Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3

From Shoryuken Wiki

Contents 1 Introduction 2 Game Mechanics 3 Basic Strategy 4 Tier List 5 Advanced Strategy (WIP by Shock/Sinala TakerECW@aol.com) 6 Game Versions 7 The Characters

Introduction

Game Mechanics

Based upon Lex's guide from Shoyruken.com

Ground Combos:

Blocked ground combos are very good for two reasons, chip damage and position. You should almost never finish a ground combo unless you want to use the last hit as a positional setup of some kind. Stopping a ground combo before the last hit keeps you close so you can continue the rushdown. 99% of all ground combos push the opponent back on the last hit.

example character: Jade

When someone is blocking, run in and do her knee combo (HK, HK, LK, HK). Stop on the 3rd hit to remain close, and then go into run jabs. The reason for this is you can get more guaranteed damage from the chip hits and continue rush, resetting the trap, and to make sure they are blocking throws and not trying to counter attack. Restart the leg combo, stop at the 3rd hit, then mix it up, maybe stick in a standing HK or a dash kick. This is a lot better than completing the initial ground combo and pushing the victim back, allowing them to counter attack easier, and continue assaulting them.

Blocking:

Blocking in MK is different from virtually every fighting game. Obviously, there is a button for block, rather than holding back, which eliminates the need for proximity blocking entirely, and you can buffer moves easily while blocking. A not so obvious concept about blocking in MK is frame update. Character sprites are behind by one tick in MK, so you can block things upon the frame they connect. There is a similar concept in SFA3 called "Blue Blocking" which your character turns blue and it takes away less guard stun meter. You can essentially Blue Block sweeps and low hitting attacks in UMK3 by tapping D BL on or just before the frame the sweep will connect, and your character will not have to duck, enabling them to counter faster, or sometimes duck half way, and stand back up instantly. It is a good idea to learn how to block only when absolutely needed, so you aren't stuck in standing back up frames after releasing block, rather, releasing block at the end of the contact and standing up while unblocking.

Run:

In simplest usage, the run bar depletes obviously when you press the run button and forward, and you continue to run by holding forward, not forward run. You can hold run and tap forward repeatedly to take small, medium, and large running steps. If you hold forward run after the run bar has been depleted in any situation, the run bar will not refill until you release either forward, or run. Run bar is depleted in slightly different delegations for an aaLP or HP, a little more for aaLPLP or HPHP, and on moves like the Teleport Uppercut, and Liu Kang's Bike Kick. After a pop up combo, you can walk forward and let the run bar begin to fill up, once you get a sliver of green, you can take a "run burst" and get an extra HP before many juggle combos.

Run jabs:

You can cancel a LP or HP by tapping any other attack button, however, run performs no action when you tap it (except if you hold it even without run meter you can no longer do special moves) so there is no chance of throwing out a HK or LK or blocking, and you can create a rhythm to continue advancing forward, or doing a double LP, cancel with Run. What this does is it forces the LP or HP to retract the instant it completes it's contact frame, rather than holding it, reducing the total jab duration by 1/3. It may not seem like much, but it is in the heat of battle. The best way to run jab is to keep your meter from emptying for as long as possible. This means you should hold forward, and alternating tapping run and LP, and releasing forward briefly during the LP, so the run meter doesn't drop anymore than it has too. This is a very offensive tactic and dramatically changes the game when used effectively. Not only does it give you multiple chances of landing a throw, but its really good chip damage and it moves the victim towards the evil, evil corners. Doing more than 2 LP run jabs in the corner will result in push back, so try to keep it to a pace of 2, and mix up with other attacks when you see an opening. Watch for early counter ducking LKs or uppercuts.

Kara jabs:

Canceling a LP or HP with block can be a very good idea against characters with fast wake up moves, specifically Kabal. Essentially, you should make it a point to throw out some LPs, in effort to bait a spin out of Kabal, and cancel that LP with block so the instant the spin happens, you will go into block frames. As long as you are holding block on or before the frame of contact, the spin will not be able to connect, even if you hear the jab sound, nothing will come out, you will just block. This also sets up the chance for snuffs and throws out of special moves, especially one that require a forward tap. The LP will either connect, you will throw them, or you will block. As long as you are dong this properly there is very little chance a surprise move will get you. You might want to try practicing against Kabal players, try to get a basic combo or a sweep to knock him down, then run in and labor an obvious LP. This will generally cause the Kabal player to react with a wake up spin. On the average player, the Spin will plow through them, but if you kara jab rather than run jab, the spin will be blocked and you can punish Kabal. This tactic works well on just about any character with a special move like this.

Corner Runjabs:

Once you have someone backed into the corner and blocking, run up to them and tap LP, run, LP, run, or LP,LP, run etc. to throw out really fast run jabs. They will be in the corner, and they will eat pixel after pixel of block damage. Don't do more than 3 jabs in succession or you will suffer "pushback". The only thing that the victim can really do is escape with a special move (teleport, fly kick, square punch, etc), uppercut, or crouching LK. If you can sniff out when they are going to try to do any of those, do a knee or special move, preferably a containment. If they block a knee you will be pushed back, so do it wisely to keep them trapped in the corner. Try to throw out 4-6 run jabs then knee, because thats usually when people realize that they are losing a lot of energy to chip damage. If the knee hits, continue to run jab and keep them locked down. Also, don't forget to hold back while you do the corner run jabs so that they can't counter throw. If you are under corner run jab pressure, after the first 1 or 2, try and spam on HK, and you have a good chance of sneaking out a knee lift on them right as they are about to do another run jab.

Throw Defense:

Hold "Back" and you will not be thrown. Up Back, Down Back, Down Back Block also works. Many people complain about throws, but throw prevention is pretty easy in MK, and it's been this way from MK1 through MK4.

Crossups:

Im sure you all know have an idea of what this is. Its purpose is a little different in UMK3. The main purpose of this is to "flip" the controls of the victim, setting up potential cross up throws. It's also useful to crossup and try for a jumping HP starter to ground combo, which if timed correctly, can snuff uppercuts. There are a lot of character specific tactics for jumping HP linkers, for example, Kabal can often times land within the collision area of an uppercut and start his combo without getting hit, or Jax and the female ninjas can cross up while still in the air, and connect a jump punch starter with their foot behind them, because the attack started before you crossed the other player's axis, but the collision box became hot after, thus putting it directly behind them. Another cross up concept is the reverse hitting in general. You can time sweeps to connect behind you if someone does a shallow cross up to try and land for a cross up throw. The opponent will land right behind you, and you if you time it right, the sweep will be out in front of you, and your back side will touch them. This also works on standing LKs very often in similar situations.

Crossup Throws:

This tactic is best used while an opponent is being defensive. The best way to describe this is when you are at jump distance, do an early jumpkick, so you land directly on top of the victim, without hitting them. You will land overlapping the victim's sprite. If you hit LP right as you land, you will have a very good chance of connecting a throw because they have to hold back to prevent the throw, and the direction is pretty hard to determine in such a close situation in a small amount of time. A good example of this is with Kano's upward Cannonball. You can place this move to descend directly on top of your opponent, and this results in a free throw very, very often if they don't have time to counter you before you land, which is limited generally to an uppercut, followed by their rush down, and your choice of counter uppercut, or Cannonball wake up.

Special Moves:

All special moves in UMK3 are "taps". For insance, Ermac's lift is Back, Down, Back HK. Most street fighter players interpret this as a Dragon Punch motion. It can work like that still, but keep in mind that all you need to do is register the BACK switch, then the DOWN switch, then the BACK switch, and hit HK. No fluid motion is needed and you will find your game improving as you become faster, but more labored in your direction hitting. This game was made for switches and not 360's. A lot of players have trouble juggling with moves like Kitana's Air Fan, or even Kabal's air fireball. It's pretty easy to do once you understand how "taps" work. After an aaHP,HP, punisher, hit Forward UP HK for the jumpkick, then hit Forward HP LP to toss out the fan instantly, and very high, enabling a good follow up juggle. Remember that you can generally buffer move directions with a pause, and while blocking to hide your movements, and then pressing the activating attack button shortly after.

Punishment Mode:

When certain moves are blocked, they will roll up into a ball and float right next to a player setting up a punisher juggle. Blocked moves that cause this are Kano's regular Cannonball, The Ninjas' teleports, Kung Lao's dive kick, Mileena's Roll, and Stryker's Baton Dash. Other characters who have a definition air punishment set up are Sektor and Robot Smoke's teleport uppercut, which has somewhat limited options to punish depending on who you are using, Liu Kang's Bike Kick, and Mileena's Drop Kick. Other punishment scenarios to look for are against Liu Kang's Dragon Kick, Kabal's Spin, Sonya's leg grab, Reptile's Elbow Dash and Ninja Slides. All of these, when blocked, make them stay locked in place, generally very close to you, free to be countered, but only within a very brief time. This is not much longer than the amount of time it takes you get out of blocked so you must react quickly.

Anti-Air:

Commonly referred to as "aa" directly in place of the attack which would be used as anti-air. These are attacks which are used to take someone out of the air. It is very important to understand every character's best aa opportunities. A standing HK is a very simple and effective way to anti air someone. Look to use this in close range if someone tries to jump away from a run jab scenario, but also sometimes use the run jabs to juggle into a special move. Some characters can aaHP others out of the air very easily, setting up decent, to super high damage combos. Off a single aaHP, Ermac can achieve 82% on almost every character, but Jade can only get 18% when countering a jumping attack. Some characters should go for RHs on their aa's because it will set up combos, traps, or other tactics and set ups. The best simple form of aa is the uppercut. Try and scout early JKs, run under, and uppercut them from the other side. It is a great psychological tactic. Run under RHs work well also with certain characters who hit high on the RH. Some characters have special moves which serve this purpose, like Ermac's lift. It can be used if the person jumps from far away, which can be baited by use of a non side switching teleport punch. Sindel's scream is excellent anti air, as well as Kano's upward ball. Kabal's spin can be used as anti air from even a ducking position.

Damage Protection:

This is a very necessary concept in games with single moves that do as much as 21% and no air hit-limit juggle combos. It is a safeguard that makes attacks do approximately half their normal damage (chip damage is generally 25% normal damage). Grounded Jump Kicks activate damage protection, so anything you connect after a JK will do half damage. Certain special moves activate damage protection, like Male Ninja Teleport Punches, Stryker's Riot Gun, Mileena's Roll, etc, while others do not, like Robot Ninja Teleport Uppercuts, Harpoons, and Shang Tsung's Ground Eruption. Cyrax's and Sheeva's Throws can be juggled off of, and they both activate damage protection. In MK3 they did not, and you could score reasonable damage off them. This was a pointless change, as they are now even more crippled than before. Stryker and Sonya's command throws (the Baton Dash and the Leg Grab) have their own damage protection built in, in which the move itself is reduced to half damage after 3 hits combo before it, and if you get them in an autocombo, they will do 1/4 their normal damage if the combo goes beyond 3 hits. Kabal's spin is the only attack that can turn off damage protection. If you do his pop up combo, and only the uppercut connects, spin them and let them fall to the ground. On the way to the ground do aaHPHP, JK, air fireball, and you will get the full damage for the juggle, plus 1% for the uppercut in his combo, and 1 pixel from the spin, totalling 45%.

Example character: Human Smoke

Block a teleport punch from Another Human Smoke,and he goes into punishment mode. If you are mid screen, do aaHPHP, JK, teleport punch, harpoon, 3 hit pop up, aaHP, JK, air throw. The result is (with the air throw counting as a hit and adding damage) 11 hits 68%. To break this down completely and understand where the DP comes into play: aaHPHP = 13.6%, JK = 15.6%, teleport punch = 9.5% (activates DP), and now your harpoon does 2.5% intead of 5%, and the 3 hit pop up do 9% instead of 19%, (the remainder of the hits do what they should do after his pop up).

Your new combo is aaHPHP(13.2%), teleport punch (miss)(0%), aaHP (6.6% and replacing the teleport punch which does 3% more), JK (15.5%) harpoon(5%), 3 hit pop up(19%), aaHP, JK, air throw. 11 hits 78%. Even if you do aaHPHP, TP miss, aaHPHP harpoon, the combo will do 1% more than the other.

This is not always a usable combo because it depends on how close to the edge of the screen Human Smoke is, but it shows that the same amount of hits, with one hit doing less damage than the DP activating alternate move, will result in more damage.

Example character: Sonya

aaHP, JK, leg grab 3 hits 43% (no DP) JK(DP), aaHP, leg grab 3 hits 29% aaHPHP, JK, (personal DP)leg grab, 4 hits 33%

Example Character Ermac:

JK, TKS, aaHPHP, JK, TKS, aaHPHP, aaHP, JK 8 hits 52% (counting the slams' damage)

aaJK (meaning while both players are in the air) TKS, aaHPHP, JK, TKS, aaHPHP, aaHP, JK 8 hits 91% (again counting the slams damage) - identical combos, huge damage difference because the JK hit in the air.

Pushback

If you block a normal attack in the corner, the attacker gets pushed back to just under jump distance (with the exception of LP jabs, as you should know by now). If you juggle someone in the corner with two LP/HP jabs, or a jab after just about any other hit, you will be pushed back, but you can cancel this with any special move. The same thing applies to when you throw out 3 jabs in succession and they are blocked, the third punch frame will freeze and you will be pushed back. At any time during the "iceskate", you can cancel out with a special move.

