Hey all, I'm new to KOF and looking into K' as my first character. Any tips you guys can give to a complete beginner in this game? [Note I came from an SF background, but I'm here to improve my execution skills and learn proper fundamentals of the game.]
Howdy! Best thing I can suggest for you with K' is to first learn how to protect yourself without using meter! You don't want to rely on meter so much for situations that don't need it!
Defense with normals is important. Using st.A to anti-air people that hop is better than trying to anti-air with Ein Trigger or a dp sometimes. You want to make full use of your normals to poke people when you can. His far standing D is also a great anti-air and has a very long hitbox. You can use it to keep people from full jumping in on you. If you want to get real ballsy, you can HD activate off of it and go for a full combo, but that's more advanced.
d.C is probably one of his slower anti-airs, but if they try to safe jump, your st.A whiffed, or what not, this can easily be cancelled into any other special or command normal.
Playing defense can be beneficial. K' special moves can lead into combos from random hits. Say for example if I pressure someone with his fireball and they try to jump after. I could do Minute spike as they jump and snag them out of the air for a full combo. If they try to jump in on me from high up, I could dp or use Ein Trigger into f+D to snag them out of the air for a full combo.
My suggestion, for defensive purposes, always use C version Ein Trigger. The fireball moves faster, the hitbox on his flame kick is longer, the actual Ein Trigger has longer active frames and people can even land in it if they jumped too poorly. It's a very good neutral game tool.
Sometimes the best defense is running away. You can't always be pressured in the corner. Using his B or D teleport to run or get around your opponent is a good idea, especially if you don't want to waste meter to GC Roll or GC Counter. Also, defense is about not making too many silly and unnecessary errors. K' heavy version DP is invincible on start up, but slow. If you could hit them with a normal, hit them with a normal. Don't depend on your C Dp for anti-air or your Minute spike into narrow spike for getting in. Both are extremely punishable moves. I'm not saying you shouldn't try it, but mix up your aggression with plain run-ins or jump-ins or someone will block narrow spike low and punish you.
CombosIf you want to get in with a full combo in midscreen, these are what you need to do.
(As close as possible) d.B, qcf+A, f+D =>
Hop C, st.C(1), qcf+A, f+D =>
Now these are two hit, hit confirms. That's not entirely easy, but what you can do is, if it's blocked, do f+B instead. This does the fireball and is much safer on block than f+D. Also, d.B won't combo in a jump in unless you cross them up. That's not very easy with K', but as you learn more about him, you'll get it and that d.B, qcf+A, f+D will come in handy.
Other than that, you really want to push your opponents to the corner. You can get full combos in the corner with hop-ins for practically any normal as long as you're in the corner.
EX meter makes it so any combo starter can turn into a full combo, but only do this in the midscreen or if you want that extra damage. If you don't have to use it to start your combo, don't.
PressureWhen you're far away, use your Ein Trigger by itself to neutralize fireballs until you can get in hop range. From there, you can use your very fast normals to poke at your opponent and push them to the corner. Mix up your constant hop pressure, j.CDs, and hopping and doing nothing to throw them off. When you hop and do nothing, you can land into a low B or you can throw them. Either way, lead them towards the corner.
In the corner, if they're still blocking, you can apply some serious pressure to them. I like to do d.B, d.B, qcf+A and quickly do st.B. St.B pins them down if they tried to press anything or jump. If they didn't do anything after the st.B, run up and do it again. You can mix up your pressure with other strings like st.C (1 hit), qcf+A, d.B, qcf+A or d.B, qcf+A, d.B, qcf+A. You want to keep pressuring them with your Ein Trigger until they make a mistake and you can score a full combo off of them. It's important to keep them from jumping out. If you know they're gonna jump, hopping straight up with jump B or jump D to knock them out of the air.
When you improve a bit more, you can TK (Tiger Knee A.K.A
) your air minute spike when you land to instantly hit someone after you hit them with an air-to-air normal.
Anyway, hope this is helpful! Check out the wiki for more combos or general information, but this should be sufficient for a beginner.