Cool detailed analysis of Smoke's "issues". Yeah, I really can't see him anywhere near top10 on tier list at the moment. I don't think anyone but Aris uses him at tourneys these days, while some other characters who were in the shadows early on are becoming more prominent.

I don't play with him, but I've played against him quite often. Speaking of those invincibility frames, I've been able to knock him out of his X-ray as well, I was kinda surprised by that as I'm pretty sure I've seen armor visuals and heard the sound effect when you hit through armor. I thought he would just absorb the hit and X-ray me, instead he got knocked out of it. I'm pretty sure it was a wake-up X-ray too.

However, it was an online match and I've seen plenty of "WTF stuff" during my MK9 online experience. Though, I'm pretty sure this was actually supposed to get fixed, hitting characters out of their X-rays even if they have armor on start-up. Not sure anymore.

i agree with the shake ex. Now when I play as smoke, i always get swept when i do that move. Mostly everyone sees it coming or they just sweep me. and I wish his otg would come back.Smoke is good, but without his otg he cant really do much. You have to be much more tactical with him now

maybe they can have it so normal smoke bomb after the air throw just hits them and they flop to the ground again while EX smoke bomb be the true otg that teleports the opponent.

Totaly agree with the OTG coming back. Also what he really needs is a low starting combo string. They can take either his 3,d+1,2 or his 3,2 and make the first hit a low. Having those come out a bit faster would not hurt either. I would be fine with it if theiy slowed down his teleport punch a touch if that makes people feel better.

Lastly his "Akuma" teleports. *Sigh* These things need help, it is waaaayy too easy to hit him while he is doing this. It is suppose to be a good evasive move and is one of the few options he has to try land one of his slow combos on an opponent. Why not have the whole animation be invulnerable to physical attacks (projectiles could still hit it if that makes it more balanced)?

Smoke is fine as long as you use his various super fast teleports to confuse the fuck out of your opponent or to dodge anything and essentially play keep away while nailing them with uppercuts or short combos when they leave themselves open.

Scorpion is the one who needs help, not necessarily on damage but something. Although I do think the various nerfs done to him were unnecessary considering he wasn't top or god-tier to begin with because he is just SOOOO easy to punish and he has extremely limited starting/mix up options. Everyone knows how to counter him because he is such a fan-fave so nothing he does is viable, lol. And yet sub-zero is still bouncing between A and B tier in most people's minds even though he should be in scorpion's boat with being easily punished and predictable because everyone knows them so well either from playing them themselves or because every newb plays online.

Smoke and Sub-Zero are still used in tournaments by pros at least. To my knowledge no pro mains Scorpion in tournaments, lol, despite the frequent complaints about him being "too powerful" or whatever the kids whine about these days. He's gotten nothing but nerfs in all the patches and he wasn't even god tier or hell.. even top tier to start with and that's just sad for the few real Scorpion fans (people that don't just play him because he is popular and easy to pick up) that are still left out there.

bloodfang said:
Smoke is fine as long as you use his various super fast teleports to confuse the fuck out of your opponent or to dodge anything and essentially play keep away while nailing them with uppercuts or short combos when they leave themselves open.

Scorpion is the one who needs help, not necessarily on damage but something. Although I do think the various nerfs done to him were unnecessary considering he wasn't top or god-tier to begin with because he is just SOOOO easy to punish and he has extremely limited starting/mix up options. Everyone knows how to counter him because he is such a fan-fave so nothing he does is viable, lol. And yet sub-zero is still bouncing between A and B tier in most people's minds even though he should be in scorpion's boat with being easily punished and predictable because everyone knows them so well either from playing them themselves or because every newb plays online.

Smoke and Sub-Zero are still used in tournaments by pros at least. To my knowledge no pro mains Scorpion in tournaments, lol, despite the frequent complaints about him being "too powerful" or whatever the kids whine about these days. He's gotten nothing but nerfs in all the patches and he wasn't even god tier or hell.. even top tier to start with and that's just sad for the few real Scorpion fans (people that don't just play him because he is popular and easy to pick up) that are still left out there.