Corner Resets

This is going to be difficult to explain in text, but I will do the best I can. So back to what I was saying about crossup throws, when you land on top of them and the sprites overlap, if you dont throw, the attacker will "ice skate" out of the overlap. Theres rules for this when it happens in the corner, and its very useful to know. Let me start out with mock up of the starting positions:

p1 - player one's starting position p2 - player two's starting position p1c - player one corner p2c - player two corner | - wall

|p1c p1 p2 p2c|

p2 backs p1 all the way back into p1c so that he can't go any further. Now, when p2 jumps on top of p1's sprite, he will always be pushed back out of the corner and p1 will remain in the corner. p2 will not be able to get behind p1 while p1 is backed all the way into p1c.

so, if p2 is backed all the way in p1c, and p1 jumps on top of p2's sprite, then p1 will be in the corner and p2 will be pushed out. So why is this useful? Read about kabals corner trap below and you shall see.

example character: kabal

its kabal vs. kabal. im p2 and I back p1 all the way into HIS corner, and he blocks. I start the corner rj's while waiting for him to let go of block. once he does, I hit him with the flash (B, F LK) then the corner reset pushes me back OUT of the corner. Instead of doing the uppercut combo (which will push me back on the final hit), I continue to rj until he lets go of block and i hit him w/ the flash once more. Again, the corner reset keeps him trapped in the corner, but this time I sweep him. The most common reaction to this is to "wake up jump" out of the corner. So after I hit him w/ the sweep, I hit LP to juggle him immediatley after he jumps, and I get pushed back cause its a juggle. THEN, I cancel with the flash during the "iceskate" and spin him in the air. Since his forward jump brought him out of the corner a little bit, and he was NOT all the way back into the corner, I DON'T get pushed out of the corner. Instead, he's hovering off of the ground and I get flipped around, setting me up for an easy 2xHP, JK, Fireball juggle for 42%.

Fake Ducking:

When rushing down someone, an interesting tactic to use is a fake duck. Run in, duck outside of normal attack range, stand up and run in again after they attack and counter with a combo, or at least a standing HK. This is a great bait move to throw in every now and then if you are having a hard time getting in for run jabs. You must be very fast and aware of placement for this to work, it is good for a character like Nightwolf, or Sonya.

Glitch Canceling:

Many special moves in MK have a number of hits you can do before that move is locked. Moves like the Harpoon and teleport punch have a limit of 4 hits and the moves are essentially turned off. MKII did not really have a feature like this, but they start implimenting time limit usage on moves, which still exists in UMK3. You can cancel a LP, HP, JP, or JK on the frame of contact, into a special move with a hit limit, one hit beyond that limit. In other games this technique is referred to as "Just Frames" meaning essentially you have just one frame in 60 to get this to work.

Example character: Scorpion

Block a teleport punch, counter with aaHPHP, delayed JK, teleport punch, run in, aaHP(glitch cancel on contact frame) - harpoon. You have just broken the rules and done 5 hits before a harpoon.

Other examples of moves with hit limit cancels: Kitana's Fan lift (0) Sub's Freeze (1), Mileena's Roll (2), Reptile's Forceball(3), Ermac's Telekinetic Lift(4). Sindels' scream has very strange properties. The scream itself has no legal limit, if you connect a single aaHP or LP between screams, you can continue doing screams until they are too low to the ground, however the general hit limit is 2. If you juggle 1 HP, scream, 2HPs, scream, you can continue doing single HP, dancing on that last hit limit.

After this, you can glitch cancel her scream multiple times: aaHPHP(limit reached), aaHPHPgc, aaHP gc, etc. This concept in general is a very advanced tactic and you should stay away from it in game until you know what you are doing, but the easiest character to practice this with is Sub-zero, as you will see more gcing with him than anyone.

Relaunch combos:

What you must do is do a pop up (launcher) combo and then jump as they arch in the air. Right before they land you have a small window to connect another jump punch that fools the game into thinking they are on the ground, making them stand up and sell the attack standing instead of being juggled. If you mistime it, they will either be juggled by the jump punch, missed, or they will be able to block it. Not everyone can relaunch every character due to collision detection. Kano, Ermac and Human Smoke can relaunch everyone. Sonya, Kabal and Classic Sub-zero can relaunch a lot of characters, and so and so forth. Some characters are very hard to relaunch, some are easy when it's the computer, like the Robots and Sheeva, because they don't block until the combo breaks and their vertical collisions are taller than others. This means they are touching the ground and still hittable for longer duration, but they are in blockable frames longer as well, so ultimately they have just as small a window to legit relaunch. With characters like Sonya, Ermac, Human Smoke, and Kano, you must pause after their pop up before jumping forward since they recover faster than Kabal and Classic Sub-zero. With the latter, you can just hold Up Forward after the pop up and getting relaunchers with them is very easy. In general, this is another advanced, somewhat cheap tactic, and generally not worth it unless you have mastered the timing.

Off the Ground: (otgs)

For some reason at the end of an autocombo, you cannot block on the last landing frame, or even completely lying on the ground which is why you can sweep after Jade's and Kitana's 4 hit punch combos and Jax's 7 hitter (minus the the last hit), or ducking LKs in the corner after many combos. The ducking LKs can result in free counters however, so do not use them against someone like Kabal, how can just allow you ducking LK and spin you immediately, Robot Smoke, who can teleport uppercut for free as well. Nightwolf has a 3 hit kick combo and the first hit is very low to the ground, allowing him to hit the Robots, Kabal, Kano, and Sheeva while they are laying completely on the ground in the corner within the duration of time you have before they can block. In any other situation, if you hit someone while they are lying on the ground, or in the first landing/blockable frame you will instantly appear blocking if holding block. If you connect a standing LK or HK after an auto combo the opponent will appear standing and selling the hit, unable to block. For characters like Sonya, Jax and Kano, their sweep recovery is very fast and wake up otgs are possible, however blockable. If you get a sweep close enough, you can start an autocombo with a knee lift directly afterwards, and it is very difficult to react in time to block it. Liu Kang can do this to some extent as well with his kick combo, so can Nightwolf and Kabal.

That's it for now folks. Enjoy the read, and start playing.

Basic Strategy

Tier List

1) Kabal

2) Smoke (Human)

3) Kung Lao

4) Kano

5) Reptile

6) Ermac

7) Nightwolf

8) Smoke (Robot)

9) Sindel

10) Jax

11) Sonya

12) Kitana

13) Stryker

14) Scorpion

15) Sub-Zero (Unmasked)

16) Jade

17) Liu Kang

18) Sektor

19) Sub-Zero (Classic)

20) Cyrax

21) Shang Tsung

22) Mileena

23) Sheeva

Advanced Strategy (WIP by Shock/Sinala TakerECW@aol.com)

I'm throwing everyone into one file, if someone else wants to categorize them, gussy up the presentation, put them onto different pages, go right ahead.

Classic Sub-zero (updated 11-8-05)

Classic Sub-zero is ranked very low in competitive play, around 20, I don't have an exact number to give him, because he can of course be use skillfully and be an annoying menace due to his two containment moves, super fast, long range slide, etc. He is a defensive character, and you should focus on baiting freeze or ground freeze scenarios, but it is possible to go on offense with him and he has a few tactics here and there. Watch out on his 4 hit pop up because if you are a hair slow on it the last hit will miss leaving him hugely open. Of course don't forget he's a male ninja and has really great normals.

Male Ninja Basics moves:

The Male Ninjas have excellent basic moves, good height and range on everything in relation to their sprite proportions, their roundhouse is extra wicked and can connect in almost any situation. The only thing that can be weird about them is their aaHPs. Sometimes they tend to miss in situations where you wouldn't expect them to and this is due to kara canceling with run to speed the last hit up, in this situation, often you can do aaHP,LP and it'll work, with slightly less damage, otherwise, always take an extra small step in before doing aaHPs.

The Deep Freeze is an age old move that still has some benefits to it. It has a hit limit of 1, but breakable to 2, allowing up to 3 freezes per combo, but it's tricky timing and usually not worth it. Some characters are easier to glitch hit counter rule break than others, like the Robot Ninjas, Jax, and Stryker. You can use the freeze as an anti cross up. Scout a cross up jump kick, perhaps in a run jab situation, and run under their jump, and do the freeze as they kick, it'll freeze them in air and set up a decent combo. It's got a little more start up than unmasked Sub-zero's freeze and that hurts it a bit. The freeze is OK for zoning, watch for jumping backwards opponents and freeze as you see them jump. Often times the freeze will hit in a situation where they are physically standing on the ground but cannot block, so watch for these situations. It will look like you should do an aaHPHP combo, but really you should go for a JK starter into his pop up combo. Take note that sometimes characters can be nabbed by a freeze when ducking, especially in close range, especially Shang and Kano. If a person does a JK, block it and instantly do a freeze as soon as they hit the ground. This is uesful because it's rare a person does a jump kick and lands and doesn't continue pressure, the chance of them landing and just blocking are slim, and often time it happens more than once. This will either work almost everytime, or they will stop doing random jump kicks altogether, making them chance their strategy and psychologically giving Sub the upper hand. Sub can freeze within the amount of time it takes for them to land, and even if they block, he's relatively safe. It doesn't work quite as well as unmasked Sub-zero but still useful.

The Ground Freeze is a neat and somewhat unique move. A common tactic I see overabused is run jab, run jab, ground freeze. Sometimes the person will lock up and wind up slipping, but it's their own fault. It's always counterable, and harshly at that. You might be able to get away with this once a match, maybe even once a round if you do one early on and then late in the last match, but it's probably better to do it when they have less than 50% life left because that will be a guaranteed victory if they do manage to not avoid or counter it. You can try doing something like, 4 hit pop up, deep JK, let them hit the ground, run jab LP to get them blocking and semi stuck, ground freeze. This move also has a hit limit of 1, but breakable at 2, and it's very difficult to do for some reason. You cannot do freeze, aaHP, freeze, aaHP ground freeze because the game looks at it very mathematically. When you freeze them, you cannot ground freeze. If you already have one hit out before the freeze, and go to glitch break a second hit on the frame it connects, the game never sees them as unfrozen during the time the ground freeze would be activated, and a frame too late means the game has accepted 2 hits and locked the ground freeze. The ground freeze cannot be done if your opponent is within a certain distance from the wall with their back facing it (about a character body width), so if you are trying to do ground freezes and they aren't coming out, that might be why. The real factor here is their actualy collision box, which moves slightly back and forth during their stance, and sometimes you can let them stand there, do a ground freeze, and nothing will happen several attempts in a row, but then it will work. (just some technical data)

The Slide is good for adding damage to combos, as a wake up, but don't over abuse it, as it's easily punishable. It's the fastest of the three slides with the most range, so it's easier to link into juggle combos. Sometimes you can stick one in for free after an upper as people tend to jump away, or sticking in an extra slide after one because often times people do not anticipate a second slide. Also watch for some misbehaving frames with Kung Lao, Sonya and the Female Ninjas especially. The slide will sometimes simply not hit them at all like Nightwolf's shoulder tackle against a blocking Stryker for example, so if you have someone at danger, a slide is not always the safest route to victory. It is possible to break through the recovery of a comboer while blocking and slide inbetween hits, for example the female ninjas kick combo. It has a point of lag in the middle where you can actually go from standing block to ducking block, and if you time it right, the slide will come out here and you can beat them to their next hit. It's a great way to end a match if they are on danger, run in for a chip damage combo that will beat you, and you interrupt their last hit with a slide and win.

