David Kong is here to answer your noob questions!

[DJMirror949]

Well this is kinda important til once you reach a certain point. In case you're wondering what's the best HD combo to do for your characters:

KOF XIII [All Character Neo Max Combo]

it does practical HD Combos with 2 full drives and 2 power bars from mid screen for all the characters in the game. Since most of these combos starts with jumping in, you can also start with down+B to HD Combo to Standing C or D whatever you need to do.

Don't worry about the trials and such. Those are something fun to do on your spare time.

Do not be afraid to ask and post videos of your matches in the characters thread and ask for tips and advices. Please also ask questions like what can I do in this situations or what was I getting hit by? Why did I do this? dont be afraid to ask for advices and apply it in causal matches. It doesn't hurt to ask.

Example: I would go over my matches with ESB about our set at FFA or UCI King of Friday Ranbat. He would tells me: what I did wrong/What was he looking for/What I was looking for/What we were scared of etc.

Remember: Fighting games are never meant to be played by one person, it's meant to be played by all and many.

[B1gblack]

hey you wouldnt happen to go alex's arcade would you?

[DJMirror949]

yeah I do go to Alex's Arcade

[Krusiv]

KoF newbie here. I am more of a defensive player so I like to keep things lame. Do I have a chance in KoF? Overall it seems like an aggressive game and I don't think I'll fit in.

[DJMirror949]

Oh man I need to get ESB Cancel in here

[davidkong07]

KoF newbie here. I am more of a defensive player so I like to keep things lame. Do I have a chance in KoF? Overall it seems like an aggressive game and I don't think I'll fit in.

Great question! In KoFXIII, defense is just as important as offense. With that said, if you're used to being lame like Dhalsim is in SF4, you won't find a character like that in KoFXIII. There are characters that can zone well with projectiles and normals, but no character can win by doing nothing but zoning. Characters that play lame in KoFXIII also must utilize mixups, combos, and hit confirms to succeed.

If you want to keep things lame, you can still definitely succeed in KoFXIII. However, it will be harder to do than in games like SF4. Your anti airs will need to be seriously on point, and your blocking/alternate guarding must be great as well. In short, the answer to your question is that you can be lame to the degree that your opponent will let you be. KoFXIII is a very dynamic game, and just concentrating on defense or offense by itself will not bring you success.

Try playing some of these characters to see if they fit your playstyle:

Leona
Ash
Maxima
King
Robert
Saiki
Mai
Joe
Athena

I hope this was helpful, please let me know if you have any more questions!

[Krusiv]

I hope this was helpful, please let me know if you have any more questions!

Yes that was very helpful. Just a few more small questions for now: the characters I'm working on at the moment are King, Ash and Athena. Out of those characters who works best as an anchor? Who should I put first to build meter with for my second character? Obviously this isn't like Marvel where you have assists (so team comp isn't as important) but I don't want to stick a meter-hog in my first slot you know?

[davidkong07]

I hope this was helpful, please let me know if you have any more questions!

Yes that was very helpful. Just a few more small questions for now: the characters I'm working on at the moment are King, Ash and Athena. Out of those characters who works best as an anchor? Who should I put first to build meter with for my second character? Obviously this isn't like Marvel where you have assists (so team comp isn't as important) but I don't want to stick a meter-hog in my first slot you know?

In this case, I would say Ash would be the best anchor out of the three. Both King and Athena have relatively poor HD combos. Ash's HD combo coupled with Sans Coulette gives him the scariest comeback potential out of the three, although I don't believe Ash is a particularly strong anchor either. If you can't do his Sans Coulette and HD combos, he loses all of his value as an anchor.

King's best combos are her 1 meter 1 drive combos. Because of this, she makes a great point character. I would put Athena second, because combos ending with her level 2 EX super can be very good. Her drive cancel combos which start with command grab are also good. Therefore, my opinion for your team order would be:

King, Athena, Ash.

Of course, this is only my opinion. I only have a limited knowledge of Ash and Athena, so you may find a better order yourself as you play more. Feel free to experiment!

