Kitana (updated 9-23-06)

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. If you connect the fan lift while turtling in the corner for example, rather than suffer with a horrible 25% combo, run under them before they fall and juggle into the corner, for around 43% with aaHPHP, JK, air fan, to corner juggle of choice. This also sets up corner pressure, which is great with female ninjas.

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) aaHPHP, JK, air fan, JK, 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.

Excellent!

I have some questions, what are these weird hit boxes the female ninjas have that you talk about? I dont understand that part.

The Fan throw is definitely her best move, and the wave punch for counter attacks obviously. So is Kitana the best of the three female ninjas game play wise? I see Jade only a bit higher then her because of her speed and much bigger combos, but I might be wrong.

Im really looking forward to a Sonya guide. Please do Sonya next! I think there are some strategies I dont know about her that could be useful, she has some crazy speed and does excellent damage, cant wait to see your guide.

I have heard a lot that Sheeva and Shang Tsung are the worst Mk3/U/T characters to play with, low tier, but I simply cant understand why. Sheeva has some huge powerful combos, but I guess being so big and slow affects that. And while Tsung does decent damage without the morph, I hear is not a good idea to use it because it slows him down in the process.

This guides are great, cheers again to everyone involve!

Kitana is the best female ninja, even though Jade has a 7 hit combo, it does less damage than Kitana's fan combo, and she has almost no juggling abilities.

Their hit boxes are misaligned with their pushing area, so it's just weird for comboing and juggling.

yeah, especially when aaHPx2 juggleing them, it looks like there is a pause between the first and second HP, and this confuse people.

There is another 33%. Anywhere: jk, air fan, run, hp, jk. sweeping at the end registers as part of the combo for 39%. For 5 hits, 34%: jk,air fan, lp,lp, jk.

you may have troubles with mid-screen hp, jk against some characters and the sweep in mid-screen will always be blockable. instead of aaLPx2 you may replace it with aaLPaaHP or aaHPx2, but this works only on large characters.

Yes I left her comboing open to interpretation, because there's just too many little variations to list right now, eventually when I'm done with all the characters individually I'll go through and post specific combo on certain characters.

Sonya is the next character to be done so everyone knows.

Thanks for the Kitana Guide
For some reason i always thought Jade was the best out of the female ninjas but its nice to know that Kitana is on top :)

This is all great stuff...I haven't played UMK3 for quite a while (even though it was my favorite MK) but this is tempting me to dust the game off and play it again. I'm really looking forward to an Ermac guide as he was my favorite in UMK3. Keep the guides coming. :)

Cant wait for the Sonya guide!



Niko, I have a question. You have some awesome pictures in your fantasy wallpaper section, of your site. They are 2 beautiful females, one dark and one light. Could you please tell me from what game/series are they?

They look amazing. I would like to have some info on them. Thanks.

MK2KungBroken(Shock) when will you write up Shang Tsyng??I'a really interested to know everything about him in VS...

I'll do Shang's after Sonya's, Shang's got some decent strats here and there believe it or not, but still terrible.

Please, because I really want to know why he sucks so much.

Sonya (Updated 11-19-05)

Sonya is a mid tier character in UMK3, ranked around number 12. She is very fast, a great sweeper, has a lot of options and ways to play her. You can rush down or turtle with her, but rush down is your best bet. Another thing you're going to want to look for is guranteed openings for the leg grab which is essentially a free uppercut that allows you to get right on top of your opponent afterwards. Her combos are pretty simple and powerful, and she's a little harder to max out juggles on then most characters but not the level of Shang Tsung or Sheeva where you really have to overcompensate for them. Her ducking LK is golden, and will be explained in depth later. Rush down with run jabs, into her 5 hit pop up, throw in some knee jabs here and there, and remember to abuse her speed and leg grab.