Classic Sub has one semi-infinite, he can relaunch: Sheeva, Robots, Kabal, Nightwolf, Kung Lao, Jax, Sub-zero, Shang Tsung, Male Ninjas, Liu Kang, Sonya, and Kano

Basic Juggles:

1. aaHP, freeze, aaHP,HP, JK, slide 5 hits 43% 2. aaHP, ground freeze, JK starter, HP, HP, D LP, D HP, JK, slide 9 hits 51% (try a deep JK, to standing HK at the end for 55%, might be more of an advanced juggle)

Advanced Juggles:

1. aaHP, freeze, cross up JK, standing HK 3 hits 36% (sometimes you can get a second JK for 3 hits 37%) This combo is good against characters whom you can't always basic combo #1 against due to collision boxes. 2. aaHP, freeze, aaHP, freeze, aaHP,HP, JK slide 6 hits 50% 3. aaHP, HP, ground freeze, JK starter, HP, HP, D LP, D HP, JK, HK 10 hits 62%

Corner Juggles:

1. freeze, (reposition if necessary) HK starter, HP, HP, D LP, D HP, JK, RH, run in HK 8 hits 57% 2. aaHP, freeze, aaHP,HP, JK, HK 5 hits 50% 3. aaHP, freeze, aaHP,HP, JK, RH, slide 6 hits 60% (or LK on some characters for 6 hits 65%) 4. if too close to the wall to reposition try aaHP, freeze, JK, RH, run in HK 4 hits 54% (slide or LK is good too, or a straight up JK to start, will all result in slightly lower damage)

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Cyrax

Cyrax is a low tier character, ranked around number 20 in UMK3. Overall he is the worst of the three Robot Ninjas, however like Sub-zero, with some effort he can be a beast. Your main strategy with him is going to revolve around zoning with his bombs and the net, which has a big collision area and leaves little room to punish him from full screen. Cyrax's problem isn't the damage he can deal, but it's the methods of doing it which generally require a lot of tactics surrounding them. Take advantage of his high damage 6 hit auto off a net for 42% with the jump kick starter, or go for tactics with a roundhouse, setting up bomb scenarios against non teleporters. Go for his 3 hit kick combo mixed in with run jabs. Some downsides overall to the the Robot Ninjas are: they have some juggle advantages and vulnerabilities in terms of taking hits, watch for them. They can be relaunched by just about anyone with a launcher combo, easier than most to time, and they are harder to juggle in certain situations, particularly for Ermac and Human Smoke. Kung Lao can spin them and I believe Nightwolf after his autocombo in the corner when it is performed on the "just frame" so not only will you take the 34% or more from the auto combo but you're stuck in the corner infinite. Anyone who can get a ducking LK after their autocombo in the corner on anybody can get a standing HK after their combo on them, for example: Liu Kang, HP starter, 7 hit combo is 38% standing damage protected HK is 46%. Also, watch for openings for the air throw, which is a very neat and under used move. Try mixing up bombs and nets in the corner with run jabs to keep your opponent locked down, and when they move go for the air throw. Cyrax can juggle many characters off his regular throw with a LP to net, the damage thereafter is limited but none-to-less it is still damage. His throw also has it's own tactics because it lands strangely. You can try to run to the other side of your opponent before they get up and go for another throw on the cross up, which if timed right is 50/50. If you are unsuccessful you can go into run jab tactics. Cyrax is a lot of fun, but overall far too much effort to be successful.

Robot Ninja Basic Moves:

Standing HK is topps, uppercuts are somewhat bad in the sense they tend to miss in crucial situations similarly to Kung Lao's, for instance you have to take a step in if you want to counter a punishable move sometimes to hit an uppercut. The robot Ninja roundhouse is late on the hit and has some funky corner issues, good range, low height, better on far away jump ins. LPs are really good for double run jabbing mid screen, they keep in tight on the opponent because you have to be closer to connect them. Sweeps have good range and recovery is the same as female ninjas. JK is good, jump punch is kinda tight and ball like, and is easily counterable. Ducking LK is quick and pointy, excellent to get out of runjabs or prevent them.

The Net is his primary containment move. You can often times trade a hit for it, like a jump kick or jump punch can be snuffed with a well timed net. If you do a net from full screen and your opponent jumps backwards to clear it, run forward with Cyrax right as he recovers and they will land in the net, setting up his 6 hit with a starter, or a roundhouse to bombs. You can buffer a net to escape run jab scenarios as well because it only needs a couple frames and doesn't even have to be on the screen yet to be active. Use the net in juggle combos to extend them a bit. The net has a limit of 2 hits before it is disabled, and can be broken to 3 with some timing, you also must pause briefly between connected usage. For example: aaNet, aaHP, net, aaHP, net (the nets do not count as part of the combo) and now finish it accordingly. An active net disables bombs, and his air throw, but not his teleport. Watch for when the net connects and the opponent is touching the ground. Generally a person will be holding block in this situation and the net will not connect, but there are many occassions where things are happening too quickly, but the point is, you should go for the 6 hit autocombo with a starter. The Net is also excellent against sweepers. You can trade a sweep for a net very easily and it's worth it.

The Bombs are a very unique containment move and are a big part of his zoning strategies. You can set bombs up in patterns to do big damage combos, as they remain dormant for a few seconds each. There are two types of bombs, normally referred to as "close" and "far" but a better terminology for them would be "midway" (no pun intended) and "tracking" because the B,B version makes the bomb land midway between Cyrax and his opponent, and the F,F version, always lands where the character was upon the command input for HK. They have a number of limitations. Two bombs can be on screen at once, they can be done instantly after one another, a third bomb can be out in a succession after the first one goes off, but not if another bomb/general hit connects after the first bomb, thus reconizing a limit of 1 hit before bombs are disabled. For example: aaHP, instant bomb drop, compared to aaHPHP, no bomb drop. A bomb cannot be done while a contained net is active, but can be dropped after one in the same manner as after an aaHP from a contained air net, because the net doesn't count as a hit in the combo. Your best bet with bombs would be to do something like: place a midway bomb from long distance which generally keeps the opponent at bay unless they are a teleporter and they will wait until it explodes, then a tracking bomb or a net to make them move around, particularly towards you so you can throw out a HK, RH or even aaHP, JK to snuff them, and make them land back on the bomb, setting up an easy 53-56% or upwards to 68% juggle depending on the character. If they jump backwards, try and use the net follow tactic by running towards them and making them land in the net. You can also try doing things like dropping a midway bomb, and running to it, stand over it so you can safely plant another bomb, your opponent will be hesitant to move near you because the other bomb is about to go off. From here you can start doing mix ups and mind games with the bombs and keep your opponent off their game. A good tactic is keeping someone locked down on a bomb, and letting off so they will jump, then HK them back down to set up a combo.

The teleport is a dangerous move. Cyrax is very vulnerable during it both in air, and briefly on the ground. It is useless for transit against someone like Kabal, as a spin will totally whipe him instantly, or a male ninja because of their containments. Use is sparringly for escapes but never over abuse it. It is rare that you can make use of it during juggle combos except to get out of the corner to the other side of someone when you want to exploit a corner juggle. For example: Cyrax in corner, aa net, aaHP, net, teleport, aaHP, net, aaHPHP, JK, aaHP, air throw -7 hits 63%. You can also use the teleport on projectiles with significant recovery to get close and counter, but it's not as fast as something like Kung Lao's teleport which works the same way but invertedly.

Cyrax's air throw is strange, as it is a command throw. The motion is D-F, BL, and then press LP while you are in the air and near your opponent. It has good priority when activated, but that leaves a lot of room for error as it has a specific route to travel towards the opponent and where he is under them depends on how well it will connect. If you do an air throw while someone has left the ground through the ground, like Sektor, or Kung Lao, it will cause some funny glitch scenarios. Use the air throw to extend juggle combos, and use it as transit moreso than the teleport because it is fast and hard to punish, not to mention overtly unexpected. The best way to use it to get close to your opponent would be as they are falling, this way it creates a very obtuse hyperbola, causing him to get close to the ground faster than it would be if they were high in the air and he has to float a bit. Use it after roundhouses and JKs to get in close very fast if you are not using bomb tactics. Making Cyrax fast, maneuverable, accurate, and vicious is the key to making him win.

Basic Juggles: 1. aa net, aa(HP,HP), net, aa(HP, HP) air throw 5 hits 41% 2. throw, aaLP, net, aaHPHP or JK, air throw 25-26%

Advanced Juggles (There are tons of bomb variations that require set ups): 1. Bomb, RH into bomb, aaHP,HP (another HP possible on many characters) air throw, 5 hits 56-63% 2. aaHP, net, aaHP, net, aaHP,HP air throw 5 hits 41% 3. aaHP, net, aaHP, net, JK, air throw 5 hits 41% 4. aaHP, aaHP, net, deep JK, aaHP, air throw 5 hits 50% 5. (corner) aaHP, aaHP, net, JK, RH, air throw, 61% 6. (corner) aaHP, net, JK, net, JK, RH, HK (or air throw) 5 hits 69%-70%, only works on some characters, situation generally does no present itself, but some position can be done in the corner while they are in the net, timing is crucial

Lucky Far Tracking-bomb with predropped Mid-bomb setup: 1. bomb(far away) connects with bomb(mid) dropped soon after, then a third bomb dropped instantly after the first (essentially juggling off each bomb towards you) RH onto third bomb, aaHPHP, aaHP, air throw 8 hits 84%

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Ermac

Ermac is a high tier top 10 character, he is ranked 8th but in the right hands can be considered top 3 as his combo/juggle ability is unparalleled in terms of average damage per combo coupled with the relative ease. He is played very much like Human Smoke, except without air throw tactics. His average combo ability is around the 50% or more on anyone at anytime. I will list many specific character combos in his juggle section. What you are going to try and do with him out of the ordinary teleport methods is anti air HP counters on jump ins and what you can do with that is cancel the HP with block so you cannot be accidentally hit and if you do hit your HP you still have plenty of time to cancel with a Telekinetic Slam (TKS). Watch out against Kano and Nightwolf JKs because they tend to still over prioritize aaHPs if you don't time it right, instead aaRH them. Against agressive players you can throw out a TKS sometimes after a blocked auto combo, and they will get snagged by it. Against jumpy or overly aggressive players you can stick in a TKS after an aaHK if you so choose to use it over the aaHP, and often times it will get them on their wake up. Don't over use it. Run and knee jab mix ups, teleporting away from and landing next to are a must but watch out because players can scout the teleports and position themselves to get in the way of what you might think is a safe teleport, punishing you for it. His walking speed is slower than Human Smoke's so multi jab juggles need to be timed more rigidly. The only combo you should ever use midscreen is HK, LP when rushing down, and off starters.

Male Ninja Basics moves:

The Male Ninjas have excellent basic moves, good height and range on everything in relation to their sprite proportions, their roundhouse is extra wicked and can connect in almost any situation. The only thing that can be weird about them is their aaHPs. Sometimes they tend to miss in situations where you wouldn't expect them to and this is due to kara canceling with run to speed the last hit up, in this situation, often you can do aaHP,LP and it'll work, with slightly less damage, otherwise, always take an extra small step in before doing aaHPs.

The Telekinetic Slam is one of the most broken and unique moves in the game, however you need to learn how to max out the combos off it. Its properties are a little unorthodox, as it does damage, but does not count as a hit in a combo (unless you hit them before the first bounce in which it doesn't do damage). It does not activate damage protection and has a limit of 4 hits before it is locked, and this means 2 usages per combo are about the norm. There are ways to stretch it to 3 uses but they have to be absolutely perfectly time with no room for error so it's not worth getting into because you really can't get any more damage than normal this way conventionally. Your standard set ups are going to be either hit, TKS, hit, hit, hit, TKS -or- TKS, hit, hit, hit, hit, TKS, etc. Make sure to try and labor the 3 hit succession just a bit to elapse the time limit inbetween uses, which isn't noticable usually. Good set ups for the TKS are anti air HPs if someone JKs early, this the perfect time to aaHP and cancel to a TKS. From here a guaranteed 78% damage combo is possible on almost every character, more difficult on some than others, but on characters like Shang you need to be slightly more rigid with the timing and max out about 75%, otherwise it's not worth trying the extra hits, and on a lot of characters 82% standard counter from a standing aaHP is possible. Remember that the TKS doesn't count as part of a combo it also doesn't add to the damage for some reason, so for every TKS you use in a combo, add 5.5% to the end damage read outand 3% in DPed combos, generally two should always be used in a combo so that's 11%. In the corner you can set up a TKS combo off an aaRH easily. Remember to run cancel all your jabs during juggle combos to allow more time for extra jabs and JKs. It is possible to glitch cancel (on the frame of contact) up to 5 hits before a TKS, but it is not recommended

The Teleport Punch is a great move if used for escaping and overall positioning and manueverability. If you use it too much players will see your patterns and counter by getting in the way of it and blocking. If you are experienced enough with the placement and timing you should be able to teleport almost anytime it is available (it has a small time limit between usages) and not get punished. Use if when you are getting up to escape run jabs, HKs or knee starting combos. Ermac turns invisible when he does the teleport punch and is still actually on the screen moving until he lands or shows up on the other side of the screen. If you are air thrown or Bike Kicked, for example, before you leave the screen Ermac will stay invisible until he is hit by another move. Take advantage of this, an invisible Ermac is an even dealier Ermac. Try only to teleport when you have 2/3 of the screen behind you or at least a total of 2/3 screen distance between you and your opponent in some manner. This would mean, you can have half a screen behind you and your opponent is standing right next to you, you'll wind up landing about sweep distance away behind them. It is best to try and get the placement down to land right next to them even if they are blocking, this sets up free throw potential and/or rush down. Watch out for counter sweeps, LKs, HKs or uppercuts if you rush in immediately. Utilize the teleport punch as a combo extender but try not to actually hit them with it as it activates damage protection. Its limit is 4 hits before it is locked, has a small window of time limit recharge and you can stretch it out to 2 uses per combo if done right. A good way to start a DPed juggle combo would be to aaRH an incoming JK and hit a teleport punch on the other side before they land. After this do a TKS, wait, RH, again, teleport punch, TKS again, to standard finish of choice. Do not use the teleport punch as a safe guard chip hit when someone is on danger because it only does about 2% chip damage and danger can mean the person has 4% life left. It is common to see people lose matches they should have won because of this. In order to connect his teleport punch on characters like Shang Tsung, Liu Kang, female ninjas, Robots Ninjas, and Sheeva in mid screen standard combo situations, after his HK, LP pop up, jump forward and wait until he starts coming down on the flip to JK, then instantly cancel to the teleport punch. This makes him line up better with them. You can also glitch cancel the teleport punch if you want to get fancy.

