So when MKX came out I complained a fair bit about how difficult combos were for Sub Zero, just to get up to 30% or so and I think that holds true for most of the characters. I did finally find a good and fairly easy combo for 32% for Ermac and some other solid basic combos that would allow me to play mix ups and stuff more than just try to get raw damage in long combos.

But I'm still having trouble with other characters, like Reptile I figured out I really like, but the highest combo I can get is like 23%. I looked up bread and butter combos and they all seem super tight timing or use meter just for 30% or so.

It seems like most of the characters require some sort of short wait or run or dash in between juggles to get higher than 20% and very few of the characters I've messed around with actually use their more iconic abilities in their strong combos.

It also doesn't help that every match I play online always has a noticeable latency, so where 30%~ combos were fairly easy to pull off in MK9 even in a laggy match, a lot of the timing strict combos in MKX I just cannot pull off online at all and can barely pull them off in training.

And I'm using a gamepad which seems to contribute to my execution problems a little too, so I don't know.

What exactly are you expecting? like 50% or more? 30% is good man. You know the amount of times you will be able to do those kind of kombos in a real match, against a real person. Doing them against the A.I is waaaay different.

Also, if it was so easy to pull off insane 50% or more kombos, that would take away from the game. Not everyone will be able to pull those off.

@ozzdog12: No I fully expect 30%, I just expect it to be easier than it is with a lot of the characters I've tried. What you say is exactly why I think 30% should be easy, because just getting the combo off to begin with is a challenge in and of itself, so when the timing is super specific, as it seems to be for many 30% or less combos, it's kind of idiotic I think.

What I want is what MK9 did and make it so you have every character able to do 30% or so combos easily, that incorporate their main moves into the combos, like Reptile's 30% combos in MK9 used his slime ball, not in MKX. Sub Zero's 30% combos used his freeze ball and kick slide, not so much in MKX, or they do but are way more challenging. And, at least from my experience this seems the case with most of the characters.

Hey! I totally remember your Sub-Zero thread! Good to hear you've begun to pick up Ermac--he has some of the most reliable damage output in the game, and for the most part his combos aren't especially timing-intensive (unless you're trying to manage his jump kick-to-teleport conversions or multiple run cancels).

The game has been out long enough that the general difficulty scale of characters has been parsed out. High damage, low input characters include Ermac (Master of Souls), Raiden (Master of Storms), Kung Jin (Bojutsu), and Scorpion (Inferno/Hellfire). These are characters you can perform devastating combos with without much or any of the more technical aspects of the game--run cancels or animation cancels, primarily.

A lot of characters in Mortal Kombat X have the most upside in set-up or 50/50 situations, situations where your opponents don't have the time to perform any action save blocking. Quan Chi is a good example of a setup character. Sub-Zero, too, is a good example, though less technical. These characters can do big damage, but succeed more as a result of continued situation control. Mortal Kombat X is a game about pressure. Pressure and momentum. Typically, you want to push your opponent into the corner as quickly as possible and keep them there. It's an evolution whose DNA comes more from Injustice than from Mortal Kombat 9.

I've abandoned the hope of playing this game online. Mortal Kombat X's netcode is just a dire mess. The game is completely different online, and I simply don't get a lot of enjoyment fighting both my opponent and the frustrating input delay match in and match out.

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I don't have a great point here. At least, other than to say that Mortal Kombat X is a unique animal, especially when compared to Mortal Kombat 9. The reliance on flashy, big damage combos falls by the wayside in Mortal Kombat X. You can know all the 50% damage combos in the world, but all that knowledge is meaningless if you aren't willing to invest yourself in the subtler mechanics of the game. Run cancels are hugely important. Timing windows are hugely important. While I initially found the idea of learning run cancels intimidating, adding them to my playstyle has changed the game for the better.

From a perspective of playability, Mortal Kombat X isn't any less fun than 9. It's simply the same transition that the series underwent between Mortal Kombat 2 and Mortal Kombat 3. Some players will like the old style, some will like the new.

So it goes.

@historyinrust: I'm just doing master of souls and using the, it's like punch 3x into the soul lock thing, dash forward, soul break or whatever and then do a kick combo and that's I think 32% exactly or close to that. Other than that it's just mixups and he has fast overheads and stuff so I haven't had too much trouble doing decently well with him.

It just sucks to me that they changed it the way they did, it feels like they're just appealing to tournament players by making the game more challenging and less accessible to scrubs who only want to play MK to do flashy cool stuff fairly easily, I never did 40%+ combos in MK9 but I still had a lot of fun with it just because the basic combos you could do and get decent damage, were fun to do and looked cool and every character but a few were pretty accessible.

