How should I fight against Kano?

Asodimazze

Asodimazze

New member
Today I played against a very, very good player online who has 930/120 W/L ratio (mine is 813/241) for 3 matches...in the first one he choose Jax against my Smoke and I win.
Then he choose Kano and beat both my Sub-Zero and Smoke :dong:.
The problem is not that I lost, but that I didn't know what to do against him...so I've got some questions for the ones that are more prepared than me.

1) How should I punish Kano's upball?? Is there a way?
2) What are Kano's weak points?
3) What are Kano's good and bad matchups?

Thanks in advance :-)
 
Upball is about on par with recovery as Kung Lao's spin, meaning it is near-impossible to punish. We're SoL on that one until NRS patches that crap :/

Weak points VS a Smoke would have to be his Knife. Easily punishable by a teleport.
 
Use a teleport character. Atleast 99 percent of the Kano's I've fought have spammed his upball, and when there is some kind of distance they spam the knives. Don't bother jumping, once you get up close, they will use upball or uppercut.

Your best bet is to just teleport as soon as he uses his knife attack.
 
I played against a pretty good Kano the other night with Sub. I got beat too, but the second round I was starting to develop a strategy. I basically tried to bait is regular Kanoball and do an ice clone, and every time when he would throw knives I would slide under him cuz he recovers super quick, to quick to freeze. All I know is you cannot sit behind your ice clone cuz he can just do that ex up ball and move outta the way and hit you.

My strategy wasn't real good and still resulted in a loss, so I would like some kinda advice too.
 
Thirteenthorder said:
Upball is about on par with recovery as Kung Lao's spin, meaning it is near-impossible to punish. We're SoL on that one until NRS patches that crap :/

Weak points VS a Smoke would have to be his Knife. Easily punishable by a teleport.
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They wont be nerfing the up ball anytime soon because they JUST buffed it to be like johnny's flip kick in a sense.

*Reduced the recovery on Kano’s Upball to be closer to Johnny Cage’s Flip Kick recovery.
 
Until the patch comes out the only way to punish Upball is a d1(Down Square). Its still good because it gives you some very nice advantage afterward that you could do alot with.

As for his weaknesses, he's not too hot from midrange as long as you don't jump at him or at least be REALLLLLY smart about your jump ins. Other than this, he is a pretty solid character and doesn't really have any blaring weaknesses.

Just know that the way fireball wars work in this game are if YOU hit him with your projectile first than he hits you with a knife, you could throw another fireball and if he throws another knife you'll be able to block his knife and HE will be forced to approach YOU. People are immediately afraid of some fireball characters like Kano but if they realized this they'd be a bit stronger vs them. The only character that this doesn't apply to I think is Noob Saibot because if one of his shadows hits it knocks you down and takes a while for you get back up(and standard shadows aren't duckable).

Try not to jump from mid distance AT ALL if Kano is idle. Good Kano's are always looking out for jump ins to UpBall them. Block Dashing is your friend.

And as for bad matchups. The only character I honestly think Kano has a bad matchup against is Noob Saibot played properly. NoobSaibot's fireball game stuffs Kano's AND when Kano tries to lay on his seriously amazing up close game Noob's keep out with UpKnee and proper shadows to push Kano back make it so most of the battle takes place in midrange for him, and thats where he isn't that great because the lack of a proper mid range normal move/ranged normal low/fast sweep. Even with this said I think the matchup is about 4/6 in Noob's favor. Kano has to take some risks and focus more on whiff punishing UpKnees and downballing shadows from far away.

And no, even though someone mentioned Kano has trouble vs teleporters, that isn't true. It's possible bad players with Kano will only Upball and Knife, but a good Kano player actually absuses teleporters like they don't even exist. He doesn't need his knives and Upball to be amazing. Alot of people don't realize this when they think of Kano.


Also note that after the patch comes out in a few days that UpBall will be as punishable as Mileena's roll. So many of the Kano players that picked him up only for this will drop him, so don't even worry about it.

smoke1ne said:
They wont be nerfing the up ball anytime soon because they JUST buffed it to be like johnny's flip kick in a sense.
Click to expand...

Not true. Tom Brady mentioned that they are making it punishable again in the same patch that is making Kung Lao's spin have 90% less pushback.

Hope this helped.
 
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Have been playing with Kano offline, and in some matches online, and I say : he is amazing, very underrated character. He has a serious good mind games weapons, and, well played, I fear much more a well played skilled Kano, than a Smoke one .....

His projectile is one of the fastest in the game, his EX versions of ALL special moves are pretty useful.

Kano has good default combos, good pop-ups combos, good anti-air, and his choke move is great to mess with people mind, and use mixed into short combos.