The Green Spark is a standard, slow starting fireball and is only good to use as a combo terminator. In most cases if you realize you're not going to be able to get 3 aaHPs at the end of a juggle (it's noticable on how the aaHPs connect after the second TKS) you can subsitute aaHP,HP, aaLP, fireball and that will usually connect and is compenstable upon reaction. There are no tactical uses for his fireball. There is never a time when a fireball can be used as a last resort on a jumping back opponent with him when a teleport punch would be better and more of a guarantee. In general the fireball leaves him too open because it takes him forever to recover, you can jump over it easily, and he stays in one position.

Ermac can relaunch all characters in the game like Kano and Human Smoke. Some characters are more difficult than others, in order to best line him up, you should do his pop up, pause slightly before jumping forward, and punch at the last possible moment.

Basic Juggles that work on everyone:

1. HK, LP, JK, teleport punch, TKS, aaHP,HP, fireball 7 hits about 42% 2. (for a punisher) aaHP,HP, JK, teleport punch, TKS, aaHP,HP, fireball 7 hits about 53% 3. punch starter, HK, LP, aaHP, TKS, aaHP,HP, fireball 7 hits about 43% 4. (for a punisher) aaHP, TKS, aaHP,HP, aaHP, TKS, aaHP,HP, aaHP, fireball 8 hits 69%

Advanced Juggles:

These are maxed out combo situations that work faithfully with little risk of failure on all characters except Shang, Sonya, Liu Kang, and Sheeva. Adjustments are required for the slightly lesser damage combos on the specific opponents mentioned with usage of one less HP, or a fireball instead of a JK at the end, downgrading the combos by about 15%

1. HK, LP, JK, teleport punch, TKS, aaHPHP, aaHP, JK 8 hits about 47% on Sub-zero, Jax, Stryker, and Male Ninjas, you can walk in after the HK, LP, and do a RH, then teleport punch, perform the TKS motion backwards because the teleport punch usually juggles behind him, for 48% 2. punch starter, HK, LP, JK, TKS, aaHP,HP, aaHP, JK 8 hits 52% 3. (for a punisher) aaHP,HP, JK, teleport punch, TKS, aaHP,HP, aaHP, JK 8 hits 58% 4. aaRH, teleport punch, TKS, aaRH, teleport punch, TKS, aaHP,HP, aaHP, JK 8 hits 62% 5. (for a punisher or counter to a jump in attack) aaHP, TKS, aaHP,HP, JK, TKS, aaHP,HP, aaHP, JK 8 hits 82% 6. (Opponent at Midscreen) TKS, aaHP,HP, teleport punch (miss), aaHP, JK, TKS, aaHP,HP, aaHP, JK 8 hits 82% 7. try and stick in an otg (off the ground) HK LP after his TKS for some neat looking juggles HK, LP, JK, teleport punch, TKS, HK, LP, aaHP, fireball 8 hits 46%

Advanced Corner Juggles (watered down):

1. HK, LP, JK, RH, (or aaHP), TKS, aaHPHP, JK, RH, HK, (or LK) 9 hits 64% (58%) 2. punch starter, HK, LP, RH (or aaHP), TKS, aaHP,HP, JK, RH, HK (or LK)9 hits 66% (60%)

Corner 100% juggles: 1. TKS, aaHP,HP, JK, aaHP, TKS, aaHP,HP, JK, RH, LK (works on just about everyone and is good if someone does a projectile in the corner and Ermac is about half screen away) 2. aaHP, TKS, aaHP,HP, RH, TKS, aaHP,HP, JK, RH, LK 3. aaRH, TKS, aaHP,HP, aaHP, TKS, aaHP,HP, JK, RH, LK 4. suJK, TKS, aaHP,HP, RH, TKS, aaHP,HP, JK, RH, LK

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Human Smoke

Human Smoke is a top tier character, ranked #2 of 23 available characters in the game. He has one of the highest combo potentials for starting a combo on the ground. Essentially, 2 mistakes and you are done. The only thing that makes him better than Ermac in terms of tactics is his air throw, but the air throw alone brings him tier level up dramatically. Male Ninjas can play a nice defensive game and he is one the best to make use of that with because of the available damage he can deal in those situations, not unlike Reptile and Ermac. They all have huge damage opportunities on defense, but it is possible to rush down with them as well. There is a common misconception that Human Smoke is just a clone of Scorpion, who is gray and smoking, with no difference in moves. In reality, Human Smoke is much more powerful than Scorpion because he has pop up combos, and he also has a slightly faster walking speed, which makes certain juggle combos easier. His damage range is anywhere from 10 to 35% more at any given time in the same situation as Scorpion. Run jabs and safe teleports are your game. Make sure to only use his HK, LP combo when rushing down, or off a jump punch start. Many players will use his 4 hit combo (the one Scorpion should use) because of reflex. Remove that from you brain because it is worthless. Anti air HPs and roundhouses are a must, and can easily link into 50% combos, make sure you have the timing down, and know which characters can be anti air HPed easily. Mix up his run jabs with knees, for example, double run jab, run in, knee, run jab, knee, knee, and keep them guessing, but watch for an opening to set up his pop up combo. Don't forget about his airthrow, and try and get them low on cross up attempts. When run jabbing, sometimes an opponent will jump away, watch for a juggled LP and get them with a harpoon afterward. Also pay attention to collision detection. For some reason when male ninjas duck and block, a lot of distance gets between them and the attacker, causing their combos to miss, like Jax and Kabal. When Jax's first punch in his combo, or Kabal's uppercut misses, capitalize on that with a harpoon, or run in and combo.

Male Ninja Basics moves:

The Male Ninjas have excellent basic moves, good height and range on everything in relation to their sprite proportions, their roundhouse is extra wicked and can connect in almost any situation. The only thing that can be weird about them is their aaHPs. Sometimes they tend to miss in situations where you wouldn't expect them to and this is due to kara canceling with run to speed the last hit up, in this situation, often you can do aaHP, LP and it'll work, with slightly less damage, otherwise, always take an extra small step in before doing aaHPs.

The Harpoon (or Spear, I tend to throw both words around randomly) is an essential move as it is a very quick containment and relatively safe to do from full screen depending on the who the opponent it. It's good on wake ups as it seems to have a hit box in front of him before it even comes out. You can try throwing out a harpoon afterward a combo for mix ups on jumpy players. It can be linked in juggle combos with a normal limit of 4 hits before it, and can be broken to 5. It can counter many simple standing attacks for free. You might want to also get the feel down for players who jump back and snag them on a landing. Anytime you connect a Harpoon with Human Smoke, it means at least 50% on every character. Learn the best combos for specific characters, but most of them are vulnerable to his bread and butter 56%. A situation where you might be able to consistently connect a spear would be when running jabbing, then doing a teleport punch without leaving the screen. At this point a lot of players try to jump in, hit a spear right as they are coming down, into a convenient combo of choice. You can also just throw out a spear as weak up at this point on characters who don't have teleports.

The Teleport Punch is a great move if used for escaping and overall positioning and manueverability. If you use it too much players will see your patterns and counter by getting in the way of it and blocking. If you are experienced enough with the placement and timing you should be able to teleport almost anytime it is available (it has a small time limit between usages) and not get punished. Essentially think of the screen's width as 1 unit, and then if there is more than half of the entire screen behind you and the opponent combined, you are safe. Use if when you are getting up to escape run jabs, HKs or knee starting combos. It is best to try and get the placement down to land right next to them even if they are blocking, this sets up free throw potential and/or rush down. Watch out for counter sweeps, LKs, HKs or uppercuts if you rush in immediately. Utilize the teleport punch as a combo extender but try not to actually hit them with it as it activates damage protection. Its limit is 4 hits before it is locked, has a small window of time limit recharge and you can stretch it out to 2 uses per combo if done right. Do not use the teleport punch as a safe guard chip hit when someone is on danger because it only does about 2% chip damage and danger can mean the person has 4% life left. It is common to see people lose matches they should have won because of this. In order to connect his teleport punch on characters like Shang Tsung, Liu Kang, female ninjas, Robots Ninjas, and Sheeva in mid screen standard combo situations, after his HK, LP pop up, jump forward and wait until he starts coming down on the flip to JK, then instantly cancel to the teleport punch. This makes him line up better with them. You can also glitch cancel the teleport punch if you want to get fancy.

His Air Throw is very useful on jumpy opponents, remember to tap block in air a few times any time you leave the ground just incase they do as well. Use it on cross attempts, it's not quite as useful in sweep situations as Jax or Kano's, but still possible to do. It's good to link at the end of juggle combos.

Human Smoke has one sketchy infinite, in which you can perform his bread and butter combo over and over by intentionally breaking it at the D LP. The window to achieve this comboable break is approximately 1 frame. It is almost worthless to try because you can throw away a match trying to do this. The combo breaks and allows you to perform his Teleport Punch and Harpoon over and over each rotation.

Human Smoke can relaunch every character in the game, like Ermac and Kano. This is done by performing a launcher combo, jumping along with the opponent as they are flying, and as you are about to land, connect a linked HP, which is unblockable if they are close enough to the ground but are still considered in air, and then the autocombo is free. It is useful against certain characters, as some are easier to relaunch than others. Difficult/pointless relaunch attempts are Stryker, Sindel, Female Ninjas, and Male Ninjas. Everyone else is pretty easily relaunched by Human Smoke.

Basic Juggles: (this is adding 1 hit and about 7% for air throws in damage protected combos and 14% for regular combos since the game does not count them as part of a combo)

1. HK, D LP, D HP, aaHP, spear, HK, D LP, D HP, JK, air throw, 10 hits 48% 2. HK, LP, JK, teleport punch, spear, HK, D LP, D HP, JK, air throw 10 hits 53% 3. jump punch starter, HK, LP, teleport punch, harpoon, HK, D LP, D HP, JK, air throw 10 hits 55%

Advanced Juggles: (Harpoon makes corner combos easier to set up) 1. jump punch start, HK, LP, deep JK, harpoon, HK, D LP, D HP, aaHP, JK, air throw 11hits 62% 2. (on male ninjas, Stryker, Sub, Jax, Kano etc) HK, LP, RH, teleport punch, harpoon, HK, D LP, D HP, aaHP, JK, air throw 11hits 57% 3. aaRH, teleport punch, aaHP, aaHP, harpoon, HK, D LP, D HP, aaHP, JK, air throw 11hits 62% 4. aa(HP,HP), teleport punch miss, aa(HP,HP), spear, HK, D LP, D HP, JK, air throw 11 hits 68% 5. jump punch starter, HK, D LP, D HP, spear, Run close to corner if already near, HK, D LP, D HP, JK, JK, air throw, 11 hits 65% 6. aaHP,HP, JK, teleport punch, harpoon, HK, D LP, D HP, aaHP, JK, air throw 11 hits 68% 7. aaHP, HP, teleport punch whiff, aaHP, JK, harpoon, HK, D LP, D HP, aaHP, JK, air throw 11 hits 78% (BP)

Corner punishers: 1. (very close to wall) aaHP,HP, harpoon, HK, D LP, D HP, JK, RH, HK 9 hits 60% 2. (very close to wall) aaHP, RH, harpoon, HK, D LP, D HP, JK, RH, HK 9 hits 71% 3. (very close to wall) aaRH, harpoon, HK, LP, harpoon, HK, D LP, D HP, JK, RH, HK 11 hits 72% 4. (half screen distance from wall) aaHP,HP, JK, aaHP, harpoon, HK, D LP, D HP, JK, RH, JK 11hits 83% 5. (sweep distance from wall) aaHP,HP, JK, RH, harpoon, HK, D LP, D HP, JK, RH, HK 11hits 93%

You can add two HPs before the final JK, air throw to the Robot Ninjas, Jax, and Sub-zero, but it is very difficult to time, and two LPs on male ninjas, adding only 1% to the finished combo.

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Jade

Jade is lower end mid tier character ranked roughly around 16. You're going to want to stay on the ground with her, abuse her return boomerang, projectile protection whenever needed or even as a distraction, run jabs, ground combo chip, but throw in pauses and then stick in a standing HK to get people who rush when they suspect you are stuck in a broken combo. Throw out her dash kick every now and then as it is very safe in many situations except the obvious ones, ie: vs characters with containments. Always does her 4 hit HP HP D LP D HP combo, and add an unblockable sweep after it on everyone, which will do more total damage than her 7 hit combo which is nerfed for human players for some reason, doing 10% less than the CPU. On some characters you can stick a standing LK after the 4 hit combo, like Jax and the Robots, on Sheeva you can stick in a standing HK, and even on Jax with rigid timing. Her overall juggling and combo ability is extremely limited, she has no useful or damaging juggle combos, although huge, impossible to set up, theoretical, corner combos for her do exist. Just remember to abuse the suddenness of her moves and stay on the ground. Double dash kick counters are fun to do for 22%. Also there's the weird hit boxes the female ninjas have which can make certain juggles harder to do on them. Many characters cannot do their HP beginning to a combo if they get a starter, lowering their overall damage effectiveness helping her out slightly but not a whole lot. Double run jabs in the corner are great, watch for openings to get her combo.