You're kidding me right? Scorpion is insanely good in this game! He's got an unblockable move that tracks and the only way to dodge it is to jump, a long range stun move that's safe on block when thrown at full screen, a fast teleport, a teleporting Xray, one of the best 50/50's in the game between b3 (i think) and b2. And after a hit telepunch you have to guess whether scorpion is gonna b2,

Kitana, Mileena, Jade, shang tsung, cybersub, and Kano are hardly used in tournaments, should they be buffed more too?

Wait, what? Konqrr would like a word with you. Kitana is deadly and she is starting to get some good tourney milage going. Kano has been right up there in a couple too. Also look out for a dude named Alex Valle, he plays a great Shang Tsung at tournaments. Oh and some dumbass called Kraziebone uses Jade (some would consider him decent).

So you are wrong on them not being used, but correct that no buffs are needed. In fact, I wish they would stop all nerfing/buffing nonsense now. None were needed to begin with, let the game develop. Kung Lao was nerfed and now he has completely fallen off the bus. I'm obv not talking about fixing glitches/invinites etc.

Back to the topic; I agree with the guy who said that you must use Smoke's teleports to confuse your opponent (and make them wiff combos so you can get your own off), that is obviously how they intended him to be played. The problem, as I said above, is his teleports suck. You might as well jump over your opponent than try use a teleport to cross up. It is just so easy to hit him out of it. Needs MOOOAAARRRR invincibility!

i said HARDLY used compared to the likes of subby, kung lao, raiden, etc

EDIT: This forum seriously needs to update. It's 2011 and quoting and editing of the posts is still a PITA, hence why I gave up with this one.

What exactly is a PITA?

The word "pita" actually means "a pie" in Croatian, but the "PITA" in my previous post is an abbreviation for a "pain in the a$$".

I just want a slightly bigger hitbox on the regular bomb. I mean, I know the EX exists for a reason, but for god's sake, I hate whiffing the goddamn thing after a couple of juggles.

Might be really nice if he had a variation on 3, D+1, 2 or 3, 2 ...that started with a low hit. *cough*.




Oh, and if you miss the OTG, pick the MK2 costume. >_>

Great breakdown--I agree that he needs something, and some of your suggestions sound like a fair balance change to me.

Thanks to everyone for your replies. I will eventually give a very in-depth response, but there's just no time. Thankfully, there's rumor at the office that the 60 hour weeks are almost over with.

I do have a lot to say about Smoke's Akuma teleport. There's even a reason I didn't include it in my list, but more on that another day.

By the way, turns out Sonya's arc kick beats out EX-Shake. What the fuck, NRS?

I also read on TYM that Kitana's air square wave boost beats it as well.

Saying smoke needs a buff is like saying scorpion needs a buff.




They just don't, I kick a lot of ass with smoke and I started using him AFTER the OTG nerf. You guys based like half of your smoke tactics around that cheap BS and now that it's gone you don't feel like re-thinking your strategies so you act all butthurt about it.


Smoke is well balanced, every characters have weaknesses, and those are his. What you don't think he should have weaknesses or something? Because that's what it looks like.

If that's a joke, it's not funny.

People didn't use Smoke because of the OTG Smoke bomb. Most people couldn't consistently do the OTG smoke bomb. It wasn't cheap. It was meant for extending combos and exploiting air throws.

Newbs use Smoke for spamming, and that aspect of Smoke is EXACTLY the same. He's no less cheap than he was before. You probably think Smoke is as good as Scorpion because they both have a teleport punch and a projectile that leads to a combo. You clearly don't know how start-up frames work, so it makes sense that you don't know that Smoke has A LOT MORE of them than Scorpion does.
EDIT: I can go into detail about why Scorpion is at least one tier grade above Smoke later this week if need be.

