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General/Other - Kotal Kahn Kotal Kahn General Discussion

What is your favorite Variation?

  • War God

    Votes: 170 42.0%
  • Sun God

    Votes: 139 34.3%
  • Blood God

    Votes: 61 15.1%
  • All Equally

    Votes: 35 8.6%

  • Total voters
    405

LeeVanDam

Sun God Advocate
what do you mean by see a fake? also, this kotal seems to be a very annoying character, especially with his disc toss. doesnt he have a thing where air grab makes him +?
You won't see someone use other options like the Kotal Kahn player blocking and waiting for your armor move to beat the Sun God Choke tick attempt until after they've been thrown by the tick throw sequence once, or seen you play before. Kotal Kahn has some very good tools, but you really have to be good with fundamentals to be successful with him. All of his normals have a purpose, moreso than his special moves at times. He is very annoying when someone can poke really well with him because he opens characters up at different ranges.

EX. d+4 on hit, then f+2 OR d+4 on hit, then dash SGC when they're blocking to avoid the f+2. This simple example works well because it makes them have to guess between strike at a far range that makes f+2's or dash SGC travel time irrelevant. The hit stun on d+4 is so great that you have plenty of time to follow up with either. Sun Kotal Kahn blows up opponents in two different scenarios:

1. The opponent has taken too many SGC for their liking, so now all of their effort to avoid the SGC causes them to be hit by random strings after the normal which was originally setting up the tick throws. He converts this to a 30%+ damage juggle easily.

2. The opponent DOESN'T want to lose half life from a juggle, and concedes to take the SGC because it's the lesser of two evils.

You get opponents at these extremes and everywhere in between, and your job is just to figure out how far they'll let you take them.... then go farther :D

Yes, 1,1,4 > air throw whiff is +4 on block. Qwark has an amazing write up on optimizing your follow ups after this block string, so I'd check it out. It will really help you know what you're up against.
 

Invincible Salads

Seeker of knowledge
You won't see someone use other options like the Kotal Kahn player blocking and waiting for your armor move to beat the Sun God Choke tick attempt until after they've been thrown by the tick throw sequence once, or seen you play before. Kotal Kahn has some very good tools, but you really have to be good with fundamentals to be successful with him. All of his normals have a purpose, moreso than his special moves at times. He is very annoying when someone can poke really well with him because he opens characters up at different ranges.

EX. d+4 on hit, then f+2 OR d+4 on hit, then dash SGC when they're blocking to avoid the f+2. This simple example works well because it makes them have to guess between strike at a far range that makes f+2's or dash SGC travel time irrelevant. The hit stun on d+4 is so great that you have plenty of time to follow up with either. Sun Kotal Kahn blows up opponents in two different scenarios:

1. The opponent has taken too many SGC for their liking, so now all of their effort to avoid the SGC causes them to be hit by random strings after the normal which was originally setting up the tick throws. He converts this to a 30%+ damage juggle easily.

2. The opponent DOESN'T want to lose half life from a juggle, and concedes to take the SGC because it's the lesser of two evils.

You get opponents at these extremes and everywhere in between, and your job is just to figure out how far they'll let you take them.... then go farther :D

Yes, 1,1,4 > air throw whiff is +4 on block. Qwark has an amazing write up on optimizing your follow ups after this block string, so I'd check it out. It will really help you know what you're up against.

ok, is yoaks thread hard to find? Also doesnt blood god got some stuff too?
 

Scott The Scot

Where there is smoke, there is cancer.
How does Kotal fare vs Shinnok? Specifically Impostor.
I think it's okay. Nothing too hard to deal with since Kotal has longer reaching normals, a really easy time punishing un-meterburned hellsparks and he outdamages Shinnok. Kotals not my full on main yet, he's just a secondary, so take my word with a grain of whatever the saying is.
 

xInfra Deadx

Gimmick stolen by Jordan Peele
I think it's okay. Nothing too hard to deal with since Kotal has longer reaching normals, a really easy time punishing un-meterburned hellsparks and he outdamages Shinnok. Kotals not my full on main yet, he's just a secondary, so take my word with a grain of whatever the saying is.
shhh....
 

Pnut

Mouth of the Illuminati
I think it's okay. Nothing too hard to deal with since Kotal has longer reaching normals, a really easy time punishing un-meterburned hellsparks and he outdamages Shinnok. Kotals not my full on main yet, he's just a secondary, so take my word with a grain of whatever the saying is.
The mu is probably even now since sparks pressure is not guaranteed, BUT he still has a vortex. He doesn't really out damage shinnok in imposter but I don't know.
 

Qwark28

Joker waiting room
But LBSH, when does Shinnok not have meter for sparks?

The biggest peeve for me in that matchup is the amount of chip he does, at least in boneshaper.
 

