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Question - Kotal Kahn Good defense separates top players from the rest

TackyHaddock

Salty Mashers Krew
Hear me out. We all know MKX is an offensive game, but are top players really considered top because they have the best offense? No. I have watched pretty much every major, the vast majority of ESL top 8s, and a ton of other top MKX play since the game's release: in my opinion, the rarely discussed attribute that separates elite players from the rest is exceptional defensive play. There are thousands of mediocre players that can piece together high damage combos and formidable attacking strings, but only a very small percentage of elite players that seem to be able to consistently block most of the mixups and other attacking strings that the scrubbish masses (myself included) consider to be unreactable.

First example: DJT. Yes, he mains tremor and lao, who both have rediculous offense. However, the many moments that I have been most impressed with his play are when I stated "how the fuck did he block that?!" DJT is so often able to turn the tide in matches and win as a result of that key block.

Another example: sonic fox. Yes, sonic often has a seemingly fearless yolo style of attacking play, but I've seen that the key to many of his victories was getting a key block of an attack that otherwise could have won the match for his opponent. And many of these blocks are ones that 99% of us would never have made.

Even though MKX is not a defensive game overall, it is good defense that makes a player elite.
 

ArmedCalf

I guess I play Necromancer now.. PSN: ArmedCalf
The characters I have the most trouble blocking are Quan, Johnny, Reptile and Kung Jin. I just get absolutely opened up by these guys. I agree with you though, I think defense is super super important
 

CrimsonShadow

Administrator and Community Engineer
Administrator
Hear me out. We all know MKX is an offensive game, but are top players really considered top because they have the best offense? No. I have watched pretty much every major, the vast majority of ESL top 8s, and a ton of other top MKX play since the game's release: in my opinion, the rarely discussed attribute that separates elite players from the rest is exceptional defensive play.
I kind of disagree with this. Imo it depends on the game and character, but exceptional offense is definitely one of the thing that separated people at this year's EVO. If you look at Foxy's ability to open people up in various ways with Lao, it's one of the things that opponents had the most trouble dealing with. Sonic Fox is likewise excellent at opening people up with Erron, and in a game where you constantly have to guess high/low, you can't simply get by with being great at blocking and spacing -- you have the press the advantage. Same with King's Predator/Quan Chi at the events he won.

This isn't to say that defense isn't important, because it is; if you're lacking in defense, you probably aren't going to go very far. But as far as being THE factor that separates top players from the rest, I strongly disagree. If anything offense and ability to open people is equally important in MKX.
 

ArmedCalf

I guess I play Necromancer now.. PSN: ArmedCalf
I feel like compared to Injustice, the 50/50's are so much faster in MKX as well. It could be just me though - I really only learned what fuzzy blocking was during this game
 

TackyHaddock

Salty Mashers Krew
Also matters what defensive options each character has

You can't avoid that contributing factor
of course, but many of the instances of elite defensive play that come to my mind are when players make that key block, which is of course a mechanic that every char has at its disposal. Where most of us would have to make a "guess" as to how to block in many situations, the best players make an informed decision.
 

I GOT HANDS

Official Infrared Scorp wid gapless Wi-Fi pressure
There are thousands of mediocre players that can piece together high damage combos and formidable attacking strings
That's not what good offence is tho. Good offense is knowing when to go for a forward advancing and catching your opponent off guard, it's when your string gets blocked knowing whether to poke your opponent out of his response and continue, it's knowing when to jump in/over into combo, it's knowing when to throw, it's knowing how to get your opponent to respect you so much that throws are free, it's knowing when take that 50/50 chance of getting in on whether to take the the 12% off a throw, its knowing when that 50/50 is actually a 99/1, it's knowing how to use your armor breaking move to make it so your opponent never wants to risk waking up with armor, its knowing when getting blocked on something is equivalent to a free combo by armouring through their follow up, it's knowing when staggering is equivalent to free chip meter, etc, etc, etc.