Basic Moves:

There are some awkward properties here and there on her moves. For one her uppercut hits strangely and deceptively, and it has an extra recovery frame, it looks like the made hers stop one frame too early, but I suppose that makes it hit just a tad earlier. Her roundhouse is high and short on range, and does connect on the frame you would expect it to, the whole move is pretty sudden. It's better for run under roundhouse set ups than normal anti air, so you should go for a simple standing HK, which hers is very good. Her sweep is in the top 3 with Kano and Jax. Extremely little recovery time and sets up traps. Her jabs are slightly short on range, making clean aaHP contact difficult at times, but still works on punishers. Her ducking LK is perhaps the best in the game. It's very pointy, with great range and her hit box is incredibly small while doing it because she ducks so low to the ground. If you time it correctly, it is nearly impossible to hit Sonya with any attack except ones that are intentionally low like a Liu Kang Fireball, Ermac's lift or Mileena's roll. People who are aware of this tactic will sometimes pick characters to counter it but there are ways around it. In the unlikely event someone will pick Mileena to roll through your ducking LK cheese, throw out a couple, and they will attempt to roll, since you expect it, simply block it and punish with aaHP, JP, leg grab for 37%. Against Liu Kang try to bait a ducking fireball, and when they do, don't LK, jump over the fireball for a free 52% combo. You can snuff with it any sweep practically inbetween sweeps, any incoming JK contact can be avoided with it and then counter them as they land. Remember you cannot simply mash on D+LK and expect results, you have to recognize your opponent's character's strengths and weaknesses and ultimately take advantage of every little mistake. The ducking LK can also get you out of cross up situations easily with little risk. Her ducking HK can be used a really humiliating anti air attack as well. Her straight up JK can catch some characters if you do it on the way up in a jump, her regular JK is great, it's one of the best in the game. She can snuff lots of attacks with it, including Kabal's spin, frontwards or backwards. Her JP is decent, misses often on wide cross ups.

The Leg Grab is probably one of the most important moves in her set. It has great range, massive damage, quick as hell, can punish just about anything from a good distance and is useable in combos. It has a strange damage protection property in UMK3. Naked, the leg grab does about 21%. If you connect a grounded JK into a leg grab, it does 10%. If you combo more than 2 juggled hits before it, it does 5%. If you combo it in an auto combo with more than 2 connect hits before it, like HP, HP, U+LP, it does 3% damage, acknowledging the fact that any juggle hits after an auto combo are DPed and it has it's own special DP as well. There are many situations where an attack leaves someone open for a leg grab even when Sonya blocks it. Watch for situations, or even try to set them up, so a combo will miss, or get a laggy hit in the middle if blocked, this really is only useful in combos where you can actually switch from standing to ducking and blocking, 3 frames of vulnerability, only 1 abuseable so this has to be done in a situation where there are more than 3 available frames, hence the delayed or stuck hit. If timed correctly Sonya will appear to break through the combo and snag them with a leg grab. Also simply watch for combos that suddenly stop and always be ready to stick in a leg grab because it's free damage and puts Sonya on the offensive. The leg grab can beat out sweeps from close range if they start at the same time, so against a sweep crazy Kano or Jax, throw out a leg grab on them right as they go for one. You might also try simply running through the sweep and getting her knee lift before the sweep connects. The main concept is to abuse the hell out of the leg grab at every opportunity, and mix it up with those nasty ducking LKs, then switch it up on them after a leg grab connects and go for the rush down. A standard punisher combo getting use of the full leg grab damage would be, aaHP, JK, leg grab, and it has to be timed well or the leg grab will be blockable, and it has a decent amount of recovery time, but on the other hand it also has a strange collision box when recoiling, making a lot of close range attacks miss on her. The leg grab must be blocked low, like a sweep, and does no chip damage.

The Rings are a standard projectile, slow start up, she holds the pose for a while, but it has quick horizontal movement. It would be inadvisable to use the rings as a zoning move because she leans forward and is wide open for punisher autocombos. You would be better off using it sparingly, and perhaps as a last resort to hit a jumping away opponent for a win.