Female ninja basic moves:

The female ninja uppercut is average, nothing to write home about, their standing HK is great for far away jumpers trying to stay out of range for anti air HPs, it doesn't have as much height as some other characters, but the collision detection is a good distance from their body hit box, so it has good priority. Their LP jabs hit lower than most so they can run jab Stryker when he's ducking and blocking, and they good range. HP jabs have average range, sweeps are silent which is a plus, and they have some distance to them, however are slow on recovery compared to the fast sweepers leaving them potentially open. Ducking LK has some decent pointiness and distance, standing LK hits a bit lower than usual. Their roundhouse is very close range, better off going for a standing HK on jump ins, but the RH can often be used in run underneath jump in situations because the placement is perfect for that. Their jump punch has limited range and is close to their body, bad for cross ups on ducking blocking opponents.

The Dash Kick is fast, in fact sudden, and is also extremely safe in many situations that it shouldn't be. There are very few close range attacks that can hit Jade while she's in her recovery frames, but projectiles always work, however the start up time for most projectiles is too long to capitalize even if done immediately from too far away. The best way to counter her dash kick is to anticipate it, not block it and run in with a counter combo, or just simply uppercut. This move can be used repeatedly, similarly to Nightwolf's shoulder tackle, and it has a limit of one hit before it is disabled, two can be done in a row in a combo. It's range is about half screen, and best used when you are very close to your opponent as it's very difficult to block upon reaction. After her autocombo is blocked, you can stick in a dash kick to counter a rush down, or you can use it against crossovers sometimes. It can hit some characters who are ducking like Kabal and Shang Tsung, and sometimes you might want to stick in a ducking LK after her 4 hit combo, then a dash kick as they are getting up, it's either going to hit as they are getting up, or be blocked, and is relatively safe, except against Kabal for instance. Use the dash kick to counter virtually any attack if you block because it's that fast. This is all part of her pitbulling strategy. Occassionally stick in dash kicks after run jabs in the corner, specifically watch for openings when they are about to jump, setting up small juggles. You can also glitch cancel it to 2 hits before it, for example, aaHP, aaHP, dash kick, however not useful.

The Boomerang is used for zoning. She has 4 types, straight across, upwards, downwards, and a straight across return which is the best one to use, but remember to watch for players who will expect return spamming and just duck, so stick in a downward one, or on jump aways stick in an up one. Jade is not so much about damage, but chipping away and this move makes certain of that. You can spam the boomerangs for eternity so long as you time them right, remember to not abuse them against teleporters and watch for opponents who will trade a hit like an uppercut and use it to remove the recovery. Against characters with containments they can do the uppercut, get hit by the return boomerang, and then freeze/harpoon, etc, creating big damage. Mix up the usage of the boomerang, don't depend on it, make them make mistakes. Throw in dash kicks here and there against some characters while using return boomerangs to keep them guessing.

The Projectile Protection is very useful in it's intuitiveness. Jade is temporarily immune to all projectiles except Sindel's scream, Kitana's Fan Lift, Sindel's air fireball, and a few other special case situations. You can use the PP to remove recovery time from push back in the corner with juggles, increasing damage slightly if you are ever in the situation where a ninja teleports and winds up in the corner. You can also use it to stop the push back on triple run jabs in the corner. This way your opponent will try to get out and capitalize, but you will instantly recover and can counter-counter them with a dash kick, standing HK, sweep or autocombo and set up further tactics.

Basic Juggles:

1. jump punch starter, HP, HP, D LP, D HP, standing HK 6 hits 40%, standing LK, or sweep will do less damage but connect on more and more characters respectively. 2. (for a punisher) aaHP,HP, aaLP, boomerang, 4 hits 30%

Jade has no useful advanced juggles, but here's a few that can work if you are in the right situation.

1. (in corner against opponent trying to jump out) Dash kick, Dash kick, LK 3 hits 35% or sometimes HK for 37% 2. (opponent in corner) RH, dash kick, HK, 3 hits 43% 3. (as a corner punisher) aaHPHP, PP, JK, RH, HK 5 hits 60% 4. (Jade in corner) run under a jump, RH into corner, dash kick, RH, HK 4 hits 60%

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Jax

Jax is considered at the bottom of the top tier barrel ranked at #10. He's a sweeper, a zoner, a back breaker-er, and ground combo crusher. He's got a lot of options but he struggles against teleporters and other top tier characters. Take advantage of old tactics like standing HKs, ground pounds, sweeps, watch for cross ups and hit the back breakers, sweeps, keep away with missiles, sweeps, rush down with run jabs and the 7 hit combo but be careful on male ninjas and some other characters because often times the 7 hitter will whiff on the D HP (HK, HK, D HP) leaving Jax open for a free counter, in some cases disastersouly damaging because he is the easiest character to juggle, oh yeah and sweeps. Play as cheap as possible with him, perhaps even turtle or read other players, and play safely because he can be annoying to rush down due his range.

Basic Moves:

His LP run jab game is questionable because they hit slightly higher, allowing more chance for him to be uppercut or ducking LKed, his HPs hit high as well, and set up easy air juggle aaHPHP, JK, air throw for about 44%. His standing HK has good range and moderate height, excellent for anti airing half screen jumpers. His standing LK also has good range and positioning. His sweep is among the fastest in the game, abuse it. His ducking LK is a hair slower than some, but has good distance again. His RH has very limited range, but good height, useful for run under RH situations. His uppercut has a lot of height and range, but some characters can slip through it on cross ups, which is when you should for an anti cross up backbreaker. All of his air attacks are very good.

The Gotcha Grab is a sudden, fast move that is very safe to throw out randomly and the only real way to punish it consistently is to sweep when it comes out. There are obviously other ways to scout and punish it, so don't rely on it as a certain way to catch someone but it often does get people off guard and against blind rush down. With exact timing you can stick the Gotcha Grab in his 7 hit autocombo midscreen against Jax, and unmasked Sub-zero for a bit of extra damage that isn't really worth the effort, 51% with a punch starter, vs guaranteed 47% on everyone with a sweep instead, 47% with a LK on most characters, and 48% with a HK on a bunch. It is very useful for punisher combos, and in the corner off his autocombo, which can be extended significantly against many characters.

Single and Double Missiles are great zoning moves because they take up a lot of space and move Jax backwards, so if someone jumps over one he is generally safe. In UMK3 they added charge time to the single missiles, and this also effects the doubles. If you fire a single missile, you have to wait a few seconds before you can fire a double, or another single, and vice versa. They were too broken in MK3 and decided to add this limitation to balance him. You can still use the double somewhat for zoning, or avoiding certain attacks with extra protection. You can mix the single missile with run jabs, and the double missile will hit teleporters from full screen as they go off screen.

The Dashing Fist is a sudden move that can be useful to an extent, used as a wakeup particularly when getting up. Try to buffer the move without making your movements known as it is easily scoutable in that situation. In certain set ups, the Dash Fist will make Jax bounce off the opponent and move backwards, making him slightly safer than he would be normally. Do not over abuse it because it hits high and is easily duckable and punishable. It is possible to use this move to get you closer to an opponent as a method of dashing, but it is inadvisable, and you can also use it to extend corner combo juggles. It is also useful to get you out of certain situations and go back into zoning or sweeps. Sometimes you can use it as anti air and it generally makes Jax wind up right next to the opponent so you can go into run jabs, a combo, or sweep strategies as well. When used as anti air it can cause some glitch type scenarios where it will make Jax and his opponent push off eachother in opposite directions either facing towards or away and can create some opportunities for other tactics. There is no limit as to how many Dash Fists you can do in a juggle, nor is there a time limit inbetween so you can literally just frames a couple of them in a row in the corner as a humiliation juggle after his 7 hit combo.

The Ground Pound is another returning move from MKII, but it was given more start up frames to balance it, however it is still useful, and unblockable and only avoidable by jumping. It keeps your opponent on guard at all time and might put them in bad situations when they might not want to be in the air. Not many people actually use this move in UMK3 because of how much slower it is than the MKII version, but when used properly it becomes an annoying factor in a match, particularly if you time it to connect as soon as they hit the ground on a jump, this will force them to jump if they see it coming and they have to immediately decide whether they are close enough to counter the ground pound with a jump kick or a jump punch start to combo, straight up, or backwards. If you time and space it right, you will be on the advantage when they land on their second jump and be able to once again resume your now nasty, cheesey sweeping and back breakering techniques.

The Backbreaker is his golden move, because it is perhaps the most useful move in his arsenal, even though simplistic in usage and design. Air throws have tremendous zero frame priority in MK like regular throws in just about any game, including MK itself, but you can't avoid them in air or tech hit, and they generally do significant damage, in the mid-high teens and this is for one move that sets up tactical scenarios, generally accompanied by a JK before hand, increasing damage to about 30%. Whenever someone tries to cross up jump punch or jump kick you as you are sweeping them to a bitter end, anticipate it, and immediately, unhesitantly and committedly, jump forward, or straight up and tap block, and you will backbreaker them right back to the ground, then immediately return to the sweep fest. This tactic is also used with Kano and perhaps even more so. Even when you aren't sweeping, watch for any possible chance to get a backbreaker because it is also a psychological move. It makes people rethink what they are doing if you get them with it, 2, 3 or 4 times in a row because they think for some reason their cross up is going to work this time. Always remember to tap block a few times while you are in the air even if you aren't in a natural situation where you would instinctively backbreaker someone because chances are you'll hit it. Remember that Robot Smoke's radius for his air throw is very large, pretty much 360 degrees around him while Jax's has a bit less area to deal with.

The Multislam is simply a special throw, in which you perform a normal throw, and tap HP several times to get 3 more slams. There isn't much more to it other than you can go back into sweep tactics after it!

Basic Juggles:

1. aaHP, Gotcha Grab 6 hits 27% (add an extra aaHP, but requires stepping forward a bit depending on the opponent) 2. (as a punisher) aaHP,HP, JK, air throw 4 hits 44% 3. Add a HK on Male Ninjas, Sub-zero, Jax, Stryker, (Robots, Sheeva require a small step forward), and a few other characters, for 39% instead of 33% on his 7 hitter, leaving off the last B HP, a standing LK works on a lot more characters, for 37%, and a sweep will work on everyone also for 37% and sets up tactics, you can do his Gotcha Grab with perfect timing on Jax and unmasked Sub-zero for a few more %.

Basic Corner Combo - Juggles:

punch starter, HK, HK, D HP, HP, BL, LP, B HP, with your choice of finish: 1. HK - 50% 2. RH - 51% 3. gotcha grab 13 hits - 53% 4. uppercut - 54%

Advanced Corner Combo - Juggles punch starter, HK, HK, D HP, HP, BL, LP, B HP, with your choice of finish because certains combos work more faithfully on specific characters: 1. RH, HK - 10 hits 59% 2. JK, Backbreaker - 10 hits 59% 2. aaHP, dash punch, HK - 11 hits 60% 3. aaHP, dash punch, aaLP, gotcha 16 hits 65% (against Robots, Kung Lao, Jax, Sheeva...) 4. JK, aaHP, dash punch, HK, 12 hits 68%

Corner Juggle Punishers: 1. aaHPHP, dash punch, HK 4 hits 40% 2. aaHPHP, dash punch, aaLP, Gotcha Grab 9 hits 52% 3. aaHP, JK, aaHP, dash punch, HK 5 hits 56% 3. aaHPHP, dash punch, JK, backbreaker 5 hits 58% 4. aaHP, JK, aaHP, dash punch, aaLP, Gotcha Grab 10 hits 68%

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Kabal

Kabal is far and beyond the #1 character in UMK3, and for that reason, I will get into a bit of counter Kabal strategies as well. He defines the top tier. There are many specific tactics that need to be used against him to stand a chance, and these tactics can be spilled over into general gameplay as well. He essentially dictates the match and really the only way to beat Kabal is to frustrate him and force mistakes. You really have to take advantage of jab canceling with block, in which you bait spins out of the Kabal player, and the result will either be a snuff, a block, or a throw. You should try to stay on the ground against him as much as possible because the spin dash will get you everytime, particularly in cross ups. Teleporting Ninjas Ermac, Human Smoke, and Scorpion can give Kabal a lot of trouble, with Scorpion having the least chance due to his low damage combos, also Sub-zero seems to be a good counter for him as well as Nightwolf. What makes Kabal even more dangerous is he can turtle as well as rush down, to both extremes, and mix it up in game constantly. Expert Kabal players can place jump away kick to fireball traps low enough to the ground to not be hit by teleport punches. He has ok damage combos starting from a knee lift, and good damage basic juggles off a simple spin. Serious damage can be dealt in the corner with multiple JK air fireball juggles. His rub jab pressure is unparalleled because of the Spin Dash always lurking around, even though his damage was slightly reduced from UMK3, the ease of him getting 3 combos becomes very apparent when you just don't feel like being stuck under run jab pressure and a spin plows through your ducking LK. Counter run jabbing Kabal will usually result in you being thrown because of some awkward throw priority in that situation. When a Kabal player begins his rush down specifically run jabbing like crazy, you might want throw out an uppercut before the first run jab even comes out, also try uppercut him when he lands after a JK and watch when he does his 5 hit combo because if it is even slightly slow the uppercut will miss and you can capitalize on him.