I guess I should just give up on the game at this point, obviously nothing is going to change and because the online is the way it is and I don't have any friends playing it, there's no chance I'm going to learn the technical difficult stuff and when I get bored of Ermac there don't seem to be many other accessible alternatives. It's a real shame because I love everything else they've done, it looks fantastic, I want to play it, just every time I try to branch off from Ermac at this point it's a super frustrating experience.

It's kind of funny to me, I feel like SFIV is less difficult than MKX just to get a basic understanding of some basic BnB style combos for characters that are both flashy and effective, the timing in SFIV is more immediate but requires specific input timing, whereas the timing in MKX is weirdly slow paced and yet also requires a frustrating amount of specific timing.

If you want to learn run cancels, Ermac is actually a nice place to start. He has a string that's like Forward+Y, X, Up+Y (Xbox) that pops dudes up. I'd go into training mode and start there. Just remember that the only input you need to stop a run animation is the first input of your combo string. Once you start running, just focus on landing Ermac's Y, Y, Y string. And just do that over and over. Personally, that was the major cognitive hump for me. Getting to understand the fact that running is super easy to link out of helps immensely.

I definitely think this game is less friendly to newcomers or inexperienced fighting game players than Mortal Kombat 9. They've made a concerted effort to ensure this game is more competitively sound, and to be more forward thinking with how pro-level players might break characters open by exploiting frame cancels and so forth, which happens more regularly than some people might realize. This has led to decisions like scaling back Sub-Zero's damage, or making inputs probably over-complicated.

Are you an Xbox player or a Playstation player? Perhaps you should try to connect with some beginner-level players here on the forums or on r/MortalKombat? There are other people just like you, excited about this game without anyone to really play it with.

As a Mortal Kombat fanboy, a part of me wants to make the appeal to you to not give up. That's probably a tough argument to make at this point. If you're still interested in having multiple characters to play, don't be afraid to check out Youtube guides or Test Your Might for some info about the characters you're interested in.

@historyinrust: I might try it out I don't know, it's kind of a frustrating experience just training because I want the game to be simpler so much lol. Again in stark contrast to the nights I would spend dedicating hours trying to beat SFIV's character trials that were hard as balls.

Yeah I totally understand that they want it to have a healthy life in the tournament scene, I doubt that it will, or at least it seems to me that no game is ever going to become center focus like SF is. I do wonder how worth it it is to appeal to that crowd instead of appealing more to the wide swath of scrubs that I'm sure bought this game.

I've been checking out youtube videos and stuff, I was playing around online and used Reptile on a whim and kind of liked him so I checked out some videos for basic combos, which is what prompted this thread as even his basic combos for a little over 20% are too timing specific for me to pull off lol. I love Mortal Kombat too, but eh, they've changed it in exactly the sort of way that would push me away from it so I don't know.

@historyinrust: So I went ahead and did what you suggested, I can do the forward+Y, X, down+Y, run, Y, Y, Y, < > Y, < > X, jump, Y, forward+A, B and it only does 4% more damage than cutting out the run part. Which, seems kind of silly to me, more risk for a tiny bit of reward?

EDIT: I also just realized that the combo I've been doing is overly complicated, this Y, Y, Y, < > Y, < > X, jump, Y, forward+A, B, does either 30% or 31% I forget exactly, this Y, Y, Y, < > Y, jip, uppercut does the same damage. So a lessy flashy combo does more damage... :(

Well, I just meant using Ermac as a way to get used to performing run combos. His optimal offense isn't really based around the run cancel.

When I'm playing Ermac, I rarely use that Soul Release move. It's handy, but I never think to incorporate it--at least, certainly not mid-combo.

My favorite Ermac combos start with the Forward + Y, X, Down + Y to pop up, then a forward jumping kick into mid-air teleport. Immediately after landing the teleport on the other side of your mid-air opponent, do Forward + B (an overhead kick) into Soul Ball. It's tricky timing, but with the Soul Ball conversion you can catch people in the middle of that combo Sub-Zero-style. Hit your trapped opponent with a jump-in punch, another three-hit string, and another special attack, and suddenly you're pushing 40%. You don't even need to use meter.

TL;DR -- Ermac's ability to teleport mid-air helps boost his damage. If you can learn to teleport just after landing a jump kick, you'll be in good shape.

@historyinrust: I see, i'll try it out.

This might sound dumb but it sounds like you're taking the game way too seriously to have fun. I don't think that's about the game design, maybe you just need to pick a random character and mash buttons like a lunatic?

@l33t_haxor: Seems like I would just lose constantly and have no fun at all if I did that.