The Upward Bike Kick is a great wake up and anti air move. Many people will abuse it in close range situations and it can get you out of run jab scenarios if timed properly, like Mileena's roll. Another good use for it is to get out of cross up situations. If someone run jabs you and exhausts their run bar, they might go for a cross up JK to let some run recharge and continue to run jab until you give up the hits in attempt to counter. At this point your choice of escape is either a ducking LK miss or snuff, or, buffer the bike kick as they jump by hitting F,F, D instead of B, B, D, this way as they cross up you will snag them with a bike kick. The timing is tricky, but it's a good psychological tactic and will prevent them from doing so much crossing up in the future. For a move that leaves the ground, it has almost no punishable frames so the only real escape to spammed bike kicks would be to duck and not block, allowing Sonya to go over you and trying to punish her on the way down, perhaps with a containment set up. It has a limit of one usage per combo and can be done after any amount of hits.

The Wave Punch is a good anti air move, and you can use to keep constant jumpers on the ground even if they are jumping away. It is useful for mobility to some extent but not entirely advisable because it can get her into trouble. You can also use it in combos, particularly in the corner. It's possibly to juggle a LK or even a HK after some corner combos on certain characters after the wave punch.

Sonya has an unsubstantiated ground infinite using her leg grab and running in with a LP jab as they get up. I have personally gotten it to work on some characters but the timing is very difficult, I don't even understand how it works. There's no point in even trying it like Sindel's flight cancel infinite.

Sonya can relaunch everyone, like Kano, Human Smoke, and Ermac. On some characters you can follow their flight path instantly as the combo finishes and relaunch them, but on others you must pause for an instant before jumping, aligning the collision boxes properly. Some characters are not worth attempting relaunching because the timing is too rigid.

Basic Juggles:
1. punch starter, HK, HK, HP, HP, U+LP, JK, leg grab 8 hits 48%
2. aaHP,HP, leg grab 3 hits 34%

Advanced Juggles:
1. punch starter, HK, HK, HP, HP, U+LP, aaHP, JK, leg grab 9 hits 51% (can add an extra aaHP on some characters like Jax, Sub and Stryker for 10 hits 54%)
2. punch starter, HK, HK, HP, HP, U+LP, deep JK, HK 8 hits 52% (on some characters like Jax if you get a deep bleeding JK you can stick in an aaLP, JK, Leg Grab, for 10 hits 58%)
3. aaHP, JK, Leg Grab 3 hits 43%

Corner Juggles:
1. aaHP, RH, Leg Grab 3 hits 45%
2. punch starter, HK, HK, HP, HP, U+LP JK, HK, HK 9 hits 59%
3. punch starter, HK, HK, HP, HP, U+LP, JK, RH, HK 9 hits 60%
4. punch starter, HK, HK, HP, HP, U+LP, JK, JK, HK 9 hits 60%
5. punch starter, HK, HK, HP, HP, U+LP, JP, JK, aaLP, Wave Punch 10 hits 60%
6. punch starter, HK, HK, HP, HP, U+LP, JK, aaHP, Wave Punch, LK or upward bike kick on some characters 10 hits 62%

keep up the good work matt..

Good job!

I enjoyed reading the Sonya guide, there are some interesting tactics I will try later on.

Will you be doing MKT charactres too? If so, I would like to know how Johnny Cage plays and ranks. Thanks!

I'll do MKT eventually, Cage sucks though, pretty sloppy character with weak everything, but he has a pop up combo he can get decent damage off.

I figured he wasn’t among the best. He feels a bit “heavy” to play with for some reason, and I hate his kicks...yet, he has one amazing and easy combo involving many low kicks that throw you very far away.

I have another question Mk2KungBroken: MK3, MkU and MKT, even though the same, play different in each version right? For example, Mk3 Sonya is different from MkU Sonya? Or are they all gameplay wise exactly the same with no variations?

Thanks.

Awesome. Why did you type HP HP U+HP as her combo?

I'm sure they'll go into depth, but I believe the game detemines strategy a lot.

For instance, the fact that Roundhousing in the corner in MK3 DOESN'T knock you back makes a huge difference, as does the fact that you can't punch/kick start on your combos (well you can, but it's pretty much useless unless your in the corner, even then I think it's blockable).