What you want to do as Kabal is run jab pressure as much as possible. Stick in knee lifts every now and then, watch for guard breaks and spin, or combo, if you spin, make sure you add a jump punch or jump kick to his autocombo. You can play keep away by doing low air fireballs and watching for spin opportunities if they leave the ground. His game pretty much revolves around the run jabs and spin set ups. Corner runjab pressure should be in the form of double run jabs (LP,LP run, LP,LP run as fast as possible) and occasionally stick in a knee lift for his combo, but don't do the pop up combo, do the 4 hit kick combo, as it does 24% vs 15% for the 5 hit, and the same rule applies if you get a spin in the corner, and cannot push them out to set up a multiple JK air fireball juggle, except you should add a jump kick starter. You can stick a ducking LK in after the 4 hit kick combo in the corner, and if they attempt to rush out after the stun of the kick, this is a good chance to get a spin, or a RH to a spin in the corner, which can hit certain characters and make them end up standing and not in the air, and it is unblockable. Jump Kicks also can cause this scenario, so watch for it and make sure that they are not actually on the ground before trying a juggle combo when you will get his hook swords instead.

Basic Moves:

Kabal's run jabs are excellent, and compliment his rush down very well. His standing HK and uppercut are very good and useful. His standing LK has about average range as does his sweep. His JK and JP and excellent in many situations, and his roundhouse is fantastic for long range anti air, keeping him out of snuff range. It's up there with Kung Lao but not quite as good as Liu Kang's which has height and distance. His ducking LK is a bit short on range, but on occasion you might want to stick a random ducking LK inbetween run jabs to entice your opponent to attack, and wake them up with a spin. Take advantage of his own cross up ability, as Kabal often times will land next to someone without getting hit by a counter uppercut, and in from there you can sneak in a JP to combo.

The Spin Dash is probably Kabal's most important special move. It's collision box and collision start up are very large/fast and ultimately broken. The only things that can beat it out are usually accidentally timed jump kicks, or intentional run jabs that turn into accidental throws. There are a few other moves here and there that can beat the spin, but generally not timable. You can throw Kabal out of the spin from any distance with perfect timing, but expert Kabal players will not do random spins if they know it has a chance to be blocked. Expert Kabal players also tend to have a "Psychic Spin" ability in which they know exactly when you let off your guard. Utilize the spin on cross ups by performing the motion (B,F LK) backwards, as (F,B) and hit LK as soon as they cross Kabal's axis. The spin has a limit of 1 usage per combo, and 1 hit before it is locked, breakable to 2, for example (aaHPHPgc) Spin after a teleport punch on male ninjas. In MK3 he could spin twice in a row for no particular reason but that was removed. The Saw Blade is disabled while the spin, wobble, or drop out duration of the Spin Dash is active, this was also changed from MK3. Use the spin after an anti air HP, or a high contact air fireball to set up big damage mid screen juggles. After an anti air spin, it is easy to get 42% on just about everyone except Shang Tsung with aaHPHP, JK air fireball. If you spin on the ground, a generally good damage combo is jump punch starter, 5 hit pop up, JK air fireball. If you decide to go for tactics over damage, you can do a deep bleeding JK instead of the fireball, and go back into run jabs, even if it is late and gets blocked and this sets up more chances to get another spin. If you spin someone in the air who has an air move, like Sindel, or an air throw, once they drop out of the spin they can escape the drop with that air move, so don't waste time and let them drop if they are too high or they will be able to surprise counter you. When you do a pop up combo with Kabal, sometimes the combo lags slightly depending on where they are when the first hit happens, and it looks as if the uppercut isn't going to come out. If your opponent releases block to capitalize the uppercut will hit. Spin them as they are falling, but do it somewhat low to the ground since you only have one hit in memory for the combo. Let them drop out and then do aaHPHP, JK air fireball, but make sure they will not be able to drop-counter. The point of doing this is because the remainer of the combo will now do full damage, and the Spin will also have done a whopping 1 pixel of damage, for a total of 45%. This also works in a much simpler scenario, after a grounded JK. When it connects, immediately do a spin when you touch the ground and spin them before the hit the ground, afterwards you can do his aaHPHP, JK, air fireball for 59%, vs 36% with the damage protection. Use the spin on occasion as wake up, but players with counter Kabal knowledge know to bait that wake up spin with a fake run jab, canceled to block. The spin can plow through a standing HK or LK after Kabal is knocked down, so watch for that, and you can also counter just about anything with the spin after you block. You can also break out of the wobble frames (not the spinning frames) with any special move, but Kabal players should never allow this to happen.

The Fireball (Eye Laser) is another integral move in Kabal's arsenal. You can use it to zone because Kabal can instantly touch the ground after a low one, or you can use a high one to knock a jumper down, in which case you should watch for a free air spin, setting up and easy 56% combo. You can use the air fireball to bait an uppercut counter on a jump in and avoid the contact, enabling you to then run jab pressure. Nightwolf can give Kabal trouble at times, but if you notice they are reflecting your low air fireballs, intentionally do one that will go over, or through Nightwolf's head and spin him. Use the air fireball in corner juggles to extend them up to 3 times on anyone with the right timing, being high JK contact, low air fireball contact, rejump, repeat. You should never use the ground version of this move except to extend a combo, but only use it if it's going to finish them because the recovery is long.

The Saw Blade is generally useless. If you do happen to catch someone with it on the ground, you can't do anything after it anyway because they can block. If you get someone with the saw in the air as they leave the ground to jump over it, you can spin them and do his bread and butter combo for 53%. The Saw Blade has a limit of 2 hits before it is locked and has no useful comboing scenarios. If Kabal is hit at anytime while the Saw Blade is out, it will disappear and not connect on the opponent.

Kabal can relaunch combo the Robots, Sheeva, Sub, Nightwolf, Jax, Kung Lao, Sonya, Kabal.

Basic Juggles 1. Spin, jump kick starter, HK, LK, HP, HP, D HP, JK, air fireball, 9 hits 41% 2. aa spin, aa(HP,HP), JK, air fireball 5 hits 42% 3. aaHP, spin, aa(HP,HP), JK, air fireball 6 hits 49%

Advanced Juggles:

1. near corner, spin, jump kick starter, HK, LK, HP, HP, D HP, JK at peak, pause and fireball just before you hit the ground, then JK immediately again, pause slightly, air fireball, JK, airfireball (you should be able to get at least 2 JK airfireballs on every character) 2 volleys is 11 hits 56%. 3 is 13 hits 70% and you can stick an unblockable sweep at the end on some characters resulting in a maximum of 14 hits 76% 2. aa spin near corner, aa(HP,HP just out of corner pushback range) JK, airfireball 2 or 3X depending, can result in 72-100%, on 2X, stick in a running HK at the end, for 86%. 3. Spin, jump kick starter, HK, LK, HP, HP, D HP, R, aaHP, JK, air fireball 10 hits 44% (works on male ninjas, jax, Stryker, and Sub-zero, add a second aaHP on Jax for 11 hits 47%) 4. aaspin, JK, aaLP, JK, airfireball (on male ninjas, Jax, Sub, Stryker) 5 hits 50% 5. aa air fireball, spin, aaHPHP, JK, airfireball (on male ninjas, Jax, Sub, Stryker) 6 hits 61% 6. aaSUJK or aa air fireball, spin, JK, aaLP, JK, airfireball (on male ninjas, Jax, Sub, Stryker) 6 hits 61% 7. aaHP,HP (glitch/just frame cancel to spin), aaHPHP, aaHP, JK, airfireball (on Scorpion, Smoke, and Ermac block teleport punch especially easy, hit them before they fall out of the spin because they can escape) 8 hits 62% 8. JK (grounded) spin, wait till they fall out of the spin, HP, HP, JK, air fireball 6 hits 59%

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Kano (updated 9-28-05)

Kano is ranked #4 of 23 in UMK3 by popular consensus. He is the best sweeper due to his options. You have the knife uppercut which hits ducking opponents, very useful, the regular cannon ball which is instantaneous, and the vertical ball is equally as useful, off a sweep. Air throw is very good, but low damage, he can link his close range HK easily off a sweep as a wake up, so can Jax and Sonya, but Kano can get it on more and results in about the same damage mid screen for all three if they do.

Basic moves:

His jump kick is nice and pointy, leaving little room to be countered by simple moves, his uppercut has good distance but sucks if someone jumps to land in close or tries to cross up so you're better off going with the air throw. His sweep is super quick, his standing HK is great anti air when you need it fast. His jabs have little range, his ducking LK is awkward and clunky but gets the job done. His jump punch is very round and ball like, easy to counter since the collision box is so close to his own. His knee lift is more like a close range low kick, almost as useful as Nightwolf's obvious stomp. The roundhouse hits pretty high and has average range.

Sweep when safe, look for cross up jump kicks, if they do, jump straight up and air throw em back down, go right back into sweeps, run and knee jabs are good, don't do too crazy on them they are easy to counter.

When rushing down, never go for any combo except HK, D LP, D HP, if you connect it, do walk in, aaHP, JK, air throw, it's 3% less than if you did it with HP, HP, D LP, D HP, and when rushing in, the HP whiffs, so it's worthless. If you connect a jumping HP, do the 4 hit pop up, aaHP, JK, air throw, for 48%.

The manhandle is really only useful in combos, it has almost no purpose other than a risky wake up mid game, it's rare you see it connect and it leaves you wide open. I love players who abuse it against scrubs because they don't know what to do when the manhandle is ineffective. If you do get the mandhandle miscreen, it is possible to juggle a LK, or cannonball off it.

He has two infinites in the corner that work on some characters, you can mix it into his corner combos off launchers. You can simply repeat the mandhandle over and over, which requires insane timing, and also, aaLP manhandle works as well, but increasingly difficult as the LP tends to still get some push back, making it harder to complete.

Kano can relaunch every character in the game, something like Ermac and Human Smoke. This is done by performing a launcher combo, jumping along with the opponent as they are flying, and as you are about to land, connect a linked HP, which is unblockable if they are close enough to the ground but are still considered in air, and then the autocombo is free. It is useful against certain characters, as some are easier to relaunch than others. Difficult/pointless relaunch attempts are Stryker, Sindel, Female Ninjas, and Male Ninjas. Everyone else is pretty easily relaunched by Kano.

Sometimes you can use the regular ball as transportation against turtles and zoners, it gets you right on top of them and sets up the chance for a wake up pop up combo.

Use the vertical ball to land directly ontop of turtling opponents by surprise sometimes, because as soon as touch the ground you can throw, beating out any attack they try if they aren't holding back, and often times when you land on someone and they don't try anything they aren't holding the proper direction to prevent throwing anymore and it's almost a free throw. Don't over abuse this tactic because it doesn't take long to start scouting it and positioning for easy counters. It is a similar concept to Sonya's bike kick however she doesn't go into a real punishment mode off it. The vertical ball is also a good method of escape from run jabs, and is an ideal anti air move obviously, as almost nothing can stop it except air throws.

Always remember, sweep, sweep, sweep.

Useful combos and juggles:

Basic Juggles: 1. JP, HP, HP, D LP, D HP, aaHP, JK, air throw 7 hits 47% 2. JP, HP, HP, D LP, D HP, aaHP, knife throw 7 hits 40% (Knife uppercut 42%, mandhandle, 45%)

Advanced Juggles: 1. JP, HP, HP, D LP, D HP, deep JK with LK and charge LK, mandhandle, release for cannonball, 8 hits 57%(can be done midscreen on some characters) 2. (In corner especially against teleporters) aaHP, JK, aaHP, mandhandle, cannonball, 5 hits about 63% 3. JP, HP, HP, D LP, D HP, aaHP, JK, cannon ball 8 hits 50% 4. aaHP,HP, JK, cannonball 4 hits 43% (BP) 5. (in corner) JP, HP, HP, D LP, D HP, JK, HP, mandhandle, cannon ball 9 hits 60% 6. (as close to corner as possible without being pushed back) JP, HP, HP, D LP, D HP, JK, RH, manhandle, cannon ball 9 hits 66%

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Kitana (updated 12-23-05)

Kitana is a mid tier character in UMK3, right around 15 give or take, which is still a far cry from her status of MKII combo queen possible top 3. Her damage was drastically reduced due to the fact her fan lift activates damage protection, and if you connect her fan in a combo any hits after it are also damage protected so you're best bet is to try and not use the fan lift unless it's use for drastic anti air prediction. In punisher combos you're better off try to go for the aaHP's without the fan to air juggle resulting in about 50%. Run jabs are her game, the female ninjas have really great placement on their run jabs, and remember to abuse the hell out of double run jabs with her. Remember to use the sneaky 3 hits of the kick combo, leaving off the last B HK, and lacing in a standing HK if they try and capitalize on what they think is a broken combo. On all characters except the female ninjas, Sindel, Sonya, Sheeva and Shang Tsung, you can stick an unblockable just frames sweep at the end of her fan combo, for example, JP starter, HP, HP, B LP, F HP, sweep as soon as you possibly can is 41%, and very easy. Her overall comboing ability is limited, low to average damage (25-50% at a time, yes at this point 50% damage is average since it's half a bar and 100%s and infinites are possible). Don't forget about the weird hit boxes the female ninjas have which can make certain juggles more difficult, and also a lot of characters cannot do their HP beginning to a combo if they get a starter, possibly lowering their overall damage effectiveness helping her slightly but not much. Kitana has some throwing tactics as well, along the lines of Cryax and Robot Smoke. Her throw ends early and your opponent is very close to you so can run in and attempt another free throw depending on if they are doing to try and jump over you or not, or go right into run jabs, or run behind them before they get up and attempt a cross up of sorts, try and stick her kick combo in there as well.

