Ermac vs. kung lao rush down

[Tokiwartoothxdk]

I've been having a lot of problems with this for quite a while now. i try zoning , the spin baiting with the air-blast and some other options. i feel as though kung lao is just to fast of a character. There are a lot of good ermac players on here and was wondering if i could get any advice? :salty:

 

[Metzos]

I've been having a lot of problems with this for quite a while now. i try zoning , the spin baiting with the air-blast and some other options. i feel as though kung lao is just to fast of a character. There are a lot of good ermac players on here and was wondering if i could get any advice? :salty:

Hey m8 welcome to TYM . Now about KL. Ofc the main strategy here is to zone him and generally keep him in midscreen distance. Always be ready to full punish his divekicks which means that you must be ready to block at all times. Spin is much easier to punish now due to the lack of pushback on block. Also dont try to bait spins with air-blast. That move is meant to be used only as an air to air option. Generally dont jump against KL. Ever. Let him come to you. Be careful of the teleport and try to punish it as fast as you can with d1 to lift, although in some situations you cant punish it at all. This usually happen if KL teleports while jumping and being almost at the highest height of the jump. If you see that then jump backwards to avoid the block string. If he breaks in your zoning stay alert for the 1212 string and try to down poke his 1 cause its a high hit. Also be aware that his low hat now is - on block which means up close you can punish it. Also when you get the chance up close ALWAYS attempt throws to reset the fight in your favor.

 

[Tokiwartoothxdk]

Thanks for the welcome! ive been coming here a lot the past few months and finally made a account. I know of most of these things, but this advice is golden and will try the d1 lift more. hopefully i can get a video of the matchup for more advice later on.

 

[funnylegz]

In my opinion ermac is the best counter pick for kung lao because ermac has a lot of tools to punish everything lao attempts in the match. When the game first came out lao had zero recovery punch links which felt like a frame trap, then he had the low hat frame trap. So I concluded it would be best to stay away from him. Usually when they see your not staying close to him lao will try to dive kick, to close the gap. From a sweep distance you'll see this coming a mile away so block and tks for juggle. Then he'll start to teleport to mix you up, this is what we want him to do. From the sweep distance he can't attack you with his teleport and you'll see it coming so just tks him works every time. Now lao sees he cant teleport and he cant dive kick so he'll try to zone with low hats and ermac has the advantage here, just block low and punish him with tk-pushes. This is how I've always fought lao and I've had great success against him. With lao remember just bait and punish. Hope this helps

 

[MKF30]

Yeah, I like to keep KL far myself(online though his teleport is bs) but normally under good connection or offline his teleport=gets punished easily by Ermac, uppercut into TKS for damage

and I've also come to realize up close with his damn jab pressure, use his D1 as it's fast enough to back KL off and give you some breathing room to get away/get some space from KL.

 

[Sage Leviathan]

Honestly, i think that nerfing his tele~3 would take him down a tier. I honestly do.

As Ermac, i like to keep him far away. Hats dont have anything on tele or fireball/TKP pressure, and on a good connection, his teleport only works FOUR out of five times, rather than every time. I use this to uppercut ----> TKS or TKP (if i can).

 

[MKF30]

You can also do D+1 to on KL's teleport into TKS, I've noticed it's easier to hit online then the uppercut at times lag/delay pending.

 

[CompletelyJaded]

I think the innate imbalance of the characters in this game stems from lacking solid rules. The characters aren't set by frame rate of attacks or anything, and even though they are all unique, some of them are "more unique than the rest" if you know what I mean.

I used to bang my head against a Lao player with Jade, literally feeling anger at myself for not managing to beat him.
The following questions came up.
1. Why do all his moves hit before mine do?
2. Why don't any of my moves work?
3. Why is it that whatever I try, it's always me getting punished?
4. Don't I have any moves that WORK?!

And then I started talking to players like Krayzie and Glue.
1. They have fewer frames.
2. Because they are too many frames.
3. Because not only are my moves slow but their recovery is crap too.
4. I don't. Instead however, I can feed him his own tricks and make HIM the desperate one.

In my experience there are characters that are meant to go "in your face" and characters that are meant to stay away.
Ermac is the latter type, and his strength is in his stupidly high damage. You only need to catch him once or twice, really.e
The trick vs Kung Lao: He really only has a few options, and if you know what those are and when he uses them, all you need to figure out his how to get back at him.

 

[MKF30]

This game is actually very balanced for the most part, it's just like any other fighter comes down to match ups....

Sometimes it's not always about the character, but the player who uses/plays the character too. I think CD winning last years SJ with Rain is a prime example of so.

 

[KamikazeJD]

[MENTION=6058]CompletelyJaded[/MENTION] 'I bought a game with the illusion that it has several, playable characters. Playing 4000 games with Jade online I've had to realize that there are those characters that the game is built around and then the rest. I'm extremely disappointed at the poorness of MK9. I refuse to play Kung Lao just because he's the one the creators turned into godmode.'
That shit made me lol. U hella salty cuz.. Jade did get fucked off, ur right, but wat game doesnt have a stupid awesome character? You learn to play and beat them.

 

[CompletelyJaded]

[MENTION=6058]CompletelyJaded[/MENTION] 'I bought a game with the illusion that it has several, playable characters. Playing 4000 games with Jade online I've had to realize that there are those characters that the game is built around and then the rest. I'm extremely disappointed at the poorness of MK9. I refuse to play Kung Lao just because he's the one the creators turned into godmode.'
That shit made me lol. U hella salty cuz.. Jade did get fucked off, ur right, but wat game doesnt have a stupid awesome character? You learn to play and beat them.