BTW, I love Kano 2nd costume selected with Start button, one of the best in the game.
 
then i should scare the holy living shit out of u and i agree kano is massively underrated cuse hes a easy "spammer."
 
NothingRhymesWithCircus said:
Until the patch comes out the only way to punish Upball is a d1(Down Square). Its still good because it gives you some very nice advantage afterward that you could do alot with.

As for his weaknesses, he's not too hot from midrange as long as you don't jump at him or at least be REALLLLLY smart about your jump ins. Other than this, he is a pretty solid character and doesn't really have any blaring weaknesses.

Just know that the way fireball wars work in this game are if YOU hit him with your projectile first than he hits you with a knife, you could throw another fireball and if he throws another knife you'll be able to block his knife and HE will be forced to approach YOU. People are immediately afraid of some fireball characters like Kano but if they realized this they'd be a bit stronger vs them. The only character that this doesn't apply to I think is Noob Saibot because if one of his shadows hits it knocks you down and takes a while for you get back up(and standard shadows aren't duckable).



Try not to jump from mid distance AT ALL if Kano is idle. Good Kano's are always looking out for jump ins to UpBall them. Block Dashing is your friend.

And as for bad matchups. The only character I honestly think Kano has a bad matchup against is Noob Saibot played properly. NoobSaibot's fireball game stuffs Kano's AND when Kano tries to lay on his seriously amazing up close game Noob's keep out with UpKnee and proper shadows to push Kano back make it so most of the battle takes place in midrange for him, and thats where he isn't that great because the lack of a proper mid range normal move/ranged normal low/fast sweep. Even with this said I think the matchup is about 4/6 in Noob's favor. Kano has to take some risks and focus more on whiff punishing UpKnees and downballing shadows from far away.

And no, even though someone mentioned Kano has trouble vs teleporters, that isn't true. It's possible bad players with Kano will only Upball and Knife, but a good Kano player actually absuses teleporters like they don't even exist. He doesn't need his knives and Upball to be amazing. Alot of people don't realize this when they think of Kano.


Also note that after the patch comes out in a few days that UpBall will be as punishable as Mileena's roll. So many of the Kano players that picked him up only for this will drop him, so don't even worry about it.



Not true. Tom Brady mentioned that they are making it punishable again in the same patch that is making Kung Lao's spin have 90% less pushback.

Hope this helped.
Click to expand...

Well this is good news because I don't agree with non punishable up ball because its meant for anti-air, if u use it recklessly, you should be punished.
 
When fighting Kano throw is your best friend yes it works as an upball punisher also teleport will get you killed his knife recovery is fast enough that he can usually block and punish at will smoke in peticular can eat Kano alive with libral use of shake and smoke forward and backwards remember kanos lateral movement speed is his only week spot so take advantage of that as much as possible
 
NothingRhymesWithCircus said:
And no, even though someone mentioned Kano has trouble vs teleporters, that isn't true. It's possible bad players with Kano will only Upball and Knife, but a good Kano player actually absuses teleporters like they don't even exist. He doesn't need his knives and Upball to be amazing. Alot of people don't realize this when they think of Kano.

Hope this helped.
Click to expand...

I was offering info on the spammers that I've played and how they reacted. I've only fought ONE Kano that did his actualy fighting moveset, and he wasn't that hard to take down. The Kano spammers are a little harder to get passed if you don't use a teleporters.
 
I want to thank you all for the advices, expecially NothingRhymesWithCircus that probably raised my chances of beating that Kano next time I face him :).
I also think, that some of you never fought a really good player using Kano. Believe me, he is fearsome
 
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Asodimazze said:
I also think, that some of you never fought a really good player using Kano. Believe me, he is fearsome
Click to expand...
He is not so fearsome.

Cyber_sub-zero.png


Usually what I do against Kano players is use Smoke. When you notice they throw knives, use shake. If you get kind of iffy and don't know if they are going to ball or knife, use EX shake.
 
It's funny hearing advice on how to beat bad players. Against good Kano half of this shit not only won't work, but will get your killed so fast. The only issue is the number of good kano players are the same number of Kano user's pre-patch. Most of the guys using Kano now are just abusing his up-ball and yes, vs those guys, teleporting and Smoke will beat them.
 
cyke_out said:
It's funny hearing advice on how to beat bad players. Against good Kano half of this shit not only won't work, but will get your killed so fast. The only issue is the number of good kano players are the same number of Kano user's pre-patch. Most of the guys using Kano now are just abusing his up-ball and yes, vs those guys, teleporting and Smoke will beat them.
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This is so true. Kano has an excellent mix up game, close AND zoning. I beat people down easy when I use Kano aggressively, they probably are expecting me to zone...
 
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