• B124 is an underrated string that, despite having a really janky hitbox that acts as a high at times, is really solid 9 frame mid starter and is great for starting your throw/parry/fireball/stagger mindgames without the risk of having an exploitable gap.

• Reversal throws are your best friend after establishing you’re not afraid to poke with one of your 9 frame mids as after a lot people feel their turn is over they’ll immediately block low and respect your pressure as you don’t have any true mixups

• A lot of people will try spacing you out after their pokes in anticipation of you responding with your strings which whiff hard and are easy to punish so doing fireball or even flying kick at times during these situations isn’t a bad idea as they might respect you more in ranges where you can’t get your pressure going which means you can actually take advantage of that and get into the range you want to be at for your pressure

• Your uppercut hits behind your head meaning it’s a good tool to counter crossup jump attacks, also your 1 is an amazing anti air so practice using it as one if you haven’t already

I've been playing with jump-in hit confirm into fireball into flying kick for funsies. Also more T2 variation.

B124 is also a great stagger string, don't get too dependant on F4.

I’m a Liu main and my build is Dragon Parry, Dragon Fire, and Dragon’s Gifts. And so far they have worked greatly for me. It’s nice to keep them on their heels and in the air but sometimes if you’re juggling and the opponent is high enough you can use your Dragons Gifts to add a nice high damage hit to end the combo. And when they get back up you use your Dragon Parry. The F3+4+U4 is also a great combo and good to juggle them after doing that 44444 juggle. If you need anything else to know about Kang, feel free to ask!

use my username as his bread and butter string. If you get jabbed out of it, still use it 1 or 2 more times depending on how punished you are getting. This makes the opponent wait for you to finish your string, and now you only kick twice and throw. Kang’s dragon kick is very good for punishing scorpions spear, Geras’s sand trap, and Sub Zero’s ice ball. If you opponent is waking up a lot, use parry for huge punishes. Players will respect your mids because you can change it up to many things, so make sure you are getting 2-3 throws a round. Kang has very easy krushing blows so make sure you are making the requirements.

Short hops are a good thing to work into your game plan. He doesn't have any overheads, so everyone just blocks low, so throwing in a short hop attack from time to time can take them by surprise and force them to open up a bit.

Try whiffing and air normal into air fire ball into flying dragon kick so u can get the KB at range.

Soecial cancel to his shaolin stance to catch people who crouch against him off guard

If they start to predict just pause for a second

Going straight online isn’t the best idea. What you wanna do is go to training mode with characters. Learn the combos, learn the spacing of your moves and strings, learn what are good punishing tools, anti airs, staggers, shimmies, set ups, etc. Liu Kang is easily one of the top characters of the game but he definitely requires practice to learn, especially with staggers and what not. Do that and then try what you’ve learnt in training mode online against people. Guaranteed results

I am also learning, but I do have a positive W/L ratio right now. I can't tell what you should work on and improve, but I can tell you more or less what I do

Watch your replays, specially those where you lose by a lot or at something really stupid, like an air projectile. Then go to the training, record the dummy to do the same and find a way to counter it

Set the training so you start at the left and default distance. Record the dummy to neutral jump and then walk at you and do a low string. Then record another slot with a neutral jump and a grab and a third with a neutral jump and a jump in kick. Set it to reproduce them on hidden random and practice to break the throw, antiair and block the low

Also do the same but with a b4 instead of a neutral jump and ad a shortjump attack, to practice defence on wake up. Don't abuse of roll, u2 or u3 on wake up, you can get punished and you will lose resources

This is pretty much what I do, hope it helps

Keep playing. Even if it doesn't feel like you're getting better, you almost certainly are.

Do you have a go-to string that hits low, and another that hits overhead?

One big improvement I made recently is I started using a lot of d3 and d4. The damage adds up.

This all sounds like early days newbie salt talk. Kangs really good but he’s not unfair over-powered like you seem to implying.

You’ve just downplayed two of the best characters in the game to make your point. Jacqui doesn’t need zoning or a parry and she’s probably the best character in the game. Cetrion has amazing zoning and amazing normals. Her stagger game and frame traps are hell, she shouldn’t be allowed huge damage KB too. You really think Kitanas zoning is just “meh”?