Duh. I can still be salty as I please. :>

 

[Metzos]

KL's teleport 3 cant be punished at all by d1 to lift sometimes. Just pointing this out.

 

[funnylegz]

Yeah like what I said earlier I don't stay close enough to KL to worry about his teleport, 3 he teleports I dash, tks, juggle and its game over for KL from there on.

 

[QjonPL]

Don't forget about KL's f+3 - that thing's crazy, covers nice distance, is only -4 on block, even on hit, can be cancelled into low hat - the animation is misleading, I've been caught a few times trying to d+1 blocked f3 and got hit by unexpected (like the Spanish Inquisition) low hat.
Another retarded thing is, KL's most common strings (112_21) are 0 on block, latter having 7f startup, so he can throw them mindlessly and Ermac can only try to d1 them (which gives extraordinary 1% dmg and +1 on hit) or uppercut under them. Not having any armored move besides Xray makes it even merrier. Up close Ermac is KL's bitch, good Kung won't just teleport or divekick to get onto us, so we could punish him for half of his lifebar.

 

[Eh SnOwY]

havent played with ermac with that much but when i do play with him against kung lao players, i like to keep my distance with force pushes and fireballs, also uppercut works nicely against teles, and ermac can continue from them ^^ and when they use EX teles you can try to jump back to avoid getting hit

 

[MKF30]

KL's teleport 3 cant be punished at all by d1 to lift sometimes. Just pointing this out.

The normal teleport can be punished if you time D1 into TKS, I do it all the time, not the enhanced one however to be more specific. I'm talking as soon as he teleports when you can uppercut him into TKS or TKP, you can do the same if you poke him into TKS as well, however if you wait until KL hits you with any attack it'll be too late by that time, you'll either eat the hit or have to block it.

FTR, I can't stand KL's enhanced teleport, 3 times and has armor? A bit much...there's really nothing you can do other then jump around it it's so dumb. Even with all of KL's nerfs, he's still bs lol.

 

[Tokiwartoothxdk]

this match-up blows my mind on how ermac has such a big diss advantage at close range. ive learned plenty about this match-up having to now use kung lao quite a bit to. but i still 88% of the time use ermac. ive learned to deal with the string and spins. now the real question is how to stop a good reptile player

 

[MKF30]

True ^, up close KL is devastating vs. Ermac if he can't get space.

For Reptile, key is keep him far and punish his dash. I think rep is easier to keep far then KL imo, but not by much lol

 

[Tokiwartoothxdk]

True ^, up close KL is devastating vs. Ermac if he can't get space.

For Reptile, key is keep him far and punish his dash. I think rep is easier to keep far then KL imo, but not by much lol

i think the thing about me, and i dont know why i do this, but everytime i feel like im getting pressured and down in the health bar i just start jumping.
i guess its just a nervous reaction? lol

 

[MKF30]

i think the thing about me, and i dont know why i do this, but everytime i feel like im getting pressured and down in the health bar i just start jumping.
i guess its just a nervous reaction? lol

lol yeah I hear ya, sometimes you slip and do something out of panicking and it winds up costing you. I used to do that all the time, sometimes I still do. But I like to try to poke now, against KL near me. Against Reptile, block and try to anticipate his damn dash lol

 

[funnylegz]

yeah reptile is a pain you can stop his lizard dash with a forward, 4 but its tricky to time I've noticed as I also use noob saibot as a secondary its good to just zone reptile out. On the poll question; In my opinion raiden is a tough match up for ermac I always just block dash to bait his superman but then there's the teleport, grab crap and also just raiden running around with teleports and landing his 3,3,4, superman So I've always felt raiden was the worst probably because I am a defensive ermac player and its just hard to deal with raidens hit and run mind games.

 

[Metzos]

The normal teleport can be punished if you time D1 into TKS, I do it all the time, not the enhanced one however to be more specific. I'm talking as soon as he teleports when you can uppercut him into TKS or TKP, you can do the same if you poke him into TKS as well, however if you wait until KL hits you with any attack it'll be too late by that time, you'll either eat the hit or have to block it.

FTR, I can't stand KL's enhanced teleport, 3 times and has armor? A bit much...there's really nothing you can do other then jump around it it's so dumb. Even with all of KL's nerfs, he's still bs lol.

Nope there are sometimes that his teleport kick cant be punished at all. That is if he does the teleport while jumping and being in the highest height when he does the teleport. This allows him for a safe teleport which cant be punished thus jailing you after you block the kick. His EX can be punished but it requires extremely good timing.

 

[GodsLonelyman]

Nope there are sometimes that his teleport kick cant be punished at all. That is if he does the teleport while jumping and being in the highest hight when he does the teleport. This allows him for a safe teleport which cant be punished thus jailing you after you block the kick. His EX can be punished but it requires extremely good timing.

You're right about this. I gave up on the Ermac Vs Kung Lao matchup. Not worth the headache, Just have a pocket char ready for Lao.

 

[KamikazeJD]

You're right about this. I gave up on the Ermac Vs Kung Lao matchup. Not worth the headache, Just have a pocket char ready for Lao.

cmon now.. You cant jus give up. You dont learn anything.

 

[NRF CharlieMurphy]

You're right about this. I gave up on the Ermac Vs Kung Lao matchup. Not worth the headache, Just have a pocket char ready for Lao.

Sub Zero has the same problem. except Ermac has a low hitbox.... so at least he can get out of the loop.
The best thing I can tell ya is to jump back to only eat the kicks.