If you have your opponent trapped in the corner in MK3 with Robo Smoke, and they (foolishly) try to jump out, you catch 'em with a JK, they can say goodbye to their health bar. JK, tele-uppercut, RH, RH/HP, Spear, Autocombo/RH + Standing HK/LK is anywhere from 80 - 98%

Then there's the obvious stuff like moves they removed in order to tame characters from game to game, like altering Sub Zero's broken clone from MK3 - UMK3, and doing the same for Kung Lao's spin from UMK3 - MKT.

And finally for MKT, some strategy depends on which version of the game you have, PSX Greatest Hits or the buggy one. I have the original, and trying to do Reptile's aaHP, HP, whiff dash juggle is fucked because of the messed up gravity.

Anyways, I'm sure it will be explained in more detail, actualy I hope it is - I'd like to hear a proper explanation. Dragon points for anyone who wants to give it a shot...

it was just an example, because even after her 3 hit combo leg grab does its DP damage ;

If you are familiar with the Street Fighter series, particularly SF3, you will experience a similar change in gameplay. You have the same sprites, but some subtle changes here and there for each version, added backgrounds, etc, the gameplay is very similar, but certain parts of the core are tweaked to either balance or strengthen, or what have you.

In MK1, the SF2 of the series, you have a base for gameplay, MKII, the SFA of the series, is a more refined look and system, more solid, better gameplay, still lacking in speed. Then you have MK3, which is like SF3. A much more solid, much more complete, refined, fast, and deeper system overall. After this you have UMK3, which is more like 3rd Strike, but we'll go with Second Impact for now, and then MKT is the 3rd Strike. The most characters, the most gameplay tweaks, etc, all built upon the same engine. You can also look at the vs series and see how they kept the sprites, added characters, changed properties on moves. Are they the same game? No. UMK3 and MKT are closer relatives than MK3 and UMK3 though because there were more severe changes to gameplay made between them. MKT added some really broken characters but that's merely because of lack of testing and the whole rush job concept. If you take into consideration that the only version of MKT which exists is Greatest Hits MKT for PSX, then you can say the games are an evolving system built upon the same engine. UMK3 is everything MK3 was and more, and MKT was everything UMK3 was and more, and in some case, too much more. The only thing I can say for the Street Fighter series is that they made more drastic changes per game in the different lines because they had so many updates to those as well, SF doesn't really count, it's too much different than SFII to even be considered the same series, SF2, SF2 CE, SF2 Turbo, SSF2, SSF2T, are all similar games based upon the same engine. SFA, SFA2, SFA3, similar games based on the same engine, SF3, SF3SI SF33S, same idea again. Now, the MK games had updates to gameplay without changing the names and drastically less celebrated. SF2, SFA, and SF3 are all different games, based on the same concept. MK, MKII, and the UMK3T are all different games, based on the same concept.

Going on to Sonya specifically, she's a lot better in UMK3 than she was in MK3 because of the pop up combo they gave her, coupled with the fact that punch and kick starters exist, makes her brutal, 50% combos possible. Her character simply takes advantage of the system upgrade better than some. In MK3 her leg grab didn't have it's own damage protection. I really don't understand why they did that because there's simply no situations where it would matter that much except at the end of her pop up combo, but they could have just disabled it's usage after 5 hits or something because it does so little damage that there are higher damage combos you can do just as easily in its place. In MKT I don't recall them making any changes to Sonya, so her abilities depend entirely on what changes were made to other characters, she's still high mid tier as most of the added characters are so broken and ridiculous they are added to the top tier, and I don't think anyone pre-existed really gets much of a boost except Sektor. They also made Sheeva's throw activate DP in UMK3, another thing I think was pointless since she was already weak enough as it is, so what an easy 46% corner combo here and there, at least it was better than the 33% she can get now.


Because I'm retarded. I fixed it lol. I usually type out a combo and then just paste it if it comes up multiple times.

I don't remember exacly what I was searching for when I found those pictures and unfortunately, I don't know anything about either of them...sorry I can solve the mystery heh.

Thanks for clearing all that up guys! Much appreciated.



LOL. Thanks anyway for the help.