Female ninja basic moves:

The female ninja uppercut is average, nothing to write home about, their standing HK is great for far away jumpers trying to stay out of range for anti air HPs, it doesn't have as much height as some other characters, but the collision detection is a good distance from their body hit box, so it has good priority. Their LP jabs hit lower than most so they can run jab Stryker when he's ducking and blocking, and they good range. HP jabs have average range, sweeps are silent which is a plus, and they have some distance to them, however are slow on recovery compared to the fast sweepers leaving them potentially open. Ducking LK has some decent pointiness and distance, standing LK hits a bit lower than usual. Their roundhouse is very close range, better off going for a standing HK on jump ins, but the RH can often be used in run underneath jump in situations because the placement is perfect for that. Their jump punch has limited range and is close to their body, bad for cross ups on ducking blocking opponents.

The Fan Lift is a criminally pathetic waste of a containment. If you look at it from the perspective that "free damage is free damage" then fine, use it. But I would say avoid using it almost altogether unless you scout a jump in and lift them but the most damage you're going to see midscreen is about 28 - 30%. It would have been fair to not have damage protection on fan lifted moves but kept the damage protection on the post fan throw moves, or perhaps only damage protect post fan throw moves if you get a fan lift before it, but I'm getting off the point here. This would have brought her tier level up considerably. Whenever you might not be rushing down with her, always remember to buffer the fan lift so you can perform on command if you so wish to use it. It is possible to get an aaHP before a fan lift but it is not very practical, however the normal limit of hits before the fan lift is disable is 0, meaning you can't combo anything before it under normal circumstances. If someone is in the corner, watch for jump escapes, this is a good time to use a fan lift and if you connect it, you can set up moderate damage, around 40% on just about anyone.

The Fan Throw is still a great move and she can use it almost exactly like she did in MKII. Remember to throw them low to the ground so she lands quickly and can block or counter. A commonly over used tactic is fan throw from full screen, run in behind it and expect to get some free chip damage. Against experienced players this is not the case. You will most likely get swept or even take an uppercut, or counter containment during your labored journey to small amounts of damage. What you might want to do is try a fan throw followed by her wave punch from time to time. That will get her in close to them a lot quicker, putting the fan right over their heads as she lands and making it difficult to counter with an uppercut and standing up after the fan to HPs timing is critical, and from there run jab city to kick combos, or simply a throw to beat out their counter move, or mash out a ground combo as soon as you land as well. Don't over abuse this tactic because it is almost the exact same concept as running in after a fan throw, use both and mix it up, keep them guessing. If they jump to avoid the fan throw they will get hit by the wave punch, if you don't do the wave punch watch for the jump in and set them up for a fan lift. Remember to only use the fan in air, and never ever on the ground. Occasionally throw one high if you expect a jump in. Her style is almost hit and run but you can change it to hardcore offense anytime you get in close with those run jabs. You might want to try an early or deep jump kick, pausing to a late fan throw in order to bait someone's counter, this way you can nip them with a fan on a close quarters JK.

The Wave Punch is a pretty neat move that is great anti air for jumping forward, straight up, or back opponents. It's easy to scout and the D, B HP motion is easy to pull of instantly if you see someone so much as leave the ground. Battering someone down with Wave Punches can have the same psychological effect as air throwing someone on cross ups constantly, it forces the person to change their strategy, possibly to something they are unable to keep up with. You can use it for mobility to an extent, but expect to be punished for abusing it. You can sometimes juggle a LK or HK in the corner after her wave punch depending on the character and how high it connects. It is sometimes usefull against some poor priority crossover jump kicks.

Kitana has no known infinites.

Basic Juggles:

1. punch starter, HP, HP, B LP, F HP, sweep 6 hits 41% 2. fan lift, JK, air fan throw, wave punch 4 hits 22% 3. JK, fan throw, uppercut 3 hits 33% 4. (in the corner) fan lift, JK, air fan, RH, run in HK 5 hits 30%

Advanced Juggles:

1. aaHP,HP, JK, air fan, run in, aaHP, wave punch 6 hits 53% (you can add an extra aaHP on Stryker Jax and Sub-zero for example, or aaLP,LP or some other characters adding a little more damage 55-56%) 2. (corner punisher would have to start about half screen distance from the corner) aaHP, HP, JK, air fan, aaHP, wave punch 7 hits 60% 3. (same set up as 2.) aaHP, HP, JK, air fan, RH, run in HK 7 hits 65% If closer to the corner, single aaHP is also possible and results in 6-7% less damage but more than acceptable damage for Kitana. She has many variations here and there on her juggles, these would be mostly ideal situations.

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Kung Lao

Kung Lao is ranked #3 of 23 in UMK3. A top tier character to say the least with incredible maneuverability and high damage juggles, with infinite possibilities. On the defensive, you have to force people to make mistakes, like leaving the ground. This sets up spin opportunities and then leads into juggle infs and respins. Watch for certain characters who can outprioritize the spin, like Kano. His jump kick will often times beat out the Spin's collision box range. Your best bet is to keep moving, using low to ground dive kicks and staying away from the teleport unless you are guaranteed they will not be able to counter you, and so you can connect a JK to powerful 7 hit autocombo afterward. Early jump punches canceled to Dive Kicks are also useful.

Basic moves:

His HP can be used as anti air to set up the damage protection-free version of his infinite, but you have to commit to that HP connecting, and it's not so easy since it doesn't hit quite high enough for most characters. His LPs are good for run jabbing but as to what you can do when they release block is limited to his 3 hit kick combo. His standing HK and RH are excellent anti air, his standing LK has somewhat less range than others. His sweep has slightly longer range than some and his ducking LK is quick and pointy, very good for escaping run jabs. His uppercut has a very weird collision area. It will miss often times, especially against the teleport uppercut, so rather try to go for single aaLP, JK, whiff dive kick to infinite if possible. It also sometimes miss at extremely close side to side range, for instance when a Robot Ninja or Sindel lands right next to you, and is bad for direct overhead crossup snuffing but will connect just as they pass behind you. In situations where you see an uppercut available, it might be better to opt for his spin.

The Spin is his most valuable move. It sets up all his options. From a spin, it is time to deliver whatever variation of infinite combo you wish. There is no limit to the amount of spins you can do in a combo, which is very broken and dangerous, however, you must place one hit between each spin usage to allow for another. The Spin can be used in some cases almost like a Dragon Punch, but it's collision box, even though improved since MK3, still has some awkwardness to it, so try and figure out the best way to time a counter spin. Oftentimes it is a good idea to allow them to pass over you, and do the spin in reverse. Utilize the spin in corner juggles. You can link the spin to the end of his 7 hit autocombo in the corner on the Robot Ninjas and Nightwolf, and if you catch someone just off the ground in the corner with an autocombo so that the entire combo juggles them, it is quite easy to then link a spin on just about anyone with the extra falling height. Utilize the Spin to get your opponent out of the corner in juggle combos if you don't wish to be repetitive or "lazy" with your now already broken infinite combos. What you must do is allow Kung Lao to pass the other character's axis in the corner after whiffing a dive kick, so that when the spin connects, it sends them out of the corner. You might also want to try performing the F-D-F motion backwards while still in the air, and hitting the F Run the instant you hit the ground. You can also allow your opponent to fall a bit and be sure that they are to your side, and as quickly as possible perform the Spin normally. Try to stay away from using the Spin too much. It is possible to bait people with it from cross screen by just doing the Spin action without tapping at all, you will recover quickly, but if you tap Run during the spin at all, you will be held in spin animation longer.

The Dive Kick is another very important move, and what's more important is learning how to miss it well than even hitting it. It is a great transport move and if you do them low to the ground it confuses your opponent and it's very hard to hit him and intentionally get in the way of to block it. "Whiffing" the Dive Kick is essential to performing Kung Lao's cross screen infinite variants. It is a good idea to do the Dive Kick instinctively after connecting jump kicks, or using it to avoid an incoming counter jump kick. There is no limit to how many Dive Kicks you can do in a combo, but remember you don't want to be connecting them. Use it sparingly against opponents for damage, as it puts him in punishment mode when blocked. Try to do the Dive Kick and land next the opponent or behind them, and go for the 3 hit kick combo if they are ducking.

The Hat Throw is a slow projectile that has an arch to it, so it cannot be easily ducked or swept under. Kung Lao, Sindel and Sonya can easily ducking LK under it from a variety of distances. Sindel and Kung himself can duck it from a very large half screen window considering the move is generally not designed to be duckable. You can use it to add variety to corner combos, but it doesn't really have much other use, you might be able to stick it in with run jabs every now and then but this sets up nothing and runs the risk of being blocked and countered.

The Teleport is a questionable move. Some people know how to use it, some will never know. The best way to use it is on a baited projectile, and countering into the jump kick to 7 hit combo. If you ever do a teleport while your opponent is neutral, you asking to get countered. Spamming on the attack as he's coming up will sometimes help against people, but it is inadvisable because you will most likely not land the 7 hit combo. You can use the teleport in the corner to make his juggle infinites look more elaborate. It possible to teleport out of the way of sluggish run jabbers, but it is all in all just better to use ducking LKs.

Basic combos juggles:

1. aa Spin, R, aa(HP,HP) hat throw, 4 hits 25% 2. aaHP, JK, dive kick 3 hits 31%

Advanced Juggles:

1. spin, R, aaHP,HP, JK or JP, whiff dive kick, aaHP, repeat across screen 2. (In corner or from previous combo) spin, JK, spin (inf, and there are tons of moves you can throw in for variety, Kung Lao can spin off just about all his normals and the hat throw) 3. aaHP,(HP- may be necessary) JK, whiff dive kick (repeat til corner or dead) 4. 7 hit autocombo, juggle spin, straight up jump kick, whiff dive kick, spin out of corner, into cross screen infinite variation.

Sheeva, Shang Tsung, and the Female Ninjas all are slightly harder to juggle infinite than others, you must be more selective about how you hit them, specifically doing a certain routine against them, whereas against other characters you have a lot of freedom to change things up

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Liu Kang

Liu Kang is a another one of those lower end of the mid tier characters, ranked in the neighborhood of 17th, who can be a pain in the right hands. He has a number of options to play around with, wake up bike kicks, dragon kicks, air fireballs, High/Low Fireball mix ups and the roundhouse of God. Mix up run jabs with his 4 hit kick combo, and when midscreen always do his 7 hit combo rather than his pop up when it is available for free, or off a jump punch starter. The 7 hit with a jump punch does 39%, and his pop up combo to JK, air fireball, dragon kick does 32%, not worth the effort. In the corner it is possible to link a sweep, standing LK or HK after his 7 hitter, and sometimes it is a good idea to throw a low fireball out after the 7 hitter, and mix that up with a high one once in a while to keep them guessing. The only time you will want to use his pop up combo is in the corner to set up multiple airfireball juggles, as it is relatively easily to compensate for the lost damage, but not by much. He has a very nice punisher that requires a bit of timing, aaHPHP, JK, air fireball, dragon kick in this case, without the double damage protection of his pop up combo, does 56%. It is a very useful tool to counter Human Smoke and Ermac's damage if you catch a blocked teleport, make sure you take a running step before you do the HPs, and cancel the second HP with the run button to allow yourself more time to get the JK high in the air. Abuse his roundhouse as much as you can, and try to link dragon kicks off it mid screen for some psychological advantages, as it is very easy to know when you will connect a Liu Kang roundhouse. Everynow and then throw out a wake up bike kick from close range, similar to Kano's cannonball.

Basic moves:

Liu Kang is the only character in the game to use his rear fist first to punch, subsequently, this has no affect on his juggling ability. His jabs in general are pretty normal. His sweep has normal range, but a bit of recovery to it. His uppercut is pretty good, but his HK hits noticably lower than some. His JP and JK are very high, similar to Kung Lao's in MKII and has an easy time beating out others because his forward and back jumps are a bit higher than everyone else's. His ducking LK is not as good as say Sonya's, or Kung Lao's, but it gets the job done, as well as his ducking LP for run jab escape. The straight up JK is a little short on range. His roundhouse is amazing. It has ridiculous range and is almost impossible to not connect it. Use it often, and use it well. It is possible to juggle a Dragon Kick off it if you happen to hit it close enough.

The Dragon Kick is a fast, horizontal air attack with some strange properties. If you are too close to an opponent, the Dragon kick will go over them and land instantly on the other side, this might actually be something you will want to use because it will create some temporary confusion but as long as you know what the situation is you can take the upperhand. If the Dragon Kick is blocked, Liu Kang will land, and then go into a double animation where he is vulnerable to ground combos for an instant, timed to coincide with the recovery of the other character. You basically want to use it to extend combos, and occasionally as a wake up or a sudden attack. Like any move, it becomes easily scoutable with overuse.

The Bike Kick is used similarly to the Dragon Kick, except it can possibly lead to further damage in the corner, and occasionally you can combo a standing LK off it mid screen if you get it out right on time. If you get it in the corner and are overlapping your opponent when you land, it is easily possible to get his 7 hit combo off it with a sweep for 47%. From there you can run jab and mix up. The Bike Kick is a very good wake up attack because its collision starts up quickly. Do not over abuse this or people will bait it, and Liu Kang will go into punishment mode when it is blocked. You can use it to extend corner combos as well.