[TarMa971]

Why most of pro play NEST Kyo instead of regular Kyo, is he powerfull ?

Then, how can i cancel hcb+D into st.C in HD mode ? Is there a trick ?

For example combo 12 of this video:
KOF XIII: Kyo combo tutorial - A closer look at Kyo

Thanks.

[davidkong07]

Both NESTS Kyo and regular Kyo are extremely good, arguably top tier characters. They simply have different play styles. NESTS Kyo has a great neutral ground game with his guard point rekkas, while regular Kyo has amazingly dynamic damage output with meter and his air super. Both have jump down + C, which is one of the best normal moves in the entire game.

Unfortunately, I do not know of any execution trick for the cancel you are talking about. As far as I know, you should never be able to cancel a special move into a normal. I recommend visiting the Kyo thread to ask this question.

The combo transcript provided by the video says that combo #12 is jump+C, std+C, df+D, (B+C) run in, std+C, df+D, hcb+D, qcf+D, qcfx2 A+C.

There is no hcb D into st. C involved.

[thec0re3]

Hard Knockdowns. Is there an advantage to them? If so, whats the best way to defend after being hit by them.

[Sharnt]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LSWyZVWLfE

it does practical HD Combos with 2 full drives and 2 power bars from mid screen for all the characters in the game. Since most of these combos starts with jumping in, you can also start with down+B to HD Combo to Standing C or D whatever you need to do.

I just looked and I have some commentary on this video.
Combos are not full screen
It's more important to learn a 2Ex Hd combo full screen than corner one when starting.

More than that, some of them are quite complicated for the damage done, and might be easier, and deal more if the video didn't have making neomax combo in mind.

Try playing some of these characters to see if they fit your playstyle:

Leona
Ash
Maxima
King
Robert
Saiki
Mai
Joe
Athena

I think you forgot Kensou, maybe the most effective hadotrap character of the whole game with his amazing Dp move. And maybe the easier to play in a first time. Plus he has amazing tools to play an aggressive game.
At the end of the day I recommend him as a lot of people who beginned and this game and most of them love him.

Hard Knockdowns. Is there an advantage to them? If so, whats the best way to defend after being hit by them.

Mixups, and safe jumps essentially.
Because if you're not hardnocked down the fast recovering might throw you out of most of the wakeup mixups or safe jump attempt (because your opponent must know before if you will wake up faster or not). But to fast recover on wakeup carry you very fast into the corner. Other disagrement after a fast wakeup you can be grab at the first frame, so be careful (And forget it against grapler in corner).

By the way you might be able to dp some people who aren't use to play against fast recovering player.

Nevertheless on an hardknockdown the mixups options are very strong and some top players are using option select on them which beats most recovering solutions.

[spoiler]
Safe jump example :
[KOF XIII] Kim Safe Jump Video

The goal of a safe jump is to jump on a waking opponent without letting him dp in reaction by guarding the dp because of the landing. But it's not he only kind of option select.

Rolls especially are easy to option select on one side by doing a run input while landing on a safe jump (you must imput the run a little before landing). If the jump whiff the character will run in the buffed direction, there is a trick to option select both direction but it's near one frame timing and really hard to do (you must input as p1 646 to run forward if your opponent rolls backward and because of the buffer if your opponent rolls forward he will cross down you transforming one 6 input into another 4 and make you run in the good direction).
It's just a general exemple but it's the kind of thing which can be done on a hardknockdown.[/spoiler]

[davidkong07]

Hard Knockdowns. Is there an advantage to them? If so, whats the best way to defend after being hit by them.

I apologize for the long delay in answering this question, I've been quite busy recently.

Let's go over the differences between a hard and soft knockdown. As mentioned by the previous poster, a soft knockdown can be avoided by using a roll recovery. This roll recovery has no grab invincibility, but allows your opponent to move out of the way of more pressure. If you correctly read a recovery roll, you can punish with a grab, or simply continue your pressure.