I think a good offense is just as important if not slightly more so, you can block perfectly all day but you still gonna lose if you can't get in, Sonic KNOWS this and everything above, and that's why his seemingly "yolo" play appears to just work for him and people can't quite grasp how this "yolo" shit just pays off for him. I doubt he presses a single button without knowing the full implications and objective of it, he is never on anything close to complacent or comfortable in his skill just to play his game he knows he has to play YOUR game for you too, that boy has AMAZING focus and intelligence, and this is why his skill transfers across to multiple games, this is why he is so far ahead of most of us on this site, this is why the people who thought his yolo EB style was just him abusing he 50/50 nature of MKX got to eat a big dick when he swapped to Kitana and kept doing it. IMO I think the difference has never been so pronounced as watching him vs Perfect Legend, although I'm not sure that a lot of people recognise much further than it being a stomp. PL is known for his insanely aggressive yolo play as well right - the difference is, PL himself has described his play as "random number generation", the dude just throws out random shit as undpredictably as he can, I doubt he even knows what he's going to do until he presses the buttons, and while that unpredictable fight style can be hard to defend against (shouts to Deadpool vs Taskmaster), it's no match for someone with similarly fast paced aggressive except delivered cold and calculated and with a stupid ass ponytail beanie






Just my opinion. I also think defence is a similar game and takes a similar amount of skill as well, with extra elements like fuzzying and the like. I just don't think we can understate how important a good offensive play is and how much more it is than 50/50, execute combo. While I agree with the thread - a good defense separates the great from the good - a good offense does the same. I think just saying "a good neutral game" is much more accurate. Hope Sonic himself comments here I'd love to see his perspective.
 
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TackyHaddock

Salty Mashers Krew
That's not what good offence is tho. Good offense is knowing when to go for a forward advancing and catching your opponent off guard, it's when your string gets blocked knowing whether to poke your opponent out of his response and continue, it's knowing when to jump in/backdash and whiff punish, it's knowing when to throw, it's knowing how to get your opponent to respect you so much that throws are free, it's knowing when take that 50/50 chance of getting in on whether to take the the 12% off a throw, its knowing when that 50/50 is actually a 99/1, it's knowing how to use your armor breaking move to make it so your opponent never wants to risk waking up with armor, its knowing when getting blocked on something is equivalent to a free combo by armouring through their follow up, it's knowing when staggering is equivalent to free chip meter, etc, etc, etc.

I think a good offense is just as important if not slightly more so, you can block perfectly all day but you still gonna lose if you can't get in, Sonic KNOWS this and everything above, and that's why his seemingly "yolo" play appears to just work for him and people can't quite grasp how this "yolo" shit just pays off for him. I doubt he presses a single button without knowing the full implications and objective of it, he is never on anything close to complacent or comfortable in his skill just to play his game he knows he has to play YOUR game for you too, that boy has AMAZING focus and intelligence, and this is why his skill transfers across to multiple games, this is why he is so far ahead of most of us on this site, this is why the people who thought his yolo EB style was just him abusing he 50/50 nature of MKX got to eat a big dick when he swapped to Kitana and kept doing it. IMO I think the difference has never been so pronounced as watching him vs Perfect Legend, allhough I'm not sure that a lot of people recognise much further than it being a stomp. PL is known for his insanely aggressive yolo play as well right - the difference is, PL himself has described his play as "random number generation", the dude just throws out random shit as undpredictably as he can, I doubt he even knows what he's going to do until he presses the buttons, and while that unpredictable fight style can be hard to defend against (shouts to Deadpool vs Taskmaster), it's no match for someone with similarly fast paced aggressive except delivered cold and calculated and with a stupid ass ponytail beanie






Just my opinion. I also think defence is a similar game and takes a similar amount of skill as well, with extra elements like fuzzying and the like. I just don't think we can understate how important a good offensive play is and how much more it is than 50/50, execute combo. While I agree with the thread - a good defense separates the great from the good - a good defend does the same. I think just saying "a good neutral game" is much more accurate. Hope Sonic himself comments here I'd love to see his perspective.
I agree on your breakdown of the various aspects of good offense, but overall I still think it is strong defense that is the main distinguishing factor when trying to determine what puts the elite players in a league of their own
 
I agree with you on the fact that top players have a really good defense but it's important to define what makes them have a good defense. They don't only have better reactions than the average player (even though some of them have exceptionnal reactions), but they are trained to react the right way in every situation. They practice alot against other opponents and in the lab and they kind of get the usual paterns that will help them make reads, and they know their timings to fuzzy guard most of the 50/50 in the game.