Buiu

Woot
shinnok is not a good Mu for kk, especially war god imho, in any variation.


boneshaper have a decent zooning, and war god get zooned pretty easy

Iimpostor steals the air grab, Which leads on the huge damage and ends in another vortex, just like quan chi trance
 

EntropicByDesign

It's all so very confusing.
So.. I stumbled on SG purely by accident. I was reading the thread on the frustration some SG players were having in the GM Sub match-up and I realized while reading the thread I knew nothing about SG and only the *tiniest* bit about WG from having seen it played a handful of times. So, I jumped on SG Kotal in training mode, just for the giggles and shits, to run through his stuff. I didn't even realize the choke had levels, or how they worked. Hell, i thought he had to do some move to buff the choke and it worked for one choke, blah blah.

Any way.. Long story short, Kotal is probably going to end up being my co-main. Possibly my singular main as I learn him more. Sun God primarily, but I plan to learn War God as well. Normally I shy away from characters that are so reliant on meter, but he seems to build it SO damn fast and in SG, with the various tick throw setups and combos in to choke, he can get away with some very reasonable damage without any meter. His execution seems pretty basic, nothing overly challenging and he has a lot of depth.. It feels like you can play him off the cuff, and put your offense together as you go, or you can play him setup oriented, or a combination of both.. etc. I love that he has a strong neutral that you can build off of and he has a nice mix of damage opportunities.

I made this post to actually ask two questions, and then started rambling.. =/ So any way, questions

1) B122 x ExPizza x D1 x 114 x Choke is an easy corner combo I'm working on, but is there a trick to landing the 114 after the D1? It feels very tight and a little random at the moment for me. I know I need more lab time, but the feeling of inconsistency makes me want to ask, just in case, if there is a trick or something specific required to land it

2) (Brainfart - checking before I post, will edit in a moment)
 

mattnin

Noob
The trick is landing the d1 after the b122, ex Pizza (lol great notation slang). If you can consistently get d1, then 114 should come out fairly easy. Are you consistently getting d1 but not the 114? If so, that's a strange problem. I feel getting the d1 is much tighter than getting the 114 after d1. However, if that is your problem, I just suggest just to 114 immediately after d1 like its part of one combo string. d1114. It took me awhile in the lab to get that combo down and it still not always reliable. If you whiff the 114, you can cancel the 4 into a df1 and continue b1 pressure.
 

Beach

La mejor playa
If you really struggle with 114 then B14 is an easier alternative, at least in actual use. Not 100% on the damage differences but at this point B14xxChoke as an ender is muscle memory that I've been able to use even online.
 

Invincible Salads

Seeker of knowledge
i keep getting caught by the damned string where the 2n d hit is a low. Whats the name of the thread Quark made about following up wiffed air grab?
 

EntropicByDesign

It's all so very confusing.
So, I'm tentatively thinking of putting together a printable Kotal Kahn 'guide'. I use the term guide loosely, as obviously I'm not in a position to give anyone advice on how to play him (or any character).. But this would be more a guide in the reference sense, than a 'what to do when' guide. Essentially a compilation of Kotal information ranging from correct frame data on normals and strings, to basic BnBs, to advanced BnBs, to various setups and other relevant-to-Kotal-info, like Quarks excellent info on B12 pressure after a 114xAir Grab whiff, tick setups for SG, totems for.BG, etc.

Obviously all this information is available here in the forums, but its spread around and difficult to track down and fragmented. I had envisioned something comprehensive and centralized, a master-post perhaps accompanied by a downloadable file formatted for printing, perhaps a .PDF or something.

What do you all think? Obviously I would take no credit beyond the compilation of the guide, as the information and tech is not my own and all credit would go to its appropriate source(s). I dunno, I'm just brainstorming while my GF monopolizes my computer editing photos from the wedding she just shot. I figured hell, I'll post here and see what the thoughts of our little community are. If its something people are interested in, we could talk sections, formatting, relevant info, etc.
 

mkl

Poopbutt.
Scrub question about Kotal: If you get a successful mace parry, are you plus?
Very plus. It depends on the move, when it was parried, and if the attack hit the invincible frames of EX parry (if you used that). It's usually at worst a guaranteed 114 or b1, but you can definitely get a f2 punish for a parry in the right circumstances. If you hit the invincibility frames he'll go through the whole animation and end up being -100 or some shit.
 
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llabslb

R1D1_998
Very plus. It depends on the move, when it was parried, and if the attack hit the invincible frames of EX parry (if you used that). It's usually at worst a guaranteed 114 or b1, but you can definitely get a f2 punish for a parry in the right circumstances. If you hit the invincibility frames he'll go through the whole animation and end up being -100 or some shit.
That is very interesting, wow.
 

dennycascade

UPR_ghastem
Guys, do you think War God's OH/Low swords could realistically be fuzzy guarded? OH is 17 frames startup and low is 21, so it's plausible that someone could train their self to block high and then switch to low quickly to avoid getting hit at all, and this could apply anywhere in his strings.

B1 --> OSS
B14

B14 --> OSS
B14 --> Sword Sweep

B12 --> Sword Sweep
B122

B122 --> OSS
B122 --> Sword Sweep

These can all theoretically be fuzzy guarded since either the low or the overhead will come out faster than the other.
I'm sure it would take a lot of practice, but if someone learned to fuzzy guard the entire b1 string family, would that make war god's sword mixups useless? They did it against HQT pred so you never know.