Kang can’t do any real combos without using his unsafe and pretty short range moves or risking the parry. His strike throw took a deserved but significant nerf and his zoning being godlike is a big misconception from a lot of players that haven’t even glanced at the frame data or done any comparisons. He was the second character I picked up and I can tell you he gets outzoned very easily by quite a few characters.

It certainly helps that I’m super familiar with him but I’ve not lost to a Liu Kang in a long time.

Liu will always be top tier no matter how many nerfs. He's one of the few characters that has all the tools in the game.

I don't think his frametraps are godlike though. His 12 is still very good after the nerf though. Kind of like Cetrions S1 which is also got nerfed but is still a strong stagger. On the topic of Cetrion she doesn't have a parry but rock wall is probably just as good of an alternative.

Skarlet has the best parry, hands down. It's super deceptive and you can hold it for like 3 weeks.

Cetrion has a full screen frame trap that you MUST respect, lest you get locked against her obstacle course. Her KBs are alright I guess but she's not very heavy on combos so that's OK.

I just got fucked up by a Kitana player while I was using Liu Kang (you most know that I am a fucking noob). I managed to land a sick 300 combo using the parry but that was it, she annihilated me afterwards...it sucks to be a noob unu

Some games have an 'easy mode', MK has auto-pilot characters like Liu Kang to making some noobs feel like they are good at this game.

You want to steady use his foward 4,3 and play mind games with him. That combo can special cancel into the parry, dragon kick, bicycle kick, his low fireball, and his normal fireball. I tend to use rolls a lot too to get the enemy away from me. I catch a lot of players spamming buttons when your knocked. Roll out and get a nice 30% combo with him. Use his parry! People fall for it like no other. Meter burn it and expect great combo strings.

F43U3 has a big gap you can full combo punish him for. His F3333 string is full combo punishable too. There’s a little bit but if you need more let me know.

Just gotta learn his gaps. His F4 is what most Liu Kang players abuse. To counter his F4. Before the 4th hard kick you can poke him out of it, perry or simply combo him with a fast start up string.

What in particular do you have a problem with?

Learning to flawless block F43U3 is an important part of that matchup.

For kameos, Motaro, Khameleon, Lao, and Mavado are really good. I think the first two are better picks than the last two. You’ll want to use 22, S1, and b4 a lot. They offer plus frames. I think 22 and s1 on block followed by b4 should be a good frame trap. And it maintains your frame advantage on block. Or at worst they’ll probably trade with your b4 after 22 or s1 but you’ll get more out of the trade because a sweep does more than a poke. 

He's a great choice! He's in a lot of games, so chances are if you play another MK game, he'll be in it. Lore wise, he's such an interesting character that NRS doesn't do enough with. His move set is as good as you can make it!

Bottom of the barrel, stop playing as him immediately

https://youtube.com/live/v_C6VPan7Is?si=ANtWSY38x70VBFNE

Let me just quickly slide some crazy gameplay footage of how High Level Kung Lao can look like at 2:00:54

Don't rely on F43 too much, it's great but can get predictable.

The parry is great, cherish it.

You don't have to keep pressing buttons. Block their downpoke after your normals and use the advantage.

Fireballs are great. You don't have to run in and look for trouble if you can handle it from afar.

B124 is also a 9 frame starter mid string like F43 but is less minus and also staggerable on first and last hit. Also very easy to hitconfirm.

Most important: Do not flowchart, it will get you killed.

For big combos its either from the 1.Parry or 2.Uppercut Kbs. Theres a corner combo thats hard to pull off imo (b34, db1 amp, 1 2, 1 2 3, bf3) you might be able to fit in another 1,2 in there but it depends how far the opponent is from the ground.

Any big mid-screen combo its either from the two above, jumpins or the f33333. The f33333 is unsafe but you can cancel out of it if your fast enough using the shaolin stance. You can only cancel from the third hit though but with practice you can probably learn it. Most Liu Kangs never do that but its very useful. but the timing is strict

I believe d1 isnt your fastest poke but d3 is.

Mix in the f43 with the parry if the opponent knows about the gap, low fireball because nobody expects it. The 3 strings that would make most use are the b124, f33333, and f43 U3.

f43u3 is a good start up and is safe a lot of the time, if you get poked out of your f43u3 then do f43 parry/low fireball and its completely safe i think, i know its completely safe with the parry but idk about the low fireball. Also if you do do the parry you can get hit by a low still