo character and has king for huge damage off of launch. Tag canceled limbs seem to get king in for mix-ups relatively easy, especially when elbow rush starts up in 4 frames.
Also, I don’t know if anyone has messed with qcb+P tag at all, but it seems pretty useful for a simple combo to get king out and has the potential to really mindfuck the opponent on wake up.
Yep the lariat is much more important than the people who see it as an inferior combo ender give it credit for. The safety and ease of use give King strong tag options especially for those unable to consistently tag cancel his command throws.
Much of my ranked victories came from randomly pairing with a dhalsim as King. The team is certainly very interesting but i do not know enough about Dhalsim to make a judgment. I am a little worried that king may do little to stop Dhalsim’s counters, since King plays his own game and does not really cover any weaknesses outside of damage output. Who are dhalsim’s biggest counters?
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Honestly I don’t know too much about dhalsim either lol. This is actually my first time playing him as I’ve never touched him in SF4. He seems like an overall solid character though.
The problem is, king just sucks lol. I almost feel like they had a bunch of ideas for the Tekken characters and had some crazy stuff for them, but then just ended up toning them down like crazy. I’m really hoping for this patch to go crazy with the buffs.
Me too, but really, I would not say King sucks. I think there is a big difference between “not viable against top tier which are being nerfed as we speak” and “sucks.” Really, he has some really unique things going for him.
Reminds me, I discuss simking synergy in my synergy compendium topic on the main board. Hope that helps.
Way off-topic but could you tell me what your team was at Evo? I saw you in the brackets.
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“Unique,” but not necessarily solid. You absolutely need meter to make king a threat against people that are pressing buttons. St. LP connecting against crouchers would be welcome, as well as a slight speed up to his grabs. He fills a niche very well, and does great things as a teammate. Not so much as a solo character, which I feel is what they should strive for everybody. You can definitely have a solid team with king on it though.
My first match I went bob with my partner’s Hugo, but got blown up because I’m not as comfortable with bob on point trying to control the match. Switched to gief/hugo and we won three straight before getting knocked out.
I don’t really understand how King’s 4x knees work after a launcher. I’ve read that the initial knee won’t connect if you’re past mid-screen, but I can hardly land the first knee at all. At one point I gave up on timing and started mashing it the moment the launcher connected to see if I could throw it out as soon as King was in my control, but I still can’t land it. I’m fucking confused.