Temp, some people you cannot have a sensible discussion with. Case in point above. It's funny when someone who knows absolutely nothing about gameplay comes and tries to make a ridiculous point and then just comes across as a troll (maybe he trolled on purpose, either way as I said to the culprit in question before, he seems to be a bit of a whiny kid. Like he would run to his mom if someone beats him online and he cannot use his awesome "humiliation tactics")

Also to point to Scorpion as an example shows how uneducated this comment was. Scorpion might not need a buff, BUT he is pretty mediocre when it comes to decent play. I can never see Scorpion feature in a tournament as things stand. Him and Smoke are both mid- maybe even low-mid tier at best imho.

Also lol at people "baseing their tactics around a OTG throw". Hahaha, sounds like a real solid strategy to me *we need a sarcasm face*

You're right, bro. Especially given how little I'm able to come here (and how little I'm able to play the game). Somehow, arguing on MKO not only has become common occurrence for me, but I think part of me actually NEEDS to do it. Maybe, deep inside, that's what keeps me coming back, lol.

The reason I'm holding off on the responses is because I want to cover all of them in one run. I'm aiming for Sunday, but we'll see. A lot has to be said for the akuma teleport.

What you said here is more or less what I meant by my earlier comment. Scorpion is a beast in this game and pretty much better than he has been in a long long time BUT he's still not top-tier. He's WAY too easy to punish to EVER be top-tier (except MAYBE pre-nerfing... like DEMO damage Scorpion, lol, and I stress MAYBE because damage is a good start but the easy punishability really takes him down in tiers). I main Scorpion and trust me the "omg it's unblockable and tracks" hellfire move is extremely overrated, lol. It's soooo easy to just dodge man... you can almost always see him telegraph it and then you just MOVE or JUMP... I mean I catch people with it but only when they aren't moving at all and trying to "turtle" me. Otherwise I raise hellfire and it misses leaving me way way open. And his Takedown is quite possibly the most useless move he has ever had and I don't understand why they KEEP bringing it back instead of other better moves that he had for one game like "Inner Fire" from MKvsDCU for example... turn that into a parry type move and he would actually be MAYBE higher than mid-tier for once. His spear and teleport are indeed awesome and improved but SOOO incredibly predictable (you DO know that almost any character can literally PUNCH or Kick Scorpion out of the teleport punch if you mash fast enough, lol (Smoke has jump kicked me out of it actually).... and his spear? My casual friends who never play the game often enough to BE good know how to defend and punish the spear and teleport if I use them recklessly, lol! They just have nothing to compete with the 30+% damage I can deal without meter when I eventually DO connect with ANYTHING, lol. Whereas Smoke's teleports are ALL much much faster but you can't combo out of them as a trade off. The "akuma teleports" that Smoke has are EXTREMELY nasty if you are smart and know when and how to use them because they pass through damn near everything unless you manage to catch them exactly during start up or recovery from them. Scorpion is a fan favorite so after so many MKs EVERY MK fan knows to completely shut him down making him seem really mediocre to good or at the very least experienced players UNLESS you are a casual or inexperienced player (like most of my friends) and then Scorpion is a nearly unstoppable monster, lol. Smoke's moves are all new so he doesn't have this experience "disadvantage" for the most part. Really the best tool Scorpion has is his X-ray... that thing is devastatingly easy to land (enough that people whine for a patch to it's hit box) but come on it's ALL he has that isn't kind of mediocre. He's capable of doing crazy damage (my B&B is 40% without using meter, 49% with x-ray which is hard to do with most characters) but damage alone doesn't place you in top-tier. He's still wicked punishable, predictable, and telegraphs everything. Smoke's basic attacks have more frames sure I won't argue that ever... but his specials are much much faster so that gives him an edge VS scorpion who really just has easy damage and a spear that everyone knows how to defend and punish at his advantage vs smoke and that's it.