Another important point in top players' defense is that they know how to get out of bad situations that could lead up to potentiel 50/50 or pressure by the opponent. They know where to poke or armor in specific strings and they know when it might be a good idea to jump forward, backward or neutral jump to get out of pressure, even on wake up.

A good exemple of good defense mixed with the offense that you were talking about is to look at Foxy's play. Because he uses Lao and people are scared to apply OKI on him because of EX Spin (which he barely never uses as a wake up), he frequently wakes up with 11212 to reverse momentum and get out a of potentialy bad situation on knock down.

All in all, there's a lot of aspect that top players have in their game that makes them trully be top players.
 

dennycascade

UPR_ghastem
It's why I hate online. Theres no way to play a good defense, attempting to react to anything will get you blown up. The game is 100% offense online, as it's mostly whoever is pressing the most buttons wins. Anyone who has played an online cryomancer sub knows what I mean.
 
Hear me out. We all know MKX is an offensive game, but are top players really considered top because they have the best offense? No. I have watched pretty much every major, the vast majority of ESL top 8s, and a ton of other top MKX play since the game's release: in my opinion, the rarely discussed attribute that separates elite players from the rest is exceptional defensive play. There are thousands of mediocre players that can piece together high damage combos and formidable attacking strings, but only a very small percentage of elite players that seem to be able to consistently block most of the mixups and other attacking strings that the scrubbish masses (myself included) consider to be unreactable.

First example: DJT. Yes, he mains tremor and lao, who both have rediculous offense. However, the many moments that I have been most impressed with his play are when I stated "how the fuck did he block that?!" DJT is so often able to turn the tide in matches and win as a result of that key block.

Another example: sonic fox. Yes, sonic often has a seemingly fearless yolo style of attacking play, but I've seen that the key to many of his victories was getting a key block of an attack that otherwise could have won the match for his opponent. And many of these blocks are ones that 99% of us would never have made.

Even though MKX is not a defensive game overall, it is good defense that makes a player elite.
So you're saying that... being able to make good guesses/reads is what separates the top from the rest? If so, that's not specific to defense. Or to this game for that matter.
 

CrimsonShadow

Administrator and Community Engineer
Administrator
In a game full of 50/50s, how is good defense anything more then a good guess?
Spacing/movement, timing, preemptively interrupting attacks, armoring through attacks, and blocking non-50/50s are all still important components of defense.

With that said though -- in a match between two players who are equally skilled in those areas, the game's design definitely favors the aggressor in a lot of cases.
 

ColdSpine

"I wore those colors before you"
There is nothing called good defense in a game plagued with fast 50-50.

IMHO what seperates those players from the rest is their ability to make quick decisions, critical thinking, creativity, unpredactibility and the ability to turn the tides of battle.

there is some shit that cant be fuzzy guarded no matter how good you are.
 

Hidan

Where the hell is Reiko's wheel kick
Hear me out. We all know MKX is an offensive game, but are top players really considered top because they have the best offense? No. I have watched pretty much every major, the vast majority of ESL top 8s, and a ton of other top MKX play since the game's release: in my opinion, the rarely discussed attribute that separates elite players from the rest is exceptional defensive play. There are thousands of mediocre players that can piece together high damage combos and formidable attacking strings, but only a very small percentage of elite players that seem to be able to consistently block most of the mixups and other attacking strings that the scrubbish masses (myself included) consider to be unreactable.

First example: DJT. Yes, he mains tremor and lao, who both have rediculous offense. However, the many moments that I have been most impressed with his play are when I stated "how the fuck did he block that?!" DJT is so often able to turn the tide in matches and win as a result of that key block.

Another example: sonic fox. Yes, sonic often has a seemingly fearless yolo style of attacking play, but I've seen that the key to many of his victories was getting a key block of an attack that otherwise could have won the match for his opponent. And many of these blocks are ones that 99% of us would never have made.

Even though MKX is not a defensive game overall, it is good defense that makes a player elite.
No, it usually is a situation where your character has no other choice