Your welcome! I'm glad everyone got a little bit more excited about playing Kensou. I'm new to KOF myself, but watching a combination of SoCal/Japanese matches really gave me a good idea on character strategies and zoning principles. I suggest you all do the same. There is a particularly interesting set of matches featuring Poongko (Yes, the SSF4AE Daigo-Slayer) using a bunch of characters and running train on people. Interesting stuff! I'll post back here if I find any notable Kensous we can emulate.
In the meantime, here are a few more things I use that seem to work well:
- cr.
as an AA is interchangeable with st.
.
has better vertical reach, so it's better if you're close to your opponent, and cr.
lowers Kensou's hurtbox so most jump-ins whiff. Both are great GTFO me buttons and can be cancelled into
Fireball or
flip for zoning/pressure purposes.
- st.
is a low hitting normal, so carefully walking forward and poking your opponent's feet with st.
, st.
target combo can be effective. If you connect, always remember to link another cr.
and profit! Empty hop st.
is interchangeable with empty hop cr.
, and looks weird as hell because he's standing yet still hitting low. Dem mindgames.
- Every now and then (like after rekkas KND, fireball pressure), your opponent might just sit back and try to block your Hop pressure. Try empty hopping into his command grab super. Huge payoff for this one, and it's a 1 frame throw!
- EX Fireball is a ridiculous tool in fireball wars. Moves twice as fast as his D fireball and nullifys other class 1 projectiles + keeps going. Good damage and goes full screen. Don't forget to use this as a round ender sometimes.
- The air
or
is pretty good. If you jump back and manage to land a stray one, you get a free
. But it's super unsafe on block. This move looks like it's best left in combos. The EX version on the other hand is absolutely nuts. Still trying to figure this one out. : /
- On the topic of Kensou's best position on a team: 1st or 2nd exclusively. Kensou seems best suited for early game, and the most he needs to do good damage is 2 meter. Anything more than that is unnecessary. There are many characters that utilize 3+ bar better than Kensou, but few that are as effective as him early on. If there is another character on your team that you feel functions better on point (or if you just don't want Kensou there), 2nd works great too. His HD combos are easy to confirm into and do great damage for relatively little effort. Again, this is all IMO.
*For the record, my team is Kensou / Maxima / King. Might change it to Kensou / Maxima / Kim or Iori. I love King, but she's not the best anchor, and Kensou is a better point...she's kind of lost lol.