A hard knockdown means you cannot recovery roll, but you have 11 frames of grab invincibility on wakeup. A hard knockdown guarantees that your opponent will take a very specific amount of time to wakeup, meaning that you can practice and apply true meaty wakeup pressure afterwards. In this sense, there is a definite advantage to hard knockdowns.

To defend against high level pressure after a hard knockdown, you must understand exactly what your opponent is going for. A wakeup roll will always lose to a perfectly timed meaty attack or command grab, so rolling on wakeup should be done ONLY if you see a proper opening or mistimed pressure. To counter any kind of hit, you can do an invincible reversal attack, such as an uppercut. This works just like in most other 2D fighting games. Remember, that the most solid option on wakeup is blocking. Blocking can be a very good idea, especially if you have meter for a guard cancel CD or invincible guard cancel roll.

To answer your question directly, THE BEST WAY to defend yourself after a hard knockdown will vary, depending on if you KNOW EXACTLY what your opponent is doing. Even though I have suggested some good common sense options, there is no catch all answer to every wakeup situation. It will largely depend on the matchup and the meaty setup your opponent is using.

I hope this was helpful. Let me know if you have any other questions!

[Tye@l]

No doubt you're already tired of answering these kinds of questions, but I'm chest deep in KOF and I'm treading water.

I'm practically a stranger to fighting games, having been introduced with SSF4 in 2010. But since then, I've tried to play a wide variety of fighting games, Like UMVC3, 3SO, HD Turbo Remix, Tekken 5 and so on. But none of them can match up to the amount of just... STUFF, there is in KOF XIII.

One reason that I wanted to get this game, is that I heard it's very offense oriented, and more focused on rushdown and aggression. That's always been a big problem of mine, is to apply pressure, ranged or close-up. Truth is... I'm never terribly confident in my fighting ability. I'm always too afraid to eat a reversal or miss my links so I rarely go on the attack. And more often than not I eat in towards the end when I'm being overwhelmed. No amount of practice really built up my confidence, cause I'd drop a combo, beat myself up over it and try too hard or too little to get back into the fight and lose. I tend to play a either space control or a poke/punish game style, but I want to force myself to come out of my shell a bit more and try to get some aggression into my game style.

I've had the game for a couple days and I have some grasp of the just the hops and some very basic combos, but nothing mastered yet. One big thing that's holding me back from trying to enjoy the game is the execution required for some of just the BnB's. My team right now is Terry/Diamon/Robert, and just getting some of their Super Cancels to happen is really wearing on my wrist. I can't seem to get the timing right, or much of the time I can't get the move out at all! This game does look fun, it really does! But I'm just having a really, REALLY hard time getting into it.

Sadly I'm out in Nevada, where there's no real local fighting scene, just EVO once a year. And I doubt my car could handle the summer trips from Vegas to LA and back again just to practice. And I keep odd hours as far as online goes, on top of being a complete n00b at the time of posting.


tl;dr version: Game is hard! Fighting Spirit is extinguished. How do specials and cancels?

[solidshark]

tl;dr version: Game is hard! Fighting Spirit is extinguished. How do specials and cancels?

Before David gets here to answer your question, welcome first of all. Glad you're liking XIII so far, but don't worry if it takes time to getting used to. Of all the current-gen fighters, XIII is likely the most execution heavy, especially with the other fighters you've played, it'll take some time getting used to.

In regards to your style, you have the ability to change up playstyles as you go, and you'll want to with most characters. Space control and poke/punish is good, but the mobility options in KOF make it paramount to take advantage of rushdown.

For your team right now, if you haven't been to trial mode yet, here's a few combos to practice with for starters (forgive me if you already know the notations):

Terry: cr.(crouching) , cr. , qcb ( )
         cr. , cr. , st.(standing) , qcb

Robert: st. ,  ,  , dp (dragon punch -  )
          cr. , cr. , st.  , hcf( )

Daimon: st. , st. , dp
            st. , hcb,f( )
           
You can jump-in with  or  to start these too. Try doing these quicker than you might be used to with other fighters.

We've got a wiki for XIII here if you want some more in-depth stuff, and wikis for Terry, Daimon, and Robert.