The Low, High Fireballs and Air Fireballs still have some use, but limited to generally full screen tactics and zoning. You can throw out a low or high fireball after his 7 hit combo to keep them pinned down, and air fireballs are good as well for pinning down, but try and keep them very low. Air Fireballs can also be used to extend corner combos, by doing JKs as early and high as possible, then doing the Air Fireball as low as possible, enabling you to rejump and repeat a few times. Unfortunately since all his attacks are double damage protected after the pop up, his corner combo damage is very low for the effort it takes to do them.

Liu Kang has a hard time relaunching characters because of the height and arch of his jump, but it is still possible to relaunch combo Jax, The Robots, Sheeva, Kung Lao, Nightwolf, Sub-zero, Kabal and Shang Tsung, but it is hardly worth the effort as the added damage for just one relaunch is about 13%.

Basic Juggles: 1. jump punch starter, HP, HP, B LP, aaHP, JK, airfireball 7 hits 28% 2. aaHP,HP, JK, air fireball or Dragon Kick 4 hits 42% 3. Bike Corner (in corner), HP, HP, BL, LK, LK, HK, LK, sweep, standing LK, or standing HK depending on opponent 9 hits 47-48%

Advanced Juggles: 1. aa(HP,HP), JK, air fireball, dragon kick 5 hits 56% (BP) 2. jump punch starter, HP, HP, B LP, late JK, airfireball, dragon kick 7 hits 32% 3. jump punch starter, HP, HP, B LP, deep JK, aaHP, JK, air fireball 8 hits 32% 4. (close to corner as a punisher) aaHP, JK, air fireball, RH, Dragon Kick 5 hits 66% 5. (close to corner as a punisher) aaHP, JK, air fireball, aaHP, high fireball, standing HK 6 hits 69% 6. (Half screen from corner as a punisher) aaHP,HP, 3X JK air fireball (over 100%, and you can leave off the 3rd JK air fireball and replace it with roundhouse, dragon kick if you don't have them high enough off the juggle) 7. (Near corner), jump punch starter, HP, HP, B LP, JK, air fireball 3X, aaHP, fireball, standing LK doable on just about every, but very difficult in concept, 13 hits 50% (you can also finish it with RH, run in HK, or RH dragon kick also for 50%)

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Mileena (updated 9-22-05)

Mileena is considered a low tier character, probably around 20th of the 23 in UMK3, and third in terms of the three female ninjas. She has overall low combo damage, not much in terms of options, almost everything revolves around the roll which activates damage protection miserably. She, like Cyrax, requires a lot of effort to be a force in the game, and there are some expert players here and there who can use her, however she still just doesn't cut it against most top tier characters. Fortunately the female ninjas have strange collision boxes making it harder to juggle them, and maxed out combos are unlikely in most cases, watch for slip ups and counter based on their character design. Some characters cannot get starters on them at all, and both ground attacks after a JP or a straight up JK will whiff, however in the corner a lot of these characters are able to get starters on them, but still some cannot, it depends on how close you are when the jump attack connects.

Female ninja basic moves:

The female ninja uppercut is average, nothing to write home about, their standing HK is great for far away jumpers trying to stay out of range for anti air HPs, it doesn't have as much height as some other characters, but the collision detection is a good distance from their body hit box, so it has good priority. Their LP jabs hit lower than most so they can run jab Stryker when he's ducking and blocking, and they good range. HP jabs have average range, sweeps are silent which is a plus, and they have some distance to them, however are slow on recovery compared to the fast sweepers leaving them potentially open. Ducking LK has some decent pointiness and distance, standing LK hits a bit lower than usual. Their roundhouse is very close range, better off going for a standing HK on jump ins, but the RH can often be used in run underneath jump in situations because the placement is perfect for that. Their jump punch has limited range and is close to their body, bad for cross ups on ducking blocking opponents.

The Roll is an interesting and complex move to say the least with lots of uses. It is by definition a containment move as well, similar to that of Reptile's forceball, however Mileena's distance from the opponent and positioning is not always exactly the same making juggle combos for her difficult to guarantee. Mileena can run in sooner depending on what frame she is in when the roll connects. The roll can be used to prevent anti air cross ups if timed correctly. As the player jumps over you, buffer F,F,D instead of B,B,D and do the roll as they start the air attack, you will roll under them, causing the occasional forward flip towards Mileena reaction which is ideal, enabling better juggle combos. It is relatively easy to perform the flip towards roll by timing the contact just on the opposite side of the oppent as they fall, try this during punishment combos with aaHP,HP, B,B, pause, D, HK for the late roll and ideal spacing. The roll can also be used on a delay, so you can buffer B,B, D, wait a good second and then surprise with the roll as if you were the CPU and didn't have to perform any motion, similar to usage of Stryker's baton throw, which can abuse the same delayed button hit concept. There are many players who abuse the roll constantly, and pay for it, please do not be one of these players. It is possible to abuse the roll and be successful, it just takes good judgement on placement. The roll can also be used as a wake up to escape run jabs, smilar to Kabal's spin and Sonya's bike kick, but if it is expected, a simple kara jab will block it and set Mileena up for a punisher combo. The roll has a limit of 1 usage every other hit and is locked at 3 hits, so that means you can combo 2 legitimately.

The teleport/drop kick is a very slow attack and should be used as a total surprise, perhaps no more than once a round, it is easy to scout, predict, and counter, and any time you can use it in a combo, you could do 2 or 3 more hits with something else resulting in higher damage.

The sai shot is still spammable as it was in MKII in terms of speed, however it is not as effective. The Prophet says "It looks like she's aiming at airplanes or something with them." What he means is, they are way too high in the air when she releases so they are easy to avoid, and he would be right. You can still try to spam them, use them in combos as well, for zoning, etc.

An underused tactic the female ninjas can abuse is by leaving off the last hit of their kick combos if the opponent blocks the first three, and pausing ever so slightly, then doing a HK as they try to rush in, which happens very often. Even if they don't it hits blocked which does slightly more chip damage than finishing out the combo and doesn't give them as much time to recover and counter, setting up other situations in your favor.

As far as I have tested, Mileena can only relaunch the robot ninjas, and Kung Lao, even Sheeva can always block her relaunches, others may be possible, as I sort it out I'll post it.

A couple of corner tactics you can use with Mileena: You can charge HP for the sai shot while run jabbing with LP, if you see them try to jump out of the corner you can jump back and release HP hitting a sai shot knocking them back into the corner, and you can also try to juggle again before they hit the ground. Also look for chances to use the roll in the corner, don't just throw out a random ball because of the likelihood of it being blocked, but watch for an attempt to uppercut and buffering B,B while jabbing at times.

Basic Juggles:

1. punch starter, HP, HP, HK, HK, D-F LK, aaHP, drop kick 8 hits 37% 2. punch starter, HP, HP, HK, HK, D-F LK, JK, sai 8 hits 40% 3. roll, R, aaHP, roll, R, HK, 4 hits 24%

Advanced Juggles:

1. aa(HP,HP), roll, RH 4 hits 31% 2. (from ground up directly infront of opponent or a cross up jump kick), JK, roll, aa(HP,HP), JK, sai shot, 6 hits 39% (leaving out the sai shot might make the combo easier and will result in about 5% less damage and this can be applied to all other combos ending in a sai shot) 3. (off a flip towards Mileena punisher set up) aa(HP,HP), roll, aa(HP,HP), JK, sai shot 7 hits 41% 4. aaHP, JK, roll, R, aaHP, HK 5 hits 42% 5. aaHP, JK, roll, JK, sai, 5 hits 44% 6. aaHP, JK, roll, R, aaHP,HP, JK, sai shot 7 hits 50% (doable on male ninjas, Kano, Jax, Stryker, Sub-zero, etc) 7. (near corner) aaHP, RH, roll, R, aaHP,HP, JK, sai shot 7 hits 52%

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Nightwolf

Nightwolf is ranked #5 in UMK3. He is devastatingly fast, has exceptional damage combos off a simple rush down with no set up required, his attacks are useful, have little recovery, or have no limit. Definitely a top tier character to say the least. His rush down is virtually unparallel in the game, and his mix ups are quite useful. He's a very easy to use character overall. He cannot autocombo starter on the female ninjas with either his punch or kick unless in the corner, and combos against them are not as easy, so that hurts him against them. His stomp also misses them quite often, so look for counter players using the female ninjas to exploit Nightwolf's collision box weaknesses because damage is the key with him and they are less susceptible. Nightwolf can run through sweeps if timed properly and begin his autocombo. Never do his 5 hit autocombo that ends in a HK. Rush down is extremely important.

Basic Moves:

Uppercut is solid, overall good priority and placement, HK has range, but not as much height as others, RH is average range, good for run unders, if you can time an air air roundhouse with him, you're better off countering with an aaAxe, aaAxe, aaHP, JK, or the likes for more damage and the same amount of effort on the initial counter hit. His sweep is virtually identical in range to the male ninjas, and has the same speed/start up/recovery, which is average. His LK hits a little lower than usual, and has a little less range. His run jabs also has just a little less range than others, his HPs are about average range, and also hit a little lower. His ducking LK has good range. JP has good cross up properties. The close range kick is a stomp that hits extremely low and is very useful, his close range punches hit very high and miss constantly so always rush down with stomps.

The Axe Uppercut is a great and unique move, considered a containment move because you can always get at least one free hit after it. It is possible to combo multiple axes, usually in any combo if you do two axes with some kind of extra juggle hits you will result in almost 45-50% even without a starter. It is an amazing cross under tool, anytime someone cross up jump kicks you, you can do the axe the opposite way and it will hit them on their way down even if they are attack, it's almost fool proof and very hard to recounter it unless it is baited and even still it can hit, it's like Kabal's spin only not as much damage can be done after using it. Remember that if you do an axe uppercut in combo and it misses Nightwolf is vulnerable and characters can capitalize on this. During his blocked combo it is sometimes better to leave out the axe because he can even be beaten out of it in that situation.

The Shoulder Tackle is your friend. It has very little recovery, but it is not invincible, it can be abused, but it can be scouted, it all depends on zoning. It hits ducking blocking characters except Stryker who is completely immune to it, and occasionally some characters can duck and block while it is coming and not get hit for chip like Kung Lao, and Sonya for example. It's good to finish juggle combos with as it does about the same amount of damage as a HK/JK and gets them into position to set up more tactics. Don't do the tackle from too far away because it's easily beaten by sweeps and try not to buffer it with obvious stepping. Sometimes it is useful to buffer it with running steps, so, hold run, tap forward, release run then forward again and tackle to get in close. The run in creates a defensive posture for the opponent and they will attempt to counter based on running velocity but when you change the run into a tackle you are coming in with a move instead of being totally vulnerable. If someone is ducking and blocking you can usually get two tackles out before they are comfortable to release block and try to just duck it and counter, so you should then skip the tackle and run in with his combo and get them sleeping. Make sure you mix this up a lot and don't fall into a pattern yourself or people will pick up on it. The tackle is also surpsiringly good for anti air especially in extremely close range, or even as an anti cross up, it will move backwards and somewhat appear to track the opponent. In the corner it is easily possible to get mulitple rams if you run jab and the opponent tries to jump out of the corner. Time a HP or LP jab to hit them in the air, then another HP, cancel to tackle, tackle for up to 4 hits 42%. This is a very special case scenario when they are in the corner but it's entirely possible.

The Projectile Reflection move is pretty much what you see is what you get. You bounce projectiles back to your opponent. This move can get you in a lot of trouble, especially against Kabal. Players like to use it against the purple ball but a smart Kabal player will place the ball to scrape of Nightwolf's head and plow through him with a spin, severely punishing the overzealous Nightwolf user. It's best to use this move against characters who have a containment projectile like Sub-zero and Cyrax because this results in a free HK starter to autocombo, resulting in hideous damage of upwards to 60% and beyond. It will not reflect the harpoon or Stryker's Riot Gun for example.

The Bow and Arrow is a tiny projectile with unreasonable vulnerability and recovery. If you connect a move before the arrow, it will start up extremely fast, making it a lot easier to combo with, and even still it does very little damage. In any situation where you can combo an arrow, you can combo something else that does more damage. The fast arrow is active any time your opponent is in non neutral recovery frames, so you can send it out after an uppercut when they land as they get up and sometimes they will jump right into it, or after a roundhouse early to keep them where they are on the defensive, as offense is Nightwolf's main game. If your opponent is jumping away you can sometimes keep them pinned temporarily at full screen with fast arrows off a just frames concept. This is a pretty much worthless tactic and the arrow should be used very little as there is only one major purpose for it and that's to knock opponents back down before they even get up, also a predictable tactic. It's a match winning move for when someone is at danger and can't even block it.

Nightwolf has a corner infinite that works on Kabal, Sektor, Cyrax, Robot Smoke, Sheeva, and Kano. You can repeat his 3 hit kick combo over and over. The timing is incredibly easy, you can wait until they completely touch the ground and for whatever reason it still hits. It was designed to whiff but apparently these 6 characters have slightly larger collision detection when laying on the ground. Abuse this against corny Kabal players in the corner. If you can lead them there and get them into the corner,